BACKGROUND

The Odyssey is the second of two long poems we know Homer composed orally and recited aloud for largely male audiences. Homer could not write; his language had no written form during his lifetime. He probably composed 30 or 40 epics of anywhere from twenty thousand to sixty thousand lines each. All but two are lost. 

The first of these epics, called the Iliad, is the story of the conquest of a famous city called Ilium, or Troy. In this poem, Homer organizes the narrative around the differing characters of several Greek warrior-kings. (The Greeks are also called Achians, Argives, and Danaans.) These men have constructed a loose alliance in pursuit of a Trojan prince, Paris Alexandros, who seduced and abducted Helen, the wife of King Menelaus of Sparta. The Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite, had compelled Helen to go with Paris because she was the most beautiful woman in the world, and Aphrodite had promised Paris the most beautiful woman in the world as a prize for his having sided with her in an argument among the gods.

Argive warrior-kings allied against Troy included Menelaus and his older brother Agamemnon (together they are called the Atreidai, or the sons of Atreus). Agamemnon is now dead; you'll meet his ghost in Book 11 of the Odyssey. Menelaus appears at home with Helen in Book 4 of the Odyssey. Other Argive warrior-kings include Odysseus, the hero of the Odyssey, and two warriors named Telamonian Aias (or Ajax) and Akhilleus (Achilles), both of whom you will meet as ghosts in hell when Odysseus visits there in Book 11 of the Odyssey. (That's where you meet Agamemnon too.)

No one is able to conquer Troy until at last, after ten years of fighting, Odysseus comes up with a plan to conquer the city. Odysseus's plan displays, at one and the same time, his great intelligence and the character liability attached to this gift. Realizing that the Trojans are a naturally superstitious people, and that they're desperate after this ten-year war, Odysseus decides to see if he can get them to fall for a ruse that exploits these weaknesses.

Odysseus and a platoon of soldiers climb into a giant, hollow wooden horse constructed on the beach. The rest of the Argives pretend to set sail for home, although actually they're only hiding in their ships on the other side of a cape that borders the Trojan bay. One Argive soldier is left on the beach as a plant. His job is to tell the Trojans the horse is a peace offering to Athena, left by the Greeks who have given up their assault on Troy. The soldier instructs the gullible Trojans to take the horse into the city so it can be offered to Athena at their temple. They do so. Later at night, Odysseus and his platoon creep out of the belly of the horse and open the gates of Troy for the rest of the Argive army. This famous story is alluded to in Book 4 of the Odyssey, and is already familiar to some of you from Book 2 of Virgil's Aeneid, which tells the story of the sack of Troy from a Trojan perspective.

It's important to know that Odysseus was responsible for the sack of Troy even though he wasn't responsible for the war itself. There are also some particularly brutal things Odysseus does because his "street smarts", or practical intelligence, deems it necessary. For example, in order to prevent a blood vendetta in the next generation, he kills the two-year-old son of the Trojan Prince Hektor by dropping him from the top of the Trojan parapets on his head. This act insures that no one will later be able to gather an army and pursue revenge against Greece, claiming to be Hektor's son.

Why is it important to know this? In the ethically ambiguous world of Greek epic saga and tragedy, a man can be right, as Odysseus technically was, and still incur the wrath of the gods. The greatness of Greek literature can largely be attributed to the Greek ability to see both right and wrong in all directions and on all sides of a quarrel. The Greeks saw nothing illogical in the fact that even though their ancestors, the Argives, fought a just war for a just cause at Troy, they still set themselves up for divine retribution for destroying a city so loved by the gods. Moreover, each specific king or warlord would be made to suffer a fate uniquely appropriate to his own role in the conquest of Troy. Therefore Odysseus, who played such a key role, could expect a uniquely harsh fate, though not as harsh as that of Agamemnon, the king who led the army against Troy.

In the Odyssey, a different reason is given for Odysseus's hard fate, which is to become lost at sea for nine years after leaving Troy. The immediate reason for his fate is a curse on his head put in effect by the sea god Poseidon, and the events that provoke the curse can be found in Book 9 of the Odyssey. Basically, Odysseus brags about having blinded Poseidon's son, the cyclops Polyphemos. This is intolerable to Poseidon. And what can I say? If you really anger the god of the ocean, and the only way you can get home is by boat, you're in trouble.

However, let me suggest to you that there's a reason for Odysseus's bragging in Book 9. To begin with, it's out of character. Odysseus at Troy was the most prudent and cautious of the Greek commanders. He was also the least emotional man, the one with the most self-control. It could be, then, that his success at taking Troy by stealth has weakened his modesty and made him vulnerable to mistakes. Possibly the war has brutalized him and made him less civilized, too. However it happens, he messes up in a big way and pays for it in a big way, although he ultimately does get home. This journey is the subject matter of the Odyssey.

But as we'll see in a minute, the Odyssey is also about other characters related to Odysseus who take mysterious journeys, overcome terrible odds, and ultimately grow and change enough to triumph over their enemies.

CHRONOLOGY OF THE STORY

In class, you'll see a movie of the Odyssey. That movie tells the story of Odysseus's life and journey in strict chronological order. It begins with the birth of his son Telemachus, following with his departure for Troy, the war itself, his exploits on the journey home, his arrival home, and his conquest of rival suitors who have tried to force Odysseus's loyal wife Penelope to declare Odysseus dead and marry another man. But don't expect that simple order of events in the poem itself.

The poem, like all traditional epics, starts in the middle of the action. Chronologically it begins at the end of Odysseus's travels, not at the beginning. Moreover, the focus is not on Odysseus at all in the beginning. Rather it's on his wife Penelope and his son Telemachus, who are not important in the beginning of the movie.

In the poem, Penelope and Telemachus are the focus of Books 1-5. In particular Telemachus is the focus. A boy who has grown up without a father, he's too weak to assume the throne he's set to inherit in a matter of weeks, on his 20^th birthday. (He was an infant when Odysseus left for Troy.) A hundred rivals or "suitors" of his mother Penelope have therefore laid seige to his father's home. Moreover, they intend to kill Telemachus before his next birthday so that there's no longer a question of Penelope's staying unmarried and passing Odysseus's throne on to his son. Odysseus must learn more about his father so that he can prepare to defend his father's title and his own, alongside his father, when Odysseus returns. That's the purpose of his voyages in Books 3 & 4.

TWO PARALLEL PLOTS

The story of the Odyssey is simultaneously the story of Odysseus's homecoming and Telemachus's development (growth from boyhood to manhood). There's a natural connection between these two subplots of the story because one of the underlying assumptions of the text is that a son's character will mirror his father's. Several passages in Books 1, 3, & 4 make it clear that all who know Odysseus and meet Telemachus for the first time are struck by Telemachus's similiarity to his father. The similarity is intellectual and moral as well as physical. Homer is suggesting that the life of the father and the life of the son teach similar moral and intellectual lessons.

