Saturday, February 6, 2010

Fighting blue collar crime Ulysses style

Eurycleia is called into the great hall by Ulysses. She rejoices upon the site of the dead suitors. Ulysses puts her in her place for her blatant disregard of appropriate behavior. She is told to round up the disloyal servants and have them clear up the bodies of their suitor masters, clean the furniture before being brought outside and executed. Ulysses orders Telemachus to cut the servants down with his sword but instead he hangs them, which is considered a very disgraceful way to be executed. This was done to reflect the disgrace these servants perpetrated in betraying Greece and serving the suitors. The servants represent the Greek servants of the suitors who by willing obeying the suitors had caused atrocities to the Greeks. The other servants were made solemn to what had to occur to free Greece and establish a more virtuous paradigm of the hero and just proper social behaviour. It was the progeny of the Heroes and virtues enlightened that cleaned Greece of the bad servants of the suitors, though the heroes and the good servants help subdue and round them up. Finally the traitor weapon smiths like Melanthius are destroyed. Once the fighting was done and the weapons were no longer needed in numbers necessitating the use of traitor weapon smiths they are killed and, more virtuous people become the new smiths of the New Greek paradigm of virtue.

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