O'SULLIVAN, JAMES N., The Sign of the Bed: "Odyssey" 23.173ff , Greek, Roman and 
Byzantine Studies, 25:1 (1984) p.21 

The Sign of the Bed: 
Odyssey 23.173ff 

James N. O'Sullivan 

For Prof. Dr Eva-Maria Voigt 
on her retirement 

THE SUITORS are dead. Odysseus, freshly bathed and marvel­
lously beautified by Athena, returns to the hall and takes his 
seat opposite Penelope. He complains of her hardheartedness in 

still remaining aloof from him after all the years of absence and 
adversity and, in at least temporary acceptance of the situation, tells 
Eurycleia to make a bed for him. This gives Penelope the opening 
she needs to test the possible stranger's knowledge of the bed Odys­
seus had made, one of its legs the still-rooted trunk of an olive-tree 
around which he had built the bed-chamber. Her words recognise, 
implicitly, that the stranger is indeed Odysseus, putting him off his 
guard against deception and also fulfilling a necessary preliminary to 
offering him her husband's bed without laying herself open to a 
charge of impropriety. She repeats the stranger's instruction to Eury­
cleia and the servant women, at the same time setting the test for 
him (23.173ff): 

TOV 8' aVTE 1Tpo(J"eEL1TE 1TEPUppWV ll1']VEA01TELa" 
,,~ /, ."" ). :r ., , '(J :r UaL/-WVL , OVT ap TL IJ,eyal\.",:>OJ,UXL OVT a EP"':>W 

175 OVTE Ai1']v a:yaJ.W.L, J,UXAa 8' EV oia' oio~ E1']u(Ja 
Eg 'I(JaK1']~ E1Tt V1']O~ LWV 80ALX1']peT/-WtO. 
,).).,,, . / \ ). / E' / ). al\.I\. ayE Ot UTOPE(J"OV 1TVKtVOV I\.EXO~, VPVKI\.Eta, 
EKTor; EVUTa(Jeor; (JaAa/-Wv, TOV p' aVTor; E1ToiEt· 
Ev(Ja Ot EK(J{iuat 1TVKtvoV Aexo~ E/-L{3aAET' EVV-ryV, 

180 ' , , \ ~, \. ' " KWEa Kat XAatVa~ Kat p1']yEa (J"tyal\.oEVTa. 
<I "''',1,. / /, \ 'O~ \ 
W~ ap 6p1'] 1TOatO~ 7TELPW/-LE V1']" aVTap uvaaE~ 

ox(J-ry(]"a~aAOXOV 1TpOUE(/X;WEE KE8va i8v'iav" 
" ..,. I ..,. '\ f""o " (J ). \ ., W yvvat, 1'] J.W.l\.a TOVTO E1TOr; VJ.W.l\.yEr; EEL1TE~. 
Tir; 8e /-WI, aAAOUE (J1jKE AEXO~; xaAE1Tov 8E KEV EL1'] 

185 Kat J,UXA' E1TtUTa,."evcp, OTE /-LTJ (JEO~ aVTo~ E1TEA(JWV 
p1']i'8iw~ E(JeAWV (JEi1'] aAAI1 EVt XWPI1. 
av8pwv 8' ov KEv TL~ ~wo~ {3pOT()~, ov8e J,UXA' r, {3w V, 

21 



O'SULLIVAN, JAMES N., The Sign of the Bed: "Odyssey" 23.173ff , Greek, Roman and 
Byzantine Studies, 25:1 (1984) p.21 

22 THE SIGN OF THE BED 

pEW f.(,ETOXA/nUEtEV, E-1TEI. J.tlya UT,J.Ul TETVKTat 
• 'I.' • ,,' ~, ." • ~ , "\ \ 
EV ",EXEI. aUKTlTCfJ' TO u EyW Kaf..WV OVuE Tt~ al\.l\.o~ ... 

