Son of Polyctor and one of the boldest suitors remaining when the bow had already slain many — who sent a necklace exceeding fair when Penelope descended among the wooers, stood in the last rush urged on by Agelaus, and was slain by Philoetius' spear as the survivors bit the vast floor with their teeth. Apollodorus counts him among the wooers from Same under the spelling Pisander — not to be confused with the Trojan Peisanders of the Iliad.1
When Penelope descended to the hall and the suitors brought her gifts, a squire brought from the house of lord Peisander, son of Polyctor, a necklace, a jewel exceeding fair — one gift among many the Achaeans offered, while Eurydamas' men brought earrings with three clustering drops and others brought their own treasures. The queen took the gifts and went up to her upper chamber.2
In the final fight Athena watched from the roof-beam as Agelaus son of Damastor urged on Eurynomus, Amphimedon, Demoptolemus, Peisander son of Polyctor, and wise Polybus — in valiance the best of all the wooers who still lived, while the bow and swiftly-falling arrows had laid the rest low.3
When both sides hurled their sharp spears with sure aim, the herdsman Philoetius slew Peisander; he and the others at once bit the vast floor with their teeth, and the wooers drew back to the innermost part of the hall before the final exchange cut them down.4
Homer names other Peisanders elsewhere — sons of Antimachus slain by Agamemnon at Troy, and a captain of the Myrmidons — distinct from this son of Polyctor on Ithaca.5
Apollodorus names Pisander among the twenty-three suitors from Same, listed second after Agelaus in Epitome 7.28 — the same Peisander son of Polyctor whom Homer shows at the feast and in the final fight, or a namesake, the Epitome does not say.6
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the spine ignites as you read · hover a bond on the card — every mention of them lights in the story