Female Characters In The Odyssey – Helpers and Hindrances

He has learned from past disasters and holds back while his men investigate this place. Unfortunately for the other eleven ships, the welcome they receive is not a kind one. Once more, they are betrayed by a woman. The wife and daughter of the king Antiphates are not named in the narrative as Odysseus recounts his crew’s fate. Each woman is identified only by her relationship to the king:

“Just short of the town, they came on a girl drawing water; she was tall and powerful, the daughter of King Antiphates. She had come down to the clear stream of the spring Artakia (Artacia), from which the townsmen fetched up their water. They approached her and spoke to her, asking who the king was and who his subjects were; she pointed at once to her father’s lofty house. They entered the palace and found his wife there, but she stood mountain-high, and they were aghast at the sight of her. She sent out forthwith to fetch King Antiphates her husband from the assembly-place, and his only thought was to kill them miserably.

Only the king’s name is worthy of mentioning, and