The Return of Odysseus

[dropcap]O[/dropcap]dysseus finally returns home in Book XIII of the Odyssey, but “could not tell what land it was / after so many years away … The landscape looked strange, unearthly strange / to the Lord Odysseus” (XIII. 238-39, 245-46). Odysseus spends the next seven books carefully making his way around Ithaka, making allegiances, and practicing his trademark dissembling and contending in order to insinuate himself into the presence of the suitors to make them eventually “atone in blood!” (XI.132). The lessons of the voyage must come into play if Odysseus is to reclaim his house and kingdom so that he may set his lands in order and finally put the chaos of this wanderings behind him. Book XXI sets the stage for the slaughter of Book XXII. Telemachus has finally accepted Odysseus as his true father and now stands beside the returned king at the end of Book XXI: Odysseus has cast aside his beggar’s rags and now stands regally before the doomed suitors, bow in hand, son by his side, and electrical effects from the gods themselves. You couldn’t ask for anything better out of Hollywood.

The first to take an arrow is Antinoos. At the point that Odysseus finally reveals himself, the suitors had been warned many times and in many ways to vacate the house of Odysseus, so the intensity has been building since Odysseus has returned home: the suitors will soon pay for their perfidy with their blood — nothing they can do will now will save them as book XXII begins with the death of the arrogant and somewhat dense Antinoos.

Book XXII parallels book XXII of the Iliad: the deciding battles in both epics are decided. The Odyssey book XXII reads stylistically similar to the Iliad book XXII: notice the Homeric, or epic, similes of war (cf. ll. 337-43 for an example); the brutality of war is not disguised with florid romanticism — Odysseus shows no mercy as deals out death to the suitors and those who supported them. He has come by stealth and now uses combat to rid his home of the infection. Part of that infection are the twelve maids that helped the suitors by betraying Penelope. Since those maids are part of Odysseus’ own house, they meet a particularly brutal end — only after they clean the carnage of the great hall — as does Melanthios. These descriptions are disturbing, but suggest that one’s house is a sacred place as is one’s duty to that house. After the traitors have been dealt with and the hall cleansed, Odysseus meets Penelope for the first time in twenty years in book XXIII.

She is, at first, dubious that Odysseus has truly returned. Shrewd like her husband, she does not allow herself to believe Eurykleia’s report that the suitors are now dead by the hand of the returned king. Penelope vacillates between hope and disbelief, but she agrees to see “that strange one who killed” the suitors (XXIII.91), for indeed he is a stranger after being gone for so long:

And [Penelope], for a long time, sat deathly still
in wonderment—for sometimes as she gazed
she found him—yes, clearly—like her husband,
but sometimes blood and rags were all she saw. (XXIII.105-109)

This aged and silent man in front of her is both Odysseus and he is not, perhaps commenting on the theme of disguise and that runs thgroughout the Odyssey, finally, once and for all, asking the question who is the true Odysseus? as he confronts his wife after twenty years. How does one know that truth, especially from a master of lies? There are ways to test.

Even as Odysseus goes about his kingly business of keeping the suitors’ families at bay, Penelope remains chary and distant. He addresses her as “strange woman” and she returns, mocking him, “strange man” and begins her test by asking Eurykleia to set up Odysseus’ bed outside of his bedchamber. Odysseus readily passes the test, but not before he gets upset. The bed cannot be moved: it is part of a living, growing olive tree — it cannot be moved without destroying it. This becomes a potent metaphor for the marriage of Penelope and Odysseus as the foundation of the Odysseus’ kingdom and his patriarchal order imposed on nature. It also suggests that their marriage is as close to natural as humans can get — as close to the perfection of marriage that is possible in this world: a devoted wife that will endure any hardships to uphold her marriage commitment to her husband. Seemingly, this devotion only flows in one direction, as Odysseus has spent much of his time away shacked up with Circe and Calypso.

While Odysseus and Penelope are again united, however briefly, Odysseus still has the task before him of placating the parents of the suitors that he just slaughtered. This becomes the primary task of the problematic book XXIV. I’ve always disliked this book that ends with a deus ex machina, suggesting that Odysseus truly did not learn anything on his nostos. The book opens with the suitors’ souls entering the Underworld, and a chat between Agamemnon and Achilles — we’ve come full-circle, for the Iliad began with the contention between the two Achaeans, but now they carry on like two old drinking buddies: Agamemnon still complaining about Clytemnestra and implicating all women in his archetypal disdain for their glib loyalties, even though Penelope provides as example that does not agree with his stereotype. I guess that once you’re dead, you can’t learn any different.

After some words by the two dead heroes who didn’t have much time for the dead suitors, the action shifts back to Ithaca, where Odysseus has chosen to disguise himself in order to fool his father, Laertes. Typical of Odysseus, he approaches Laertes in order to test him (disguised as “Quarrelman” — OK, Nobody was clever, but Quarrelman?), yet atypical of Odysseus he has no ostensible reason to. Why is he testing this poor man with “sharp words” other than to “trouble him” (XXIV.265)? This whole exchange makes little sense to me, nor does that scene that follows.

