The Odyssey Irony Quotes

"Give me a morsel, friend. You’re hardly the worst
Achaean here, it seems. The noblest one, in fact.
You look like a king to me!
So you should give a bigger crust than the rest
and I will sing your praises all across the earth.
I too once lived in a lofty house that men admired;
rolling in wealth, I’d often give to a vagabond like myself,
whoever he was, whatever need had brought him to my door."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 17, lines 458-465. Keeping up his old beggar pretence, Odysseus begs for food from the suitor Antinous. He is being ironic in his flattery of Antinous. Appearing to compliment Antinous by telling him that he looks like a king and should give a bigger crust than the others, Odysseus is being sarcastic.

"Good god almighty!" Antinous cut the beggar short.
"What spirit brought this pest to plague our feast?
Back off! Into the open, clear of my table, or you,
you’ll soon land in an Egypt, Cyprus, to break your heart!
What a brazen, shameless beggar! Scrounging food
from each man in turn, and look at their handouts,
reckless, never a qualm, no holding back, not
when making free with the next man’s goods
each one’s got plenty here."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 17, lines 492-500. This passage is an example of dramatic irony, since Antinous has no idea that he is addressing Odysseus in the guise of a beggar, but the reader knows. There is further irony in the fact that Antinous criticizes Odysseus for begging for food, while he is one of the parasitic suitors leeching off Odysseus’ palace food.

At her last words Telemachus shook with a lusty sneeze
like a thunderclap resounding up and down the halls.
The queen was seized with laughter, calling out
to Eumaeus winged words: "Quickly, go!
Bring me this stranger now, face-to-face!
You hear how my son sealed all I said with a sneeze?
So let death come down with grim finality on these suitors –
one and all – not a single man escape his sudden doom!"

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 17, lines 602-612. Telemachus responds to Penelope’s prayer that Odysseus might return and put things right with the suitors. In a simile, we are told that he sneezes "like a thunderclap." The is an omen that what Penelope prays for will happen, because the god of lightning Zeus is known to send thundercaps as devine signs. There is an example of irony when Penelope asks Eumeaus to fetch the stranger, who happens to be her husband. There is also foreshadowing when she talks about the death and doom of the suitors.

"Stranger, if your spine and fighting pride
prompt you to go against this fellow now,
have no fear of any suitor in the pack –
whoever fouls you will have to face a crowd.
Count on me, your host. And two lords back me up,
Antinous and Eurymachus – both are men of sense."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 18, lines 70-75. Telemachus loyally supports his disguised father in the fight with Irus. But he means the opposite of what he says, when he describes Antinous and Eurymachus as men of understanding. Here Homer uses irony to show Telemachus’ cleverness and skill in the art of deception. The prince doesn’t want the suitors to interfere in the fight or get wind of what he and Odysseus have planned for them.

"Cock of the walk, did someone beat your brains out?
Why not go bed down at the blacksmith’s cozy forge?
Or a public place where tramps collect? Why here –
blithering on, nonstop, bold as brass, in the face of all these lords?
No fear in your heart? Wine got to your wits?
Or do you always play the fool and babble nonsense?"

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 18, lines 370-376. Melantho, palace servant and lover of suitor Eurymachus, mocks Odysseus and targets him with of a stream of invective. The sister of goatherd Melanthius, she is a nasty piece of work, like her treacherous brother. She is Penelope’s maid, but her loyalty is to the suitors rather than to the queen. The insolent Melantho resents that a beggar has the cheek to speak to the suitors and lords gathered at the palace. She is unaware that the "beggar" is her master and king, an example of dramatic irony.

"Stranger, how would you like to work for me
if I took you on – I’d give you decent wages –
picking the stones to lay a tight dry wall
or planting tall trees on the edge of my estate?
I’d give you rations to last you year-round,
clothes for your body, sandals for your feet.
Oh no! You’ve learned your lazy ways too well,
you’ve got no itch to stick to good hard work,
you’d rather go scrounging round the countryside,
begging for crusts to stuff your greedy gut!"

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 18, lines 404-413. The suitor Eurymachus asks Odysseus to become a laborer on his farm, and to add insult to injury, accuses him of being lazy and afraid of hard work. He takes Odysseus to task for scrounging off people to fill his greedy stomach. The irony is that it is Eurymachus and his fellow suitors who are the greedy ones scrounging off Odysseus’ estate. Eurymachus’ insults are inspired by goddess Athena, who wants to make Odysseus even more angry at the suitors.

