Justice and revenge

• Zeus says that men should accept the consequences of their actions
• he tells Poseidon that 'as for mankind, if anyone in the pride of his power treats you with disrespect, you have all the future in which to take your revenge'
• It seems that a god has every right to act in pure revenge against a mortal who has offended him
• Ody's goal is to punish the Suitors
• it is established that he is acting as an agent of Zeus
• he shows signs of delighting in personal revenge as he kills them
• we may feels some sympathy for Amphinomus, who, like a hero from Greek tragedy, failed to listen to his conscience and was slaughtered with the others
• T, told to use his sword to kill the disloyal maids, goes against his father's order, saying that he will not give a 'decent death' to those who have insulted him and his mother, and slept with the Suitors
• his hanging them instead, the cruelty reinforced by the thrush simile, and the slicing off of the nose, ears and genitals of Melanthius, seem to be acts of cruelty, not justice
• their crime was not disobeying Zeus, the crime of the Suitors, but disloyalty to a man, and their punishment was much more vicious