It seems that Odysseus is ready to do battle once again with the fathers of the slain suitors, many of whom seem as pig-headed and dense as their sons. Even though Athena urges them to “let matters rest,” half of the mob decides to assert their vengeance on Odysseus. Stupid stupid men. As the men approach, Odysseus and company are ready to fight again. Only Athena — appearing in her true form? — is able to stop them with a divine sanction: “Now hold!” / she cried, “Break off this bitter skirmish; / end your bloodshed, Ithacans, and make peace” (XXIV.592-94). Yet, Odysseus does not listen! He starts to attack, and Athena has to remind him to command himself: “Call off this battle now, / or Zeus who views the wide world may be angry” (XXIV.608-09). Dude, remember, you pissed off Poseidon and look what happened; do you really want to do the same with Zeus? Has Odysseus learned nothing? I always feel short-changed after reading book XXIV; I think the epic should have ended with the last book, the reunion of Odysseus and Penelope, as that brings the action of the world, through the kingdom, back to the pith of all foundational relationships: home.

So, where is home, finally? And has Odysseus been successful in coming back? Even though Odysseus must leave again soon to carry the oar to the people who are strangers to the sea, he is destined to die as an old man at home. If an odyssey is a return it also represents that return through growth. In a way, Odysseus can never return home, for he left as a very different person, but does the concept of home then grow by the experiences he has in the world? Perhaps if we are to grow as a species, we must leave the comforts of home in order to re-imagine and return to the familiar by bringing in the different.

A friend of mine recently offered a bit of conventional wisdom: that which is earned means much more than that which is given. In my experience, this observation holds true for most things. In order for the concept of home to be significant, we must discover why it is significant to us individually. Yes, we can stand on the backs of giants for our traditional answer, but that leads to complacency, like the suitors, or we can go out into the world and return with experiences that allow home to mean much more, like Odysseus and Telemachus.

It seems that “home” encompasses that with is both positive and negative about our culture: home allows for shelter from a dangerous world, but it also isolates for that world’s wonders. We can hide behind our NRA memberships cards, blockaded with shotgun in hand against any intruders, or we can open the front door and let in some fresh air. Yes, dropping the drawbridge might allow some evil things in, but those challenges keeps a home worth fighting for and coming home to.

Gogol and Pushkin’s Poshlust

While Gogol, Russia’s master of circumlocution and hyperbole, and Pushkin, the rational romantic, are apparently dichotomous in many ways, both share the singular distinction of forming the foundation of 19th and 20th century literature in Russia and beyond. Distinctly different in various ways, Gogol’s Dead Souls and Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin also, however, share many similarities, e.g., authorial digressions where views of the narrator/author are expressed, social commentaries, descriptive passages, and a pervading sense of poshlust.

Vladimir Nabokov, in his essay “Our Mr. Chichikov,” defines poshlust as “cheap, sham, common, smutty, pink-and-blue, high flautin’, in bad taste.” This is displayed by both authors: Chichikov himself could almost be the archetype of poshlust, while described as a pseudo-golden mean, “not handsome, but neither was he particularly bad looking; he was neither too fat, nor too thin; he could not be said to be old, but he was not too young, either,” Chichikov reaches to the pinnacles of pretension and fatuousness. All of the other characters in Dead Souls are also victims of poshlust, each of them a distorted characiture of some, at least to Gogol, execrable human quality: Manilov is a sugary do-nothing, Sobakevich is a lumbering glutton, Nozdryov is the gambler/cheat/liar, Natasya Petrovna Korobochka is the knit-picking land-owner described as a “silly old woman,” et cetera. Pushkin’s portrayal of poshlust is the most evident in Linsky, the air-assuming, Germanified romantic. Onegin, melancholy and reposed in his own world, and especially Olga, capricious and fickle, are themselves characters of poshlust. The only character that seems to escape poshlust, at least internally, is Tatyana.

Both Gogol and Pushkin comment on social aspects of life; while Gogol’s vision is wholly within his prodigious imagination, both writers show a particular disdain for the socially contracted and perpetuated poshlust. The authors’ views of society could probably be represented in the whimsical Olga: flitting around between lavish compliment, dexterous dance partners, and the granting of favors; no sincerity, prudence, or even truth mare the social worlds of Gogol and Pushkin. The Ladies of N. in Dead Souls personify the decadence of poshlust in that they are intrinsically external, i.e. comme il faut is the ruler of their lives, they are the “ever so refined” part of the human species. Not that the men are really any better — they are not. It is Gogol’s portrayal of women, especially the “lady agreeable in all respects” and the “simply agreeable lady,” that condemn then to perpetuity in poshlust.

Each writer was a master of his respective idiom. Reading Gogol can be likened to riding in his troika when he himself has laid the road. He, with intricately detailed descriptions, can take one anywhere in his imaginative jaunt through Russia. Only occasionally cutting through the surface in his digressions, Gogol is really the master of irrelevant, non-sequitur description. Pushkin’s digressions are more philosophic, sometimes waxing nostalgic, observations about life than minute detail. He addresses sundry topics, from excessive pride to comme il faut, from spring days lost in youth to “Just let yourself be the whole care.”

