Babi, that's a great point on the Oracle of Dodona! The oracles/ foreshadowing/ auspices here are getting pretty overwhelming when you think about it, and I missed that one, reading too fast. Great research also Frybabe! And in 15 we have two more. The eagle flying on the right or the left seems important somehow. A different type of "sign" which required interpretation. And Menelaus was thinking about it when Helen spoke up.
Dana, ...Helen once again showing her power....she's not just the FACE that launched 1000 ships, she's a real femme fatale and I can only admire the way she is portrayed. She is just so able to step right in and take over...Menelaus isn't too swift tho, she can certainly run rings round him.......
Yes and in this she does show she is capable of making decisions which MAY be the reason for some of the negative remarks about her one encounters. Also that's kind of interesting to me in conjunction with Gum's post:
So perhaps there is the question of some sort of dowry? that Athene is warning him against providing Penelope with. - but to suggest she would no longer think of her children or former husband in ridiculous. Maybe it's meant that after remarriage a woman would not be likely to mention her previous family or ask after their welfare whilst she was living in her new husband's house.
Unfortunately I bet we all know modern and very sad stories of the same type of thing. It's amazing sometimes how history repeats itself, even without a dowry. (Well heck wasn't the new Downton Abbey about the same thing? Inheritance passing into other hands?)
And Babi (thank you for the helmet reference!~). You mentioned: They no longer worry her.”
I am astounded. Who thinks like that? It that a typical male attitude for those times?
Oh I hate to say this but it's not only for those times. How many instances of it in our times have we seen.
And in an strange reverse twist, I just heard of a very sad story of a person I grew up with, who died tragically and too young in a automobile accident, and the second wife removed every single trace of the first wife, photos, everything from the house. One would have to assume with assent of the husband/ father, and the first wife's two small children grew up literally not knowing a thing of their beautiful and wonderful mother. But it had a fairy tale ending, thank goodness, when one of the girls, when she was grown, happened to encounter a former classmate of their mothers (the strange last name caught her attention). She was astounded to learn they knew nothing of their mother. She took her own high school yearbook (in which her mother was prominently featured) and her own memories and made a copy for the girls and told them about their mother. I think she's a hero. But imagine the cruelty of such an act. I guess there are worse, but to deliberately eradicate a mother from her children's lives...staggering.
In that money or inheritance has no bearing but there are plenty of stories where it does. Hard to believe, isn't it?
But it puzzles me, this misogyny coming, is it, from Homer? I'm with Babi here, is this something they would all understand? And it seems kind of odd that it comes after Helen asserts herself so dramatically, or Penelope has been shown to be most loyal. First the swineherd complains and now this. What exactly does Homer want us to get about women after this? I don't understand Athene here particularly.