202 of , ~ " • ~ , • ~ , ....., -OVTW TOL TOuE UTlJ.Ul 11'''o/U-VUKOJ.UlI.' OVuE Tt 01.0«, 
" " ,,, ~.1' , , 1" , ,,~ 

TI f..Wt ET E#L11'EuuV EUTt, yvval., AEXO~, TIE Tt~ TluTl 
• ~ " "\ \ (J" 'of (J' , ''I. -' " avupwv a",,,,OUE TlKE, Ta/-LWV V1T0 1TV f.(,EV EI\.UI.TI~. 

178-79 EKTO~ ... EK(Jelnm vu/go: EVTO~ ... EK(JetUat ed. Flor., van 
der Valk, Pocock, Camps: E VTO~ . .. E v(Jelnat van Leeuwen, Be­
rard, Merkelbach: 178-79 om. Venetus 613: 179-80 pro interpol. 
hab. Quincey 

Penelope's instructions to Eurycleia and to the handmaids clearly 
needed to help her move a bed have received much, in my judge­
ment misdirected, attention. l The bed of Penelope's instructions has 
been in and out so often-and sometimes indeed simultaneously 
both in and out-that it would be a mercy to decide where, or whith­
er, it really belongs. 

First of all the combination of readings EVTO~ ... EK(JELUac. (178-
79), found in the ed. prin.2 and favoured by van der Valk (who saw 
EKTO~ as evidence for error in the Alexandrian vulgate), Pocock, and 
Camps, can be discounted. In this version of the text (as indeed in 
any version with EVTO~), it should be noted from the start, the test 
would have to reside in the participle alone, since UTOPEUOV ... EVTO~ 
EiiuTa(JEo~ (JaA.Ctf..Wv contains nothing to surprise Odysseus: no notion 
of movement and nothing to suggest that his bed was anywhere 
other than where he had left it, in the chamber. Van der Valk ex­
pressed himself unintelligibly, so that it is quite unclear how he 
would interpret EK(JELUat so as to reconcile it with EVTO~ and make it 
adequately fulfil its testing function.3 Pocock, provoked by the diffi­
culty he had in understanding van der Valk's remarks, set out to 
understand what he could have meant and concluded that AEXO~ 

1 The following will be cited by author's name alone: M. H. A. L. H. VAN DER 
VALK, Textual Criticism oj the Odyssey (Leiden 1949) 37f; R. MERKELBACH, Unter­
suchungen zur Odyssee (Zetemata 2 [1951]) 133f; w. A. CAMPS, PCPhS N.S. 5 0958-
59) 22, and more fully An Introduction to Homer (Oxford 1980) 85f n.26 (used here); 
L. G. POCOCK, Philologus 107 (1963) 309-11; J. H. QUINCEY, Philologus 108 (1964) 
288-90. 

2 Van der Valk 37 n.2 is probably right in regarding EVTO~ of the ed. prin. as a conjec­
ture; see, however, LCM 2 (1977) 89-91 on EKT-/ E VT- variants in general. 

3 Van der Valk 38 writes, "The ruse of Penelope is concealed in the words Ev9a oi 
EKgewm A.ExO~. For by its special construction the bed could not be placed outside 
(EKTi9EU9at). It appears from the reading of the mss. that the ancients failed to notice 
the subtlety of the ruse. By the reading EKTO~ the whole context was misunderstood 
and coarsened," adding in n.3, "The Scholium only knows the incorrect reading, as it 
says EK9Elnat· E~ (hro9Ej.£Evat." In spite of Pocock, this still remains for me unintelli­
gible. 



