The Odyssey

I. The Epic Tradition:

"A long narrative poem on a serious subject, related in an elevated style, and centered about an heroic figure on whose actions depends to some degree the fate of the nation or race." [M. H. Abrams]

• Epics were highly regarded by the Greeks in the time of Homer (8th century B.C.), who were struggling to regain the lost glory of the Myceneans.



• oral culture: By telling the story of people, an epic celebrates the great deeds of the past and establishes for future generations common values. songs/poetry = history

The so-called "Heroic Age" of Greece was the mainspring of the epic tradition. In the 12th and 13th century B.C. the confederated Greek tribes tried to establish new kingdoms in Asia Minor and Egypt. These tribal struggles became the matrix of the story of the Siege of Troy, the rich fortress which guarded the passage from Europe to Asia over the Dardanelles.

• In time, a cycle of eight Homeric poems developed that handled the Trojan saga from the judgment of Paris till the second journey of Odysseus.

• Scholars believe that the origin of the epic lies in the heroic ballad, or Tale of Prowess, (also called the aristeia) in which a famous hero fights a duel with a powerful adversary.

II. GREEK GODS: AN INTELLECTUAL REVOLUTION

The poem begin with a council of the gods to shows us how the human is inscribed by the divine.

• Earliest religion was "cosmic religion" as in Gilgamesh.



• Chthonic deities lived literally, "under the earth."



• Before the Greeks, magic and divination was humankind's sole defense against fearful powers that threatened.



• One Greek philosopher wrote, "All things were in confusion until Mind came and set them in order."

Greeks re-created the gods in their own image as Olympian deities [anthropomorphism: ascribing human characteristics to inanimate objects or to non-humans]:

• The world of the gods was a heroic, social world in every respect, with a past as well as an on-going present.



• The humanization of the gods was a step of astonishing boldness; it demanded a great pride in one's own humanness.



• No word for "god-reverencing" or for "love of god" exists in Homer. Greeks respected the power of the gods, not their moral excellence.



• Religion was quid pro quo [this for that] or do ut des [I give so that you give] arrangement.

In the Iliad Zeus is more like the king of a heroic society. The gods are quite human and the Greeks seem to imagine that the life and activity of the heavenly powers was not unlike their own life on earth. Imperfect.

• See Iliad 19.100, or 24.527-33, where Zeus keeps good and evil in jars, dispensing them at his whim....

The Odyssey, on the other hand, assures us that the gods are just.

• At the council Zeus first denies responsibility for what was happening (rightly indicating Poseidon's role 1.78-90), but then proposes a course of action predicated on his being able to force Poseidon to relent.



• Zeus's speech on the fate of Odysseus begins with a general discussion of the problem of human suffering and the unbreakable connection between destiny and human error (1.45-59).

III. Why begin the poem with Telemachos? [Homer's artistry]

We are all like Telemachos at some time or other in our lives.

• A typical teenager who doesn't really know who he is; resents the situation in his home without being able to do anything about it.



• He gradually matures and in the end finds his father and discovers that he can fulfill his own heroic destiny.

Many believed that the Telemachy was an independent poem added to the story of the great wanderings of Odysseus; but, even if this is so, Homer gains a great deal from it and uses it well:

• Though Odysseus in the Iliad is a great man, his magnitude increases by the flattery of Nestor (3.120-29), Menelaos (4.353-69), and Athena herself (1.242, 292-95).



• Also, his family's great need for him is demonstrated; as Athena states (1.292): "Ah, bitterly you need Odysseus, then." We see this especially through the bad manners of the suitors.



• The suffering of two great heroes--the long wandering away from home (Menelaos) and the treachery upon arrival (Agamemnon)--both point up the case of Odysseus.



• Justification of the coming revenge: the suitors are a bad lot and have themselves in the wrong; but Homer goes out of his way to indicate clearly their guilt:



• Athena holds up Orestes as an example to Telemachos (1.336-41). Later this same story is told again by Agamemnon's ghost (11.486-505) who uses his story to warn against the dangers of a wife suitor.



• Telemachus also helps set up good manners through his example: how he treats the vistor in Book I; how he is treated in Books III and IV.

Thus the so-called Telemachy is crucial to the poem's structure; the narrative technique of the epic is based on delay, excursion, elaboration--whether by creative expansion or incorporation of by-material. The long task at hand is the vengeance of Odysseus.

Athena's appearance also emphasizes that in Bronze Age Greece nothing great happens without the aid of a divine power. In the Odyssey the psychological and the metaphysical aspects of any event are not mutually exclusive: on the contrary, Homer holds them to be complementary. Thus Athena's appearance signals but does not cause Telemachus' coming of age.

IV. Homeric Values: See handout.

Areté, the most characteristic attribute of the Homeric hero, can be translated as "the good" but means far more--"merit," "excellence," even "self-fulfillment."

• So central is the drive for honor in Homeric culture that "The denial of honor due to one's areté was the greatest of human tragedies" (Werner Jaeger). e.g., the wrath of Achilles.

Where the balance between existence and annihilation was so precarious, competitive values (where success only counts) were more highly valued then cooperative virtues.