That left the great Odysseus waiting in his hall
as Athena helped him plot the slaughter of the suitors.
He turned at once to Telemachus, brisk with orders:
"Now we must stow the weapons out of reach, my boy,
all the arms and armor – and when the suitors miss them
and ask you questions, put them off with a winning story:
‘I stowed them away, clear of the smoke. A far cry
from the arms Odysseus left when he went to Troy,
fire-damaged equipment, black with reeking fumes.
And a god reminded me of something darker too.
When you’re in your cups a quarrel might break out,
you’d wound each other, shame your feasting here
and cast a pall on your courting.
Iron has powers to draw a man to ruin.’"

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 19, lines 1-14. With some help from Athena, Odysseus draws up his battle plan to fight the suitors. He instructs Telemachus to hide the weapons so that they will be out of the suitors’ reach the next day. Should the suitors question this, his son will say he is worried about a fight breaking out during the guests’ drinking and feasting. In reality Odysseus and Telemachus are the ones who will be starting there fight. This is another example of dramatic irony. It also illustrates Odysseus’ cunning and skills in deception.

"So by day I’d weave at my great and growing web –
by night, by the light of torches set beside me,
I would unravel all I’d done. Three whole years
I deceived them blind, seduced them with this scheme."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 19, lines 167-170. A cunning Penelope deceives the army of suitors for three years with her weaving ruse. She boasts to Odysseus-the-beggar how she weaved a buriel shroud for Laertes by day and unraveled it by night, so that she would never finish it and have to marry a suitor. She says mischievously and with irony that she "seduced" the suitors with her scheme, so that she could stay faithful to her husband.

As she listened on, her tears flowed and soaked her cheeks
as the heavy snow melts down from the high mountain ridges,
snow the West Wind piles there and the warm East Wind thaws
and the snow, melting, swells the rivers to overflow their banks –
so she dissolved in tears, streaming down her lovely cheeks,
weeping for him, her husband, sitting there beside her.

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 19, lines 236-241. The disguised Odysseus tells Penelope a fictitious story of how he had a friendship with her husband who stayed with him at his home in Crete on his way to Troy. Penelope weeps at the mention of her husband’s name. A Homeric simile compares her tears to snow melting down from a high mountain ridge into the rivers, swelling them to overflow their banks. The irony is that Penelope is sobbing about her lost husband, who is right in front of her! An article in The New Yorker magazine by Emily Wilson says of this scene: "In one of the most upsetting and beautiful passages of the poem, Penelope cries so desperately that her very being seems to dissolve."

"And so the man is safe,
As you can see, and he’s coming home, soon,
he’s close, close at hand –
he won’t be severed long from kin and country,
no not now. I give you my solemn, binding oath.
I swear by Zeus, the first, the greatest god –
By Odysseus’ hearth, where I have come for help:
All will come to pass, I swear exactly as I say.
True, this very month – just as the old moon dies
And the new moon rises into life – Odysseus will return!"

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 19, lines 344-351. Odysseus-the-beggar tries to comfort Penelope with assurances that her husband is safe and close by. He predicts and swears by Zeus that Odysseus will return as the old moon dies and the new moon rises that very month. This is one of the poem’s many examples of dramatic irony, with the audience knowing more than the character. We know that the visitor is Odysseus, but Penelope believes he is just a beggar. This passage also foreshadows the Greek hero’s return home.

"If only, my friend," reserved Penelope exclaimed,
"everything you say would come to pass!
You’d soon know my affection, know my gifts.
Any man you meet would call you blest.
But my heart can sense the way it all will go.
Odysseus, I tell you, is never coming back,
nor will you ever gain your passage home,
for we have no masters in our house like him
at welcoming in or sending off an honored guest."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 19, lines 354-362. Penelope is full of doubt and despair when the disguised Odysseus predicts that her husband will return soon. She believes that he is never coming back. This passage is an example of dramatic irony – Penelope doesn’t realise that she is speaking to her husband, but the audience does.

"He must wear such rags, I know it,
knocking about, drifting through the world
if he’s still alive and sees the light of day.
If he’s dead already, lost in the House of Death,
my heart aches for Odysseus, my great lord and master."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 20, lines 226-230. Cowherd Philoetius, still a loyal servant of Odysseus and his memory, thinks about his master, wondering if he is alive or dead. He is kind to the disguised Odysseus-the-beggar, bids him good day and ironically says that if Odysseus is still alive he must be wearing the same kind of rags. This passage contains an alusion to the Greek underworld of Hades, where the souls of the dead are said to have gone.

