Emotion

"The master's anger rose inside his chest, torn in thought, debating, head and heart- should he up and rush them, kill them one and all or let them rut with their lovers one last time? The heart inside him growled low with rage..."

-The Odyssey; Book 20, Line 10

Pure emotion-anger and hatred-has filled Odysseus' soul. As we learned in Hamlet, it takes a lot for a normal human being to kill another. Odysseus has clearly killed before, but it was out of necessity and a defense of his city rather than an extremely personal scorn for another man. Although Odysseus had affairs with other women during his time away from Ithaca, he appeared to always want to eventually return to Penelope. Once he realized what the suitors had been up to-pestering his wife, taking his food, and performing pure savagery in his own house-Odysseus was insulted. He was so insulted that he reached the point of murder. Odysseus has to defend his honour and his wife's honour not only because of the ramifications if he doesn't, the suitors continuing to bother the family and his reputation, but also because emotion is the truest gauge of a man's character, a character that he must stay true to.