• Success alone counted--the means of his success counted for very little.

The social organizations and value system of the Homeric poems are based on the oikos, or the noble household.

• Some sense of community existed among the Greeks (primarily because the Greek language bound them together), but in crises the claims of the oikos were always primary.



• Preserving the autonomy of the oikos required the martial abilities of the agathos, whose qualities were denoted and commended by the noun areté (superlative adjective form: aristos).

Timé is usually rendered as "honor" or "compensation." While often denoting possession of material goods, timé is not simply equivalent to these goods.

• Timé is an important part of the oral culture of Mycenaean Greece, where praise and blame were public activities.

The bond between members of the he oikos), who were tightly bound into a mutual support system, were distinguished from the rest of the world by the word philos--they "love" one another.

• When an agathos traveled away from his oikos, there was no real way for this rights and safety to be protected. Thus he supplicated another agathos who headed an oikos in the hopes of being received as a philos.



• Such a dependent relationship was denoted by the word xeinos or "guest-friend." These relationships were sacred and reciprocal, signified by an exchange of gifts.

V. Chronology of the Odyssean Wanderings:

1. The fall of Troy.
2. The Kikonians. 9.38 ff. (Thrace). typical freebooter raid.
3. Malea
4. The Lotus-Eaters. 9.88 ff. (? often identified as the coast of Libya, but also on the southern tip of Greece)
5. The Cyclopes. 9.110 ff. (perhaps the steep slopes of Mt. Eryx at northwestern corner of Sicily)
6. The Cyclopes.
7. Aiolia island, home of Aeolus. 10.1 ff.
8. Almost home to Ithaka
9. The Laistrygonians. 10.85 ff. (perhaps Bonifacio, on the southeastern tip of Corsica, where there is a narrow harbor and steep cliffs).
10. Aiaia, Circe's isle. 10.143 ff. (? Capo Circeo, once an island on the Italian coast southwest of Rome, now a peninsula).
11. The underworld, the land of the dead. (11.1) symbolic death/rebirth. Then back to Circe. 12.1 ff.
12. The Sirens. 12.184. (?one of the islands north of Sicily).
13. The Wandering/Prowling Rocks (12.65).
14. Scylla, Charybdis. 12.240 ff. (perhaps the northern entrance to the straits of Messina [Sicily], where a massive chunk of rock is still called Scylla).
15. Thrinakia, Oxen of the Sun. (? Sicily) 12.312 ff.
16. Ogygia, Calypso's isle. 12.530 ff. [and before, 5.1 ff.] (perhaps Gozo, one of three islands in the Malta group, where there is a cave bearing Calypso's name).
17. Skheria, home of the Phaiakians. 5.415 ff. (perhaps Corfu, an island near the western coast of Greece, where there is a ship-shaped rock visible in the harbor).
18. Ithaka. 13.1 ff.

This narrative is structured around resisting temptation and folly:

ADVENTURE THEME

Triad I Kikonians Folly

(Book 9) Lotus Eaters Temptation

CYCLOPS MONSTERS

Triad II Aiolus Folly

(Book 10) Laistrygones Monsters

CIRCE TEMPTATION

(Book 11) HADES DEATH

(Hades-Phaiakia-Hades)

Triad III Sirens Temptation

(Book 12) Scylla and Charybdis Monsters

THRINAKIA FOLLY

• Only thirty days actually lapses in "real time." Thus the action is compressed: in medias res

VI. Odysseus as Homeric Hero

A. Odysseus's areté:

• physical skills [discus throwing with Phaiakians; boxing with Iros, XVIII]



• self-discipline [oxen of the sun, XII.332; Aeolus]



• curiosity [Cyclopes, IX.180, 240; Sirens, XII.53, 180]



• caution [with Athena on Ithaka, XIII.350]



• Above all, Odysseus' intellectual ability is exalted.

Thus, as a hero, he represents humankind in its supreme form, a combination of physical strength, intellectual ability, and the will to survive all obstacles, at any odds.

B. Why must Odysseus reveal himself to Polyphemos?

When he taunts Polyphemos [9.525-28.--"if ever mortal man inquire / how you were put to shame and blinded, tell him / Odysseus, raider of cities, took your eye: Laertes' son, whose home's on Ithaka!"], he reminds us that identity resides not only in the present, but also in the past and future. "Once honor is destroyed the moral existence of the loser collapses" according to Bruno Snell [e.g. Achilles] cf. XVII.367.

C. "The Cyclopeia"

1. Odysseus and crew resupply their ship on the island, but he wants to go to mainland for a gift (IX.240)

2. he supplicates and wants gift (IX.280)

3. blasphemy of Polyphemos (IX.287-88)

4. Nohbdy = nameless, honorless man vs. Cyclops, "Eater of Guests" (IX. 499-503)

5. reveals his identity (IX.525-28)

6. curse of Polyphemos

Odysseus' journey home is a journey back to his past and to his true identity. When we first meet him, he is a captive on Kalypso's island where he is isolated from the world--again a nobody.

