Introduction to the Odyssey
A) Odyssey i 1-12: That man, tell me about him, O Muse, about that many-sided man who wandered far and wide after he had sacked the famous citadel of Troy. Many cities did he visit, and many were the people with whose customs and thinking [noos] he was acquainted; many pains [algea] he suffered at sea while seeking to save his own life [psukhē] and to achieve the safe homecoming [nostos] of his companions; but do what he might he could not save his men, for they perished through their own sheer recklessness in eating the cattle of the Sun-god Helios; so the god prevented them from ever reaching home. Tell me, as you have told those who came before me, about all these things, O daughter of Zeus, starting from whatsoever point you choose. [11] So now all who escaped death in battle or by shipwreck had got safely home except Odysseus, and he, though he was longing for his return [nostos] to his wife and country, was detained by the goddess Calypso, ...
The key word for this dialogue is nostos 'return, homecoming; song about homecoming; return to light and life'
The last of these meanings is mystical, having to do with ideas about immortalization after death. Our first impression is that such ideas are foreign to Homeric poetry. When we take a second look, however, we see that immortalization is a subtext, as it were, even in Homeric poetry. Immortalization is a matter of eschatology.
Eschatology has to do with thinking about afterlife - where you "end up." In Christian eschatology, for example, the alternatives are heaven and hell. In Homeric eschatology, it must be noted, Hades is not "hell."
As we will see more clearly later, Hades is transitional rather than eschatological. Only paradisiacal places like Elysium etc. are eschatological
The process of nostos can be a mode of immortalization. This theme will play out in the plot of the Odyssey, but not directly. Only on the level of metaphor.
An important set of working definitions...
Metaphor is literally a "borrowing" from one world into another.
Metaphor (SUBSTITUTION) works in the vertical axis of selection, while
metonym (CONNECTION) works in the horizontal axis of combination.
B) Odyssey i 88-95: In the meantime I will go to Ithaca, to put heart into Odysseus' son Telemachos; I will embolden him to call the Achaeans in assembly, and speak out to the suitors of his mother Penelope, who persist in eating up any number of his sheep and oxen; I will also conduct him to Sparta and to Pylos, to see if he can hear anything about the return [nostos] of his dear father - for this will give him genuine fame [kleos] throughout humankind.
In this passage, we see that Athena is preparing Telemachos to connect with the epic of his father, which is an epic in the making. This epic of Odysseus, this Odyssey, is a matter of both kleos and nostos.
C) Odyssey i 325-344: Phemios was still singing, and his hearers sat rapt in silence as he told the baneful tale of the homecoming [nostos] from Troy, and the ills Athena had laid upon the Achaeans. Penelope, daughter of Ikarios, heard his song from her room upstairs, and came down by the great staircase, not alone, but attended by two of her handmaids. When she reached the suitors she stood by one of the bearing posts that supported the roof of the halls with a staid maiden on either side of her. She held a veil, moreover, before her face, and was weeping bitterly. [337] "Phemios," she cried, "you know many another feat of gods and heroes, such as poets love to celebrate. Sing the suitors some one of these, and let them drink their wine in silence, but cease this sad tale, for it breaks my sorrowful heart, and reminds me of my lost husband for whom I have grief [penthos] ever without ceasing, and whose name [kleos] was great over all Hellas and middle Argos.
We see from this passage that kleos without penthos is a superficial kind of epic. The Odyssey explores the complexities of epic. From the retrospective standpoint of the Odyssey, the moral foundations of the Iliad are questioned:
D) Odyssey iii 130-135: When, however, we had sacked the city of Priam, and were setting sail in our ships as the gods had dispersed us, then Zeus saw fit to vex the Argives on their homeward voyage [nostos]; for they had not all been either wise or just [dikaioi], and hence many came to a bad end through the anger [mēnis] of Zeus' daughter Athena.
In this passage, we see that the nostoi of the Achaeans involved not only happy endings but many unhappy ones. Of all the nostoi, only the nostos of Odysseus is not yet complete. It is a story still in the making. The question is, will it have a happy ending or a sad ending?
