Odyssey Homer’s Odyssey is generally considered to be the sequel to the Iliad. Unlike many sequels in the modern era, however, the Odyssey actually seems to be an improvement, in some respects, on the original and is quite capable of standing as an independent work.
HOMER C. 700 BCE
Odysseia, which has been this poem’s name in Greek since Herodotus called it that in the fifth century BCE , means simply ‘‘the story of Odysseus.’’ That story refers to the ten-year-long return trip of Odysseus from Troy to his island home of Ithaca, off the west coast of Greece. Because the epic pertains to this long journey, the term odyssey has since come to mean any significant and difficult journey. For more than fifteen hundred years, the Iliad and the Odyssey set the western standard by which epic poetry was judged. The epic form in poetry seemed to die out with Milton’s Paradise Lost, but the story of Odysseus has remained a perennial favorite. Robert Fagles’s translation of the Odyssey, a Penguin Classics edition, appeared in 2006.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Everything known about Homer is either traditional, mythical, or some kind of an educated guess. Traditionally, probably following the Odyssey and one of the so-called Homeric hymns from the middle of the seventh century BCE ,
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scholars to assign Homer to the middle or late part of the eighth century BCE Accurate dating of Homer’s poems is impossible, but it is generally thought that the Iliad is the older of the two, as the Odyssey displays certain advanced stylistic features. Both poems were completed before the Peisistratid dynasty came to power in Athens in the sixth century BCE , as a member of that family commissioned a standard edition of the poems and ordered that both the Iliad and the Odyssey be recited in full at the Great Panathenaia, a religious festival in honor of Athena, which was observed in Athens every four years. There have been various controversies about Homer since his time, beginning with the contention over just exactly where and when he was born, lived, and died. Some scholars have questioned whether Homer existed at all, whether he actually wrote the poems attributed to him or compiled them from popular folklore, and whether the same person is responsible for both the Iliad and the Odyssey. Many scholars likely would agree that there was an epic poet called Homer and that this poet was instrumental in producing the Iliad and Odyssey in their known forms.
Homer (Hulton Archive / Getty Images)
Homer, like his own character Demodocus, was believed to be a blind bard or singer of tales. At least seven different places have claimed that Homer was born on their soil in the ancient world. The two with the strongest claims are the island of Chios and the city of Smyrna (modern Izmir, in Turkey). Because he records many details of Ionian geography and seems to know less about other areas (like western Greece, where part of the Odyssey is set), and because the most common dialect in Homer’s Greek is Ionic, many scholars believe that Homer probably lived and worked in Ionia, the region along the west coast of what is now Turkey. When Homer lived and wrote is open for debate. Some ancient writers believed that Homer lived relatively close to the time of the events he described. The fifth-century historian Herodotus in his Histories said that Homer could not possibly have lived more than four hundred years before the fifth century. Nonetheless, the rediscovery of writing by the Greeks around 750 BCE and the development, at about the same time, of some of the fighting techniques described in the Iliad have led
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PLOT SUMMARY The Background to the Story After ten years, the Trojan War is over and the Achaeans head for home, with varying results. Some, like Nestor, come home quickly to find things pretty much as they left them. Others, like Agamemnon, make it home quickly but find things considerably changed. Still others, like Menelaus, wander for a time but eventually return home safely and little the worse for wear. Odysseus, by contrast, has no end of trouble getting home. As the story opens, it is the tenth year since the end of the war, a full twenty years since Odysseus sailed off for Troy with the rest of the Achaean forces.
Book 1: Athena Inspires Telemachus In a council of the gods, Athena asks her father why Odysseus is still stuck on Calypso’s island, ten years after the end of the war. Zeus responds that Poseidon is angry at Odysseus for having blinded his son, Polyphemus. But since Poseidon
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MEDIA ADAPTATIONS
In 1641, Claudio Monteverdi composed the opera Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria (The Return of Ulysses), treating Odysseus’s return to Ithaca after his journey.
In 1928, Richard Strauss composed the opera Die a¨gyptische Helena, based on the account of Helen’s visit to Egypt in Book 4 of the Odyssey.
In 1954, Dino De Laurentiis produced the film Ulisse (released in English as Ulysses in the same year), directed by Mario Camerini and starring Kirk Douglas as Ulysses and Anthony Quinn as Antinoos. This film was re-released as a DVD in 2009.
In 1963, Pietro Francisci directed the film Ercole sfida Sansone, released in 1965 in the United States as Hercules, Samson, and Ulysses. The 1967 British film Ulysses, based on the 1922 James Joyce novel by the same title, starred Martin Dempsey and Barbara Jefford.
In 1967, the British rock band Cream, made up of Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, and Ginger Baker, recorded the song ‘‘Tales of Brave Ulysses’’ on their second album, Disraeli Gears. The song includes characters, themes, and motifs from the epic.
There is at least a symbolic link between Homer’s poem and the classic 1968 MGM
is temporarily out of the country, so to speak, Zeus gives her permission to begin arrangements for Odysseus’s return. Athena goes to Ithaca in disguise and inspires Odysseus’s son Telemachus to go in search of news of his father. Heartened by her words, Telemachus announces his intention to sail to the mainland.
Book 2: Telemachus Sails to Pylos Telemachus calls an assembly and asks for assistance in getting to the mainland. His independent attitude does not sit well with his mother’s suitors,
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production 2001: A Space Odyssey, directed by Stanley Kubrick and starring Keir Dullea.
In 1969, Radiotelevisione Italiana (RAI) produced a television version of the epic, directed by Mario Bara and Franco Rossi. In May 1997, NBC television produced a two-part miniseries of the Odyssey, starring Armand Assante, Isabella Rossellini, Vanessa Williams, and Irene Pappas. This production was re-released on DVD by Lionsgate Studios in 2001. The 1996 Penguin Highbridge Audio cassette of the Odyssey uses the Robert Fagles translation and is narrated by Sir Ian McKellen.
The 2000 Universal Pictures film O Brother, Where Art Thou? is a comical remake of the Odyssey set in the 1930s South with bluegrass music.
Noted storyteller Sebastian Lockwood produced a one-man video of his performance of the Odyssey in 2006. The Perseus Project at Tufts University, which was available as of 2010 on CD-ROM from Yale University Press, offers both the original Greek text and the Loeb Classical Library translation in English, together with background information on many of the characters and places in the poem.
who oppose him in the assembly so that he does not receive the aid he seeks. After making secret preparations, Telemachus and the disguised Athena depart for Pylos that same evening.
Book 3: Nestor Tells What He Knows Telemachus and Athena arrive in Pylos to find Nestor and his family offering sacrifice to Poseidon. After joining in the ritual, Telemachus introduces himself to Nestor and explains his purpose in coming. Nestor has heard news of the return of both Menelaus and Agamemnon, which he relates
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to Telemachus, but has had no news of Odysseus since sailing home from Troy ten years previously. Nestor sends Telemachus, accompanied by one of his sons, Pisistratus, to visit Menelaus in Sparta.
Demodocus’s skill and offers him a prime cut of his own portion. When Demodocus sings the story of the Trojan Horse, Odysseus begins crying again, and Alcinous asks Odysseus who he is and why stories about Troy make him cry.
Book 4: In the Home of Menelaus and Helen Telemachus and Pisistratus arrive at Menelaus’s home as he is celebrating a wedding and are warmly entertained by Menelaus and Helen. Menelaus tells a long story of his adventures on the way home from Troy, including news that he got from Proteus in Egypt that Odysseus was alive on Calypso’s island. Meanwhile, back in Ithaca, the suitors learn of Telemachus’s secret departure and are not pleased. They plot to ambush and kill him on his way home. Penelope also learns of her son’s departure.
Book 5: Odysseus Sets Sail for Home and Gets Shipwrecked At another council of the gods, Zeus orders Hermes to go to Calypso and tell her that she is to let Odysseus leave for Ithaca. Calypso is unhappy, but obeys the order. She offers Odysseus a chance to become immortal and to live with her forever, an offer which he tactfully declines. Odysseus builds a raft with tools and materials she provides and sails toward home until Poseidon comes back from feasting with the Ethiopians and wrecks the raft in a storm. Odysseus, with the help of a sea goddess, is washed safely ashore in the land of the Phaeacians.
Book 6: Nausicaa Encounters a Stranger Inspired in a dream by Athena, the Princess Nausicaa goes with several of her maids to do the royal laundry. The washing place is near where Odysseus has fallen asleep, hidden in a bush. Odysseus asks Nausicaa for help; she gives him some clothing to wear and sends him into town to find the palace of her father, Alcinous.
Book 7: Odysseus and the King of Phaeacia Odysseus arrives safely at the palace and begs the assistance of King Alcinous and Queen Arete. He gives an edited version of his adventures to date but does not disclose his identity. He deftly turns aside Alcinous’s suggestion that he should remain in Phaeacia and marry Nausicaa.
Book 8: The Phaeacians Entertain Odysseus The Phaeacians treat Odysseus to a day of feasting, song, and athletic events. When Odysseus begins weeping during Demodocus’s tale of the Trojan War, Alcinous cuts the banquet short. At dinner that evening, Odysseus speaks highly of
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Book 9: Odysseus Tells His Story— Polyphemus and the Cyclopes Odysseus reveals his identity and tells his story, beginning with his departure from Troy with twelve ships. He sacks Ismarus in Thrace, is blown off course to the land of the Lotus-Eaters, and eventually reaches the island of the Cyclopes, one-eyed giants who live in rustic anarchy. Odysseus and the crew of his ship go to investigate this island and end up in Polyphemus’s cave. The giant rolls a stone across the cave’s entrance, and, finding strangers inside, promptly turns a couple of Odysseus’s men into his dinner. After a similar breakfast, he goes out with his flocks, leaving Odysseus and his men penned in the cave. Upon Polyphemus’s return, they manage to get the giant drunk, blind him, and then sneak out of the cave under the bellies of his sheep and goats. As they make their escape, Odysseus unwisely reveals his true name, and Polyphemus asks his father Poseidon to avenge his injury.
Book 10: Odysseus Tells His Story—At the Islands of Aeolus and Circe Odysseus and his surviving crewmen now sail to the island of Aeolus, king of the winds. Aeolus gives Odysseus a bag containing all the winds that would prevent his reaching home. They sail away and come close enough to Ithaca to see the watch-fires, when Odysseus falls asleep at the helm and his crew, thinking the bag contains a hoard of gold, untie it and release the captive winds, which blow them right back to Aeolus’s island. Aeolus refuses to have anything more to do with them. Odysseus and his crew set sail once more and eventually reach the land of the Laestrygonians, who destroy all but one of his ships. The survivors sail to Circe’s island, where most of them are promptly turned into pigs. Odysseus, forewarned by Hermes, avoids the sorceress’s trap and frees his men. They remain with Circe for a year before Odysseus’s men ask to leave. Circe tells Odysseus that he must first visit the underworld and consult with the shade of the prophet Tiresias on how best to get home.