Joseph Campbell, comparative mythologist, says most satisfactory path to adulthood involves the pattern common to mythic heroes: "separation from home and all that is familiar, the initiation into the world between what was and what is to come--where one undertakes a task and undergoes a transformation--and the return (incorporation) to the community as a new individual."

D. Nostos or "Homecoming" on Ithaka

Most of the poem occurs on Ithaka--especially, the entire second half which is in continuous present time. Homer is making us aware that the journey/odyssey is continuing and even deepening at home.

1. Note that Odysseus accepts (in some sense) the criticisms of Eurylokhos about his former folly (X.465-66) since he re-tells the Phaiakians about this. He may be recognizing the consequences....

2. Note also that his homecoming on Ithaka is made possible because of his willingness to accept temporarily the humilation of being a Nohbdy....

3. Note that he cautions Eurykleia about vaunting aloud over the coprses of the slain (XXII.428-30), signifying that a new inwardness is possible.

• What we see in Homer is the beginning of the transition from shame culture to guilt culture.



• Odysseus's vengeance is not so excessive. Given the central importance of the oikos, a wronged agathos naturally set the highest priority on obtaining recompense and restoring his home and his areté even by violence.



• Xeinos / philos relations form the controlling motif in the poem because the guest-host relationship was the most important social relation beyond the extended family in Homer's world.



• The suitors' offenses are threats to the continued existence of Odysseus' oikos and to his philoi. They squander the food and wine of his oikos and they openly abuse Penelope and Telemachos.



• All the "gifts" of the suitors to the suppliant Odysseus are ironically called by some form of word xeinos in Greek to emphasize the grievousness of their offenses.

VII. Penelope:

A. Her Character

Another reason the narrative starts with the maturing of Telemachos is that only his new independence will bring Penelope to the question that she has evaded until then--the bitter question of her remarriage.

• Odysseus had told her to remarry when Telemachos had a beard. See 18.293 ff.



• Her choosing a new husband will not only help save his property from the ravages of the suitors, but also his life from their plots.

Why does she not let herself believe the many reports of his return?

• Telemachos reports Menelaos's encounter with Proteus (17.157; cf. Helen's prophecy, 15.195-98); Theoklymenos reports that Odyesseus is on Ithaka (17.175); the disguised Odysseus reports a recent sighting (19.295, 332)... then interprets Penelope's dream (19.573).

Is it instinct that causes her to set the trial for the next day (the first day of the new month, the archer-god Apollo's day)? Or is it a sense of duty for Telemachos?

• Penelope is the central figure of the home [duty]: she kept it in existence and she makes it recoverable.



• She is as wily and crafty as he is: her strategy of weaving a magic web, of coyly encouraging all the suitors (so that she can maintain some control over them), and then stringing of the bow were all devices worthy of Odysseus himself. [and he knows this: 19.626]

B. Odysseus's Love for Penelope ?

Does Odysseus base his desire to return home on his desire to return to oikos and philoi or his love for Penelope?

• Cf. 5.228-29, where Kalypso assumes his refusal is due to his love for Penelope, and he responds: "Yet, it is true, each day / I long for home, long for the sight of home [oikos]"

The Greek word philein is usually rendered as love, but question remains open as to what emotional qualities, what overtones, the Greek word really possessed. E.g., when Odysseus is "entertained" hospitably by Aeolus [or "played host"] (10.14), philein is the word used.

Is his attachment for her only the philia [i.e., tie or bond] that is rooted in her being part of his home? Since his desire to go home is so much a part of his sense of self--bound inextricably with place, fame, etc.--it is very difficult to say how much he loves her.

• See, for example, 5.46-47, 5.121-22, 6.347-48, 7.81-82, where the longing for oikos doesn't mention Penelope, only "your friends / under your own roof in your father's country." formulaic phrase



• Many kinds of love are shown in the Odyssey: parental and filial ties, the fellowship of warriors, the devotion of servant to master.



• But the kind of emotion we usually refer to as love--the passionate, exclusive relationship between man and woman--does not seem to exist in Homer.



• Women were held to be naturally inferior and therefore limited in their function to the production of offspring and the performance of household duties--most commonly weaving.

• The classic exposition may be read in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics where he talks of the inferior kind of philia (rendered there as "friendship") between unequal partners, as between man and woman, in contradistinction to the true philia that can exist only between equals.

VIII. Mortals and Gods: Identify the following:

Antinoos--one of the two chief suitors

Athena--goddess of wisdom and weaving

Kalypso--goddess and nymph of Ogygia

Eurymachos--one of two chief suitors

Helen--most beautiful woman in the world

Hermes--"Argeiphontes," messenger god

Nestor--ancient warrior of Pylos, famed for garrulity, wisdom

Menelaos--Spartan warrior, husband to Helen

Nausikaa--daughter of Alkinoos of Phaiakia

Orestes--son (and avenger) of Agamemnon

Penelope--wife of Odysseus

Poseidon--god of the sea, brother to Zeus

Proteus--the old man of the sea, herdsman of seals for Poseidon

Telemachos--son of Odysseus

Zeus--chief of the gods