Odyssey Notes
Odysseus survives the night by piling the dead leaves (note the season)
He hears the little girls; one of which is a princess.
He has two choices: stay in the woods or ask for help.
He needs help.
No clothes, bruised and blooded (coming to shore through the surf)
He weighs his choices, and decides that he has to approach these girls.
So he gets a tree branch to cover vital areas, and comes out of the wood.
All the girls scream and run away. Except one, who stays frozen. Nausicaa stays still.
Should he touch her knees, or keep some distance and use charming words to beg her.
Odysseus decides to use words to beg her: the girl may be alarmed at being touched.
What he says: ‘my lady, please.’
Are you divine or human?
The disadvantage of this: a beaten up, naked, and bruised person looks like a crazy sex maniac.
But then he invokes her family: girls are protected by family.
Someone who has ill, perverse intentions will never mention that a young woman is embedded in a family. That’s not what a graphic person wants to think about.
Delighted to have her as one of their family.
And that man who marries you will be the luckiest by far. ~ paraphrase
Another thing that malignant people wouldn’t talk about is marriage.
Putting distance between himself and a crazy person.
All that he says invokes that he is a person of respect.
He’s now invoked the physical gesture of supplication: but he says it.
You also now need to tell them what you want.
Homophrosyne: like minded/same minded
This is like Jane Austen’s dream: in a world that’s very difficult for women to navigate,
Where women can’t do all the things men do to make a living.
A woman can only be displayed at dances, and hope that a man will make her an offer of marriage; and there is a window of opportunity
About 16-24 years of age.
Missing your marriage timeline is terrible: you may not be in sympathy with your husband, but you at least have a home.
From Jane Austen, the two goals of marriage: marry someone above your expectations, and marry someone who will give you sympathy.
The goal is sympathy: same mindedness.
What Odysseus has done here, is that by speaking and saying things that for ordinary people are done in symbolic gestures (but may be too much in this specific situation), he has earned the sympathy of this girl. So now, she has homophrosyne on him.
So now she will go and return, giving him enough to go into the palace without looking crazy and ask for hospitality.
Palaces and what they say about their owners.
So he goes to the city:
He is received by the king and queen who have been prepared to receive him.
Received with perfect hospitality.
As they feast him, they sing songs of Troy: and they work out
This is Odysseus, and then he is a hero
We are going to hit on the high spots of the travels
One thing about ancient people: they didn’t understand symbolism
They thought everything was literary; the gods were real and not symbols of qualities of the world.
They offer him to be her husband: give him a home and wealth.
Well he says no. He says he already has a wife and a son (Book 7, line 310-320)
The Journeys:
Book 9:
In the previous book, they recognized Odysseus. There was a lot of talk of Troy.
Lord of Lies - Odysseus
So. They come across an interesting island; but without anyone there, Odysseus could only see what it offered to human ingenuity.
And he will meet the people of the island, which was a mistake, and they have no ingenuity.
These are monstrous people, but they are blessed by the gods.
The gods just give them everything; but that doesn’t make them better, it makes them worse people.
They hold no counsels.
The Cyclops: they only have one eye.
Elephant skulls - it looks like a big giant’s head, and where the trunk comes out looks like a giant eye socket. Too big to be human.
Odysseus thinks they can claim hospitality: but they are not human.
The people of the island live in a primitive state; it makes them monstrous creatures.
So he says to Polyphemus
He eats two humans for dinner every day: keeping them trapped.
Nowhere does it say that the Cyclops only has one eye.
He gouges out the eye.
He can’t find them: he can’t see. But Polyphemus has to let the sheep out; so the men hang on to the bottom of the sheep and escape. However, Odysseus has to boast; and he gives his name.
Polyphemus is Poseidon’s son: and now, Poseidon will not let him return home alive.
The one thing that makes gods different: they never die.
Along the sheer cliff, there runs a bronze wall.
But nobody had a bronze wall: bronze was a precious thing
6 strong boys and 6 girls: seems a bit symmetrical, but after all, it is generally 50/50; 12 children, 6 of each, not impossible.
He arranged each marriage: one brother to one sister.
A constant feast
Now, Odysseus arrives; he stayed a month, being questioned: news from Troy.
Odysseus is speaking as a dinner guest and telling this to his host.
He wanted to be released, so he was given a bag with the winds inside it.
Zeus made him the steward of the winds… rouse as he pleases.
Iolaus: lives on an island (a floating island), that’s never in the same place (big, solid, and walls of bronze…). How many winds did the ancient Greeks think they were? 12. And they were married.
So Iolaus gives him a bag: inside is all of the winds except one.
Zephyris: the wind that comes from the west; was left.
They’ve gone too far; beyond the pillars of Heracles (out of the mediterranean), which was the only sea they knew, into the ocean beyond.
So now they want the west wind to blow them back east into the Greek peninsula.