"Today is a feast-day up and down the island
in honor of the Archer God. Who flexes bows today?
Set it aside. Rest easy now. And all the axes,
let’s just leave them planted where they are.
Trust me, no one’s about to crash the gates
of Laertes’ son and carry off these trophies."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 21, lines 288-293. After suitor Eurymachus fails to even bend Odysseus’ great bow, Antinous comes up with an excuse to postpone the archery contest. As it is the feast day of god of archery Apollo when nobody uses a bow, he suggests that they try again the following day and leave the axes in place. He says confidently that no one is going to attack the place and carry off the axes. This is ironic, because Odysseus is already in the palace with a plan in place to attack the suitors.

"Not a shred of sense in your head, you filthy drifter!
Not content to feast at your ease with us, the island’s pride?
Never denied your full share of the banquet, never,
you can listen in on our secrets. No one else
can eavesdrop on our talk, no tramp, no beggar.
The wine has overpowered you, heady wine –
the ruin of many another man, whoever
gulps it down and drinks beyond his limit."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 21, lines 322-329. When Odysseus proposes to use his own bow and take part in the games to win the hand of his wife Penelope, the suitors fly into a rage. Antinous leads the attack on him, saying that Odysseus is getting too big for his boots after feasting with the "pride" of Ithaca. He ironically suggests that the suitors are being kind to allow Odysseus to share in the palace banquet and effectively eat his own food!

"Wise Penelope, daughter of Icarius, do we really
expect the man to wed you? Unthinkable, I know.
But we do recoil at the talk of men and women.
One of the island’s meaner sort will mutter,
‘Look at the riffraff courting a king’s wife.
Weaklings, look, they can’t even string his bow.
But along came this beggar, drifting out of the blue
strung his bow with ease and shot through all the axes!’
Gossip will fly. We’ll hang our heads in shame."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 21, lines 360-368. Eurymachus protests at Penelope’s call to allow Odysseus-the-beggar use Odysseus’ bow in the suitors’ contest to win Penelope’s hand. There is unintended irony here when Eurymachus says that if the beggar succeeds when they cannot even string the bow it will provoke gossip and bring shame to the suitors. For they are already the object of gossip and shame by invading Odysseus’ house and devouring his food and wine.

"Then here’s our plan,"
the master of tactics said. "I think it’s best.
First go and wash, and pull fresh tunics on
and tell the maids in the hall to dress well too.
And let the inspired bard take up his ringing lyre
and lead off for us all a dance so full of heart
that whoever hears the strains outside the gates –
a passerby on the road, a neighbor round about –
will think it’s a wedding-feast that’s under way."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 23, lines 145-153. Odysseus comes up with a plan to trick the Ithacans into thinking that the noise from the suitors’ slaughter was from a wedding celebration. So he asks the bard to provide music and for everyone to dress up and dance to fool neighbors and anyone passing by. This allows time for Odysseus’ people to escape to the safety of their estates before news of the suitors’ deaths breaks in town. The wedding ruse is ironic, because Odysseus and his family have been trying to avoid a wedding – that of Penelope to a suitor.

"Strange man,"
wary Penelope said. "I’m not so proud, so scornful,
nor am I overwhelmed by your quick change…
You look – how well I know – the way he looked,
setting sail from Ithaca years ago
aboard the long-oared ship.
"Come, Eurycleia,
move the sturdy bedstead out of our bridal chamber –
that room the master built with his own hands.
Take it out now, study bed that it is,
and spread it deep with fleece,
blankets and lustrous throws to keep him warm."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 23, lines 192-202. When Penelope issues her marriage bed test for the man who says he is Odysseus, she shows herself to be as cunning as her husband. Within earshot of the man, she asks Eurycleia to move the bed, knowing that the real Odysseus will be aware the bed is immovable. This passage is an example of situational irony: Penelope doubts Odysseus’ identity but readers would have expected her to be happy to see her husband who has been missing for so long.

"But tell me, please – in no uncertain terms –
how many years ago did you host the man,
that unfortunate guest of yours, my son…
there was a son, or was he all a dream?
That most unlucky man, whom now, I fear,
far from his own soil and those he loves,
the fish have swallowed down on the high seas
or birds and beasts on land have made their meal."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 23, lines 319-326. Laertes still does not recognize his son, who has been telling him that he met and befriended Odysseus. A doubting Laertes doesn’t believe that Odysseus is alive and wonders if he ever existed – "there was a son, or was he all a dream." He believes that his son is dead and never returning home. With a twist of irony, what Laertes doesn’t realize, but the reader is fully aware, is that the "stranger" he is saying all this to is his son.
    • 1
    • 2
Close