For example, one of the main lessons illustrated both by the return of Odysseus and the maturing of Telemachus is that true intelligence is emotional as well as mental. Such intelligence is rooted first and foremost in an appreciation for the sufferings of others. Note that in the Odyssey, there are no unkind men who are intelligent and no kind men who are stupid. Unkindness and stupidity are always united in a man's character, as they are in the characters of the suitors. And kindness and intelligence are always united in the characters of their superiors, as they are in the characters of Telemachus, Athena when she's in human disguise, Nestor, and Menelaus. (In Book 3, Athena even outsmarts Poseidon by using kindness, a weapon which is alien to him…see the notes on Book 3.)

It's therefore fitting that the first books of the Odyssey involve two parallel plots happening simultaneously, one the story of Telemachus and the other the story of Odysseus. Both stories are richer because they reflect each other.

The story begins on Mt. Olympus when the gods at last decide to settle the fate of Odysseus, the last Argive chieftain to remain unaccounted for after the conclusion of the Trojan War. Athena is sent to Ithaca to prepare Telemachus for his father's return. Hermes is sent directly to Odysseus and the witch Calypso, who is holding him captive. He orders Calypso to free Odysseus, a scene that doesn't happen until quite late in the movie.

CHARACTERS

While the Odyssey is full of characters, there aren't many whose names you need to know.

Gods:

Zeus, the king of the gods. He's represented in nature by thunder and lightning, and in the minds of men by kingliness, or, in a negative sense, by arrogance. He resolves all disputes among the gods and often among men as well.

Athena, the only daugher of Zeus by his first wife Metis, who was the goddess of Prudence. Since Zeus ate Metis, she sits in his head, guiding his decisions. That's where she gave birth to Athena, who sprang straight from her father's forehead. Athena is the goddess of common sense or cleverness, and a champion of the intelligent Argive warriors, especially Odysseus.

Poseidon, god of the ocean and of natural disaster, also god of neurosis and psychosis. He usually wages war against people he doesn't like either by wrecking them at sea, making them lose their wits, or both, as he does to Odysseus. Think of Poseidon as Zeus's somewhat dim-witted and resentful older brother.

In terms of the plot of the Odyssey, Athena and Poseidon are at war with one another for the fate of Odysseus's soul.

Demi-gods:

These include many of the characters of books 9-12, at least the ones who are magical but not monsters. The most important three are two witches, Circe and Calypso, and a one-eyed giant named Polyphemos. (See more detailed notes on the readings.)

Mortals (men & women):

These can be further subdivided into the dead and the living. The living include Odysseus himself and his family (chiefly his wife Penelope and his son Telemachus). They include the suitors who besiege Odysseus's house. They also include various servants of Odysseus, notably Eurykleia (the old nurse) and Eumaeus (the pig herder), who are loyal, and Melanthos the serving girl, who is not. (She's having an affair with Eurymachus, the self-appointed head of the suitors.) Two other living men of note are Nestor and Menelaus, the two Trojan heroes Telemachus visits in Books 3 & 4 (and of course Menelaus's famous wife Helen, who started it all).

The dead are described at length in the notes on Book 11. Most notable are Odysseus's mother Antiklyeia, a prophet named Tereisias, and three dead heroes of Troy, Agamemnon, Ajax, and Akhilleus.

ALLEGORICAL NAMES:

In the Odyssey, several characters have symbolic names. If all the symbolic names are interpreted together, they suggest an allegorical component to this story. Here are the ones I remember:

Odysseus comes from the same root word as "odor" and "odorous." Literally, then, Odysseus is named "Stinky." The usual translation is "Trouble."

The name of his mother, Antiklyeia, means "Against Glory." Its meaning is curiously paired with that of the cyclops Polyphemos, which means "Many Fames."

Odysseus's criminal grandfather, who named him, is called Autolycus. This means "Lone Wolf."

The blind prophet who tells Odysseus's fortune in hell is named Tereisias, and his name means "Exhaustion" and/or "Rowing."

The witch who hold Odysseus captive until his return is named Calypso, and her name means "Oblivion."

By the way, I apologize for my not-always-consistent spellings of the Greek names. These are spelled somewhat differently in different translations, and after a few years, the spellings scrambled together in my mind. If there's ever a time when you don't know whom I mean, ask me.

A NOTE ON THE CONTRAST BETWEEN THE BOOK AND THE MOVIE:

I've mentioned one important contrast already. The order of the events in the telling is not the same. Here's another thing to beware of. The characterization of Odysseus, Telemachus, and Penelope is way WAY off in the movie. Armand Asante turns Odysseus, one of the most complex characters in western literature, into a figure from cheap women's romance fiction (in my opinion). If you try to base a paper on the Odyssey on the movie alone, I will certainly know it, and that will be a serious mistake.

SOME QUESTIONS & NOTES ON BOOKS ONE THROUGH TWELVE

The Odyssey: Study Guide on the Rouse Translation

Book One

1. What are the special virtues of Odysseus? What’s suggested by these turns of phrase: He was “never at a loss” and he “saw the cities of men and learnt their mind”? First of all, what are we saying of someone when we say that he’s “never at a loss”? Is that good or bad? (Aren’t there some times when we want people to be “at a loss”?) Secondly, what does always having an answer to a question or problem have to do with being well-traveled? Thirdly, why should you know the minds of men simply because you’ve seen their cities? Last, combine these insights with what we hear next—that every other person in his crew went mad. What a revelation! What are we to think of this man?

2. What do men owe the gods? Zeus says of Odysseus, at the bottom of page 12, that he is “a fine fellow…almost one of us…wise beyond mortal men, ready beyond all to sacrifice to the lords of the broad heavens.” We tend to believe that a smart man can rely on his own intelligence rather than praying. But the Greeks see it differently. Odder still, what Zeus says here implies that the gods, who are the wisest of beings, must sacrifice to themselves—something Athena actually does in offering a libation to Poseidon on page 33, near the beginning of Book 3. What do we learn here about the Greek view of human potential and the human relationship to the cosmic forces that shape the world? Did the Greeks see man as more powerful and significant or less so, at least potentially, than we do? Why?

3. What do the gods owe men? What’s implied in Zeus’s speech at the top of page 12? One thing Zeus suggests here is that the gods are not to blame for what happened to Aigisthos because they warned him, as if they would be to blame for his death had they not done so. Why must they warn him? What does this suggest? What about Athena’s plea on Odysseus’s behalf on page 12? What does her description of Calypso’s island suggest about the special nature of the danger Odysseus faces? Why is it only fitting that Odysseus of all people should be rescued from this danger? (Remember that Calypso’s name means “Oblivion.” In the movie she uses drugs to ensnare Odysseus, and it isn’t the first time they’ve been used by a witch on Odysseus or his crew.)