O'SULLIVAN, JAMES N., The Sign of the Bed: "Odyssey" 23.173ff , Greek, Roman and 
Byzantine Studies, 25:1 (1984) p.21 

JAMES N. O'SULLIVAN 23 

EK1't8evat was to be taken as "a conventional household expression 
for getting out a bedstead from the storeroom, or from some one 
place, at any rate, and putting it up or 'putting it out' in another." 
Camps, who cites no secondary literature, believes that an original 
EVTO~ was changed to EKTO~ "in the process of transmission by some­
one who thought that 'put the bed out' (I79) meant outside the bed­
chamber, whereas it can equally well refer to taking a bed outside the 
house to the bedchamber which (as we discover, 190) was built out­
side its main building, in the courtyard." Against Camps it is enough 
to point out that it is nowhere said-and is indeed an improbability in 
itself-that the 8aAa1J..O~ was separate from, outside, the rest of the 
house in such a way as to justify his interpretation of EK(JeI,O'at; and in 
any case, without further clarification the poet's hearers, whatever 
about the Odysseus of his story, could not be expected to understand 
the word in this way here, where they have not even yet come to 
Camps' doubtful evidence (190) for a peculiar location of the (Ja'Aa­
IJ..O~. We must not complicate things unrealistically and put unneces­
sary obstacles in the way of the test's ready intelligibility to Odysseus 
or anyone else. And that is the main point made tellingly by Quincey4 

against Pocock: "Odysseus is being required to infer from this word 
[EK8aO'ad, and this word alone, that during his absence his own bed 
has been removed from the chamber to the storeroom and must now 
be moved back again. How difficult it would be for him to make any 
such inference will be apparent from a glance at LSJ9 s. v. EKTt(JeVat; 
the pregnant sense which Pocock postulates for this verb and which 
he alleges must have been 'a conventional household expression' has 
no support in Greek usage of any period, let alone in the epic." To 
read EVTO~ ... EK(Jel,O'at is to force ourselves into strained, improbable 
interpretations in order to make EK(Jel,O'at compatible with EVTO~ and 
to make it a suitable vehicle of the test on its own. The choice lies, 
then, so that the readings will be suitably consistent with each other, 
between EKTO~ ... EK8etO'at, the vulgate, and the conjectural EVTO~ 
. . . E V (Je'iO'at. 

The main argument of those who favour EVTOC; . .. Ev8el,O'at, and 
indeed of all who disapprove of EKTO~, runs like this: Odysseus' re­
action, "Who put my bed in another place?" (184; cf 203-04, also 
186), means that one could infer from Penelope's words that the bed 

4 Quincey's own suggestion (sidetracked as he was by the in/out logic, for which see 
below) that 179-80 are interpolated has no acceptable basis; nor is he supported (see 
his 290 n.1) by the omission of a different set of verses (I78-79) from one MS., an 
omission that leaves a quite inadequate text (minus the test, as Quincey himself re­
alised). 



O'SULLIVAN, JAMES N., The Sign of the Bed: "Odyssey" 23.173ff , Greek, Roman and 
Byzantine Studies, 25:1 (1984) p.21 

24 THE SIGN OF THE BED 

had been moved out of the chamber, in which Odysseus had left it, 
and so Penelope must have told the servants to put the bed into the 
chamber, thus suggesting that it had already been moved out. This 
argument against the text of the MSS. seems, at first acquaintance, 
inescapable, and in itself it has indeed an impeccable logic. It is, 
however, misdirected, being based on a misconception of the essence 
of the test. It concentrates on the direction in which the bed is sup­
posed to be moved, out or in, whereas the basically alarming thing 
for Odysseus about Penelope's words is their unmistakable implica­
tion that the bed that he left literally rooted to the spot is mobile at 
all, that these weak women5 can be casually instructed to shift it 
about. It is this, without any attention to direction, that suggests to 
him that someone else must already have shifted his bed from the 
spot in which it was rooted. Odysseus, reacting to Penelope's provo­
cation, says nothing about 'in or out', 'inside or outside'~ he is anx­
ious to hear whether someone has put his bed aAAOrIE6 (184, 204), 
aAAYI i"" XWPYl (186), has put it in a spot other than that in which he 
left it. There is nothing to suggest that this other spot must be 
thought of as outside the chamber: in 203-04 aAAOrIE stands in con­
trast with €'T' €J.,L7TE8o", which means not 'still in the chamber' but 
'still in place in the ground', 7 as described in 190ff~ similarly in 186 
aAAYI i,,;' XWPYI does not imply removal of the bed from the chamber 
but only from the 'spot' where Odysseus had left it rooted: with the 
sense of XWP'Y'/, the usual one in Homer, cf, especially Od. 21.366 
aV'Tap 0 (Eumaeus) 81jKE (sc. 'To~a) cpEpCJJV avrfi i"" XWPYI. The main 
argument of those who reject the manuscript text has, then, no 
validity. 

