The Beginning of the End

BOOK 20

Odysseus slept that night in the cloister, brooding about how he should do in the suitors. Then the women who had been misconducting themselves with the suitors left the house, and this made Odysseus even angrier. He had to fight down his anger, not to give himself away, reminding himself how he had to be quiet in the cave of the Cyclops until he was able to make his escape. However, he was still tossing and turning, finally Athene reassures him and he is able to go to sleep. Just as Odysseus falls into a deep sleep, Penelope awakes and starts weeping herself, she had a dream that night while she slept that Odysseus was by her side as he was then he left for Troy; not a dream but the very truth itself. Then Odysseus woke and heard her weeping he was puzzled, it seemed she already knew he was back home. There were two signs, one of thunder on a clear day and other of what miller-woman had to say about grinding meal for the suitors and how that had worn her out. Odysseus then knew he was to avenge the suitors. The day starts, firewood chopped, and other preparations made for the suitors and their daily party. Something strange happens on this day, while the suitors where eating they started laughing with a forced laughter, the meat became smeared with blood, they began weeping and there was a sense of foreboding. They had sealed their doom on themselves, and this a foreshadow of things to come.