4. Are the misfortunes of man caused by the gods or by man himself? What Zeus says at the top of page 12 contradicts what Athena says about Odysseus on the same page and what Zeus says about Poseidon’s grudge against Odysseus there and on page 13. In other words, if, as Zeus says, “they [men] have only their own madness to thank if their miseries are worse than they ought to be”, then why do all the gods except Poseidon think Odysseus does not deserve his fate? (Note: We’ll be revisting this issue throughout the story, so stay tuned.) A secondary point: Do the words of Zeus here suggest that men ought to be at l east a little bit miserable, no matter how well they’ve behaved? Why? And what are the implications? (See also question # 11.)

5. Athena is a goddess of intelligence more often associated with cunning than with wisdom. So when she volunteers herself for an assignment on page 13, why does she say “I will put heart into his son.”? For us, the word “cunning” is often prefaced by “heartless.” Yet for the Greeks, heart is the most important gift the Goddess of Cunning has to offer. What are the implications? Look again at question # 1. Does your answer to this question change your answer to that one?

6. What do we learn about Greek culture at the top of page 14? What does it say about Greek culture that the Greeks consider it proper to feed, bathe, and entertain a man before they ask who he is and what he wants?

7. What are the virtues of Telemachos? How can his heart be “full of his noble father” (p. 13) if he’s never met the man? At the top of page 14, how do we see the excellence of Telemachos in his treatment of Mentes? Note that although he fulfills ritual obligations, he also exceeds them, yet simultaneously minimizes any threat the stranger might pose. What’s going on in Telemachos’s mind as he handles the man’s spear? Where does he put the spear? Why are Odysseus’s spears described as they are (“the spears of Odysseus, that patient man”?) Why does Telemachos lavish courtesies on Mentes, permitting him to sit on a fine woven tapestry that’s described as “artwork” even as he complains about how the gallants (suitors) are taking advantage of him by spoiling his goods and wrecking his house?

8. The word “gallants” on page 13 is usually translated as “suitors.” Rouse’s unusual word choice is enlightening, though. Why?

9. How does the suitors’ understanding of the meaning of a banquet differ from that of Telemachos and Mentes (on page 14)? Why are singing and dancing the “graces of a feast”, even when the singer sings of war and death?

10. Beginning on page 15, it’s important to remember that Mentes is really Athena in disguise. Telemachos doesn’t yet know this, but Athena begins to give him clues by dropping lines that will have hidden meanings if and when he catches on to who she really is. Anyway, whether she speaks as herself or as Mentes, she’s imparting to Telemachos some of the essential values of his culture. Why does she introduce herself by saying, “I am the son of a clever father...and I rule over a nation of seamen”? (Hint: See question # 1.) What’s the connection between cleverness and living by the sea?

11. On pages 15 and 16, both Athena (as Mentes) and Telemachos repeatedly characterize Odysseus as a victim of the gods and insist that “the gods have put something in his way” (p.15), or “the gods have willed otherwise” (p. 16). Moreover, on page 17 Athena advises Telemachos to “protest before all the gods” and go abroad to seek “some rumour that God will send.” Isn’t this at odds with Zeus’s insistence that men control their own fate? (See question # 4.)

12. Athena talks both as herself and as Mentes on pages 15-16 when she says of Odysseus “We used to meet ever so often in the old days, before he embarked for Troy, when so many of the best men of the nation sailed away in that fleet. Since then I have not seen Odysseus, and he has not seen me.” What hidden meanings do these words carry when you realize that Mentes is a fiction, and it’s actually Odysseus’s patron goddess who’s saying these words? Many things are implied here, not the least something about the cost, to Odysseus in particular and to the Argives in general, of the Trojan War itself. What does Athena say that cost was?

13. Clearly one of the most important virtues of a good man is that he offers sacrifices to the gods. We established this on page 12 regarding Odysseus. But why? What do the gods want with the gifts of men? In an interesting scene on page 18, Telemachos offers Athena a gift thinking that she’s not a goddess but a man, an old friend of his father’s. We expect her to refuse the gift, and she does—at first. Then she not only says she’ll accept the gift later, but also tells Telemachos that his continuing good fortune depends on whether his gift is a good one! Why? What does she really want from Telemachos? More than any other one thing, what makes him worthy of the gifts she can give?

Book Two

1. Read the second paragraph. Telemachos appears here as a changed young man, full of a confidence and grace that earlier was lacking. Even the dogs sense the change and gather around him. Like all pack animals, they’re drawn naturally to a creature who acts like a leader. But look at the sentence that concludes this paragraph: “Not for nothing Athena was his friend.” How do you read this line’s meaning? Does it mean that Athena chose to be his friend because he was born to be strong, smart, and brave, and like American sports fans, Athena likes a winner? Or does it mean that the change in him is a result of Athena’s gifts; that he’s nothing without her and all a man’s excellence flows from God’s gifts?

2. What do you make of Telemachos’s speech to the suitors on page 23? Without doing research on ancient Greek

codes of propriety, who do you think is right here? It strikes me that there are at least two possible views of

Telemachos at this moment. The first view is quite unflattering: He’s a crybaby whose grievance is purely

personal, he appeals to the elders because he’s weak and can’t fight his own battles, and he seems completely

insensitive to the fact that he’s asking for help from men like Aigyptios (p. 22), who by now guess that their own

sons have died under Odysseus’s leadership. Why should they care about Telemachos’s problems if he shows no

interest in their own grievances—grievances that his own father is responsible for? Yet Telemachos must be right

because Athena takes his side. How can a boy who seems so wrong be so right?

3. Do the men of Ithaca think he’s right or wrong? They respond with silence (page 24), which makes it hard to tell.

4. Who’s right or wrong about what should be required of Penelope? (See pages 24-5). Pretend you’re a lawyer and argue both sides. Again, don’t rely on research regarding Greek customs. Assume that Homer meant future readers of other cultures to be able to make up their own minds.

5. Mentor delivers an interesting speech on page 27. In substance, she argues that they must respect the wishes of the son of a man who was kind to them in the past. If they don’t, they can’t rightly call themselves civilized people. Nor can they expect to be treated in the future in a civilized way themselves. What do you think of this logic? It’s important, because some people think the major question the whole poem deals with is, “What does it take for a man to call himself a civilized man?” Unlike the case in Gilgamesh, here the assumption is that being civilized is a desirable goal, but harder than most men think to achieve.

6. Mentor also makes the point here that people who know the right thing to do but refuse to speak out are worse than the villains who try to do wrong. What do you think of that idea?

7. On page 28, Athena, disguised as Mentor, tells Telemachos that he has hope for the future only if he really is the son of Penelope and Odysseus (a fact he’s expressed doubt about in Book One). What does she mean?

8. Look at the roles played by Athena at the conclusion of Book Two, on pages 30 & 31. How is it that the Goddess of Cunning can inspire a man to be cunning, or impersonate a man and say for him the cunning things he can’t, or make other men, his enemies, stupid? (This is not even to mention her ability to control the winds as they set sail.) Assume that Homer would have wanted people who didn’t worship Athena to at least understand her; that is, to understand the force she represents. How do you understand her role in this story?

