Eurynome

Eurynome is one of the senior female servants in the house of Odysseus on Ithaca, a trusted attendant to Queen Penelope. She appears at several key domestic moments, helping to manage the household during the long absence of its master and later assisting in the preparations for the reunion of Odysseus and Penelope. Her presence, though not as prominent as that of the nurse Euryclea, contributes to the poem's detailed depiction of the functioning of a great aristocratic household and the network of loyal servants who sustain it.

Role in the Household and Relationship with Penelope

Eurynome is first mentioned when Penelope, distressed by the suitors' behavior and the blow struck against the disguised Odysseus, speaks to her directly. Penelope tells Eurynome that she hates all the suitors but Antinous most of all, "like the darkness of death itself," because he struck a poor beggar with a footstool. Eurynome responds with a wish that if their prayers were answered, not one of the suitors would ever see the sun rise. Later, when Penelope decides to show herself to the suitors to make them still more enamored of her, Eurynome advises her to wash and anoint her face, telling her not to go about with her cheeks covered in tears, for Telemachus, whom she always prayed to see with a beard, is already grown up. Penelope refuses to wash, saying heaven robbed her of her beauty on the day her husband sailed, but she asks Eurynome to tell Autonoe and Hippodamia to attend her when she goes to the cloister, as she will not go among the men alone. Eurynome then goes out to bid the maids go to their mistress.

Involvement in the Night's Events and the Reunion

After the suitors have been killed and the house purified, Eurynome's role becomes more directly practical. When Odysseus, having bathed and been made glorious by Athena, sits down opposite Penelope, he tells Euryclea to prepare a bed for him, saying he will sleep alone because Penelope's heart is as hard as iron. Penelope then instructs Euryclea to take his bed outside the bedchamber, a test that leads to the recognition. Later, after the recognition and the couple's emotional reconciliation, Eurynome and the nurse Euryclea take torches and make the bed ready with soft coverlets. When they have laid them, the nurse goes back into the house to rest, leaving Eurynome to show Odysseus and Penelope to bed by torchlight. She conducts them to their room and then goes back, and the couple comes joyfully to the rites of their own old bed. This final service marks Eurynome as a key facilitator of the couple's reunion, the trusted servant who physically prepares the space for their restored marriage.

Narrative Significance

Eurynome's appearances, though brief, serve several functions. She provides a sounding board for Penelope's grief and anger, allowing the queen to voice her emotions in a private, domestic setting. Her advice to Penelope to wash and present herself well reflects the social expectations of a noblewoman and the importance of appearance in the public sphere of the court. Most significantly, her role in preparing the bedchamber for the reunited couple underscores the theme of order restored to the household. After the chaos and violence of the suitors' occupation and slaughter, the domestic routines—making a bed, lighting a torch—are resumed under the direction of loyal servants. Eurynome, like Euryclea and the faithful herdsmen, represents the continuity of the household and the return to normalcy after the long crisis.