The consequences of poshlust are evident. For Gogol poshlust is the troika that carries those afflicted through their lives. They talk and breathe, yet never think and act. They are monomanics who care about one thing: the collection of dead souls, eating, being obsequious, et cetera. Gogol’s characters, as colourful as they are only exist in the absence of life. Death is the inevitable outcome of poshlust in Pushkin. At the poem’s conclusion Linsky is worm fodder, Onegin is heading in that direction, and Tatyana, even though her loyalty is admirable, she has sacrificed her happiness to live to be true to a man she doesn’t love. Probably, these books relate, we all are victims of poshlust on the troika to the grave.

The Odyssey, Book 11 Notes

Book XI of the Odyssey shows Odysseus’ symbolic death and rebirth: a journey into the psyche of Odysseus in which he learns both about his past and future and comes to terms with his responsibilities as a leader, a father, a husband, and a hero. Perhaps most importantly Odysseus learns from the shades of his past the wisdom he needs to return home safely — to defeat his own selfish desires and those of his enemies. This descent is a personal one for Odysseus; though his crew joins him, they do not make it home, and they seem to represent an aspect of Odysseus’ psyche that he cannot control — free radicals that will eventually have to be dealt with in one way or another. While Odysseus meets many figures from his past and his culture, there are a few that hold key lessons for Odysseus.

His first lesson is one of his responsibility to his crew from the dead Elpenor. Odysseus and his men left Aiaia in such haste that they did not realize that Elpenor was not among them. Even men who are not heroes deserve respect; even those who do not die the deaths of heroes are a part of the community. So much like Gilgamesh’s lesson: leaders are judged by how they treat their community. This is an important lesson for Odysseus who shows imprudence toward his crew’s safety and well-being in several instances before this point, precipitating the death of many of them. Elpenor stands for those who served under Odysseus whom he owes much of his own success and survival even at the cost of their own lives.

From Teiresias, Odysseus learns of his immediate future, one that will be filled with anguish and the reason for that anguish: he blinded the son of Poseidon. If we consider Teiresias’ predictions, they are not really anything Odysseus did not either know, or could figure out. Perhaps Teiresias represents Odysseus’ buried unconscious: the monsters that he does not necessarily wish to face, but must in order to return home safely. After learning of the irate Poseidon, Odysseus receives two imperatives from Teiresias: you must deny yourself and restrain your shipmates if you are to survive the wrath of the sea god. Do not let your men touch the cattle of Helios, or it will spell destruction for ship and crew. This imperative is probably the most important for Odysseus, as it recalls Odysseus’ pride in telling the Cyclops exactly how blinded him, not practicing his characteristic shrewdness. If Odysseus is to land again on Ithaca, he must eschew the impulses that seem to make a great warrior like Achilles, and practice a cunning that will allow for a surreptitious return, not necessarily characteristic of a great warrior. While Odysseus will be successful with this first directive, he ultimately fails in the second, allowing his crew to meet their doom.

Odysseus learns, too, of the suitors ransacking his house and courting Penelope; he must make them atone in blood — “in open combat or by stealth” — for their perfidy. Odysseus will cunningly employ the latter before allowing the suitors to know that the lord of the manor has returned, unlike the unfortunate Agamemnon. Finally, Odysseus learns that his return to Ithaca will not mean the end of his wanderings: he will have another quest that will take him again from his home. More on this later.

After learning of his future, Odysseus speaks with the shade of his mother Anticlea. From his mother, Odysseus learns of Penelope’s faithfulness, Telemachus’ duties as a magistrate (she died before Telemachus own coming of age), and Laertes’, Odysseus’ father, retirement to the country, unable to face the seeming fall of the house of Odysseus. Anticlea herself could not endure Odysseus’ absence precipitated her early death. Her words add to Odysseus’ pain and his urgency to return home to set his lands in order. Yet, in his despair, Anticlea warns him that he must “crave sunlight soon” — yes, all will die, but now is not Odysseus’ time. He must “Note all things strange / seen here, to tell your lady in after days” (XI.253-54).

While Odysseus meets many more shades — Heracles, Agamemnon, Sisyphus, Ajax, among others — one in particular strikes me as most important: Achilles. The greatest Greek warrior becomes the mouthpiece of the Odyssey in his brief interaction with Odysseus. The hero of the Trojan War asks Odysseus what he is doing where “the dimwitted dead are camped forever, / the after images of used-up men” (XI.560-61). The dead, indeed, are mute until Odysseus gives them blood; Achilles is no exception, yet the hero’s speech is more of an admonishment, an echo of Anticlea’s carpe diem. Odysseus’ answer to Achilles is flippant: you were the greatest, so fortunate in life that surely death must not pain you so much. Achilles speaks what could be the motto of the Odyssey:

Let me hear no smooth talk
of death from you, Odysseus, light of councils.
Better, I say, to break sod as a farm hand
for some poor country man, or iron rations,
than lord it over all the exhausted dead.

Indeed, Achilles learns a wisdom in death that his rage blinded him to in life: nothing matters but life, not the petty differences of jealous men, not the the reckless rage of a wronged friend. It’s better to be alive and in bondage than just a mute shade. While Odysseus does not react to this speech explicitly, it does become a part of his drive to survive and overcome. Odysseus, unlike Achilles, is a survivor, and in order to for family and country to remain significant, one must live in order to maintain them. Death brings only silence, a grim view of a Greek afterlife; no Elysian Fields here.