Some Significant Scenes

Books 3 & 4

The Argive kings quarrel as they leave from Troy after the war

In the Rouse: pages 34-36

What’s of interest? The roles of the gods in the fates of men. (Here they’re clearly symbolic forces acting in the human mind). The way in which the men’s sense of self is shaped by their profession. (Warriors must fight. So when there’s no war, they make one. What are the implications?)

Helen drugs the warriors at the banquet to make them forget their losses at Troy

In the Rouse: pages 49-50

What’s of interest? This is a foreshadowing of an association of women with narcotics, a motif that will recur throughout the story of Odysseus’s travels as he retells it later at the court of the Phaecians. Both the Lotus Eaters and the Sirens are women who make use of either drugs or hypnosis to destroy sailors. Moreover, Circe is a chemist with an even more unsual talent. (See Book X.)

Eidothea the sea nymph, daughter of Proteus, speaks to Menelaos

In the Rouse: pages 52-53

What’s of interest? For one thing, the similarities between Menelaos and Odysseus. Both are challenged by a god of the sea (Joseph Campbell—water---the Unconscious?). Both are helped to battle rough weather and a daunting journey by a nymph (or witch—take your pick). Both must figure out why they’re opposed by the god or gods of the sea. And interestingly, both must hide under animals to get what they want. (Menelaos must wear a stinky seal skin, whereas Odysseus must hide under Polyphemos’s favorite ram.) What do you make of these repeated motifs?

Books 5-8

Athena and Zeus plot to save Telemachos and put Odysseus back on the throne

In the Rouse: pages 62-3

What’s of interest? The roles of the gods in the fates of men. In this case, let me draw your attention to the motives of the gods, since this passage suggests something unusual about these motives. The words of Zeus to Athena here suggest that Zeus and Athena rather than Poseidon alone plotted to send trouble to the family of Odysseus; moreover, they did so in order to prompt him to kill the suitors. What do you make of that?

Calypso releases Odysseus

In the Rouse: pages 65-66

What’s of interest? For one thing, the radical difference between Vanessa Williams as the Hollywood Calypso and the real Calypso as Homer conceived her. What is that difference, and what do you make of it? Also: Isn’t it interesting that Odysseus’s intelligence is so closely associated with his tendency to be suspicious, which is probably in turn related to his family’s criminal past? (In the Rouse, Calypso says, “Ah, you are a wicked man! Always wide awake! Or you would never have thought of such a thing.” In the Fitzgerald she says, “What a dog you are! And not for nothing learned, having the wit to ask this thing of me!”) What do we learn here about the sort of man the Greeks idealized? Are you surprised? What are the implications?

How Odysseus gets to Phaecia

In the Rouse: pages 78-9

What’s of interest? That a macho warrior like this should be washed ashore in the buff and forced to beg for help—and while we’re at it clothes--from a bunch of giggling teenage girls doing their laundry. Don’t you just love the Greeks? Think how few ancient cultures would feature a scene like this in the tale of a great warrior’s homecoming. What purpose does it serve? How does it change our understanding of who the gods favor, how they intervene, and why?

Athena appears to Odysseus in the guise of a little girl

In the Rouse: pages 81-2

What’s of interest? It’s a mark of Odysseus’s excellence that he would ask for help from a little girl. Why? Also, what can we understand here from the lines about Athena making him invisible? Here’s what I think: whether she literally “spreads a mist” around him or not, a muscular stranger walking beside a little girl would be a lot more invisible than the same man would be walking alone. Why?

Odysseus speaks of Calypso

In the Rouse: pages 85-6

What’s of interest? Again, the question of who she is, what she represents, and what her role is in the story.

The Harper sings

In the Rouse, pages 89-90

What’s of interest? Odysseus’s reaction to the songs of Troy. How does this set him apart from the Phaecians? What do you make of the fact that they don’t even notice his tears? Or rather, Alcinoos sees them, but says nothing. Why? These aren’t bad people, and without them, Odysseus could never get home. But something is missing from their lives. What?

Odysseus puts down the rude upstart at the games

In the Rouse: pages 91-2

What’s of interest? Try to explain what it is that makes Odysseus dislike this young man so much. (He’s called Broadsea in the Rouse and Seareach in the Fitzgerald, so I’ll call him Broadsea/Seareach.) After all, this young man is engaged in a harmless sort of boasting typical of boys his age, and tame compared to what we’ve come to expect from the suitors. Moreover, Odysseus is angry in part because his words hit uncomfortably close to home. In other words, Broadsea/Seareach partly understands Odysseus. After all, his words highlight the difference between the righteous warrior Odysseus is supposed to be and the unheroic pirate he sometimes appears to be if we examine his stories closely. Nevertheless, his words miss the mark in a way that deeply insults Odysseus, and probably should insult him. The boy is disrespectful not only of Odysseus, which might be forgivable, but of the gods, which is not. Why?

Book 9

Odysseus finally tells the Phaicians who he is and tells the story of the Ciconians

In the Rouse: pages 100-101

What’s of interest? First of all, bear in mind that Odysseus’s name means Trouble. Also, the connotation of the literal meaning, Stinky, suggests that he’s an outcast—and for good reason. The meaning is particularly apt here as he speaks of the episode of the Ciconians followed by the episode of the Lotus Eaters. Why? Secondly, how does the story of the Ciconians serve as an ironic contrast to Odysseus’s opening lines to Alcinoos at the opening of Book 9?

Odysseus describes the race of the Cyclops

In the Rouse: page 102

What’s of interest? Fitzgerald says they are “giants, louts, without a law to bless them.” Rouse says the “Goggle-eyes” are “a violent and lawless tribe.” What’s odd about this is that Odysseus is clearly no law-abiding citizen himself, as the story of his encounter with the Ciconians makes clear. Yet he reviles the Cyclops race again and again, mostly for failings that are only exaggerated versions of his own issues.

Odysseus says he’s going to find out who lives on this island (before he knows that it’s the Cyclops people who live here)

In the Rouse: page 103

What’s of interest? In the Rouse, Odysseus wants to “see who these people are; whether they are wild savages who know no law, or hospitable men who know right from wrong.” In the Fitzgerald, Odysseus wants to “find out what the mainland natives are—for they may be wild savages, and lawless, or hospitable and god fearing men.” By comparing the same speech in two different translations, we can see the apex of a pyramid where all good things in a man’s character come together. A good man must have and abide by laws and must not act like an animal (as Circe’s captives do!). He must either know right from wrong or respect the gods—the suggestion being that the two are the same; that is, different ways of looking at the same characteristic. But most of all, he must be “hospitable,” the same word in both translations. What does it mean? Apparently being courteous is more important than being morally upright. How can this be?

