In Homer’s epic, The Odyssey, Odysseus, the main character, goes through years of trials and terrors along the seas to return home to Ithaka. Although he does make the treacherous journey to his kingdom, he still has to empty out his castle of cruel suitors. Therefore, he can’t yet be reunited with his wife and son. To prevent an assassination on arriving at the castle, the goddess Athena resolves to mask Odysseus as a poor, unfamiliar, and elderly beggar and commands him to visit the swine herder. Eumaios, a swine herder to a disguised Odysseus, who is perceived as a stranger, is amazingly hospitable by acting courteously to his guest and is willing to sacrifice the best of the little he has for the benefit and satisfaction of his company.
First, Eumaios’s …show more content…
First, after the beggar enters the hut of Eumaios, to make him feel comfortable, the swine herder “made a couch for him, with tips of fir piled for a mattress under a wild goat skin, shaggy and thick, his own bed covering” (14.56-59). Following this, to prepare a dinner for the visitor, Eumaios commands his men to “bring in our best pig for a stranger’s dinner”, even though he is running low on swine from the gluttonous suitors that raid the castle (14.487). Additionally, to further satisfy the needs of his visitor and to make him feel honored, Eumaios specifically reserves the choice cuts of meat from his finest pig that was prepared to present to the beggar for his dinner. Finally, after the drifter makes it known to Eumaios that he yearns to sleep, he decides to set up skins of goats, a blanket cloak, sheepskins, and “his own reserve” blanket to keep the disguised Odysseus warm (14.613-18). In summary, because of Eumaios’s sacrificial disposition, regardless of the lack of material goods that he possesses, he can easily be described using the element of