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Book 11: Odysseus Tells His Story—In the House of the Dead Obeying Circe’s instructions, Odysseus and his men sail to the underworld where they make sacrifices to Hades and Persephone and consult Tiresias. When Tiresias retires, the shades of Odysseus’s mother and several of his comrades at Troy appear, including those of Achilles and Agamemnon. Odysseus also witnesses the punishment of several notorious offenders against the gods.
Book 12: Odysseus Tells His Story—The Sun-God’s Cattle Upon his return from the underworld, Odysseus receives sailing instructions from Circe on how to avoid the lure of the Sirens and how to get past the monster Scylla and the whirlpool Charybdis. Above all, Circe warns Odysseus not to harm the cattle of the sun-god on the island of Thrinacia. Cast upon Thrinacia by a fierce storm and out of provisions, Odysseus’s men disobey him and slaughter some of the cattle. The sun-god complains to Zeus, who destroys the ship with a thunderbolt. Only Odysseus survives, and he drifts to Calypso’s island by hanging on to the ship’s mast. This ends Odysseus’s story as told to the Phaeacians.
Book 13: Return to Ithaca and the Stone Ship The Phaeacians land Odysseus and all his treasures on Ithaca while he himself is deep asleep. Athena, in disguise, meets Odysseus, and he tries to trick her, without success, with a false story about himself. She reveals her identity and tells him how much she cares for him, and they plot a stratagem for dealing with Penelope’s suitors. After stowing Odysseus’s treasure safely in a cave, Athena disguises Odysseus as an ancient beggar and sends him on his way. Poseidon, angry that the Phaeacians have helped Odysseus get back to Ithaca, turns their ship into a huge stone, visible to onlookers on shore and rooted to the sea-bottom, as it sails into harbor on its return voyage.
Book 14: The Loyal Swineherd Odysseus makes his way to the dwelling of Eumaeus, a swineherd who has remained loyal to his long-absent employer. Odysseus, still in disguise, entertains Eumaeus with some ‘‘lying tales’’ about himself.
Book 15: Telemachus Heads for Home Telemachus takes his leave of Helen and Menelaus and tactfully evades Nestor’s further hospitality.
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Telemachus offers passage to the seer Theoclymenus, who is fleeing vengeance for a kinsman’s death. Back in Ithaca, Eumaeus tells Odysseus the story of his life. Telemachus evades the suitors’ ambush and sends Theoclymenus home with a friend, as he intends to visit Eumaeus in the country before returning to the palace and the suitors.
Book 16: Father and Son Reunited Telemachus goes to Eumaeus’s hut, where Odysseus reveals himself to his son and impresses on him the need for secrecy and deception if they are to overcome the suitors. Meanwhile, the ship the suitors had sent out to ambush Telemachus returns, and the suitors try without success to come up with an alternative plan to get rid of him.
Book 17: A Beggar at the Gate Telemachus returns to the palace and speaks with his mother. Eumaeus brings Odysseus to the palace. On the way they encounter the goatherd Melanthius, an ally of the suitors, who insults Odysseus. As Odysseus enters the palace, an old hunting dog recognizes him and dies on the spot. Most of the suitors treat Odysseus with at least grudging respect, but Antinous throws a footstool at him. Penelope asks Eumaeus to arrange a meeting with the new visitor.
Book 18: The Two Beggar-Kings Odysseus is insulted by Irus, a professional beggar whom the suitors favor. The two men fight, much to the amusement of the suitors, and Odysseus quickly subdues Irus. Penelope comes to the hall to extract presents from the suitors and to announce her intention of remarrying. Odysseus is insulted by the maid Melantho and Eurymachus, one of the leading suitors, who throws another footstool at him.
Book 19: Penelope Interrogates Her Guest Odysseus and his son take all the weapons from the great hall, assisted by Athena. Melantho again insults Odysseus. Penelope speaks to the beggar, who claims to know Odysseus and tells her that he is nearby and will be home quickly. She does not believe him but orders his old nurse, Eurycleia, to wash him. The nurse recognizes Odysseus by a scar he received as a young man and is sworn to secrecy. Penelope details the trial of the bow by which she will choose her new husband on the following day.
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Book 20: Things Begin to Look Bad for the Suitors
CHARACTERS
Odysseus lays awake plotting revenge until Athena puts him to sleep. On the next day, the loyal oxherd Philoetius arrives at the palace, where Odysseus is again insulted by one of the suitors, Ctesippus, who throws an ox-foot at him. The suitors all laugh at this, which Theoclymenus interprets as a sign that they are all marked for death.
Achilles
Book 21: The Great Bow of Odysseus
Achilleus
Penelope fetches Odysseus’s hunting bow and announces the test: She will marry the man who can string the bow and shoot an arrow through the rings on twelve axe-heads set in a line in the ground. Odysseus reveals himself to his two loyal servants and enlists their help in getting revenge on the suitors. None of the suitors is able to string the bow; Telemachus is on the point of succeeding when Odysseus stops him. Telemachus, by prearrangement with his father, sends his mother from the hall and gives the bow to Odysseus, who strings it and shoots an arrow through the axes.
See Achilles
Book 22: The Death of the Suitors With his next arrow, Odysseus shoots Antinous and announces his true identity to the rest of the suitors. Odysseus, Telemachus, Philoetius, and Eumaeus, assisted by the disguised Athena, kill the suitors. When all the suitors are dead, the disloyal maids are hanged, and Melanthius is punished. The loyal servants begin to clean the palace after the slaughter.
Book 23: The Reunion Old Eurycleia wakes Penelope with the news that her husband has returned and destroyed the suitors. Penelope refuses to believe it. When Odysseus answers her trick question about their marriage bed, she accepts him as her husband, and they retire to bed after making plans to deal with the relatives of the suitors whom Odysseus has just killed. Before they sleep, Odysseus tells his wife his true story.
Son of the mortal Peleus and the sea goddess Thetis, Achilles was the best warrior at the siege of Troy. Odysseus encounters his shade (spirit) in the underworld in Book 11 while waiting for the seer Tiresias to tell him how he is to return home after being delayed for ten years.
Aeacides See Achilles
Aeolus The son of Hippotas, Aeolus is beloved of the gods and Zeus put him in charge of the winds. He and his family (six sons married to six daughters) live on Aeolia, a floating island. After listening to Odysseus’s tales of Troy, he agrees to help and makes Odysseus a present of a bag containing all the adverse winds that could blow him off his proper course home. Unfortunately, Odysseus’s men untie the knot, thinking they will find gold in the bag, and the winds blow them back to Aeolia. Aeolus casts them out, saying he has no desire to help anyone who is so obviously cursed by the gods.
Agamemnon Son of Atreus, brother of Menelaus, and king of Mycenae, Agamemnon was the commander of the Achaean forces at Troy. Odysseus encounters his shade in the underworld while waiting for the seer Tiresias to tell him how to get home after ten years of wandering.
Aias See Ajax
Ajax (Oilean, the Lesser) Book 24: Peace at Last The suitors’ shades arrive in Hades and tell Agamemnon and Achilles of Odysseus’s triumphant revenge on them for their destruction of his estate. Odysseus goes to meet his aged father Laertes in the country and, after telling him another ‘‘lying tale,’’ reveals himself to his father. The suitors’ relatives arrive at that point, seeking vengeance for the death of their kinsmen. Athena and Zeus intervene in the fighting that ensues and, after a few of the suitors’ relatives are killed, Athena makes peace.
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Son of Oileus and leader of the Locrians at Troy, Ajax is shipwrecked on his way home after the war. He boasts of having escaped the sea in spite of the gods—and is subsequently drowned by Poseidon. Odysseus encounters his shade in the underworld in Book 11.
Ajax (Telamonian, the Greater Son of Telamon and grandson of Aeacus (who was also grandfather of Achilles), Ajax was one of the bravest and strongest fighters at Troy.
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Odysseus encounters the shade of Ajax in the underworld and apologizes for the outcome of their contest at Achilles’s funeral games, but Ajax, angry with Odysseus even after death, refuses to speak to the man he believes had unfairly beaten him in life.
Arete Niece and wife of Alcinous and mother of Nausicaa, Arete is queen of the Phaeacians. Her name means virtue or excellence in Greek.
Artemis Daughter of Zeus and Leto, twin sister of Apollo, Artemis is a virgin goddess of the hunt, the moon, and, in some traditions, of childbirth and the young. As is frequently seen in the Odyssey, plagues and other diseases, and sometimes a peaceful death in old age, are often explained as being the result of ‘‘gentle arrows’’ shot by Artemis (for women) or by her brother Apollo (for men).
Ajax the Greater See Ajax (Telamonian, the Greater)
Ajax the Lesser See Ajax (Oilean, the Lesser)
Akhilleus
Athena
See Achilles
Alcinous Son of Nausithous, husband of Arete, and father of Nausicaa and Laodamas, Alcinous, whose name means sharp-witted or brave-witted, is king of Phaeacia and a grandson of Poseidon. Homer depicts him as a kind, generous, and noble man, eager to help the stranger and put him at ease. He suggests that Odysseus should stay in Phaeacia and marry his daughter.
Athena is the daughter of Zeus and Metis, who Zeus (following in the tradition of his own father, Cronus) swallowed when it was revealed that she would someday bear a son who would be lord of heaven (and thus usurp Zeus’s place). She was born, fully grown and in armor, from the head of Zeus after Hephaestus (or, in some traditions, Prometheus) split it open with an axe.
Athene See Athena
Atreides
Antinoos
See Agamemnon
See Antinous
Atrides Antinous
See Agamemnon
Son of Eupithes, Antinous (whose name literally means anti-mind and could be translated as mindless) is a bold, ambitious, and obnoxious suitor for Penelope’s hand.
Aphrodite Aphrodite is the Greek goddess of love. According to Homer, she is the daughter of Zeus and Dione. She is married, though not faithful, to Hephaestus, god of fire and smithcraft.
Apollo The son of Zeus and Leto, and twin brother of Artemis, Apollo is the god of archery, prophecy, music, medicine, light, and youth. As is frequently seen in the Odyssey, plagues and other diseases, and sometimes a peaceful death in old age are often explained as being the result of ‘‘gentle arrows’’ shot by Apollo (for men) or by his sister Artemis (for women).
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Briseis Briseis is the war prize given to Achilles after his attack on Lyrnessus during the Trojan War. When Agamemnon has to give up Chryseis, he takes Briseis as compensation, and this action instigates the quarrel between him and Achilles.
Calypso Daughter of Atlas, who holds the world upon his shoulders, Calypso (whose name is related to the Greek verb to hide and which might therefore be translated as concealer) is a goddess who lives on the island of Ogygia. She has fallen in love with Odysseus during the seven years he has lived on her island and proposes to make him immortal, not a gift given lightly.
Circe Daughter of Helios (the sun-god) and Perse, and sister of Aeetes, the king of Colchis who so plagued
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Jason and the Argonauts, Circe is a minor goddess who ‘‘speaks with the speech of mortals.’’ She is also a powerful enchantress. Her specialty lies in turning men into pigs. Yet once she recognizes Odysseus and swears an oath not to harm him, she becomes the most charming of hostesses, so much so that Odysseus and his men remain with her an entire year.
go back. Eurylochus eventually turns on Odysseus and refuses to obey him on Thrinacia, instead urging the rest of the men to slaughter the sun-god’s cattle.