Unimpressed, the Cyclops asks them if they’re pirates

In the Rouse: page 105

What’s of interest? Polyphemos seems to know their intentions and their character better than they do themselves. Odysseus completely forgets that Plan B was to steal everything Polyphemos owned, including the sheep, and make for the boats. There was no mention of gifts they were going to give Polyphemos until they were caught, which happened mainly because of Odysseus’s curiosity, not because they were eager to do the right and hospitable thing by the guy whose sheep they were stealing. (Remember that Odysseus’s grandfather Autolycus was a cattle thief.)

Polyphemos the Cyclops boasts of being a lawless man who cares nothing for Zeus

In the Rouse: page 105

What’s of interest? Up to this point, Odysseus and the Cyclops were more alike than different—and if Odysseus didn’t know that, he should have. But suddenly the Cyclops becomes their worst nightmare. What are the implications for the lesson Odysseus must learn here?

Odysseus speaks the most famous line in the Odyssey

In the Rouse: page 107

What’s of interest? This moment in the story highlights what the real difference is between Odysseus and Polyphemos. It has less to do with what’s on their respective menus than with which one rightly understands the other. What are the implications?

Book 10

Odysseus & Aiolos, god of the winds

In the Rouse: pages 112-113

What’s of interest? I guess the blame game is most of interest here. Whose fault does Odysseus think his misfortune is? Whose fault does Aiolos think it is? Who’s right?

The crew encounter lions and wolves who behave like tame dogs; after taking cheese and honey and wine from Circe, they become creatures with the bodies of pigs and the minds of men

In the Rouse: pages 116-117

What’s of interest? The main event of book 10 seems to teach the same sort of lesson as the main event of Book 9. What is that lesson? Maybe it’s that men who live by warfare are dehumanized, and must recover their humanity if they are to adjust to any kind of civilized life. At any rate, Odysseus’s crew seem to be headed in the wrong direction here, since they’re more dehumanized rather than less dehumanized than they were in the previous book. What do you think this suggests about them? And what about Odysseus himself?

Hermes greets Odysseus and at first warns him not to go up to Circe; then seems to change his mind and say that he’ll help Odysseus deal with her

In the Rouse: page 118

What’s of interest? Here we get our best view of Hermes Argeiphontes, the god of news and luck (both bad and good). What surprises you about him? What do you think you might find unnerving about him if he came to you this way? Compare his appearance here to his earlier appearance to Calypso. Doesn’t his constant good cheer drive you nuts? What does it mean? Why is he always smiling, even when he’s sending you the equivalent of a death warrant? What does his demeanor suggest about the Greek attitude toward fate?

Circe takes the measure of Odysseus

In the Rouse: page 119

What’s of interest? Although many men in Homer are said to be born with a god’s favor, other stories suggest that it’s also possible to win it. This scene is not often thought of as an example of a man winning divine favor, partly because Odysseus had Hermes’s help in turning the tables on Circe and partly because Circe, though an immortal, is not a major goddess. But if you think about it, it’s one of the clearest examples of a man getting the upper hand on a god. What do we learn from this scene? Why?

Circe holds the secret of home

In the Rouse: pages 122-3

What’s of interest? Circe is clearly a pivotal figure in the story, in some ways more so than Calypso and even Athena. She’s a highly ambiguous figure. There’s plenty of good and bad here. Moreover, there are two ways to read her speech to Odysseus about Hades. One is that she merely tells him about a sentence imposed on him by Zeus or the other gods—and it may be a sentence imposed on any man like him who’s been away from home for too long. But the second and perhaps more interesting way is that the gods have given Circe the power to sentence Odysseus, much as a judge in a court might do, and she herself is the one who decides that the trip to Hades is the price Odysseus must pay for happiness. Which way do you read these lines? Why? What are the implications?

Book 11

The ghost of Elpenor the luckless drunk crewman; the consultation with Teiresias the prophet; the procession of grieving women, led by Odysseus’s mother Anticleia

In the Rouse: pages 125-130

What’s of interest? If Circe’s a judge then she’s also a teacher. And if Circe’s a teacher, then Book 11 is Odysseus’s divine homework assignment. Like all good teachers, Circe has a purpose behind everything she assigns. There’s no busy work here. This means that each one of the spirits Odysseus sees in the Underworld is either a symbolic figure, a messenger with a lesson to teach, or both. With that in mind, why are the first two people he meets a young member of his crew who died without his having noticed it and his mother, who died of heartbreak while waiting for him to come home? Why do they bracket the appearance of Teiresias? And what (if any) meaning can you find in the tasks assigned Odysseus by Teiresias?

The break in the story & the interlude with Queen Arete and King Alcinoos

In the Rouse: pages 131-2

What’s of interest? Arete and Alcinoos can hardly imagine the Trojan War itself, let alone the wild stories Odysseus tells of his journey home. But their speeches reveal that they’re more interested in the man himself than in his stories, and they care very little whether the stories are true. Alcinoos goes so far as to suggest that Odysseus is doing such a good job of telling the usual sailors’ yarns and tall tales that there must be some truth to his story. But what does he mean by this? Is Odysseus lying or telling the truth? What does Alcinoos think? What do you think? Also, when you get right down to it, does it matter?

The ghosts of Troy

In the Rouse: pages 132-135

What’s of interest? The two most important characters we meet here are Achilles (Akhilleus) and Agamemnon, though we do also meet Telamonian Aias (Ajax). Although it’s difficult to appreciate the story of either Agamemnon or Achilles without having read Homer’s other poem, the Iliad, both characters have tragic deaths that are calculated to impress upon Odysseus (as if he doesn’t already know this) the futility and waste of war. The procession of grieving women has already served more or less the same function. Agamemnon’s story, which by now you know, is a particularly painful reminder of the futility of war. After all, this is a man who went to Troy to win his brother’s honor back after his brother’s bride had been stolen from him. Yet he came home only to discover that his absence had given his cousin the opportunity to steal his own wife and plot his murder. (Geez, will these people never learn?) Telamonian Aias is an especially pitiful figure. He survived the Trojan War only to commit suicide after the war because he felt his war service was not sufficiently appreciated (the armor of the dead hero Akhilleus was awarded to Odysseus instead of to Aias, so Aias committed suicide out of his sense of offended armor). As for Akhilleus, he threw away his one chance to survive the war in order to go back into battle to avenge the death of his best friend Patroklos. (Patroklos’s ghost appears to him and berates him for doing so, too.)

The mythical bad guys, including Odysseus’s biological father Sisyphos

In the Rouse: pages 135-137

What’s of interest? Two of these characters, Tantalos and Sisyphos, are actually tortured in hell as the gods’ way of showing all of us that crime doesn’t pay. Tantalos tried to serve human flesh to the gods; they punish him by preparing a lavish feast for him that recedes at his touch, so that he suffers the most raging hunger and thirst possible. (His name is the root word for the English verb “tantalize.”) Sisyphos’s fate has also passed into the common English vernacular, this time as an adjective. (An incredibly arduous yet stupid task may be called “Sisyphean.”)

