Free A Guide to the Odyssey: A Commentary on the English Translation of Robert Fitzgerald by Ralph J. Hexter, Robert Fitzgerald

that of the suitors coincide with the roles of Orestês and Aigísthos in the story of the Argive royal house, it is up to Penélopê to avoid becoming a second Klytaimnéstra. 17 This she does by remaining faithful to her absent husband and not giving in to any suitor. Indeed, she does more, whether consciously or not, by setting up the contest with Odysseus’ bow at just the right moment. Only after the suitors’ souls have borne report of the massacre in Odysseus’ hall to the other dead (in which report Penélopê is presented as actively involved in the plot against the suitors) will Agamémnon bring to a close the cycle of comparisons between his own fate and that of Odysseus, with the ultimate glorification of Penélopê. She is glorious insofar as she is different from Klytaimnéstra. The limits of this praise in the mouth of a man are clear: despite Penélopê’s avoidance of the Klytaimnéstrian model, it is still Klytaimnéstra who establishes (male) expectations of female behavior: “A bad name / she gave to womankind, even the best” (XXIV.227–28; see further my note on XXIV.226–28).
    To the shade of Agamémnon in its first appearance, Odysseus had described a fatal link between “intrigues of women” and “both sons of Atreus,” Meneláos and Agamémnon: “Myriads / died by Helen’s fault, and Klytaimnéstra / plotted against you half the world away” (XI.508–12). The fateful and fraught relationship of Meneláos and Helen also serves as a foil to the relationship between Odysseus and Penélopê. In Book IV Homer presents Telémakhos visiting Meneláos and Helen reunited and once more at home, as Odysseus and penélopê will be by the end of
The Odyssey
, but there is no simple parallel between the pairs.
    In the case of the Spartan couple, man and woman alike required a homecoming, since, as we know, Helen’s absence from Sparta was the origin of the entire Trojan War. (It is to this of course thatOdysseus’ “Myriads died” refers.) In many ways, Helen’s case is more like Odysseus’ than Penélopê’s—and such gender crossing is usually an indication that we should take special notice. Odysseus in
The Odyssey
has been away from Ithaka and Penélopê not just ten years, the time required for the Greeks to take Troy, but nearly twenty years, because he has been traveling ten years since Troy’s fall. Helen was separated from her husband for about the same number of years, since some time—traditions vary—intervened between her departure from Sparta with Paris and the arrival of the Greeks to begin their ten-year siege of Troy. Furthermore, Meneláos did not bring Helen back from Troy directly; he had first to visit and make expiation in Egypt, a lengthy process. 18 Helen’s foreign travels and erotic detentions, then, are strongly reminiscent of Odysseus’ wanderings and dallyings; in neither case is it clear how much the will of each was involved. To complete the symmetry, while Meneláos sailed to Troy and fought there to regain his wife, in his dogged loyalty to his erring spouse he resembles Penélopê more than Odysseus.
    The Agamémnon-Klytaimnéstra plot is contrasted with that of Odysseus and Penélopê at the level of dramatic action, while the comparison of the Spartan and Ithakan couples reveals differences in the inner workings of their relationships, as can be seen when we analyze the discordant anecdotes with which Helen and Meneláos regale their guests and from which a final set of uncanny symmetries and asymmetries among the quartet emerge. Helen and Meneláos each tell their guest a story about Odysseus from their time at Troy. Helen begins. She recounts the story of Odysseus’ foray into Troy disguised as a beggar. She claims that, although she penetrated his disguise, she did not betray him. This episode, which at first blush might seem more appropriate for a version of
The Iliad
or some other segment of the cycle of the Trojan War, when placed in
The