Summary

In Chapter 21, "Calliope", Calliope is enjoying the stories of the women that she is making the poet tell. She also reflects on their importance: "the whole war can be explained this way" (176). In any case, that’s how the poet will tell it. The alternative is that he "will tell nothing at all" (176). Male poets love to tell stories of male warriors and their heroics because, Calliope says, they like to fantasise that they in some way resemble these heroes. In their imaginations, fat poets are not unlike muscled warriors. And yet the women in these stories are at least as heroic. Menelaus loses his wife and starts a hideous war. Whereas Oenone, "loses her husband and she raises their son. Which is the more heroic act?" (177).

In Chapter 22, "The Trojan Women", the Trojan Women have been grieving the horrifying death of Polydorus...