Book 12

Circe tells Odysseus of his four final trials before reaching Ogygia, Calypso’s island; these all occur as she foretells them (the Sirens, Charybdis, Scylla, and the temptation to eat the divine cattle of Helios, who drives the chariot of the sun)

In the Rouse: pages 138-146

What’s of interest? These trials are symbolic, but of what? Your guess is as good as mine. I’ll give you one bit of mythological background that may help. The monster Scylla was once a beautiful young virgin seduced and abandoned by a sailor; now she lives only to eat sailors. Go figure.

SOME EXTENDED NOTES ON BOOKS 11 & 12

Book Eleven, the Procession of Grieving Women (pages 127-130 of the Rouse Signet Classic edition).

First among the women, Odysseus meets his mother, Anticleia, daughter of Autolycus. She died, presumably as a suicide, because of his long absence from home. After speaking with Tiresias, he will meet a long procession of women who suffered because of the way they became caught up in the conflicts of men. This procession of grieving women begins about line 259, at the bottom of page 251. Persephone sends them to Odysseus for some reason. I'll let you decide what. It's not necessary to know all the details of all these lives, but here are some representative facts about some.

Tyro (line 268, top of page 252) had something in common with Anticleia. They were both at different times lovers of Sisyphus (see line 694, bottom of page 261). Sisyphus was actually Tyro's uncle. She bore him two sons, but in shame because of the illicit union, she killed them both. Then she fell in love with the river god Enipeus. He didn't return her love, but Poseidon took advantage of the situation to impersonate Enipeus and rape her in disguise. (This legend is recounted in your text in lines 271-288.) She also bore him twin sons, Pelias and Nelius. She tried to kill them by exposing them on a mountainside or by floating them down the Enipeus River. (She did this chiefly so that her cruel stepmother wouldn't kill her for having two kids out of wedlock). Nevertheless they were saved, and later as grown men they took revenge on her enemies for her.

The legend of Antiope is similar to the legend of Tyro. She was seduced/raped by Zeus; she also bore him twin sons whom she tried to kill to hide her shame. After her father died, she was left in the custody of an aunt and uncle who abused her. Meanwhile, her twin sons grew up as shepherds, having been saved by a herdsman. When she ran away from the palace of her aunt and uncle, she went to the hut of her two grown sons, who were instructed to kill her by tying her hair to the horns of a wild bull. When they found out that she was actually their mother, they killed her aunt (using the same method) instead.

Alcmene was the mother of Herakles (Roman Hercules) by Zeus, who had ravished her disguised as her husband. (This is not how you heard the story in Disney!) She abandoned Herakles when she learned (from loud-mouthed Tiresias again) that her husband was not his real father. But Herakles was restored to her, and she later became the protector of his children after his death.

Megara was the daughter of Creon, King of Thebes, who was given to Herakles in marriage. But Hera was jealous of this union and drove Herakles mad, so that he killed Megara and her kids. (This is also not how you heard it in Disney!)

Epicaste (now we are at line 309, page 253) is another name for Jocasta, who was both the mother and the wife of Oedipus (from the famous play Oedipus Rex, mentioned earlier). At the top of page 254, about line 352, you meet Ledo, mother by Zeus of Helen of Troy, who hanged herself after Helen eloped with the Trojan Paris Alexandros.

Phaedra (line 379), was a daughter of Minos, King of Crete, and a sister of Ariadne (also mentioned in this line). To make a long story short, Phaedra's unhappy fate was to fall in love with her husband's son by another wife. When that boy, Hippolytus, reproached her, she feared she'd be exposed. So she accused him of raping her. Then she hanged herself.

Phaedra's sister Ariadne fell in love with Theseus when he came from Athens to Thebes to kill the Minotaur, the legendary half-man half-bull creature who lives in their father Minos's labyrinth. So she helped him kill the Minotaur and then had to leave with him to escape her father's wrath; however, he abandoned her on an island, sailing home without her. Not to worry--the god of wine, Dionysius, saw she was available and fell in love with her, descending to earth to marry her and make her immortal. As a result, Ariadne's up-and-down fate was celebrated in a festival meant to honor the ups-and-down of a woman's life.

The tale of Procris is longer and more involved, but it's also more allegorical and therefore may illuminate the purpose of the procession a little more clearly.

Here's what my Appleton-Century-Crofts says about Procris: "In Greek legend, a daughter of Erechtheus, King of Athens…She was married to Cephalus, and loved him deeply. He was carried off by Eos, the goddess of Dawn, and returned to Procris in disguise to test her fidelity. After many protestatons of love and the offering of rich gifts, Procris, who had been grieving for her husband, yielded. Cephalus immediately denounced her, revealed himself, and deserted her.

According to some accounts, she fled from Athens and foreswore the company of men, devoting herself to hunting as a companion of Artemis (Roman Diana, goddess of the hunt)." Artemis gave her a magical hound and spear that could not fail to find and kill her quarry. (Another version is that she fled to Crete and became the mistress of King Minos, who gave her the hound and the spear, which he had gotten from Artemis.) "She later joined Cephalus on a hunting expedition, disguised as a beautiful youth, Pterelas, and agreed to give him the hound and the spear, but only for love. Cephalus accepted this proposal and she then revealed herself as his wife.

"The couple was happily reunited and spent some years in devotion to each other. But Artemis was displeased by the manner in which her gifts were being handed around. She caused Procris to suspect that Cephalus was meeting a lover in secret. She had overheard him calling on a breeze to cool him, and thinking it was a lover he summoned, she jealously followed him on one of his hunting trips. As she spied on him from a thicket the bushes which hid her moved; Cephalus thinking the movement was caused by a wild beast, hurled his spear (the magic one that always got its target--remember?) and transfixed her. Her spirit fled to the Underworld, where Odysseus saw her when he visited there on his way home from the Trojan War."

***

What should you learn from the fates of the tragic women? The Greeks had a strong sense of irony and a strong sense of tragedy, and the two were often linked. In Greek legend and literature, people are often destroyed because of misunderstandings that result from the high expectations others have of them. That makes them victims of their own best characteristics and inclinations. In the case of Procris, for example, if she had not been an unusually faithful person, she would never have been mixed up with a demanding guy like Cephalus. Nor would she have remained faithful to him and tried to win him back. Nor would she have angered a goddess by giving away divine gifts, therefore placing her loyalty to him above her loyalty to the gods. It's ironic that such a person winds up being killed for her DIS-loyalty to a goddess. That element of irony makes the tragedy especially painful. But these are the kinds of tragedies that--as the Greeks saw it--make up the most instructive moments of the human experience. What makes us human is the fact that we are capable of these complex emotions, which lead naturally to no-win situations and ironic twists of fate.