Eurylokhos See Eurylochus
Ctesippus
Eurymachos
Ctesippus is one of the suitors for Penelope. His name literally means horse-getter, so he may literally be a horse-thief.
See Eurymachus
Demodocus The blind bard, or poet, of the Phaeacian court, traditionally, Demodocus has been taken as representing Homer, but not all scholars accept this idea.
Demodokos See Demodocus
Eumaeus Son of Ctesius, who was king of two cities on the island of Syria (not to be confused with the Middle Eastern country of the same name), Eumaeus was kidnapped at a young age by one of his father’s serving women and taken by Phoenician traders, who sold him to Laertes, Odysseus’s father. Odysseus’s mother, Anticleia, raised him together with her own daughter, and then sent him to the country when the daughter was married. His name might mean something like one who seeks the good.
Eumaios See Eumaeus
Eurycleia Eurycleia is the long-time servant of Odysseus’s family. Odysseus’s father Laertes bought her in her youth for twenty oxen, a significant price. She was Odysseus’s nurse and later the nurse of Telemachus. In her old age, she attends Penelope.
Eurymachus Son of Polybus, Eurymachus is described as the ‘‘leading candidate’’ for Penelope’s hand. His name means wide-fighting. Eurymachus is arrogant, disrespectful, hypocritical, cowardly, and abusive. He is the second of the suitors to die by Odysseus’s hand. Odysseus’s words to him, after Eurymachus offers to make good on the damages the suitors have done to his household in his absence, are virtually the same as Achilles’s words in response to Agamemnon’s offer of a ransom for Briseis in Book 9 of the Iliad.
Eurymakhos See Eurymachus
Helen The wife of Menelaus, Helen went, apparently willingly, with Paris to Troy. The resulting war formed the background for Homer’s other epic poem, the Iliad. One might have expected Menelaus to be angry with Helen for running off to Troy, and she with him for having dragged her back. Instead, Homer describes in them a couple enjoying marital bliss: Helen and Menelaus are to all appearances deeply in love with one another and quite happy to be back in Sparta among their people and their possessions.
Eurylochos Kalypso
See Eurylochus
See Calypso
Eurylochus A companion of Odysseus, Eurylochus is the one who ties Odysseus to the mast to keep him from responding—fatally—to the song of the Sirens, and it is he who leads the first group of men to Circe’s palace, then has to report that they have not come back out and begs Odysseus not to make him
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Kirke See Circe
Ktesippos See Ctesippus
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Laertes Son of Arcesius (and thus a grandson of Zeus), husband of Anticleia, and father of Odysseus, Laertes was one of those (along with Menoetius, father of Patroclus; Peleus, father of Achilles; and Telamon, father of Ajax the Greater) who sailed with Jason on the Argo in the quest for the Golden Fleece, according to pseudo-Apollodorus. By the time the Odyssey begins, however, Laertes is old and worn by care and grief. His wife has died, his son has been absent for twenty years, first at the Trojan War and then on his wanderings home from it. Laertes has retired to a country estate, where he lives more like one of the servants than the owner.
regal, Nausicaa seems to think that he would make a suitable husband, a sentiment her father echoes. Her name, as with many of the Phaeacian characters, is related to the Greek word for ship, naus.
Nausikaa See Nausicaa
Nestor The only surviving son of Neleus, Nestor is the elderly king of Pylos, where it is said that he has reigned for three generations. Nestor’s role is that of the elder statesman and advisor.
Odysseus
Melanthios See Melanthius
Melanthius Son of Dolius, Melanthius is Odysseus’s goatherd. During his master’s long absence, Melanthius has become friendly with the suitors of Odysseus’s wife Penelope. He insults Odysseus as Eumaeus is bringing him into town and again on the morning of the day that Odysseus kills the suitors. He attempts to bring armor from the storeroom for the suitors once Odysseus has revealed himself but is caught in the act by Eumaeus and imprisoned there until the end of the fighting. He is severely mutilated (and presumably dies of his wounds) by Telemachus, Eumaeus, and Philoetius.
Melantho Melantho is the disloyal servant in the royal house at Ithaca. She is verbally abusive to Odysseus when he is disguised as a beggar, and she becomes the lover of one of the suitors.
Odysseus is the son of Laertes and Anticleia, husband of Penelope, father of Telemachus, and absent king of Ithaca. This epic chronicles his ten-year journey home to Ithaca from Troy. Odysseus is a loyal husband, loving father, and a true hero who wants nothing more than to return to his home and his loved ones. To achieve this goal, he even turns down an easy chance at immortality.
Oilean See Ajax (Oilean, the Lesser)
Pelides See Achilles
Penelope
Son of Atreus and brother of Agamemnon, Menelaus is king of Sparta and the husband of Helen. In the Odyssey, he shines as an example of the happy husband and father, the good ruler, and the perfect host.
Penelope is the daughter of Icarius, wife of Odysseus, and mother of Telemachus. Fidelity to her husband, devotion to her son, care for the household, and resourcefulness on a par with Odysseus’s own, these are the characteristics of Homer’s Penelope. She is a realist; she knows there is almost no hope that Odysseus will come back after an absence of twenty years, but she will not deny that last bit of hope its chance, which sets her apart from the suitors and the faithless servants. Her test of Odysseus’s identity by mentioning their marriage bed proves that she is the equal of the master of schemes himself.
Nausicaa
Philoetius
Daughter of Alcinous and Arete, Nausicaa is a Phaeacian princess. The night before Odysseus is discovered in the bushes, she dreams of her marriage. After Athena makes Odysseus look more
A longtime servant of Odysseus, Philoetius manages the herds for the household. He remains loyal to his absent master; he hopes Odysseus will return but thinks it unlikely.
Menelaos See Menelaus
Menelaus
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Philoitios
Zeus
See Philoetius
Son of Cronus and Rhea, brother and husband of Hera, brother of Poseidon and Hades, Zeus is god of the sky and clouds, of storms and thunder, and the ruler of the other gods.
Polyphemos See Polyphemus
Polyphemus A son of Poseidon and one of the Cyclopes, a race of one-eyed giants living on an island which is usually thought to be Sicily, Polyphemus is presented as a member of a lawless race that does not acknowledge the gods, but who also lives in an area that provides for all their needs without effort on their part.
Poseidon Son of Cronus and Rhea, and brother of Zeus and Hades, Poseidon is the god of the seas, earthquakes, and horses. Poseidon is stubborn and prone to holding a grudge, but not entirely unreasonable.
Teiresias Telamonian See Ajax (Telamonian, the Greater)
Telemachos See Telemachus
Telemachus Son of Odysseus and Penelope, Telemachus is still a baby when Odysseus leaves for Troy. He is now grown to manhood, and his home island is beset by civil disorder and his family household besieged by men who do not want him to assume the throne. Telemachus is rather shy and diffident. He has no memories of his resourceful father to use as a model and no strong male figure to look up to or to show him the ways of a ruler.
Tiresias Tiresias is a famous prophet from the Greek city of Thebes, the son of Everes and the nymph Chariclo. Tiresias is the only person in the underworld who has any current knowledge about the world above: Everyone else knows only what has happened up to the time of his death, unless news can be obtained from a new arrival.
Tritogeneia See Athena
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Creative and Self-protective Deception It could be said that creativity or imagination is Odysseus’s strongest trait. He is not mentioned by name for the first twenty lines of the poem, but a description appears at the end of the very first line of the poem in the word polutropon, which literally means of many twists. In modern usage, this word might be interpreted as shifty, except that Homer does not appear to mean anything negative by the word, merely descriptive—Odysseus is rather devious, but he has to be in order to survive. It should be no surprise, then, to discover that Odysseus is beloved of Athena, who is the goddess of creativity and imagination. She and Odysseus have much in common, as she remarks in Book 13 (XIII.296-99), including a joy in ‘‘weaving schemes’’ (XIII.386).
See Tiresias
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A large part of Odysseus’s creative energy is channeled into the weaving of deceptions for the people around him. In fact, Athena gives Odysseus what is either a left-handed compliment or a mild reproach in Book 13 when she says: ‘‘Wily-minded wretch, never weary of tricks, you wouldn’t even dream, not even in your own native land, of giving up your wily ways, or the telling of the clever tales that are dear to you from the very root of your being’’ (XIII.293-95). Yet it is important to remember that Odysseus only tells such clever or thieving (the word can have both meanings) tales because he must; he waits until he is certain of their motives to tell the Phaeacians his true identity, but he does so when pressed. Only when he must remain anonymous to stay alive or to further some ultimate purpose does he continue a deception beyond the first moment when it could be dropped.
Heroism Odysseus is a legitimate hero. His reputation from the Iliad, as recounted in the Odyssey, would be enough to establish that quite apart from the close relationship he has with Athena and, to a lesser degree, with Hermes. The gods only help those who are worthy; after all, none of the gods lifts a
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TOPICS FOR FURTHER STUDY
In a speech to his wife in Book 19, Odysseus as the beggar tells Penelope that ‘‘Odysseus would have been home long ago, but he felt in his spirit that it would be better to go all about the world collecting possessions’’ (282–84). The Greek word chr emata in line 284 can be translated as possessions or it can mean money or other valuables, but its literal meaning is things that are useful or needful. What sorts of useful or needful things does Odysseus collect on his wanderings? Assign pairs of students to sections of the poem to examine the text for things Odysseus collected. Make a list on the board. Consider carefully Odysseus’s character as portrayed by Homer. Do you think he was motivated by greed, necessity, or opportunity? Search online for a definition of hero. Match a definition to a story about hero in sports, in the military, in the role of first responder, or as an ordinary citizen responding in an unusual or dangerous incident. Prepare a written report with the definition, the story (with picture if available), and a paragraph of comparison to the values of Odysseus. What sorts of differences do you find, and
finger to help the suitors who are only getting what they deserve. There is a contrast between Odysseus and the heroes in the Iliad, none of whom would likely have endured the kind of insults and abuses that Odysseus takes without a whimper from the suitors, nor would they have considered concealing their identity, even to further a noble goal such as the destruction of the suitors. However, the heroes of the Iliad were locked into an almost ritual pattern of behavior that is suited only to war and the battlefield. Odysseus has his place in that heroic environment as well, but in the Odyssey, Homer depicts what it means to be a hero off the battlefield as well as on it. Odysseus faces circumstances that are enormously different from those he has to
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which set of values fits your personal definition of a hero? Include your answers in your essay.
What role do the gods play in the Odyssey? Compare and contrast this role with the role of the divine in a contemporary religious tradition (your own religion or another that interests you). Share your insights in a class discussion or in an essay.
Do an online search on the term cultural hospitality and compare in a written report the concept of hospitality of one or two other cultures to that of the Greeks in this epic.
Put together a PowerPoint presentation in which you explain to your classmates the circuitous homeward route taken by Odysseus. Use art images and current and ancient maps to help your classmates visualize the journey. You might consider including information about how this trip might be taken in modern times, for example, by airplane or ship, and show current images of ports and airports in the identifiable places Odysseus reaches.
contend with during the war, and he responds to them in an appropriately heroic fashion. Homer broadens the definition of a hero in these ways.
