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| "Tree Dream," Joan Harmon (2003) |
Penelope tests Odysseus by telling Eurycleia to "move the sturdy bedstead out of our bridal chamber" – impossible, since (as the infuriated Odysseus retorts)
Not a man on earth, not even at peak strength,
would find it easy to prise it up and shift it, no,
a great sign, a hallmark lies in its construction.
I know it, I built it myself – no one else . . .
There was a branching olive-tree inside our court,
grown to its full prime, the bore like a column, thickset.
Around it I built my bedroom, finished off the walls
with good tight stonework, roofed it over soundly
and added doors, hung well and snugly wedged.
Then I lopped the leafy crown of the olive,
clean-cutting the stump bare from roots up,
planing it round with a bronze smoothing-adze –
I had the skill – I shaped it plumb to the line to make
my bedpost, bored the holes it needed with an auger.
Working from there I built my bed, start to finish,
I gave it ivory inlays, gold and silver fittings,
wove the straps across it, oxhide gleaming red.
There's our secret sign, I tell you, our life story! (210–28)
Their mutual recognition confirmed through their intimately crafted space.