While Odysseus hears much in the underworld, only the remaining books of the Odyssey illustrate what he learns, if anything. How is Odysseus reborn as a hero? What finally does he bring home to his community and to himself?

The Odyssey, Book 10 Notes

Several themes and scenes from book nine are paralleled in book ten. The theme of hospitality that began book nine also begins book ten on Aiolia Island, domain of the wind king who takes pity on Odysseus and gives him a bag of winds, perhaps an appropriate gift for the tactician. Yet, just in site of home, his crew, another parallel of their imprudent natures, wait until Odysseus is asleep and let all the winds out of the bag, reminiscent of Pandora’s Box. Odysseus and crew are hurtled back to Aiolia where they once again seek Aiolos’ assistance. He banishes Odysseus from the island, an appropriate response to someone out of favor with the gods; perhaps this is a hint that the listeners of Phaeacia should take?

After a brief encounter with the cannibalistic Laistrygonians, a parallel to the cyclops though this time much more deadly, Odysseus and his remaining ship land on Aiaia, home of Circe. This time, after his recent encounters, Odysseus takes “counsel with myself,” suggesting his growing apprehension and distrust toward his crew, showing Odysseus perhaps at a low point on his journeys: trustful only of himself, growing more like the unsociable cyclops who are also fretful and distrusting of community. Instead of taking the initiative to lead the exploration of this island, he sends his crew ahead, perhaps a prudent move in light of his recent misadventures. Yet, his crew, led by Eurylokhos, are also distrustful of Odysseus, and show their trepidation through tears. To make his command seem fair, Odysseus lets them choose lots to see who will explore, and Eurylokhos and his platoon lose.

The crew encounters an open glade that parallels the Lotos Eaters: carnivores — wolves and mountain lions — lay passive, suggesting a Garden of Eden before the fall. These hunters are like tamed beasts in a circus, wanting only petting and tacit acknowledgment from their masters. It’s as if the beasts had partaken of the lotos and forgotten their fiercer natures; they have fed, in Odysseus’ words, on a “drug of evil” that caused them to become tame and without purpose. This fact should have been a hint to Odysseus’ men, yet only Eurylokhos is able to escape and report back to Odysseus.

John William Waterhouse, “Circe Offering the Cup to Odysseus”

This scene also foreshadows the sirens in book twelve: Circe sings with her “beguiling voice” to lure them men into her trap — “to make them lose / desire or thought of our dear father land” (X.260-61). Not only that, but they seem to metamorphose into pigs, perhaps a representation of their true natures: beasts for slaughter, which they eventually turn out to be. One might also tease this metaphor out a bit more by suggesting the masculine principle that seems to guide much of the Odyssey is not altogether fair to the women of this world. Men are pigs, and women are something less — the property of pigs. Circe, then, becomes a witch because she does not conform to the cultural standard of the time: living by herself on an island, isolated from human community and and its cultural imperatives imposed on women.

Well, it’s up to Odysseus now to take a leader’s responsibility to help his men by subduing the vile temptress. On his way to her lair, Odysseus claims to have met Hermes, who gives him the molü to defeat her potion. Hermes also gives him the directive bed her: “she will cower and yield her bed— / a pleasure you must not decline” (X.334-35). How about that: divine sanction for seduction; how can Odysseus refuse? Do this, warns Hermes, or be “unmanned by her as well” (X.340); apparently, Odysseus is to give her what she needs. Armed with Hermes’ warning and amulet, Odysseus approaches Circe and drinks her potion, but Odysseus was ready for her “unholy drug”:

[quote]Without a word, I drew my sharpened sword
and in one bound held it against her throat.
She cried out, then slid under to take my knees,
catching her breath to say, in her distress:
[ . . . ]
‘Hale must your heart be and you tempered will.
Odysseus then you are, O great contender,
[ . . . ]
Put up your weapon in the sheath. We two
shall mingle and make love upon our bed.
So mutual trust may come of play and love.’ (X.361-78)[/quote]

Ugh, OK — only because Hermes told me to. It seems that Circe succumbs pretty easily, from a vile witch to having a “flawless bed of love” (X.390). Are we to take Odysseus at his word, here? Remember, he is narrating this story, and he would not necessarily look good to his listeners if he told of her rape; she needs to be willing, it seems, in order for Odysseus to look the hero and impose his male order to Circe’s domain. Perhaps she is not such a threat after all?

So while Odysseus and Circe mingle in her bed, Odysseus’ men still languish in the pigs’ sty. After sex, Odysseus seems down, and Circe enquires “Why sit at table mute, Odysseus?” Isn’t that just like a man: he gets what he wants, then has nothing left to say. Turns out that he is thinking of the guys, like a good captain should, no? He doesn’t want to be here eating with Circe; he’d rather be down at the pub quaffing a few pints with the lads. With this, since Odysseus is now master, Circe at once turns his men from pigs back into men and allows them to dine with them as humans should. And being men, they could not help consenting (X.452).