Human Condition The question of what it means to be a human is an important theme in the Odyssey. The poem provides various examples of human beings: good, bad, young, old, acting along and acting in groups, living on earth and as spirits in the underworld. Each of these types is an integral part of the story of Odysseus and his effort to discover the essence of the human condition. There are two incidents in the epic that highlight the importance of this theme for Homer. They are Odysseus’s refusal of Calypso’s offer to
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According to Greek mythology, Odysseus encountered the Laestrygonians during his wanderings. This wall painting, dating to the first century BCE , shows the Laestrygonians throwing boulders and destroying the ships of Odysseus. ( Lebrecht Music and Arts Photo Library / Alamy)
make him immortal (V.215-24), and Achilles’s reply to Odysseus’s attempt at consolation in the underworld when Achilles says that he would rather be a poor servant in life than to have rank among the dead. To be human and to be alive, Homer implies, is to matter, to be important. The dead in the underworld, like the gods on Olympus, may have a kind of existence, but it is ultimately an empty one.
Love and Loyalty Love and loyalty are two important aspects of the human condition and also make an important theme in the Odyssey. The loyalty of Eumaeus, Eurycleia, and Philoetius, for example, stands in direct contrast to the behavior of Melantho, Melanthius, and the suitors, for which they are eventually punished. Helen and Menelaus are clearly in love, and there can be little doubt that
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Odysseus and Penelope feel much the same way, despite Odysseus’s philandering on his way home and Penelope’s testing of her husband when he finally reveals his true identity. Love in the Odyssey is neither a tempestuous passion (as it sometimes seems to be in the Iliad, at least where Helen and Paris are concerned) nor a deathless romance as it would become in the lays of the Middle Ages. Love in the Odyssey is quieter and deeper. Odysseus and Penelope may not have a grand passion any longer, but the love they do have proves their relationship is secure; it is what pulls Odysseus home and what keeps Penelope hoping for his return.
Order and Disorder From the very beginning of the poem, there are indications that there is supposed to be an order to life and those who ignore or threaten that
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order will be punished for it. The main component of that ordered system is xenia, the laws of hospitality. In a world without regular places for travelers to lodge and where neither police nor other international law-enforcement bodies exist, refusing shelter to a traveler or taking advantage of a guest under one’s roof (or, as with the suitors, taking advantage of one’s host) constitutes a serious breakdown in moral and civic order. Hence the laws of hospitality are raised to the level of a religious duty and to violate those laws merits the ultimate punishment. But there are other indications of disorder in the poem as well. At the beginning of Book 2, for example, the assembly on Ithaca has not met since Odysseus left for Troy. This breakdown in civil order may have contributed to the suitors’ ability to flout the laws of xenia for almost four years. Surely, if there had been any kind of regular functioning government in Odysseus’s absence, it would have put an end to their degradations, and Odysseus would not have had to slaughter more than a hundred people on his return home. The implication seems clear that rules of social conduct matter in the Homeric world and that even small violations of those rules can have disastrous consequences.
involves patterns of long and short syllables where, as a general rule, two short syllables equal one long syllable. Greek poetry does not rhyme either, although it does make use of alliteration and assonance (repeated use of the same or similar consonant patterns and vowel patterns, respectively) in order to string words together. The Odyssey is written in dactylic hexameters, which set the standard form for epic poetry; in fact, this particular meter is sometimes referred to as epic meter or epic hexameter. Hexameter means that per line there are six feet (a unit like a measure in a line of music); dactylic refers to the particular metrical pattern of each foot—in this case, the basic pattern is one long syllable followed by two shorts, although variations on that basic pattern are allowed. (Dactylic compares to waltz time in music.) The final foot in each line, for example, is almost always a spondee (two long syllables, instead of one long and two shorts). The meter is sometimes varied to suit the action being described, using more dactyls when describing subjects that move quickly (horses galloping, for example), and more spondees when describing subjects the move slowly or are sad.
Similes STYLE Structure In general, the Odyssey is more technically advanced than the Iliad. The flashbacks that seemed so awkward in the earlier poem are handled much more subtly; for example, the action jumps seamlessly from one place to another even in the middle of a book and is itself much more lively than the formalized battle scenes in the Iliad. The epic focuses on the return trip, so the use of flashbacks seems to underscore the role of memory in the characters’ present experience. Those returning from war remember the battle scenes; those left behind remember the moments of departure; those waiting remember how long it has been since they were reunited with loved ones. Narrative in this epic is pegged, in this way, to the function of memory, to the way the narrator can recall and relive past experience in the act of relating it in the present.
Meter English meter involves patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables. Greek meter, by contrast,
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The epic similes so common in the Iliad are used much more sparingly in the Odyssey, which makes them all the more striking when they do appear. The simile is a comparison of an unfamiliar subject and a familiar one. The unfamiliar subject is the called the tenor and the subject to which it is compared is the vehicle. The comparison is made explicit by the use of like or as. The epic simile then uses so to return to the tenor of the comparison. The simile is a literary device that slows the action and emphasizes a particular moment or feeling. At the beginning of Book 20, the following two similes are used to describe Odysseus as he plots the downfall of the scheming maids and the suitors, respectively: The heart inside him growled low with rage, as a bitch mounting over her weak, defenseless puppies growls, facing a stranger, bristling for a showdown—so he growled from his depths, hackles rising at their outrage. (XX.13-16, Fagles) But he himself kept tossing, turning, intent as a cook before some white-hot blazing fire who rolls his sizzling sausage back and forth, packed with fat and blood—keen to broil it quickly, tossing, turning it, this way, that way—so he cast about. (XX.24-26, Fagles)
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COMPARE & CONTRAST
Late Bronze Age: Piracy is well-established, and ship-building evolves as a means of transporting soldiers who intend to rob distant coastal communities.
professional class of scribes, bureaucrats, or diplomats. Iron Age: Literacy in the Greek-speaking world begins to be rediscovered using a different alphabet, in which each letter represents a particular sound and not an entire syllable. Literacy is restricted to the upper classes and some professionals, such as rhapsodes (those who recite poetry) and some artists.
Iron Age: Naval forces are an important part of conducting warfare; however, the Phoenicians increasingly control trade in the Mediterranean Sea. Today: According to the International Maritime Bureau, incidents of piracy worldwide in 2009 surpass four hundred. Late Bronze Age: Mycenean pottery is refined and ornate. It depicts figures in local dress and soldiers armed for battle. Iron Age: Geometric design in pottery glaze work develops, some of which shows abstract human figures involved in mourning the dead. Today: Geometric-style vases from the eighth century BCE are displayed in many museums around the world, one of which is the National Archeological Museum in Athens.
Late Bronze Age: Writing is known, although mainly in cumbersome, syllabic forms such as Egyptian hieroglyphics, the Mycenaean Linear A and B scripts, or the Hittite/Akkadian cuneiform. Literacy is probably restricted to the highest levels of the aristocracy and a
These similes convey a sense of Odysseus’s feeling at this moment. The first compares the hero’s unknown feeling to the well-known growl of a female dog over her puppies; the second compares the way Odysseus refines his plan of attack to the well-known image of a cook moving sausage back and forth over a flame with his fork, preparing it for dinner. The hero’s emotional state and the way his plan develops in his mind are conveyed through the known subjects to which they are compared.
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Today: The vast majority of people, approximately 82 percent, are at least able to read and write well enough to conduct their own business affairs. In developed countries, the literacy rate is as high as 98 percent; however, in some underdeveloped countries only 25 percent of the people can read and write.
Late Bronze Age: Sacked cities are pillaged and destroyed, often burned to the ground, the victors assuming the city is erased from human history. Iron Age: Many cities are built on the ruins of earlier communities because their location is valuable for various reasons. Today: Archeological research finds evidence in layers as certain sites are unearthed. Archeologists have determined that between 3000 BCE and 500 CE , at least nine separate cities existed on the site of Troy.
HISTORICAL CONTEXT The Bronze Age The Trojan War and its aftermath took place around 1250 BCE , the date of the wealthy burials found by Heinrich Schliemann (1822–1890) in Grave Circle A at Mycenae in 1873. For this reason, the period is sometimes also called the Mycenaean era. This was a time of relative stability, though not, of course, without its conflicts, wars, and raids. The dominant powers in the
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Ruins of the ancient city of Troy, outside Canakkale, Turkey (Image copyright turkishblue, 2010. Used under license from Shutterstock.com)
eastern Mediterranean were the Hittites in the central part of what is now Turkey, the Egyptians in what is now called the Middle East, and the Mycenaean kings in Greece and the surrounding islands.
such as oil, grain, or perfume, is found all over the Mediterranean basin in large quantities throughout this period. Modern archeologists have determined that the ancient city of Ilium (later called Troy) was sacked repeatedly. It was a rich, fortressed community, powerful because its location allowed it to control the southern approach to the Hellespont (Dardanelles). Neighboring and distant kingdoms envied its dominance and wanted to steal its riches. Thus, repeatedly, the ancient city was attacked, sacked, and burned. These conflicts continued for many years, and robbery, rather than reclaiming the abducted Helen was the motive.
The Bronze Age is so named because sometime between about 3000 and 1200 BCE and at different times during this period in different locations, human cultures began combining copper with tin and arsenic to form the alloy bronze, a metal that was stronger than pure copper and reasonably easy to smelt and use to create tools, weapons, and other articles. Initially, copper was probably found on the surface in nuggets, but gradually people discovered that where many of these nuggets were found there was more of the material buried, and in this way, mining evolved.
The Iron Age
Trade flourished, quite surprisingly given the uncertainties of shipping and other means of transportation, together with a relatively low level of technological advancement (at least when considered by modern standards). Distinctive Mycenaean pottery, whether as art pieces intended for display and ceremonial use or for transporting trade goods
Beginning around the eleventh century BCE , the Greeks began to use iron in place of bronze, to cremate their dead as opposed to burying them intact, and to establish colonies along the west coast of what is now Turkey. By Homer’s day, roughly the middle of the eighth century BCE , these trends were well-established.
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Writing was rediscovered using a new alphabet borrowed from the Phoenicians, and foreign trade improved, helped in no small part by the colonies along the Ionian coast which, while typically independent of their mother cities, nevertheless tended to remain on friendly terms with them. The population was again on the rise, which spurred another wave of colonization, this time chiefly toward the west, to Sicily, parts of Italy, and the south of France. At least on the Greek mainland, the era of kings rapidly drew to a close. By the beginning of the eighth century, the nobles had taken the reins of power from the kings almost everywhere and were ruling over family groups or tribes in what would come to be called the polis, or city-state. Largely because of the decorations found on pottery from the period, this era has come to be known as the Geometric period, but increasing regularity was a feature of more than just the decorative arts. In this period the beginnings of a Greek national identity emerge, prompting and/ or prompted by the founding of the Olympic games and the dissemination of Homer’s works, among other factors. There is also evidence that more coordinated military tactics were beginning to be used. Religious practices, if not beliefs, also seem to have begun a process of standardization. While the Homeric heroes sometimes go to specific places for religious observances, the majority seem to be family- or group-centered rituals that take place wherever the family or group may happen to be at the moment of the ritual, and archaeological evidence from the Bronze Age tends to confirm this view. Formal altars, like the one at the fountain described in Book 17, are known from the Bronze Age, but temples, buildings specifically set aside for formal public worship, have not been identified in the archaeological record much before the ninth century BCE and become much more frequent thereafter. After Homer’s day, while the population, wealth, commerce, and industry of Greece were generally on the rise, the political pendulum swung back and forth from more aristocratic and democratic models to varying forms of oneman rule until just before the dawn of the Golden Age in the fifth century BCE .
