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[382] μεγάροιο θύρας. This must mean the door of, i.e. leading into, the “μέγαρον” of the women's apartments. The passage has been thought to favour the view that the “μέγαρον” of the women was immediately behind the men's hall, and that the door now intended was one at the upper end of the hall, by which the two rooms communicated. Eumaeus, it is argued, was in the hall: if he ‘called forth’ Eurycleia, he must have done so through such a door. But Eumaeus was with Ulysses at the lower end of the hall, near the main entrance, and could hardly have given his order to Eurycleia from that point without exciting the suspicion of the Suitors. It was much easier for him to go out (as Philoetius did), and go to the door by which the women's “μέγαρον” was entered from the “αὐλή”. On this view there is no argument either for or against the existence of a second door at the upper end of the hall.

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