It repays the effort to look closely at the contexts of these words:
"A la recherche du temps perdu" (compare Marcel Proust):
i 326 nostos of the Achaeans
i 342 penthos alaston 'grief that is unforgettable [lēth-]'
i 344 kleos of Odysseus
i 351 kleos of the "latest" happenings
The Odyssey "returns" to the songs of the Trojan War:
E) Odyssey viii 73-82: the Muse inspired Demodokos to sing the glories [kleos] of heroes. In particular it was something that had a kleos that reached all the way to the sky in its full breadth. It was [75] the quarrel [neikos] between Odysseus and Achilles, and the fierce words that they heaped on one another as they sat together at a banquet. But Agamemnon was glad in his mind [noos] that the best of the Achaeans were quarrelling with one another, for Apollo had foretold him this [80] at Pytho [= Delphi] when he crossed the stone floor to consult the oracle. Here was the beginning of the evil that by the will of Zeus started rolling down toward both Danaans and Trojans.
This passage shows us a micro-Iliad as viewed in the Odyssey.
We have independent evidence about the plots of epics about the Trojan War. A case in point is the plot summary of Proclus, Iliou Persis ("Destruction of Troy"); part of the "Epic Cycle" as summarized by Proclus; observe what Odysseus does and when.
F) Plot summary of Proclus, Iliou Persis:
1 The Trojans, suspicious about the horse, stand about wondering what they should do.
Some think it should be pushed off a cliff,
while others think it should be burned down,
while still others say that it should be dedicated as sacred [hieros] to Athena..
5 In the end, the opinion of the third group wins out.
They turn to merriment, feasting as if they had been freed from the war.
At this point two serpents appear and destroy Laocošn and one of his sons.
At the sight of this marvel, Aeneas and his followers grow uneasy at this marvel, and withdraw to Mount Ida.
Sinon lights signal fires for the Achaeans. He had previously entered the city, using a pretext.
10 And they [= the Achaeans], some of them sailing from Tenedos
[toward Troy] and others of them emerging from the Wooden Horse, fall upon their enemies.
They kill many, and the city is taken by force.
Neoptolemos kills Priam, who has taken refuge at the altar of Zeus Herkeios.
Menelaos finds Helen and takes her back down to the ships, after
15 slaughtering Deiphobos.
Ajax son of Oileus takes Kassandra by force, dragging her away from the wooden statue [xoanon] of Athena.
At the sight of this, the Achaeans get angry and decide to stone Ajax to death,
but he takes refuge at the altar of Athena,
and so is preserved from his impending destruction.
20 The Achaeans put the city to the torch.
They slaughter Polyxena on the tomb of Achilles.
Odysseus kills Astyanax,
and Neoptolemos takes Andromache as his prize.
The rest of the spoils are distributed.
25 Demophon and Akamas find Aithra [the mother of Theseus], and take her with them.
Then the Achaeans sail off [from Troy],
and Athena begins to plan destruction for them at sea.
Compare this version of the epic traditions about the Trojan War with the version told by Demodokos to an audience including the yet-unidentified Odysseus:
G) Odyssey viii 499-534: The singer, starting with a prayer to the god, took up the story at the point where some of the Argives set fire to their tents and sailed away while others, hidden within the horse, were waiting with Odysseus in the Trojan place of assembly. For the Trojans themselves had drawn the horse into their fortress, and it stood there while they sat in council round it, and were in three minds as to what they should do. Some were for breaking it up then and there; others would have it dragged to the top of the rock on which the fortress stood, and then thrown it down the precipice; while yet others were for letting it remain as an offering and propitiation for the gods. And this was how they settled it in the end, for the city was doomed when it took in that horse, within which were all the bravest of the Argives waiting to bring death and destruction on the Trojans. Then he sang how the sons of the Achaeans issued from the horse, and sacked the town, breaking out from their ambuscade. He sang how they overran the city here and there and ravaged it, and how Odysseus went raging like Ares along with Menelaos to the house of Deiphobos. It was there that the fight raged most furiously, nevertheless by Athena's help he was victorious. [521] All this he told, but Odysseus was overcome as he heard him, and his cheeks were wet with tears. He wept as a woman weeps when she throws herself on the body of her husband who has fallen before his own city and people, fighting bravely in defense of his home and children. She wails aloud and flings her arms about him as he lies gasping for breath and dying, but her enemies beat her from behind about the back and shoulders, and carry her off into slavery, to a life of labor [ponos] and sorrow, and the beauty fades from her cheeks—even so piteously did Odysseus weep, but none of those present perceived his tears except Alkinoos, who was sitting near him, and could hear the sobs and sighs that he was heaving.