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CRITICAL OVERVIEW The critical reputation of the Odyssey is perhaps best demonstrated by noting that it is generally regarded as one of the first works of true literature in Western culture. This is significant not only because the poem stands near the head of the list, as it were, but also because it had to beat out a fair amount of competition to achieve that status. By the middle of the sixth century BCE , around the same time as the Peisistratids in Athens ordered the first standard edition of Homer’s works to be made, there were at least six other epic poems treating various parts of the Trojan War story. Most of these were fairly short, but the Cypria, which covered everything from the decision of the gods to cause the war through Agamemnon’s quarrel with Achilles that begins Homer’s work, was at least half as long as the Iliad. Unlike the Iliad and the Odyssey, however, none of the other poems in this epic cycle has survived except in fragmentary quotations in the works of later authors. Certainly by the beginning of the sixth century, and possibly late in the seventh, there was already a group of poet/performers calling themselves the Homeridae (meaning Sons of Homer). This group may have been the forerunner of the rhapsodes, trained singers who, while they did apparently compose and improvise works of their own, were best known for reciting Homer’s poetry. At least on Plato’s authority, the rhapsodes seem to have begun taking liberties with the poems, which may have led the Peisistratids to have the official text written down for the judges at the Great Panathenaia (a religious festival in honor of Athena held every four years) that included a contest for the rhapsodes that required them, presumably in shifts and over several days, to recite the whole of the Iliad and the Odyssey. For most people, those public performances were probably their major form of exposure to Homer’s work. For the educated class, however, knowing one’s Homer quickly became the sign of culture and refinement. Homer is mentioned by name at least six hundred times in surviving Greek literature, in works of history, philosophy, religion, and law. In his Poetics, Aristotle holds Homer up as the ‘‘supreme poet in the serious style’’ and the forerunner of both tragedy and comedy. Herodotus, in his Histories, even credits Homer, along with his near contemporary Hesiod, with being the one who gave Greek religion
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its standard forms: the names, spheres and functions, and descriptions and descent of the gods. The one dissenting voice in the ancient world seems to have been that of Plato. Although he quotes Homer on more than one occasion, and even lampoons the rhapsodes and their beautification or embellishment of the standard text in his dialogue Ion, in the Republic, his lengthy discussion of the ideal state and the education of its leaders, Plato dismisses Homer as a mere imitator and excludes him (and poets generally) from his educational program. Homer was frequently imitated in the classical world, whether by the authors of the other poems in the epic cycle or lampooned as he was by Aristophanes in several of his plays (especially The Birds and The Clouds), yet his work was never equaled. Roman literature in particular owes a great deal to Homer, and to the Odyssey in particular: Later authors dated the beginnings of their national literature to a translation of the Odyssey into Latin made by the slave Livius Andronicus around 220 BCE ), and the great Roman national epic the Aeneid not only uses Homer’s epic hexameter line, it consciously imitates themes and events from both the Iliad and the Odyssey. Interest in Homer continued well into the Christian era, as seen by Macrobius’s Saturnalia (dated to the early part of the fifth century CE ), when educated Romans still knew their Greek and spent an evening discussing the relative merits of Homer’s treatment of the Troy story in comparison to Virgil’s. With the fall of Rome in 455 CE ), however, Homer and his works fell into obscurity for roughly one thousand years, until Renaissance scholars rediscovered classical texts and learned to read Greek. According to Philip Ford in his article ‘‘Homer in the French Renaissance,’’ although the name Homer was associated with the ideal of an inspired poet, it was not until Petrarch requested a translation and read Homer’s two epics that interest was renewed in the works. The story of Odysseus received somewhat less attention than did the story of the Trojan War, but it never entirely died out. The French moralist Franc¸ois de Fe´nelon turned the story of Telemachus into a Christian fable with his 1699 publication of Les Aventures de Te´le´maque, and the Spanish poet Pedro Caldero´n did the same with the story of Odysseus and Circe. Interest in Homer and his works was revived in the eighteenth century when F. A. Wolf first proposed the Homeric question, regarding who
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wrote what and when. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe started, but did not finish, a romantic tragedy about Odysseus and Nausicaa. It is thought that Milton was influenced by Homer in composing Paradise Lost, and Homer certainly inspired later poets such as Byron and Tennyson, though their works are narrower in scope. The plethora of resources on Homer in libraries and on the Internet confirms that his works are ever growing in their appeal. In fact, a 2007 collection of essays gathered by Barbara Graziosi and Emily Greenwood emphasizes the impact of Homer in the twentieth century, moving from an already revered position as the starting point of all great Western literature to that of a classic of all world literature. Obviously, the Odyssey continues to enjoy the critical acclaim and popular interest that have been associated with it throughout most of the two and a half millennia since it was first written.
CRITICISM Michael J. Spires Spires holds an MA in classics from the University of Colorado at Boulder and one in modern European history from Northern Illinois University. In the following essay, he focuses on the human element and scale of the Odyssey as an important reason for its continued popularity. As Peter Jones remarks in his 1991 introduction to E. V. Rieu’s translation of the poem, ‘‘The Odyssey—the return of Odysseus from Troy to reclaim his threatened home on Ithaca—is a superb story, rich in character, adventure and incident . . . and making the household, rather than the battlefield, the centre of its world.’’ This observation goes a long way toward explaining the epic’s perennial appeal, even nearly three thousand years after it was written. That is not to say that the Iliad, Homer’s other epic poem, is not also a superb story—just a different kind of story. If Homer’s works were operas, the Iliad would be something out of Wagner: rather heavy, highly formalized, and full of deep meaning—along with some really great singing and special effects. The Odyssey, by contrast, would be something like Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro: It has a definite moral message, but that message is conveyed through humorous means, on a human scale, with plenty of mistaken identities and other plot twists—and again, some
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JUSTICE AND ORDER PREVAIL IN THE END: ODYSSEUS IS SAFELY RESTORED TO HOME, KINGDOM, AND FAMILY, AND ALONG THE WAY READERS ARE TREATED TO SOME FANTASTIC STORIES.’’
really great singing and special effects. To put it in somewhat more modern terms, the Iliad is more like Cecil B. DeMille’s treatment of The Ten Commandments, while the Odyssey has a bit more in common with George Lucas’s Star Wars films. Jones also suggests that Homer has adapted Odysseus’s adventures in Books 9 through 12 from the myths surrounding Jason and the voyage of the Argo, but it seems that adapted is perhaps too strong a word, and it must be emphasized that Homer would have had excellent reasons for including such material in the first place, if that is what he did. To begin with, heroism is usually set against the background of a great war or major battle. Having already used that setting in the Iliad, Homer must next turn to the other traditional setting for heroes and heroism, the long and difficult journey; there was simply no other vocabulary for heroic behavior available for him to use. Related to that problem is one of what might be called credentials. Tradition has it that Odysseus’s father was one of those who sailed with Jason on the Argo, which is enough to establish Odysseus as a potential hero, but not to prove him a hero in his own right. (The same sort of thing happens to Telemachus in the Odyssey: Merely being the son of his father is enough to put him in line to inherit Odysseus’s estates and authority, but if he is going to hold on to that inheritance, he must earn the respect of others and demonstrate his ability and fitness to succeed his illustrious father.) Given that Odysseus was much more skilled at stratagems, ambushes, and tactics than at simple hack-and-bash fighting (at least given the way Homer depicted him in the Iliad), the best way to establish Odysseus’s credentials as a hero would be for him to do the same sorts of things his father
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Laertes had done in his younger days, since those are the sorts of things that heroes do when they are not lucky enough to have a war in which to prove their merits. Unlike the Iliad, the Odyssey is concerned more with the individual than the group, and with individuals who are much more down-toearth than those found in the earlier poem. Most people will never be a Hector, keeping an invading force at bay all by himself or an Achilles, singlehandedly responsible for the continued success of his comrades-in-arms. However, the average person might measure up to a Penelope, a Telemachus, or even an Odysseus, at least in spirit and understanding. There may not have been enchantresses, magic potions, and interfering gods to contend with, but there are still new places and new people to discover and to explore, much as Odysseus did on his wanderings. As scientists, astronomers, and astronauts probe the reaches of outer space, the spirit of Odysseus is no less comfortable in that little known region than it was here on Earth; it is fitting that the command module of the ill-fated Apollo XIII mission was christened the Odyssey. As Jasper Griffin points out in his discussion of the afterlife of the Odyssey, the popularity of the Homeric poems is something of an anomaly: many epic works are popular for a time, then fade into obscurity, to be read only by scholars and specialists. What makes the Odyssey so enjoyable to read is that it is full of people to whom modern readers can relate. Odysseus, Penelope, Telemachus, Eumaeus, and even some of the suitors seem authentic and drawn from real life. While the epic has obvious connections with the Iliad and was almost certainly written or composed after that poem, it is important to look at the Odyssey as a work in its own right. It is incorrect to call it an epilogue to the Iliad, as if it were an afterthought, something to tie up a few of the loose ends Homer leaves hanging in the earlier tale. It is also important to look at the Odyssey as a work of its time. There is much in the poem that is relevant to modern readers, but some parts do not sit well with many of them. Slavery, for example, is something that everyone in the poem (and in Homer’s own time) took for granted, and as practiced in Homer’s time was a different institution than it was in the pre-Civil War United States. Slaves in the Odyssey, especially Eumaeus and Eurycleia, are well-fed, prosperous (Eumaeus even has a slave of his own), and treated more like
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WHAT DO I READ NEXT?
Thucydides wrote the history, The Peloponnesian War, which describes the twenty-sevenyear war between Athens and Sparta (c. 431– 404 BCE ) that eventually caused the fall of Athens. An acclaimed translation by Martin Hammond was published by Oxford University Press in 2009.
Historian John Claughton, in his Herodotus and the Persian Wars (2008), contextualizes the writings of Herodotus on the expansion of the Persian Empire in the sixth and fifth centuries BCE Herodotus mentions Homer. The Iliad is the other epic poem written by Homer, and it tells some of the events of the Trojan War that take place before the opening of the Odyssey. Among the best of several modern translations is the Penguin Classic edition by Robert Fagles (2006).
Waiting for Odysseus (2004), by Clemence McLaren, is a teen novel that retells the story of Homer’s Odyssey from the point of view of Penelope, Circe, Athena, and Eurycleia. In Homeric Moments: Clues to Delight in Reading the ‘‘Odyssey’’ and the ‘‘Iliad’’ (2002),
members of the household than servants in it. Laertes is said to have honored Eurycleia no less than his own wife, and Anticleia raises Eumaeus with her own daughter and, when the daughter is married off, she gives him gifts and sends him to a country estate. There is also the question of the suitors’ destruction. The wholesale slaughter of 108 men simply because they thought to pay court to an available woman, even given that they were rude and disrespectful, may seem a bit much to modern sensibilities. No one in Homer’s audience would have given this a second thought. As Homer is careful to point out from the very beginning of the poem, the suitors bring their destruction down on themselves and could easily have avoided it if they had paid attention to the warnings they were given.
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a guide for secondary and college students, classicist Eva Brann, an experienced teacher, explains the characters, story, and language of Homer’s epics, seeking to show how the poet achieves delight and how that delight makes these poems come alive for modern readers.
Perhaps the best-known adaptation in English is James Joyce’s 1922 novel Ulysses, in which a twenty-four-hour day in the Dublin life of Leopold Bloom is related to scenes in Homer’s poem, although if there were not guides to explain the correlations, probably most readers would miss them.
Tennyson’s dramatic monologue, ‘‘Ulysses,’’ presents an older Odysseus who arrives at Ithaca only to realize he cannot retire from adventure and be content to live out the rest of his days by a domestic fire with his now twenty-years-older wife. The poem first appeared in the 1844 collection titled Morte D’Arthur, and Other Idyls, and it reflects the Victorian commitment to exploration and empire building.
To understand that attitude, it is important to remember, first of all, that the obligations between hosts and guests were considered sacred duties, enforced by Zeus in his aspect as god of strangers. Ancient mythology is full of illustrations of what becomes those who break the hospitality codes, from the story of Baucis and Philemon in Ovid’s Metamorphoses right back to the destruction of the Cities of the Plain in the Hebrew Scriptures. Second, in Homer’s time, the ability of a family or a household to survive was directly linked to its being able to feed itself. By consuming the resources of the household, the suitors threaten nothing less than the survival of Odysseus’s family. On top of the disruption of the social order, the suitors also plot to kill both Telemachus and Odysseus, if they can manage it. Lacking police forces and law
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courts, in Homer’s day personal vengeance and family retribution were the accepted means for redressing wrongs. Eventually the Greeks would come to see that this system had its own limitations, and they would lay the groundwork for the modern western legal system, but that day was several centuries after Homer’s time. The Odyssey is the product of a fine, erudite mind. Its intricacy of plot, masterful choice of both setting and the point of dramatic time at which Homer begins the story, the way he manipulates the structure so the major characters can tell their stories about what has taken place during the twenty years of Odysseus’s absence without being dull or anticlimactic, and the extensive use of foreshadowing and symbolism, all betray a fine creative intelligence at work. Achilles and Hector are tragic figures in the Iliad, but it is in the Odyssey that features of tragedy, as Aristotle later described them in his Poetics, can also be seen. Here is a noble man, temporarily brought low by misfortune and, at least to some degree, by his own character, together with some rather ignoble types who enjoy early prosperity but eventually reap their just rewards. There is even a double change of circumstances: from good to bad for the suitors, from bad to good for Odysseus. Justice and order prevail in the end: Odysseus is safely restored to home, kingdom, and family, and along the way readers are treated to some fantastic stories and comic episodes that Aristophanes in all his glory would have been happy to use. It is remarkable that the Odyssey was written so early and so well; it is all the more remarkable that it lives still, able to connect to readers in a world, Homer could never have imagined, as inventive as he was. Source: Michael J. Spires, Critical Essay on Odyssey, in Epics for Students, 2nd ed., Gale, Cengage Learning, 2011.
Scott A. Belsky In the following essay, Belsky discusses how Homer’s Odyssey influenced Western thought. For roughly 2,500 years people have studied, debated, heralded, and denounced the poet known as Homer and the works Western civilization attributes to him. Through academia’s ever-evolving manifestations Homer stands as the center of authority and stability for any student of literature. It is no wonder then that Homer survives and indeed flourishes in the current post-structural, postmodern, ideological-ridden world of the academy. Therefore the true testament does not reside in the particular
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WHAT APPEARS TO BE PERFECTLY NATURAL WHEN COMMITTED ELSEWHERE AND AGAINST AN ENEMY TURNS OUT TO BE GROTESQUE AND SHAMEFUL WHEN PERFORMED AT HOME.’’
dogmatic light that one shines upon ‘‘Homer’’ and other such works, but the ability of these works to absorb and refract so many lights from so many regions of the scholarly world. Nevertheless, there are those who fear that Ancient Greece and particularly Homer are losing their influence on contemporary cultural thought due to the increased push for diversity in literary studies. Such fears seem premature because even the opponents of the canon still return to Homer for parting shots. Regardless of the attacks from various camps, Homer pervades culture both within and outside of the university; and despite the dirges for the old bard, his clarion song continues to resonate and reverberate at the center of the Western world. In their article entitled ‘‘Who Killed Homer?’’ professors John Heath and Victor Davis Hanson paint a bleak and unflattering picture of Homer’s place in our contemporary society. The two men lament, ‘‘the Greeks who started it all are so little known in modern America’’ (Heath and Hanson 1998). The ‘‘it’’ refers to everything from government to philosophy to science. Heath and Hanson place blame for this condition squarely on the shoulders of the classicists. ‘‘Our present generation of classicists helped to destroy classical education . . . our generation of classicists, faced with the rise of Western culture beyond the borders of the West, was challenged to explain the importance of Greek thought and values in an age of electronic information, mass entertainment and crass materialism. Here they failed utterly.’’ In response most classicists would argue quite the contrary, claiming they have reinvented themselves and their departments as a way of staying current while still providing the essential exposure to ‘‘Greek thought and values.’’ In fact, by broadening their horizons many classics departments, both in North America and in Britain, are seeing increases in enrollment according to the Council
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of University Classical Department of Great Britain. Furthermore, the American Philological Association’s own survey results reveal that the job market for classicists is stronger than it was a decade ago and has seen a general trend of increases in open positions in recent years. If these organizations’ findings are any indication, the Greeks are still very much alive and in demand at the academy. However, what really seems to aggrieve Heath and Hanson is not so much that the classics are supposedly disappearing from Western education, but the way in which classicists approach these revered volumes. ‘‘Classicists now, along with the best social constructionists, moral relativists and literary theorists in the social sciences and comparative literature departments, ‘privilege’ ‘uncover’ ‘construct,’ ‘cruise’ ‘queer,’ ‘subvert’ and ‘deconstruct’ the ‘text’’’ (Heath and Hanson 1998). This criticism seems shortsighted especially if these expanded scopes make the study of classics relevant to the current student population. Perhaps one can argue that such scrutiny further demonstrates Homer’s versatility—in other words, what makes him so modern for every age. Therefore what Matthew Arnold sees in Homer and Michel Foucault sees may vary greatly, but Homer can absorb both the praise and criticism. It is believed that every generation gets the Homer it deserves. It seems one can also say that every generation gets the criticism of Homer it deserves, and the one constant remains—Homer survives and only deepens his pervasiveness within the psyche of Western civilization. Michael Clark, professor of classics at the University of Cincinnati, demonstrates this point precisely in his paper ‘‘Adorno, Derrida, and the Odyssey: A Critique of Center and Periphery.’’ He does not look to the shining testimonies of democracy and other enlightened ideals that bear the influence of Ancient Greece in our society to prove its influence. On the contrary, he sees naked capitalism and colonialism as the more telling evidence of Homer’s long-stretching shadow. Clark’s work draws on the critical philosophies of Freud and Marx along with arguments of other prominent cultural theorists to make the point that the fundamental Odyssean man, ‘‘whose realization as subject is inversely related to the diminution of subjects elsewhere and whose mode of subjectivity is a . . . prototype of bourgeois imperialism’’ (1989, 110), stands as the blueprint for the Western man. Using Clark’s definition of
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the Odyssean man to examine Odysseus himself, one begins to see less and less of the noble stalwart of the greater good and more of the capitalist. Odysseus’s shrewd machinations to preserve and promote the self often come at the expense of those around him. One example of such behavior in particular concerns Odysseus’s encounter with Polyphemus. Firstly, Odysseus is not content with simply pillaging cheeses and lambs from the Cyclops’ homestead as his crewmen urge. Rather, he waits in the cave in order to meet its inhabitant, fully expecting that he will be treated as a guest in accordance with the Greek concept of xenia. A close study of Polyphemus’s initial shock upon discovering the men reveals just how misguided Odysseus is about his plan. The giant blurts, ‘‘‘Strangers! . . . now who are you? / where did you sail from, over the running sea-lanes? / Out on a trading spree or roving the waves like pirates?’’’ (9. 284–86). Clark cites this passage as evidence that the Cyclops sees Odysseus for what he truly is; and in retaliation, Odysseus must blind the creature (1989, 125). Though, examination of Odysseus’s response suggests that he perpetuates his own blindness to the severe reality of the situation. Had Polyphemus practiced the values of xenia, as evidenced earlier in Telemachus’ treatment of the stranger at his doorsill and Menelaus’s hospitality toward Telemachus and Pisistratus on their unannounced visit to the Spartan king, he would not have been so forward as to ask these probing questions before making his ‘‘guests’’ welcome. Since Odysseus works on an egotistical and faulty belief that the greater world works in alignment with his own worldview, he expects the sort of treatment he would afford his own guests. The error, though, is that such a conviction leaves the members of his crew with no option but to remain in the cave with Odysseus and face the horrid fate of the Cyclops. The men whom Polyphemus selects to eat never have an opportunity to realize the self or to act in any independent manner the way Odysseus can. They are not even given names, let alone free will. In fact, they simply exist in this episode as the victims of Odysseus’s wrong-headedness and arrogance. In addition, the dilemma of the Cyclops offers Odysseus alone a chance for self-actualization since so often he exists as an individual only when he is in a state of conflict. This episode provides its audience only one ‘‘man’’ on whom to focus. One might argue, since Odysseus has labeled himself ‘‘Nobody’’
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he is committing an act of self-abnegation; however, the reverse seems to hold more truth. Since he names himself, he must have a concept of himself and his place in the world. Although this name may suggest a lowering of the self in some capacity, it actually helps to affirm the existence of the individual in the greater world through announcement. Odysseus, who knows himself to be part of an aristocracy, readily plays the roles of lesser men and even beggars when the situation calls for it in order to accomplish his goal of escape. Therefore, the taking on of a new identity through the renaming process demonstrates his ‘‘cunningly wise’’ attempts at self-preservation. Yet, the true example of his subjugation of others through the realization of the self comes as a result of his choosing to taunt the Cyclops. When he is just barely out of rock-tossing distance, Odysseus calls out, ‘‘Cyclops—/ if any man on the face of the earth should ask you / who blinded you, shamed you so—say Odysseus, / raider of cities, he gouged out your eye, / Laertes’s son who makes his home in Ithaca!’’ (9.558–62). This occurs despite his crew’s attempts to prevent just such an outburst. Of course, Odysseus’s actions incur Poseidon’s wrath with the end result spelling the doom of the crew. Once again, his crew is given no opportunity for salvation. They simply must abide by the whims of their leader, which often cause greater hardship for them. Clark’s argument notes a similar behavior in Odysseus’s insistence on hearing the Sirens’ song. Once again, Odysseus puts himself in a position of diminished authority by allowing himself to be ‘‘lashed by ropes to the mast’’ (12.195)—just as when he uses the name ‘‘Nobody’’ in the episode concerning the Cyclops—in order to gain some sort of ultimate upper hand toward fulfilling his end desire. He also plugs the oarsmen’s ears with beeswax to prevent them from hearing the Siren’s alluring but fatal song, allowing them to row past the island unscathed. Clark concludes that even though the Sirens exist beyond Odysseus’s domain, as does the land of the mighty Cyclops, he ‘‘is still driven [to hear their song] by his colonizing impulse, and . . . devises a mechanism to symbolically master the Sirens’’ (1989, 120). Odysseus’s use of his crewmen, the beeswax, and the rope further exemplifies the rational man’s use of manpower and technology to secure his own well being in the face of some opponent equipped only with its natural and inherent abilities. Clark likens this to ‘‘the entrepreneur who ‘organizes’ labor and who dines on caviar as a
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happy result’’ (120). A not dissimilar analogy can be found in an imperialist Europe that sought territories in far-flung reaches of the globe during the nineteenth century and earlier. Such colonists often ventured in preparation for hostile encounters and made ready with weaponry far superior to that of the indigenous people they encountered, be it in North America, Africa, or other regions. As with any colonizing peoples, the aggressors often come with an eye toward self-aggrandizement and Odysseus seems no different in this case. Granted, he does not seek to acquire anything materially from the Sirens, but in his very hearing their song and living to tell about it, he has obtained mastery over them. Yet again, Odysseus’s special privilege of listening to this song comes at a price to the others around him. In this case the Sirens are stripped of their innate, though deadly, quality for the sheer pleasure of Western man. To continue, once a reader uses the dissenting methods of Clark and other contemporary critics, the Iliad and Odyssey also reveal a double standard for those who are of the aristocratic ruling class and those who are not. In the few opportunities that lesser characters are given an independent voice, they are always presented in an unfavorable light, seemly reinforcing the promotion of opportunism but only for the elite, a theory not unlike certain political agendas of the contemporary Western world, and the topic of argument for nearly all Marxist criticism. Let us examine the few times that lesser, nonaristocratic characters are given an independent voice in the Odyssey. In Book 10, Odysseus tells Alcinous, king of the Phaeacians, ‘‘we were so close [to Ithaca] we could see men tending fires’’ (10.34). While Odysseus sleeps, however, his crew grows curious about the sack given to him by Aeolus, god of the winds. One crewman says, ‘‘Heaps of lovely plunder he hauls home from Troy, / while we who went through slogging just as hard, / we go home empty-handed’’ (10.45–47). The men proceed to open the sack—that in actual fact holds the wayward winds, not the coveted plunder the crew expects—and their ship is blown clear away from their homeland. It seems apparent that Homer intends audiences to see this insurrection as a most detestable breech of social order. Not only does this act violate the alliance of crew to captain, it desecrates the hierarchy of king to subject, a divine arrangement lorded over by Zeus himself.
