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Examples Of Xenia In The Odyssey

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The purpose of this essay is to inform about the use of xenia. Xenia is the use of hospitality and friendliness when a person comes for shelter, food or drinks.To analyze uses of xenia we will have to use examples of personification, alliteration, simile and metaphor. In book 2 Homer shows that back then Greeks really respected the use of Xenia.
When Odysseus with his crew go into the cave and start eating his food they display good and bad xenia. They eat the cyclops food but also bring things in return. “My men begged me to take the food and leave. I told them we'd wait and see what the cyclops would give us”(Homer 36). This is good xenia because it shows that Odysseus values xenia a lot and even though he was scared he still wanted to show respect to Polyphemus. Another quote is “He reached out and grabbed 2 of my friends… then he smashed them on the floor dead” (Homer 39). This shows that the cyclops does not care about hospitality and xenia because Odysseus was being nice to him by not running away after eating his food.
Another example of bad Xenia is when the suitors showed very bad xenia to Penelope and Telemachus and …show more content…

The swineherd showed the best xenia in my opinion because even though Odysseus leaves he still remains loyal to him and he resisted the suitors. He resisted the temptation to go to the suitors and hoped that Odysseus would return to Ithaca. “As for my, I would have been shamed before the gods. Not that they haven't punished me enough! Here I sit, my heart broken for my master. This shows that he has been a loyal servant. He let a stranger into his home and cared for him.He remembers the usage of xenia because he tries to remember his master Odysseus.
Homer’s Odyssey exhibits a wide variety of xenia which exhibits hospitality towards others. Most hospitality that we use is xenia. Without xenia we would not show the utter most respect for

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