All expect Eurylokhos, who remains shrewdly dubious, enough that he challenges Odysseus. Yet, even Eurylokhos’ protests could not convince the men that Odysseus does not have their best intentions at heart:

[quote]‘Where now, poor remnants? is it devil’s work
you long for? Will you go to Circe’s hall?
Swine, wolves, and lions she will make us all,
beasts of her courtyard, bound by her enchantment.
Remember those the Cyclops held, remember
shipmates who made that visit with Odysseus!
The daring men! They die for his foolishness![/quote]

Eurylokhos seems to have a point, but the men do not listen to him, and Odysseus is ready to to kill him to silence his perfidy. Yet, despite Eurylokhos’ wisdom, the crew returns to thew hall of Circe, followed by the reluctant Eurylokhos.

While seemingly a minor insurrection, this episode suggests what Odysseus’ greatest weakness truly is: his responsibility to his community versus his own individual desires. At this point, Odysseus seems blind to this weakness, but events will unfold that seem to teach him that, unlike Achilles desire for personal fame in the Trojan War, Odysseus must sublimate his own desires in order to be an effective leader, husband, and father. Yet, before he can do this, he must overcome his own personal lotos.

Upon returning to Circe’s hall, she encourages the men to take their ease with her:

[quote]‘Remain with me, and share my meat and wine;
restore behind your ribs those gallant hearts
that served you in the old days, when you sailed
from stony Ithaka. Now parched and spent,
your cruel wandering is all you think of,
never of joy, after so many blows.’

As we were men we could not help consenting.
So day by day we lingered, feasting long
on roasts and wine, until a year grew fat. (X.509-17)[/quote]

They stay on Aiaia for the better part of a year, seeming to forget thoughts of home and duty. What does this remind us of? Yet, it seems that only the captain is caught in this trance, for Odysseus’ men must finally remind him of his duty: “Captain, shake off this trance, and think of home— / if home indeed awaits us, if we shall ever see your own well-timbered hall on Ithaka” (X.521-22). With a “pang,” Odysseus is awakened from his dalliance, and tells Circe — in her flawless bed of love — that he must depart. While Odysseus relates her answer as very level-headed, she essentially tells him to go to hell — appealing to his adventurous nature, Circe tells Odysseus that he must venture into the underworld to hear the prophecy of the blind seer Teiresias, a journey from which she thinks he will not return (more on this later). Perhaps, even after his manly conquering of Circe, the latter was more victorious than Odysseus might lead us to believe.

Book Ten ends with the Elpenor episode, further suggesting the lesson that Odysseus has to learn in order to finally arrive safely home. But first, the epic hero must journey within himself in a archetypal descent to hell so that he can be reborn with a better knowledge of himself.

Over the weekend, Giles and I drove around some of the Georgia sites near Macon. Our first stop, after a rest to recover from Saturday night’s imbibing, we headed, Giles in Passat and I on my Nighthawk, down Highway 49 toward Andersonville National Historic Site and Cemetery. 49 was fabulous: straight roads through farmland and colorful blurs of flowers left over from the summer. These roads just scream for speed, and Giles and I took advantage of the dearth of traffic to do just that. The air hinted fall as we sped south about an hour to Andersonville.

The historic cemetery, our first stop, inspired an awe that silenced us as we walked among the dead of the American Civil War and World War I. More than 13,000 soldiers and some of their wives are buried here, and the day’s promise of fall made the place quietly beautiful. I looked for any soldiers that might have shared my name, but reading each stone began to hypnotize me after a while: perhaps a testament to the staggering amount of dead here and the fact that we all will meet such an end. Yet, these men died in horror; hopefully, we will be spared the atrocities that they suffered here.

The site of the prison was equally numbing; the beautiful day and verdant landscaping provided a stark contrast, like listening to “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” at a funeral. Giles and I spent another hour here poking through the subdued horror, before heading north again to Macon.

On the way back, the car just ahead for Giles almost smacked a deer that decided it needed to cross the highway at the instant. Just ten seconds later, and it could have ran into my bike. I was a bit paranoid for the rest of the ride, scanning the foliage to either side of the road, right hand ready to grip the brake at a second’s notice. We saw no more deer, but we did see some unidentifiable roadkill shortly after the near-deer hit. Gotta be careful.

That night was more imbibing with Dan and Monica. The next morning needed more convalescence, though I don’t think I ever did get over it. We rode to Gray, Milledgeville, Monticello, then back to Macon on Monday. Milledgeville houses Georgia College and State University; it’s a small college town similar to Gainesville and Athens. Monticello sits atop the Oconee National Forest, and we had an espresso there after capturing some images of the town square. Sundown had us photographing the houses on College Street in downtown Macon.

All in all, a good time. Thanks, again, Giles. Come any time. Why haven’t any of my other friends visited me (R and K excluded)? Let me tell you about Macon …

The Odyssey, Book 9 Notes

[quote]All men owe honor to poets — honor
and awe, for they are dearest to the Muse
who puts upon their lips the ways of life. (VIII.512-14).[/quote]

[dropcap]O[/dropcap]dysseus begins book nine of the Odyssey by venerating King Alkinoos’ rhapsode, emphasizing, in a very rhetorical way, the foundation of human community. At the center of Phaeacia stands the hall of the King in which the people gather to dine in the community of others and listen to the tales of the poet: “Here is the flower of life, it seems to me!” (IX.11). Indeed, Odysseus himself has now become the rhapsode, and will remain so for the epic’s next four books, the center of Odysseus’ journey is his own account of what befell him after leaving Troy. He begins by first introducing himself, which will later spell doom for the Phaeacians. The irony of his honesty cannot be overlooked. Trouble follows honesty.