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In a second example, when the crew is stranded on Helios’s Island and Odysseus instructs them not to harm the Sungod’s cattle, the men ignore his urgings and slaughter some to stave off starvation. Helios’s retribution comes when he pleads his case to Zeus who, in turn, strikes Odysseus’s remaining ship with a thunderbolt. In both cases the men who attempt to realize a sense of self and promote their own agenda receive punishment and scorn when that agenda conflicts with the designs of the ruling class. Still, a third example of self-identity in the Odyssey comes in the form of the disloyal serving maid Melantho. She not only verbally abuses Odysseus when he is disguised as a beggar; she also has the audacity to become the lover of one of the suitors. Both actions suggest independence and declaration of the self. However, the sexual relationship seems to be the more heinous act against Odysseus because it is a strike at his position as an aristocrat. William Thalmann points out, ‘‘for suitors to sleep with [serving maids] is a blow at Odysseus’s property, an implicit claim of rival ownership’’ (1998, 72). It is a violation more in line with the greedy crewmen who mistakenly let loose the winds, rather than the act of self-sustenance those same crewmen commit in slaughtering the cattle. In this sense, the Odyssey tends to establish a view that any offence against the holdings of the divinely appointed ruling class cannot go unpunished. Although, in all three examples mentioned here, the characters that attempt to advance a self-interest counter to Odysseus’s interest create a rift in hierarchical structure. Consequently, one could conclude that such treatment of minor characters not of the ruling class promotes a tone of imperialism that permeates Homer’s texts and as a result endorses the status quo. Yet, it is worth noting that in the Iliad Achilles also threatens the hierarchical fabric through his public feud with Agamemnon. In fact, the poem opens, ‘‘Rage—Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus’s son Achilles, / murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses’’ (I.1–2). In no uncertain terms, Homer blames Achilles for the carnage suffered by the Argive forces as a result of his attempt at independence, but unlike the other characters whose promotion of the self left them unredeemable, Achilles remains a focal and even at times sympathetic character in the Iliad. Granted, this independence leads him to bow out of the fight, but as Lowell Edmunds notes, Achilles’s ‘‘loyalty to Agamemnon and to his fellows is based on the
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principles of philia, a kind of friendship. This philia is pre-political or apolitical’’ (2004, 42). Therefore, Achilles has no hierarchical tie to Agamemnon the way a subject might and has no absolute duty to follow him. Furthermore, both men are of the aristocratic class and as a result their declarations of self appear acceptable, welcome, encouraged or at the very least expected. On the other hand, when Thersites expresses a similar sentiment as Achilles, he is roared down and beaten by Odysseus, much to the delight of the other non-ruling class soldiers who remain nameless and loyal. Contemporary scholars tend to read this episode in varying ways. Some see Thersites as evidence that Homer may not have supported the rule of a small, dominant class, and therefore advocates some form of democratic voice; while others, such as Thalmann, see the dissention as revealing an actual tension among classes that ultimately reinforces the ideology of the ruling class. Firstly, let us examine the build up to this episode. Agamemnon issues a test to the Achaean forces by ordering a return home. Much to his surprise, the men ‘‘cried in alarm and charged toward the ships’’ (II.174). It takes Odysseus to reinstate the fighting spirit in the soldiers, both the aristocratic leaders and the common ranks. Homer appears to display a particularly favorable view of aristocracy as seen through the way Odysseus goes about bolstering each class of fighters. ‘‘Whenever Odysseus met some man of rank, a king, / he’d halt and hold him back with winning words’’ (II.218–19). Compare this with his treatment of the men from the lower orders: ‘‘When he caught some common soldier shouting out, / he’d beat him with the scepter, dress him down’’ (II.229–30). Such obvious contrasts in behavior and manner might suggest a biased view of class, yet Odysseus could also be politically motivated in his words toward fellow aristocrats. If he speaks his disgust at their self-actualizing desires to flee the war at Troy and return to the business of their own autonomies and disregard the ideology of a unified ruling class, he risks embarrassing them and disrupting the social order of aristocracy, a fault already committed by Achilles through his condemnation of Agamemnon. Nevertheless, a beating of the lower classes with a scepter, of all objects, does appear to be a strong symbolic avowal of the ruling class’s dominance.
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Kurt A. Raaflaub in his essay ‘‘Homer and the Beginning of Political Thought in Greece’’ offers a similar view: The poet tries hard to discredit [Thersites] from the beginning, and when Thersites at the end gets his deserved beating the crowd is ecstatic: the greatest deed Odysseus has ever done. Having thus made clear that this man counts for nothing, the poet can let him say what actually is to be taken very seriously. For what Thersites says not only is explicitly described as venting the anger of the masses but corresponds closely with Achilles’ criticism [of Agamemnon]. (Raaflaub 2004, 29)
For Raaflaub, such an act reveals a poet who has an awareness of the power the masses can wield if properly united the way the ruling class seems to be. This potential could eventually sow the seed of change if not for the blunt violence of aristocracy in the form of Odysseus. By putting this legitimate criticism of the ruling class in the mouth of a dissenter, Homer can address the very real dangers of an unchecked oligarchy while still maintaining the expected adherence to social order. William Thalmann, on the other hand, contends that Thersites’s outburst, while voicing an ostensibly actual aspect of the delicate balance among classes, in the end does more to reinforce the class divide than attend to any possible critique of the power structure. For Thalmann, Thersites exemplifies the chaos that exists in the interplay between ruling and dominated classes. Because of his vulgar and brazen speech, this soldier is described as ‘‘the ugliest man who ever came to Troy’’ (II.250). To further accentuate the point that he is not to be taken seriously as a member of the social order nor as a soldier, he is discredited as ‘‘bandy-legged’’ and as one who always seeks to ‘‘provoke some laughter from the troops’’ (II.249). Essentially, Thersites fulfills the role of comic relief. Thalmann calls him the ‘‘alazon or imposter’’ because he dares to assert himself in the face of a member of the ruling class (1988, 16). Yet, it is Agamemnon’s own actions and the actions of Achilles, of course both aristocrats that give Thersites the ‘‘courage’’ or possibly ‘‘impudence’’ to act. Ironically, Thersites’s name can mean both ‘‘courage’’ and ‘‘impudence.’’ Since he was witness to both Agamemnon’s self-serving, haughty demands and Achilles’s rant against such behavior, Thersites perhaps feels emboldened to vent his own displeasure.
