While the dog dies happy, the master contents himself with hiding his tears. Cold strategy, not warm emotion, guides this warrior. Moments later, Argos dies: “Twenty years / had passed since Argos saw Odysseus, / and now he saw him for the final time- / then suddenly, black death took hold of him” (17.325-28). For in a seemingly perverse denial, Odysseus refuses to betray his identity by going to his dog. This veteran’s reunion with his dog is not quite the heartwarming scene we might expect. In this precarious moment, the poet Homer stages a poignant encounter, one of the quiet emotional climaxes characteristic of his second great epic poem:Īrgos, the dog that lay there, raised his headĪnd both his ears dropped back. He has had time for a hurried reunion with his son, but not his wife or father. What do you do when you come home from war after twenty years? When the Greek warrior-king Odysseus strides through his own gate after twenty years’ absence, he is in disguise as a homeless wanderer, his life in danger from dozens of men who seek to marry his wife.
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