This is the first of two times that Odysseus tells his real name in book nine, yet it is the second in chronology. The lesson that Odysseus should have learned from the first quarter of his journey that he is about to relate is one of prudence. One could argue that he did indeed learn prudence, since it took him the duration of books five through eight to get to an introduction; however, he might also be aware that trouble follows Odysseus’ honesty.

Odysseus longs for home, and laments the fact that he was detained by his experiences for so long. He and his crew first attempt to plunder the Kikones, who fight back and claim the lives of many of Odysseus’ men. This fact, however, was due to the men being “mutinous fools” and not listening to Odysseus’ call to leave quickly. This theme runs throughout these four books, and eventually spell the end of Odysseus’ whole crew. More on Odysseus’ failing his crew later.

After weathering storms sent by Zeus, the crew lands where the Lotos Eaters “live upon that flower.” Perhaps one of the most famous passages of the epic, the lotos represents distraction from duty — the temptation of a lax life. The three crewmen Odysseus takes with him to explore, predictably, fall in quickly with the opium smokers and forget their duty to their lives and home. Perhaps the most subtly dangerous adventure Odysseus has in the epic: losing sight of one’s goals — one’s hope — might be the ultimate transgression in the Odyssey. Indeed, here is where the knowledge of the poet is not heard, for the community has broken down into the individual sphere of forgetfulness. In any obsession, duty to one’s community is lost in favor of the prize. Odysseus will soon find what his lotos is.

Soon after escaping the Lotos Eaters, Odysseus and his crew encounter the Cyclops: “giants, louts, without a law to bless them . . . they neither plow / no sow by hand . . . they have no muster and no meeting, / no consultation or old tribal ways, / but each one dwells in his own mountain cave / dealing out rough justice to wife and child, / indifferent to what others do” (IX.113-24). In Cyclops Land there is no community, only the individual living separate from the others, like members of the Minnesota Militia hunkered down in caves waiting to defend themselves with violent force against any intruder who happens to be stupid enough to venture into their land without his NRA card. The cyclops are even distrustful of each other, only interested in isolation, not in venturing out to meet others or even to tell stories. Based on its concentration on hospitality and community, the Odyssey seems to count the cyclops as a representation of barbaric, pre-communal beings that are not as sophisticated as humans.

Now Odysseus and crew do not actually moor on Cyclops island, but one very near to it. This land gave them plenty, but they “gazed, too, at Cyclops Land, so near, / we saw their smoke, heard bleating from their flocks” (IX.177-78). The urge to check it out proves too irresistible for Odysseus, who goes with his own ship and men to see if the inhabitants are “wild savages, and lawless, / or hospitable and god fearing men” (IX.188-89). One might question Odysseus’ motivation here other than simple curiosity: to meet others — to see things he has never seen even though he risks the life of his crew. His decision to take only one ship proves prudent, but should Odysseus risk the lives of his men in order to fulfill his curiosity?

Odysseus’ encounter with Polyphemus proves the former’s cunning in the face of such a huge brute. Here, the master tactician is at his best: his forethought to bring the potent wine, his giving “Nobody” as his name, and his restraint from killing the beast while he slept. No, Odysseus keeps his head despite the horror of the situation — except until the very end when it seems that pride gets the better of him and he tells the blinded Polyphemus his real name after Odysseus did his best to “hurt him worst” (IX.343). While the crew attempts to restrain Odysseus — the only time they seem more prudent — Odysseus cannot control his pleasure at having defeated the cyclops. Yet, the height of Odysseus’ pleasure precipitates his ten-year wandering for blinding the son of Poseidon.

Odysseus and his crew pay for the former’s imprudence. Yet, we have to ask ourselves, does Odysseus ever learn this valuable lesson — one that he will need if he is to ever get home safely.

The Aeneid: Some General Notes

[dropcap]V[/dropcap]irgil’s Aeneid recounts events after the fall of Troy (9th century BCE), and written as a secondary, or literary, epic by Virgil in 14CE. Out of the destruction of Troy came an heroic figure who would found a new state. The Aeneid is a story of return that is providentially ruled by the gods. Aeneas’ story is one of founding and rebirth that is very different from the Homeric epics, but borrows from them in important ways.

Virgil uses the Greek tradition of the epic, but made it a Roman expression; he wanted to find a place in the Greek history without claiming kinship — to disassociate by association. Aeneas, having been saved by Poseidon from certain death at the hands of Achilles in book twenty of the Iliad (“it is destined that he shall be a survivor”), provided Virgil (and the Romans) a link to the rich tradition begun by the Greeks.

Virgil wrote the Aeneid for Augustus, the first Emperor of Rome. He recast the traditional Roman foundation story in its enduring form in order to authenticate the Roman myth by tying it to the past. It presents the Roman ideals and their mission: to conquer the known world by a sense of duty to family, state, and the gods (pietas).