On the motif of the tears of the captive woman, compare...
Virgil Aeneid 1.462: sunt lacrimae rerum 'there are tears that connect with the universe' (note too the title of the composition by Franz Liszt).
See the website, Introduction 3, "The Epic Hero," ¤¤47-53, which explores in depth some of the topics I list below:
1) We need to explore in more detail later the key words in Odyssey iii 132-135: Zeus plots lugros [baneful] nostos (132), because the Argives had no noos nor justice [dikē] (133) and they were slated for doom because of the mēnis of Athena (135)
2) Whereas Achilles has to choose between kleos and nostos in the Iliad, Odysseus gets both in the Odyssey.
3) Odyssey vs. Iliad: compare Will of Zeus in Iliad I 5 vs. Odyssey i 32ff.
4) How have scholars explained such differences?
A. Two authors.
B. One author in different phases of life.
5) Questions of authorship tie into three basic theories about Homeric poetry:
A) Homer wrote it down
B) Homer dictated it
C) Homer is the culmination of an evolving oral epic tradition
6) In terms of explanation "C," the differences between Il. and Od. are a matter of distinct but complementary traditions, that have evolved alongside each other.
7) On thematic complementarity between the two epics: anger/baneful/caused suffering for Achaeans and implicitly Trojans (Iliad) vs. man/polytropic/veered many times (Odyssey)
8) Odysseus as off-course = off-balance. Yet another way of saying "out of synchrony."
9) Primary heroic identity of Odysseus has to do with nostos
(rewritten in Introduction 3):
A) returning king who reclaims his kingdom
Excursus: king = body politic
starts from zero; from zero to hero
B) sailor/pilot who came home from the sea
link between #1 and #2: kubernētēs/gubernator/governor-government (the ship of state metaphor)
C) returning warrior who reclaims his wife: wanderer/adventurer; a most appropriate description is soldier of fortune
D) seer returning from vision quest = shaman
E) trickster who retraces steps (cf. Paul Radin)
F) The son goes off on a quest to find his father in order to find his own heroic identity.
10) god/hero antagonism for Odysseus: Poseidon (#A), Athena (##AB), Hermes (##DE)
11) Poseidon as antagonist is the easiest to comprehend.
12) Athena... best to start with "Our Lady of Pilots" theme; key is v (end) and xiii (beginning)
13) A related theme: Athena installs kings, e.g. Erekhtheus in Iliad [II 547]
14) As for Hermes... best to start with polytropism (Odyssey x 330); Odysseus polu‑tropos (Odyssey i 1)
There is a built-in reference to Hermes in the name of Poly-phemos, son of Poseidon.
15) "Dress-rehearsal" for Athena's help: Telemachos narrative, genre of Mirror of Princes.
16) Telemachos formulates his quest in two ways:
Odyssey ii 360 I am going after the nostos of my father
Odyssey iii 83 I am going after the kleos of my father
17) Athena in the role of Mentes says:
Odyssey i 89 I will put menos in him [= Telemachos]
Odyssey i 320ff She put menos in him, and reminded [mnē-] him
18) Mentēs in Odyssey i, Mentōr in Odyssey ii.
19) Remember the concept of Lethe!!!
20) Achilles preempts Odysseus for the narrative of Troy, Ilias=Iliad.
21) Achilles is Best of the Achaeans because of Troy
22) Odysseus is Best of the Achaeans because he remarried Penelope.
23) Odyssey i 4: he suffered many algea; same word as in Iliad I 2. Is there a difference between the pains of the Iliad and Odyssey?
24) Odysseus has his cake and eats it too, nostos and kleos
25) He was the one who destroyed Troy, not Achilles.
26) But he also gets to suffer on account of both: