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65 As has often been observed, the Odyssey rewrites the Iliad, and never more than in its treatment of women. The later poem consistently calls our attention to the ways in which the earlier poem ignores or elides the work of women. That the Iliad describes an exclusively male world to a far greater extent than does the Odyssey cannot be disputed. Even allowing for this difference , however, given the number of captive women in the Greek camp it is striking how rarely any of them is shown at work. At the same time, the value of a woman is consistently defined in terms of her skill, mostly at handiwork.¹ The Iliad ascribes value to women on the basis of the work they know how to do, but the Odyssey shows women actually doing it, and even exchanging the products of their labor.² The Odyssey presents us with a far more expansive picture of the social and economic roles of women than Hesiod, or even the Iliad. In so saying, I do not want to be misunderstood as positing a historical development. Although I accept the common assumption that the Odyssey was written down somewhat later than the Iliad, this is ultimately unverifiable. Moreover , I see no reason to regard the Odyssey as representing a tradition or period so far removed from that of the Iliad as to allow time for significant change in the status of women. Rather, it is the difference in the setting of the two epics that accounts for much of the difference in subject matter . Baldly put, the Iliad concerns itself with activities that are culturally defined as male, while the peacetime world of the Odyssey provides greater scope for the activities, and the agency, of women. In the Odyssey, women’s economic contributions are clear: female slaves are shown doing the work of the household, and even goddesses work at the loom. At the same time, the notion of women as objects of exchange or pieces of property so common in the Iliad is by no means foreign to this poem. Women are acquired by purchase, like Eurykleia, bought by Laertes for twenty oxen (1.430–31), or by capture, like Eurymedousa, given to Alchapter four WOMEN and EXCHANGE in the ODYSSEY: From GIFTS to GIVERS Lyons-final.indb 65 Lyons-final.indb 65 1/31/12 3:20:03 PM 1/31/12 3:20:03 PM DANGEROUS GIFTS 66 kinoos from the spoils of her city (7.8–11). Meanwhile, the critical question of the potential exchange-value of Penelope is allowed to hang in the balance throughout the poem. The frequently repeated suggestion that she will go to whoever offers the best gifts obscures the complicated and ambiguous nature of the economic transaction being contemplated. It is unclear whether the decision is hers (or her son’s) to make or whether her father will be responsible for giving her away again. It is similarly unclear whether the successful suitor can expect to receive not only Penelope but also the riches of Odysseus’ household, which by rights should go to her son Telemachos.³ In stark contrast to the Iliad, however, the Odyssey represents women not only as objects, but also as participants in gift-exchange. Here we find an interesting dichotomy between foreground and background. In the body of the narrative, women like Arete and Helen give gifts to no ill effect.⁴ But the Odyssey also makes explicit for the first time the notion that women and gifts are a combination deadly to men. Employing a rhetoric of ambivalence that so often attends the discussion of women, the poem contains several almost parenthetical allusions to women’s treachery, inserted into the narrative as cautionary exempla. These brief narratives are twice signaled by mention of the dangers of “womanly gifts” (gunaia dōra), an ambiguous phrase to which I will return.⁵ The association of women, gifts, and danger first suggested here will be played out in full in tragic drama, but to make sense of it, we will first need to consider how the gender of both persons and objects shapes the protocols of exchange. First, let us briefly consider some unmarked gift-exchanges, some of the few that take place between women. When Telemachos visits Helen and Menelaos in Odyssey 4, Helen is the very picture of domesticity with her silver wool basket and gold distaff, which she received from the Egyptian woman...

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