Social and national heroism in the Aeneid. Pietas means a sense of duty to community that the Romans cherished above all values. Aeneas, unlike his Homeric predecessors, exemplifies the true hero: one who sacrifices his own desires in favor of the good of the community. Turnus represents the old ways of the Greeks that must be overcome (by violence) so that the new order may begin.

Difference in the condition of the composition leads to a difference in the character of the poetry. Because Homer composed for recitation, his composition is in some ways freer and looser than Virgil’s. Both of Homer’s poems have a majestic plan — less closely woven than the Aeneid; their episodes are more easily detached from the whole and may be enjoyed as separate poems. The Greek epic poet composes on a grand scale, and could not always expect to recite his poems in their entirety; therefore, Homer’s epics share looser methods of composition — though they are not a collection of separate lays. They are single poems with single plans and consistency of language. Homer’s art is oral — Virgil’s is written. Virgil writes for the readers — i.e., he operates less with phrases and formulas than with single words; he fashions sentences carefully and individually; he takes care to avoid omissions, contradictions, and inconsistencies; he uses carefully planned poetic texture and exquisite choice of words and significance. Homer’s oral epic is characterized by it simplicity, strength and straightforwardness, movement of lines, splendid climax, singleness of effect, and unbroken maintenance of tragic or heroic mood. The real difference between primary and secondary epics results from distinctions of origins and character — whether oral or written.

The difference in methods of epic composition coincides with another difference — social and spiritual. Oral epics display the heroic spirit and societies that hold heroic standards of conduct; literary epics have heroes, but a different conception of heroism and of human greatness and come from societies which cannot be called heroic. The heroic world values prowess and fame of the individual hero — Achilles surpasses others in strength and courage (which will win him honor and renown after death), and he is ruthless to any who frustrate or deride him. He is cut off from intercourse with common men and lacks allegiance except to his personal pride — what matters is his prowess. Homer’s heroism is a reflection of men’s desire to be in the last degree self-fulfilled — to satisfy their own ambitions in life with much ado. Achilles lives mainly to win glory and assumes that it is right, but his life is darkened by suffering and he dies for his belief in heroic manhood. The doom of a short and glorious life hanging over Achilles is tragic for the most noble and gifted of Greek men.

The heroic ideal of personal prowess did not exist for the writers of literary epics. Virgil has a different conception of human worth and lived in a society from which Homer’s heroes were remote and alien. His work is traditional in form, but it is shaped by the present. The “secondary” epic is an attempt to use again in new circumstances what is already a complete and satisfying form of poetry. The fundamental difference between the literary epic and the oral epic is in the circumstances of their origins. The literary epic was born from a society where the unfettered individual had no place and where a different conception of heroism reigned. The hero of the literary epic sacrifices himself for his society, not individual prowess or happiness. A social ideal replaces the personal ideal which was anarchic and anti-social. The epic, in the hands of Virgil, became a national expression of the philosophy of Rome; Aeneas stands for Rome. The hero of the literary epic point to a moral — represent the ideals of society and self-sacrifice. They, then, have a didactic purpose: to inspire, elevate, and instruct readers — to appeal to their hearts and minds. They did not share the idea that poetry merely beguiles hours of leisure or stimulates to a refined enjoyment. They believed that their art was serious — a way to make humans better, but that stern moral task did not diminish their artistry. The literary epic’s primary concern is truth.

Sensual pleasures were alien to the spirit of the literary epic. Homer’s heroes enjoy food and drink, but they are interested more in their loot. The sordid and fantastic aspects of live-making are confined to gods who are free from limitations of human life and from its obligations to live nobly. But by heroic standards, men do not indulge their passions and appetites — they keep them under control. In the one great love episode of the Aeneid, Dido’s passion for Aeneas is treated in a tragic spirit and takes its place in the poem as a fearful obstacle which the hero has to overcome in his moral progress and is the prelude of disasters to come in the political relations between Carthage and Rome.

Literary epic flourishes not in the heyday of a nation, but in its lost days or after-math. At such a time, a poet surveys the recent past with its record of dazzling successes and asks if they can last. Virgil wrote at a time when the Roman world turned with weariness and relief from vaulting ambitions of the Caesarean age to the rest and quiet promised by Augustus. He works the transition from the restless years of the Republic with its strong personalities and struggles, to the long peace when few men mattered.

Writers of the literary epic set themselves to adapt the personal heroic ideal to un-heroic times and to proclaim in poetry a new conception of humanity’s grandeur and nobility in social and nationalistic terms.

The Telemachiad

The first four books of the Odyssey are often referred to as the “Telemachiad,” or the song of Telemechus as they focus on the difficulties of a young hero coming of age in a hostile environment. Odysseus has been absent from Ithaca nearly twenty years; suitors have overrun his house hoping to be chosen to rule Ithaca by Odysseus’ queen, Penelope; the suitors have ransacked Odysseus’ stocks, taking whatever they want for their own pleasure, threatening Telemachus’ inheritance; and Telemachus feels that he is still just a boy who cannot hope to act against such odds. He even questions whether or not Odysseus is his father as he languishes in the company of suitors waiting for any word from passing travelers about the wayward Odysseus. When we first see Telemachus, he is inactive, still very much a boy, but by the end of book four, he has grown out of his despair, discovers that his father may indeed be alive, and has begun to stand up for himself and his familial responsibilities.

