Thinking of hospitality as a major theme in a literary work may seem odd to modern readers. In Homer’s world, however, hospitality is one of the laws of Zeus. Arriving strangers may be dangerous or just simple beggars. To welcome a stranger in to your home is showing trust and your good, kind nature to your fellow human beings. This is important to people in Homer's time because it was a way to find out news and someday they may need to rely upon someone’s hospitality themselves. Hospitality or the lack of it, affects Odysseus throughout the epic. Odysseus’ palace, while he has been away, has been taken over by the suitors who are looking for Penelope’s hand in marriage. The suitors show no kind of hospitality to strangers and have abused the hospitality of Telemachus and Penelope. Telemac