Their further point, that to make the stranger sleep outside the 
bed-chamber would fit badly with Penelope's pretended acknowledge­
ment of him as her husband, is no more than a supplementary argu­
ment, which, even if it were unquestionable, few8 would regard as 
being a sufficient basis on its own-and it is now on its own9 -for 
changing the text~ it would merely present a slight oddity. And it is in 

5 This notion may well be behind the false variant ov8i yvvatKWV in 187. 
6 The word-division clAAOC:; E81JKE is not a possibility, pace LexFrgrEp I 564 s. v. clA­

AO(],E: without the adverb the sense is incomplete. 
7 With the sense 'standing firmly inion the ground (as before)' cf esp. 1/. 12.9, 12; 

so adv. EI-'1TEOOV 1/. 17.434, Od. 17.464. 
8 Only van der Valk attaches prime importance to it. 
9 The argument (Merkelbach 134 n.2) that EKTOC:; ... 8aAa/J-Ov (I78) does not provide 

a sufficiently specific point of reference for Ev8a (I79) seems to me to have no sub­
stance. The meaning is clearly 'just outside', not 'somewhere in the house/world out­
side'. 



O'SULLIVAN, JAMES N., The Sign of the Bed: "Odyssey" 23.173ff , Greek, Roman and 
Byzantine Studies, 25:1 (1984) p.21 

JAMES N. O'SULLIVAN 25 

any case in itself subjective and open to disagreement. The purpose 
of Penelope's words is to discover whether the person before her is 
Odysseus or not, and offering him herself-€llTo~ Oal\.a,,,LOv-as well 
as the bed is in no way necessary to the test~ and it would indeed be 
indecorous and inappropriate at this stage, especially since the stran­
ger has just indicated his preparedness to sleep alone. 10 If the slayer 
of the suitors shows himself to be Odysseus by passing the test, that 
will be time enough to show her willingness to be fully reunited with 
him in marriage (so, in fact, 207ff); and in case he is someone else, 
without special knowledge of the bed, why should she make her 
situation more difficult by a gratuitous and less than seemly offer to 
sleep with him? Penelope is not 1T'€p/4>PWll TI1111€A01T'€ta just for the 
alliteration. But in case anyone still feels uneasy and regards the 
instruction to put the bed out as odd in this context he may explain it 
to himself, as many an oddity in Homer is explained, in terms of the 
usual epic practice, in this case the practice of leaving the guest to 
sleep outside, while the host retires to the Oal\.a/-LO~: Od. 3.397ff, 
4.296ff, 7.335ff. 

Finally there is an important positive argument in favour of €KTO~. 
Though 177-78 contain no verb of motion, the suspicions of Odys­
seus, if it is Odysseus, will straightway be aroused by the mention of 
a bed "outside the chamber that he himself made." What bed can 
this be but the one he left rooted inside that same chamber? So, with 
EKT<k, the test is introduced already in 178 and suitably reinforced by 
€KOELcrat in the following verse. If the stranger fails the test, it will 
not be because it was not clearly enough put. And this clarity will also 
have been an advantage at the level of performance, between the 
poet and his hearers. With EllTO~, as we have seen, 177-78 would be 
lame, playing no part in the setting of the test, and that despite so 
prominently containing a local expression of the "inside/outside' va­
riety in this context. 

Properly considered, the manuscript text of 178-79 is not open to 
any telling objection and is much to be preferred to the alternatives 
suggested. 

HAMBURG 

September, 1983 

10171-72. See Ameis-Hentze ad loc.~ also E.-M. Voigt, LexFrgrEp I 1661.l4ff s.v. 
UVT<k,