Odyssey13-24

Still looking for a scoot-hole, Phemios the poet
In swithers, fiddling with his harp, jukes to the hatch,
Lays the bruckle yoke between porringer and armchair,
Makes a ram-stam for Odysseus, grammels his knees,
Than bannies and bams with this highfalutin blether:
'I ask for pity and respect . . . .'
Michael Longley

Like the first half of the Odyssey, its second half can be divided into any number of
balanced parts. Following Lombardo, who divides the first twelve books into three equal
segments, I would suggest the following division for the second twelve books: 13-16,
arrival on Ithaca (recognition by Eumaeus and Telemachus); 17-20, arrival at the palace
(recognition by Argos and Eurycleia); 21-24 resolution, (recognition by Penelope and
Laertes).

Davison, Peter. “On Ithaca.” Praying Wrong: New and Selected Poems, 1957-1984. New
York: Atheneum, 1984. 30.

Durrell, Lawrence. "On Ithaca Standing." 1943. Collected Poems, 1931-1974.New York:
Viking. 111.

Hughes, Ted. "Everyman's Odyssey." Lupercal.London: Faber & Faber, 1960.

Kavanagh, Patrick. "Epic." Contemporary Irish Poetry: An Anthology. Ed. Anthony
Bradley. Berkeley: U of California P, 1980. 71.

Lattimore, Richmond. "Notes from the Odyssey." Poems from Three Decades. New
York: Scribner's. 1972.

Longley, Michael. "The Butchers." London Review of Books9 Nov. 1989.

---. "Laertes." The New Yorker21 May 1990:

---. "Phemios & Medon." Times Literary Supplement 15 April 1994: 6.

Matthews, William. "Homer's Seeing-Eye Dog."Selected Poemsand T ranslations, 1969-
1991. Boston: Houghton Miff lin, 1992. 176-77.

Montgomery, Roselle Mercier. "Ulysses Returns."TheHome Book of M odern Verse. 1925.
2n ded. Ed. Burton Egbert Stevenson. New York: Holt, 1953. 230-32.

Muir, Edwin."The Return [1943]." Chief Modern Poets of Britain and America. 5thed.
Vol. 1: Britain. Ed. Gerald DeWitt Sanders, John Herbert Nelson, M. L.
Rosenthal. London: Macmillan, 1970. 248-49.

---."The Return [1946]." Chief Modern Poets of Britain and America. 5thed. Vol. 1:
Britain. Ed. Gerald DeWitt Sanders, John Herbert Nelson, M. L. Rosenthal.
London: Macmillan, 1970. 250-51.

Ostriker, Alicia. "Homecoming." A Woman under the Surface. Princeton:Princeton UP,
1982.

Rich, Adrienne. "Euryclea's Tale." Snapshots of a Daughter-in Law." New York: Harper
& Row, 1963.

Seiferle, Rebecca. "Welcome to Ithaca." Partisan Review 66.2 (Spring 1999): 301-2.