Odyssey, Book Twenty-three
Now has the iron sword the rightful task of vengeance carried out; now have sharp arrows and the lance spilled out the blood of the evil one. Despite a god and all his seas, to his realm and queen has come back Ulysses. Despite a god and the grey winds, the clamour and din of Ares. Now, in the love of their marital bed, the radiant queen, her head upon the breast of this, her king, is fast asleep. But where now the man who, banished from his home, was forced, by day and night, to roam about the world, a dog, who said his name was No One?
Translated by Allen ProwleOdyssey, Book Twenty-three - meaning Summary
Homecoming After Becoming No One
The poem revisits the end of Homer's Odyssey, when Ulysses has defeated the suitors and returned to Penelope. Borges shifts attention from public victory to the private aftermath: Ulysses is reunited with his wife, yet the speaker asks what has become of the exile who survived by becoming "No One." The ending suggests that homecoming cannot wholly erase the identity formed through wandering, danger, and disguise.
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