Other ghosts of Book Eleven:

These kinds of paradoxes also dictated the fates of the 3 dead Achaian warlords who fought at Troy and who appear in the next section of Odysseus's trip through the Underworld on pages 132-135), after the interlude in the court of the Phaeacians.

When we return to the Underworld on page 132, we meet Agamemnon, first son of King Atreus. He's the king who led the Greek expedition to Troy. (You know this by now, but there's a reminder.) He's covered with blood and surrounded, ironically, by both Greeks and Trojans, especially the Trojan princess Cassandra, with whom he has fallen in love. They're all bloodied and wailing, arms outstretched. They have completely forgotten the fact that they were enemies at Troy. Now they're allies, bewailing the awful death they suffered together at the hands of Agamemnon's family (Clytemnestra and Aegisthus) , who slaughtered all of them together at the victory banquet "celebrating" Agamemnon's return home. Let's see if we can retrace some of the paradoxes that led Agamemnon here.

Agamemnon pursued Helen to Troy in the name of family loyalty, because she was the wife of his younger brother Menelaus and had dishonored Menelaus by running off with a Trojan prince. But since Helen went willingly and Troy was a great city no one wanted to see destroyed, the gods weren't all happy about Agamemnon's pursuit of this vendetta. So they initially prevented him from sailing by denying him a favorable wind. They finally agreed to let him sail if he would sacrifice his virgin daughter Iphigenia to the goddess Artemis. This he did in a particularly cowardly way too, by pretending to Iphigenia that she was to marry Achilles and killing her instead of marrying her off when she showed up.

So now we encounter paradox # 1: In the name of preserving family loyalty, he's going to kill his own daughter and hopelessly alienate his wife, thus laying the groundwork for the scene of slaughter at his homecoming banquet that's described to you here.

You've already heard earlier in Book One that Agamemnon's son Orestes, whom Agamemnon never met, has also been sucked into the Family Loyalty Vortex created by Agamemnon's paradoxical behavior. To demonstrate his loyalty to his dead father, Orestes has been required to kill his mother, Clytemnestra.

This was the beginning and the end of Agamemnon's troubles, but in between, there were other paradoxes, all of which revolved around preserving the sanctity of families and the loyalty of husbands and wives. Achilles, the next guy you meet, has also been sucked into Agamemnon's Family Loyalty Vortex. At the beginning of the Iliad Agamemnon abducts the daughter of a priest of the god Apollo and keeps her as a concubine. The priest wants his daughter back, but Agamemnon says no. Clearly Agamemnon should have known better than to keep the daughter of a powerful priest against the wishes of her family, because that's exactly the kind of mistake the Trojans made (abducting Menelaus's wife) that sent Agamemnon to Troy in the first place. The fact that Agamemnon misses this connection is a powerful statement about how people keep making the same mistakes over and over and over without understanding what they're doing wrong.

Achilles gets sucked into Agamemnon's troubles because he's the one who realizes Agamemnon is wrong not to return the priest's daughter. Achilles tells him off, and--almost unbelievably--Agamemnon retaliates by kidnapping Achilles's favorite concubine, too. This creates a similar conflict of loyalties for Achilles. The rest of the plot of the Iliad revolves around friends, lovers, and children stolen from those who love them, always in retaliation for an earlier kidnapping or murder, and always necessitating a payback in kind from the other side. Thus the characters create an endless downward spiral of murder and/or betrayal for the sake of love.

Moreover, what makes these stories so compellling is that the characters frequently see what they're doing wrong, but they're powerless to stop it. Recognizing that their whole society is based on loyalty to family and friends, they see that a man has no worth as a human being if he shirks the obligations of the Loyalty Vortex. The characters are still locked in this vortex when they resurface in the Odyssey, even in death. For example, Achilles has delivered a speech in Book 9 of the Iliad that's one of the most famous and beautiful anti-war polemics of all time, especially considering the source (the greatest warrior in Greece). But the only thing he cares about asking Odysseus is whether or not his son has also turned out to be exactly what he was, still fighting the same kinds of wars and killing the same kinds of men for the same kinds of reasons.

As for Ajax (Greek “Aias”) , who puts in a brief appearance on page 135, his life tells the same story except that the issue is more one of loyalty to friends than loyalty to family.

As soon as Ajax exits, we find ourselves in the final scene of the Underworld, where we see the fates reserved for the least honorable Greeks, the great villains. These are men famous for the scale on which they were disloyal to family and/or dishonorable to gods.

The villains begin with King Minos (bottom of page 135). By now his name should be familiar. For one thing, he's connected to the fates of several of the grieving women you just met, since he was the father of Ariadne and Phaedra and possibly the lover of Procris. He also appears in Dante’s Inferno, as a permanent fixture in a hell of his own making. (See the opening lines of Canto 5). Dante evidently considered him a very important legendary figure, for he makes him Hell's judge, the man who says exactly where in hell each sinner will go. Dante fuses the figure of Minos the man with the physical form of a legendary beast he was best known for having inadvertently created, the Minotaur. The story of Minos and the Minotaur (from my Appleton-Century-Crofts) is given below.

King Minos won the kingdom of Crete by claiming to be a special favorite of Poseidon. Claiming that Poseidon would give him anything he wanted, he asked for a magical white bull to emerge from the sea, promising to sacrifice it back to Poseidon as soon as it did. Poseidon sent the bull, but Minos reneged on his promise to give it back. Poseidon punished him for that by causing his wife, Queen Pasiphae, to lust after the bull. She mated with it, producing the Minotaur, a monster with the head of a bull and the body of a man. To hide their shame, Minos had a master craftsman named Daedalus build a Labyrinth in which to hide the Minotaur.

However, the white bull that fathered the Minotaur was still on the loose. The bull eventually killed Androgeus, one of Minos's favorite sons, but only because a King of Athens had dared Androgeus to fight the bull. King Minos failed to see that his son's death was ultimately due to his own failure to respect the gods. (After all, the bull would have been at the bottom of the ocean if he had sacrificed it to Poseidon, as he said he was going to do, and there wouldn't have been a Minotaur in that case either.) King Minos instead blamed his son's death on the whole city of Athens. Since by that time Crete was a dominant naval power, he acted on his instinct for revenge by requiring the city of Athens to send 14 youths and maidens every year to the Labyrinth to be sacrificed to the Minotaur. But the only result of this was that he lost another child, his daughter Ariadne, to Theseus. (See discussion of "Ariadne," earlier in this handout.)

Other exploits of Minos also deal with the family loyalty issue. For example, Minos also tricked a young girl named Scylla, who had fallen in love with him, into betraying her father to help with the conquest of Athens. Then he spurned her because he didn't want a lover who would betray her own father for the sake of love. Scylla eventually was transformed into a monster who appears elsewhere in the Odyssey to plague Odysseus on his way home. (See Book 12, pages 139-140 and 142-143.)