Zephyr brought them close, but for nine days they sailed, and then on the tenth, they saw their land again. Odysseus had been doing all the steering, and then he let sleep take him.
And all the men whom he is trying to get home… will never get home. Odysseus will only be released when all the men are dead and he is alone.
So while he’s sleeping, the men who Odysseus was trying to get home opened the bag of winds. And the winds explode. And now, he ends up back at Iolaus’ island.
His companions weep, but they have done their wrongs.
However, this time, Iolaus has completely changed; he hates Odysseus (‘god forsaken thing, how dare you come here.’). He’s changed just like a wind.
Going forward: book 10, line 190
The winds and the witch
Eos: east, dawn; the rosy cheeks of dawn.
Zophos: west, dusk/sunset; the sun goes down.
We do not know where darkness lives. Or dawn.
Nor where the sun that shines upon the world goes underneath the earth; nor where it rises. That’s how we say: we are completely lost and do not know where we are.
Circe’s island:
The quest here is: remember.
Swine does not remember home.
Odysseus goes there separately
He seduces her (line 360), and then she returns his men to normal, and they have a lovely time together.
She tells him: he will not get home unless he goes to ask Tiresias (the blind prophet).
But Tiresias’ time was a hundred years ago; now he is dead.
So now, he needs to go to the end of the ocean, and go to the land of the dead.
And among the dead, you must find Tiresias, and you must ask him how you get home.
Both remember and intend: or you will never finish your journey.
Look backward but also look forward.
That is how Elpenor died.
If you forget, you will die.
So now… to Hades
Book 11, the land of the dead.
The sun god never looks on them: you’re going to a place where rays of sun cannot reach.
They go to the asphodel, bringing a sheep as a sacrifice.
All around are wandering spirits. Odysseus digs a hole there, and cuts the throat of the sheep, pouring the blood into the hole.
The ghosts rush at him; they are hungry. They are the pictures of what they were, but they want anything that is real.
When there’s blood, they must have it.
He forces these ghosts away from him, but allows some to drink if they talk to him.
Among them all is Achilles:
Achilles recognized Odysseus and spoke in tears.
‘How could you bear to come down to Hades’
Shades of poor, exhausted mortals.
Odysseus responds: he came for Tiresias.
Achilles had the greatest respect as a mortal, and the greatest command as the dead. But Achilles replies: do not comfort me; I’d rather be a slave.
Achilles would rather be the slave of a peasant than rule as king over all of the dead; his judgement was wrong. Nostos was the best.
Book 12: Sirens
Around them lay great heaps of men…
The sirens are a symbol: you must remember.
Song is the symbol of perfect memory; you have to remember your past to maintain the intention of your future.
But. Perfect memory and perfect forgetfulness have the same fate. Death.
It is an alternative world; that means you can’t reach places in this world.
So… you listen to the perfect memory of the sirens, then you will die.
So Odysseus chained himself to the ship and has his companions put wax in their ears to block out the songs
The fatal end: Book 12 and difficult choices;
This is where it all goes to pieces.
Odysseus wants to save all the men
The gods are not mortal. You cannot fight her.
She is nature. Nature's different. The cruelest thing is nature.
Odysseus has two choices; one used to be human, one never was.
Charybdis and Scylla
Then, he will reach the island of Helius (the sun god), who keeps many sheep.
7 herds of 50 sheep that never reproduce or die.
Weird cattle…
The days and the nights of the year; the differences of day and night. Those are the herds of the sun, Helius.
So when they’re on that island, they CANNOT touch the sheep. Do not kill the cattle.
And of course, his companions do just that.
They’re really hungry; they kill the sheep and cattle, and eat them.
And Helius goes to the gods of Olympus; unless the gods give him these men to kill, he will take away the days of the world. There will be endless nothing.
So the gods give it to them.
On page 315, he loses the few companions that passed back with him to Charybdis.
And this is a liberation; what Poseidon said was that he would only get home alone.
So the great delay is that he had to wait until the last companion was dead. Because that was his fate. And yet, he never stops trying to save his companions.
And that’s what delays him.
He tells this story (430)
He could neither plant his feet or climb.
Held onto a tree branch where your feet can’t kick up or reach the ground.
Roots too low, branches too high. So Odysseus clung.
He suspended between past and future, but wait for the cycles of time
Eventually, Charybdis belched his planks back up.
Sometimes you can’t do anything but hold on…
But now Odysseus let himself go, clambering on to the broken wood.
And the gods ensured that Scylla wouldn’t see him; he drifted for nine days.
And on the tenth! He reached the island of Calypso
Yes, she concealed and hid him,
But she loved and cared for him.
So he falls asleep, and the Phaeacians (magical people) are allowed to sail the seas in the winter (when humans aren’t able to sail the sea), so they give him a ship, gold, and bring him to Ithaca (while he’s asleep).
The sea god turns the boat and all of them into rocks for helping Odysseus.
The sea god hates Odysseus.