I learnt the phrase “face the music“ more than two decades ago, and I’ve always wondered why on earth would music connote something ominous. Why music, of all things?

Music is heavenly.

The dictionaries offer a few hypotheses, but I found none of them satisfactory. One theory suggests that it’s used to characterise how a conductor feels when he has to go on stage and perform, subject himself to the judgment of the crowd. Another suggests that it describes the experience of disgraced soldiers when they are publicly dismissed or “drummed out” while military music played.

Recently, I came across an alternative hypothesis that is far more pleasing.

After watching Nolan’s Odyssey, the image of Odysseus strung his great bow stuck with me. I decided to relive that image by rereading the book on the great bow. And there it says:

Odysseus strung the great bow without effort or haste. Then with his right hand he tested the string, and it sang…

What music could sound more mortifying than the note that flows from Odysseus’ great bow?

And there the Suitors faced the music (or the divine justice), and paid the ultimate price for their 20 years of insolence.

I have no evidence whatsoever that this is where the phrase came from, but I find it rather elegant.