Book 11 completes the catalogue of infamous villains on pages 136-137.

TITYUS: Tityus is one of the primordial giants, a son of Zeus. Zeus had saved his life by hiding his mother Elara from the jealous goddess Hera (Zeus's wife) until Tityus could safely be born. But Hera eventually destroyed Tityus by inciting him to try to rape Leto, a goddess who was a mistress of Zeus and the mother of Artemis and Apollo. Apollo and Artemis killed Tityus, who was so big that he had to be staked out on a field that covered nine acres of the Underworld. Vultures continuously peck at his heart as he lies chained and helpless. Both Homer and Virgil include this story in the exploits of heroes in their Underworlds.

TANTALUS: Legend leaves it unclear whether Tantalus was divine or mortal. He was a son of Zeus and a king who was on unusually intimate terms with the gods. But he abused the trust of the gods by stealing nectar and ambrosia, which was their special food that could make a man immortal (and therefore divine). He also killed his own son Pelops and boiled him in a stew to serve to the gods in order to test whether or not they were all-knowing. (So he corresponds to the figure of Lycaon in Ovid's Metamorphosis. He also stole a golden dog from Zeus and lied when Zeus asked him if he had it. Eventually Zeus had had enough of this guy and punished him as you see in the Underworld. (See lines 682-92.) The verb to "tantalize" comes from the name of Tantalus. You'll see what it means when you read how he's punished.

SISYPHUS: Again from Appleton-Century-Crofts, "Homer names Sisyphus as the craftiest of mortals." At one time Sisyphus noticed that his fine cattle were disappearing, and suspected his neighbor Autolycus, a noted thief. But he couldn't prove anything because Autolycus had the ability to change the color of the cattle or add or subtract horns from them at will. Sisyphus then put a secret mark on the hooves of his animals, and the next day traced them to Autolycus. When he went to reclaim them he took the opportunity to rape Anticleia, daughter of Autolycus and wife of Laertes, who subsequently bore his biological son Odysseus. Later Sisyphus seduced Tyro, the daughter of his brother (see "Tyro" earlier in this handout). Sisyphus had wanted to have sons by his niece so he could seize his brother's kingdom to add to his own. The trick didn't work because Tyro killed the sons she bore him in order to keep Sisyphus from killing her father. However, Sisyphus is best known for evading death several times by tricking the gods into releasing him from the Underworld, using various ruses; thus, his reputation as the cleverest man alive. The second cleverest man alive was his biological son Odysseus.

***

The only remaining figure in hell is Herakles, another name for Hercules. His story is much too long to retell here; suffice it to say that he's the greatest hero in Greek legend, particularly famous for his strength. He's not really in the Underworld, even though you see him here. As a mortal who was later granted immortality by the gods, his real soul has been raised up to live with the gods on Mt. Olympos. It's a shadow of him that you see here. The description of Herakles that appears in Homer on page 262 should probably be understood as a subtle critique of the ancient heroic culture of honor, glory, and warfare.

END OF NOTES ON BOOK ELEVEN. (Instead of asking why Odysseus visits the Underworld, maybe we should ask what this story could possibly mean if he did not!)

Book 12.

This book recounts the story of the Sirens, and the story of Scylla and Charybdis. As the climax of Odysseus's voyage, the Scylla/Charybdis straits is where his ship and crew finally disappear and he's stripped of all vestiges of his heroic identity. However, note that the chronology in the book is a little more involved than the chronology in the movie. In the movie, the episode of the cattle of the sun god is mentioned but not shown, and the ship and crew only pass through the straits of Scylla & Charybdis once.

In Homer's actual story, the men pass through the straits of Scylla and Charybdis twice. They do it for the first time on pages 142-143. Odysseus warns them not to eat the cattle of the sun god on page 144, but they do this anyway on page 145. Then because of the evil winds of the gods, Odysseus and crew are driven backwards to Charybdis a second time on pages 146-147. This is when the ship and crew finally disappear for good.

Also, notice that in contrast to Odysseus in the movie, Odysseus here in Homer's story does not warn his men about Scylla. He tells them only about Charybdis. Having agreed with Circe that there's no way to protect his men from Scylla, who's the lesser of the two evils, he only warns them to stick close to the cliffs to avoid Charybdis. Even if his decision to withhold information about Scylla was justified, his men might have seen this as a final betrayal. It might have affected their willingness to believe what he said about the cattle of Helios the sun god. If you follow the logic of the story as Odysseus tells it, that could be the case.

Of course the details of his voyage saga aren't true anyway. But this story may indicate that however they actually died, Odysseus's crew died because of dangers he failed to warn them about, thinking it best that they didn't know in advance about deaths they couldn't escape. Knowing that, we might add the moral ambiguities of Odysseus's relationship with his crew to the list of the story’s thematic issues. Remember that the book, not the movie, is your authoritative source for understanding these relationships. You can contrast what the movie says with what the books says, but the book gets the final word.

But before we leave the last episode of Odysseus's voyage, I think a few words of respect and appreciation are due the monsters. What would the story be without them, after all? And what would the story be without the witches and giants?

First of all, thanks to Joseph Campbell, you now know that scary folktales are allegorical stories that represent the unconscious fears and conflicts that dominate a culture. And thanks to my Appleton-Century-Crofts, you also now know that at least one of these monsters, the man-devouring Scylla, was once an innocent young girl raped and abandoned by a powerful "hero." Put this together. What does it tell you?

Well, for one thing, it doesn't take a genius to see that a lot of these stories involve once-powerless women who gain magical power and return to get even with the male heroes, often by assuming the forms of unimaginably demonic and savage destroyers. Scylla fits the bill. But so does Clytemnestra, even though she never develops the physical form of a monster. And what about Calypso and, especially, Circe?

Circe may be the most interesting of the magical females in the Odyssey. She doesn't literally eat the men she imprisons, but she does in some sense or another "consume" them. However, she can only do this because of a power they grant her by virtue of who they are. They are really betrayed by their own characters, are they not? A man under her spell becomes a pig, a wolf, or a monkey because--well, that's what he really is. Animals are symbolic of human traits. When we call a young man a "wolf," every young woman knows she's being warned against dating him. When we call a man a "shark," people who hear us will assume he's clever and completely unscrupulous, especially about money. When we call someone a "snake," we know that he will stoop to shocking depravities. And when we call someone a pig--well, see Canto 6 (pages 988-9) of the Inferno. And while we're at it, see what the same poem has to say earlier about lions, leopards, and wolves.

A possible paper task on the Odyssey would be to discuss the roles of the giants, witches, and monsters in changing Odysseus's character. How do they make him aware of problems in his own character and/or problems in his society's values? For some of you, discussing all of these episodes might be too broad. You could actually write a decent paper if you limited it just to witches, or just to winds. (Winds play a surprisingly active role in this story.) You could also limit it just to one episode of the journey that you think you understand especially well.

 Return to 251 Syllabus.