Telemachus must become his own man in order to live up to the hero of the epic, his father Odysseus. Like following a camera panning through the court of Ithaca, we encounter Telemachus “sitting there unhappy among the suitors, / a boy, daydreaming” (I.141-42) and thinking about his absent father:

[quote]What if his great father
came from the unknown world and drove these men
like dead leaves through the place, recovering
honor and lordship in his own domains? (I.142-45)[/quote]

Still a boy, Telemachus must be encouraged to act — to become a man in his own right and perhaps his own hero like Agamemnon’s son Orestes. The numerous allusions to the filial obligations of the son to the father run throughout the Odyssey‘s first four books. Upon his return from Troy, Agamemnon is killed by his wife’s lover, Aigisthos; Orestes takes action and revenges his father by killing both Aigisthos and his unfaithful mother, Clytemnestra. In the many mentions of this event, Telemachus is explicitly compared to Orestes; the latter fulfills his manly duty to his father and family, while the latter has not yet acted, still a boy. Also implied as a parallel in Orestes’ story is a comparison between Clytemnestra and Penelope. The former is unfaithful to her husband (who could blame her, really?), while Penelope has withstood the onslaught of the suitors’ advances for many years, remaining faithful to her absent husband, even though it seems likely that Odysseus will never return.

Part of Telemachus’ indecisiveness comes from his questions of legitimacy. Despite Athena’s, Nestor’s, and Menelaos’ insistence that he looks just like his father, Telemachus has never known his father: Odysseus left for Troy when Telemachus was very young. When Athena, disguised as Mentes, asks “You must be, by your looks, Odysseus’ boy? / The way your head is shaped, the fine eyes — yes, / how like him!” (I.244-46), Telemachus answers:

[quote]Friend, let me put it in the plainest way
My mother says I am his son: I know not
surely. Who has known his own engendering?
I wish at least I had some happy man
as father, growing old in his own house–
but unknown death and silence are the fate
of him that, since you ask, they call my father. (I.251-57)[/quote]

Not only does Telemachus doubt that he may be Odysseus’ son — who can blame him for feeling down, though? — he question’s his mother’s fidelity. Athena knows that she must help the young Telemachus, so she gives him a mission: go to Nestor and ask him if he knows Odysseus’ fate and also tell the suitors, in a public forum, to leave Odysseus’ house, or face the consequences. Her encouragement “put a new spirit in him, / a new dream of his father” that will allow him to act (I.360-61).

Book two shows Telemachus beginning to fulfill his responsibility to his father, and also how much like Odysseus he is. The assembly shows his power of oration — his presence as a leader and tactician. However, the suitors, led by Antinoos, Eurymachus, and Leokritos, remain defiant, rude, and eventually threatening, dismissing Telemachus’ new-found display of manhood in front of the whole town. This final chance at diplomacy allows the Ithacans to see that Telemachus means business and justifies the suitors’ final end: death at the hands of father and son. Telemachus takes twenty men in a borrowed boat surreptitiously to Pylos to consult Nestor at the end of book two.

Nestor, the wise counsel of the Iliad, meets Telemachus and his companions with cheerful hospitality. Nestor provides some exposition about what happened after the fall of Troy — the disagreement between Agamemnon and Menalaos which separated the Greek forces — but knows nothing of the fate of Odysseus. Yet, once again, Nestor brings up Agamemnon’s murder, further encouraging Telemachus to act heroically like Orestes. Nestor also offers optimism: “Who knows, your father might come home someday / alone or backed by troops, and have it out with them / [. . .] never have I seen the gods help any man / as openly as Athena did your father” (III.229-30, 234-35). But Nestor’s words are still not enough to bolster the courage needed for a true hero; Telemachus answers: “I can’t think what you say will ever happen, sir. / It is a dazzling hope. But not for me. / It could not be–even if the gods willed it” (III.239-41). Still doubting, Telemachus follows Nestor’s advice to consult Menelaos, but not to stay too long from Ithaca or the suitors will “squander all you have or take it from you, / and then how will your journey serve?” (III.339-40).

Less about Telemachus and more about the marriage dynamics of Menelaos and Helen, book four is just fun. Helen, somewhere between Circe and Clytemnestra, seems to be in control of the court. Witch-like, she creates a surreal atmosphere for the evening, casting spells and feeding the men potions while they tell stories of war-like exploits and honor Odysseus’ ingenuity. Even though Helen’s loyalties remain dubious much to the apparent chagrin and impotence of Menelaos, Telemachus does find what he needs from Menelaos’ encounter with Proteus: “Laertes son, whose home is Ithaca. / I saw him weeping, weeping on an island. / The nymph Calypso has him, in her hall” (IV.579-81). With this, Telemachus is ready to act, but he (and Penelope) must first hold out for his father’s return.

By the end of book four, the suitors’ have decided that Telemachus is becoming dangerous, and they plan to kill him upon his return. Telemachus has taken a literal journey, but he has also undergone a psychological journey into manhood. He no longer doubts his patrimony, nor does he doubt that his father will return, and he is ready to do his duty as son and heir of Odysseus when the latter finally does reach Ithaca.