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As stated above, Thersites’s words express a legitimate grievance; one Achilles himself poses earlier. He says of Agamemnon: How shameful of you, the high and mighty commander, To lead the sons of Achaea into bloody slaughter! Sons? No, my soft friends, wretched excuses— Women, not men of Achaea! Home we go in ships! Abandon him here in Troy to wallow in all his prizes. (Iliad II.272–76)
Compare this with Achilles’s first words upon hearing Agamemnon’s desire for Chryseis, the captive Trojan woman originally won by Achilles: ‘‘Shameless—/ armored in shamelessness— always shrewd with greed!’’ (I.174–75). Although both point out the dishonorable act of lusting over women and plunder, only Thersites earns a beating from Odysseus for his indignation. Therefore Odysseus’s actions have more to do with maintaining social order than with any personal aversion to the sentiment. Thalmann points out, ‘‘Like many comic characters, [Thersites] is on the margins of society and blurs class distinctions. His detached, ironic perspective also allows a peculiar clarity of vision, bringing into focus tensions and contradictions in society that otherwise would remain half concealed, tolerated by the commoners with inarticulate resentment at most’’ (1988, 17). In this sense Thalmann agrees with Raaflaub’s contention that the sentiment of Thersites’ vitriol concerns an issue of import, worth acknowledging not only in terms of the story but in the greater society as well. Both also acknowledge that since Thersites speaks in the language of the ruling class, he proves a legitimate threat to the order necessary to maintain the class system. Such a hazard further prompts Odysseus to beat him, and by doing so Odysseus once again commits an act of self-preservation, not unlike those mentioned earlier. Only here the ‘‘self’’ Odysseus strives to maintain is really the body of the dominant class and not simply the individual. Thus, it can be concluded that Odysseus, who is heralded for his cunning and power with words, actually resorts to the barbarism of brute force and physical violence in an attempt to protect an ideology that favors him over the ‘‘others.’’ In this moment the whole class structure can collapse under the weight of mass revolt, but rather ‘‘Thersites, through his defiance and the reaction it provokes, involuntarily performs a healing function for his society’’ (Thalmann 1988, 17). This ‘‘healing’’ occurs when the
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soldiers who witness his beating begin to laugh and mock Thersites themselves. In fact, by the end of the episode, the nameless soldiers recondition themselves in the language and value system of the ruling class’s ideology by jeering, ‘‘Never again, I’d say, will our gallant comrade/ risk his skin to attack the kings with insults’’ (II.323–24). Therefore, the catalyst for a possible recognition of the social ills committed by the unconstrained ruling class is lost through the unconscious affirmation of that very ruling class by those it subjugates. Aside from allowing only those members of the ruling nobility to appear in a positive light when they express a concept of the self, Homer also holds a double standard when it comes to the types of behaviors deemed acceptable at home and abroad. It is on this issue that Michael Clark makes his most damning but also his most poignant criticism of Homer and subsequently Homer’s influence on Western thought. For Clark, ‘‘the whole of the Homeric oeuvre ostensibly endorses plunder as a primal act of survival and supremacy’’ (1989, 115). In fact, a great deal of the battlefield banter in the Iliad concerns the ritual of stripping armor from a defeated warrior. For example, after Hector slays Patroclus, Menelaus confronts the Trojan prince and taunts him with claims that he can ease Patroclus’s parents’ grief ‘‘if only [he] brought [Hector’s] head and bloody armor home/ and laid them in Panthous’ loving arms’’ (XVII.44–45). Later when Hector challenges Achilles, he promises, ‘‘once I’ve stripped your glorious armor, Achilles, / I will give your body back to your loyal comrades’’ (XXII.305– 06). In both instances, the right to the armor by the victor demonstrates the clear symbolic subjugation of the defeated warrior. That is why, as a matter of personal and ethnic pride, Menelaus along with the other Achaeans fights stalwartly to try and prevent Hector’s stripping of Patroclus’s corpse. Without these tokens of achievement Hector’s victory would ring hollow. The Odyssey too promotes this view regarding plunder. Shortly after leaving Troy, Odysseus and his crew ‘‘sacked the [Cicones’] city, / killed the men, but as for the wives and plunder, / that rich haul [they] dragged away from the place’’ (9.45–47). Although these acts may be thought of as the spoils of war committed against an ally of the enemy, a later incident suggests this type of behavior to be reflective of a pervasive opportunistic mindset that values the ill-gotten gain
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over all other kinds. As Clark asserts, Odysseus’s own words to Athena upon his return to Ithaca imply that any reward given to one as a gift ‘‘is less worthy of respect than that which has been taken via brute force—a model vaguely reminiscent of the bull-headed capitalist who respects only what is ‘earned the hard way’’’ (1989, 115). In this particular episode, Athena, disguised as a shepherd boy, comes upon Odysseus, who has just returned to his homeland bearing the gifts given to him by the Phaeacians. Unaware of the goddess in disguise, Odysseus launches out on an elaborate fabrication outlining how he acquired the loot at the battles of Troy and how he killed the man intent on robbing him of it. All of these examples appear to indicate that the imposition of one’s will upon another individual or group commands the greater sense of manhood and essentially self-hood. Yet, it cannot be overlooked that these instances of buccaneering, or supposed buccaneering, all take place away from Ithaca. So where does that leave those characters who commit plunder within Ithaca? Firstly, they perpetrate a crime against their fellow citizens and divine law by violating the concept of xenia, which governs the behaviors of guests as well as hosts. Secondly, they demonstrate a faulty view of the Odyssean ethic because they choose to execute their acts of plundering within the boundaries of their own society. Therefore, they are rightly deemed reprehensible and deserving of punishment. The incriminating acts the suitors perform against Odysseus’s household are not much different than what Odysseus and his crewmen have committed elsewhere, but the intent cannot be justified due to the suitors’ relationship to the oikos, or ruling household, of Odysseus. Since many of the suitors are actually citizens of Ithaca, their shameful deeds strike at the heart of the social hierarchy. Granted, even though the men are nobility themselves, this distinction does not lessen the severity of the threat. Once again, in slaughtering the suitors, Odysseus executes an act of self-preservation and self-actualization. His revenge restores the social order just as we have seen him do earlier in the incident at Troy. Clark affirms, ‘‘the modern parallel is not difficult to conceive, the one in which imperialistic activity is not only condemned, but unheard of, at home— be it within the United States, Europe, or the industrialized ‘West’ in general—and yet is all too commonplace, even ordinary, away from the
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center’’ (1989, 116). Such a striking parallel may prove it evident, though not very flattering, that Homer continues to be alive and well in our own culture. Thus, the suitors’ actions demonstrate the Odyssean colonial influence in all its ‘‘ruthlessness and ambiguity’’ (117). Furthermore, they express just how pervasive this behavior can become. What appears to be perfectly natural when committed elsewhere and against an enemy turns out to be grotesque and shameful when performed at home. So it seems appropriate to return to the question posed at the onset by Heath and Hanson, ‘‘Who killed Homer?’’ The answer, aptly enough, seems to be ‘‘Nobody.’’ He lives in our society as naturally and ubiquitously as the air we breathe. We may not notice his influence because all we do and are maintain his indelible mark. As Clark notes in his argument, some time ago William Bennett called for higher education to return to a core of great texts that expressed the best Western civilization had to offer on the human experience (1989, 111). It might sound like a noble endorsement and unquestionably Homer’s works deserve to be at the center of such a notion, but to blindly accept wholesale what these texts offer is to fall victim to a grievous error. Thus, the current trend in cultural criticism of dissenting readership, or what one may call reading ‘‘against the grain,’’ seems profoundly appropriate for examining Homer and all ‘‘great’’ works. As Thalmann states at the close of his book, The Swineherd and the Bow: If it is true that ideology can only be fully recognized as such in a culture and among people removed from oneself, then uncovering how ideologies work in a culture so distant as that of eighth-century and Archaic Greece can help us look afresh at the discourses that today variously justify and disguise huge and ever growing economic, social, and racial inequalities. . . . A text, furthermore, that has enjoyed the rather ambivalent honor of being made a ‘‘classic’’ requires this special effort of ‘‘reading against the grain’’ if it is not to be taken for granted and reduced to banality. . . . And so an alternative to taking the narrative’s alleged values as self-evident is to interrogate it for the ways in which it represents political experience, as opposed to reproducing it, and to ask the reasons for the particular ways in which it does so. (Thalmann 1998, 305)
inspiration on contemporary thought. For every ‘‘Axis of Evil’’ we can turn to Homer and find a parallel in the Trojan allies, such as the Cicones, who are reduced to nothing more than targets for plunder. With each passing day that we see the attempt to spread Western influence across the globe, we can look to Polyphemus’s cave, or the shores of the lotus-eaters and the Laestrygonians and see the ignorant attempts to make a wider world fit into a more familiar, narrower point of view. Yet, generosity and camaraderie also exist in our Western world, along with cunning and innovation. These too are the stalwarts of our ancestors. Therefore, the West cannot but be colored with Homer’s brush. His critics and champions alike only help to amplify his permanence within our culture, and every new addition to the canon wears the beggar’s rags that conceal the Odyssean ethic underneath. While some may be direct reshapings of the myth, as has been recently undertaken by many writers including Margaret Atwood and Elizabeth Cook along with film director Wolfgang Peterson, others are an indirect homage as delivered in the Coen brothers’ film O Brother, Where Art Thou? So indeed the bard still lives in all we do and say, both the good and the bad. Nevertheless, naysayers and detractors will continue to bewail his demise regardless of how plainly he sings through our every deed and exploit. Source: Scott A. Belsky, ‘‘The Poet Who Sings Through Us: Homer’s Influence in Contemporary Western Culture,’’ in College Literature, Vol. 34, No. 2, Spring 2007, pp. 216–28.
In a current political climate that tends to see the world in terms of us (good) and them (bad), no greater evidence can we have of Ancient Greece’s
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FURTHER READING Bloom, Harold, ed., Homer’s The ‘‘Odyssey,’’ Chelsea House, 2007. This book is an updated collection of ten essays with diverse critical approaches to the Odyssey. Nagy, Gregory, Homer the Classic (Hellenic Studies), Center for Hellenic Studies, 2010. This study traces the reception of Homer’s poetry from the fifth through the first century BCE Nagy explains Homer’s literary influence on the centuries that immediately followed him and also how his epics were used by individuals and states to promote certain cultural and political agenda. Nagy’s purpose is to show how Homer’s poems became classics during the years of when Athens flourished. Paipetis, S. A., The Unknown Technology in Homer (History of Mechanism and Machine Science), Springer, 2010. This English translation of a book originally written in Greek is a study of the scientific and technological knowledge contained in Homer’s epics, which indicates a highly advanced civilization in the Mycenaean era. Stark, Freya, Ionia: A Quest, Tauris Parke, 2010. Modern-day Ionia, including inland from the western shore, in the area in which Homer is purported to have lived, is the focus of this new book. Wachsmann, Shelley, Seagoing Ships and Seamanship in the Bronze Age Levant, Texas A&M University Press, 2008. This book offers a comprehensive study of how early eastern Mediterranean cultures took to the sea. Included are Aegeans, Minoans, Mycenaeans, among others. Wachsmann describes ship construction, piracy, laws pertaining to the sea, and Bronze Age shipwrecks.
SOURCES Biers, William R., The Archaeology of Greece: An Introduction, Cornell University Press, 1996. Butler, Samuel, Authoress of the ‘‘Odyssey,’’ 1897, reprint, Forgotten Books, 2008. Fagles, Robert, trans., Odyssey (Penguin Classics), by Homer, edited with introduction by Bernard Knox, Penguin Classics, 2006.
SUGGESTED SEARCH TERMS Odyssey
Ford, Philip, ‘‘Homer in the French Renaissance,’’ in Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 59, No. 1, 2006.
Homer
Graziosi, Barbara, and Emily Greenwood, eds., Homer in the Twentieth Century: Between World Literature and the Western Canon, Oxford University Press, 2007.
Homer AND poet
Griffin, Jasper, Homer: The ‘‘Odyssey’’: A Student Guide, 2nd ed., Cambridge University Press, 2004.
Odysseus AND Calypso
Jones, Peter V., ‘‘Introduction,’’ in The Odyssey, translated by E. V. Rieu, 1946, reprint, Penguin Classics, 1991, p. xi.
Odysseus
Levi, Peter, The Pelican History of Greek Literature, Penguin, 1985.
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Odysseus AND Cyclops Odysseus AND Ithaca
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