HANGING OF THE MAIDS

" ...my son, wanting to assert himself to his father,
and to show that he knew better --he was at that age--
hanged them all in a row from a ship's hawser."
(Atwood 159)
- The twelve maids who had helped Penelope in
her shroud scheme were hanged by Telemachus.
- Originally, they were to have been chopped into pieces, but Telemachus wanted to impress his
father, Odysseus, and hanged them instead.
- Eurycleia chose the maids who had been rude, impertinent, and also raped.