... issue for Odysseus or his crew, who laughed it off and ignorantly left his body unburied in their haste to go to Hades, because stupid and cowardly Elpenor was not worth mourning for. However the unparalleled sorrow expressed at the deaths of Agamemnon and Achilleus was justified because they were great heroes who deserved to be lamented. Elpenor's body was only buried when he himself reminded Odysseus to bury him lest he (Odysseus) incurred the wrath of the Gods, at leaving a human corpse unburied. The suitors on the other hand were considered fine men in their own right-handsome and brave. It was only their wanton misuse of Odysseus's property in his absence and their disrespectful attitude towards Penelope that turned many of the Gods against them. The suitor's willful insolence directed at the property and wife of an absent man was seen as an act of cowardice and thus ...

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