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Homer, Odyssey and Homecoming. An introduction. Odysseus’ Home: Ithaca. The Apotheosis of Homer. The earliest notable portrayal of the scene is a 3rd century BC marble relief by Archelaus of Priene, now in the British Museum. The Homecomings: The Odyssey. An overview.
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Homer, Odyssey and Homecoming An introduction
The earliest notable portrayal of the scene is a 3rd century BC marble relief by Archelaus of Priene, now in the British Museum
The Homecomings: The Odyssey An overview
The Cyclops Polyphemus key episode: • Note the description of the island and the nature of Cyclopean society. Pay attention to Odysseus' behavior. Is it commendable? Is he a good guest? Is Polyphemus a good host? Look for mentions of Zeus and the guest-host relationship. What vice gets Odysseus into trouble? What virtue gets him out of it? What types of behavior are approved and condemned by this story? Does Odysseus' victory over the Cyclops, and the means he uses to achieve it, suggest any other myths? What is the significance of calling himself Nobody?
Terracotta plaque, Plaque with the return of Odysseus, ca. 460?450 B.C.; Classical Greek, Melian
Odysseus slaying the suitors; below, an overview of the vase
Odyssey, Books 5-8 (Year 10 of the wanderings) • Hermes visits Calypso, who is with Odysseus • Calypso will grant him immortality; Odysseus wants to go home. • Poseidon gets back and brings up a storm • Washed up on the island of the Phaeacians • Nausicaä, daughter of Alcinous, king of the Phaeacians • The Athletic Games and Feast • The bard Demodocus sings of Troy, reveals Odysseus
Odysseus helps his men escape from Polyphemus' cave by hiding them under sheep. Pushkin Museum, Moscow.
Books 9-11: The Adventures, Part I (3 years) • The Cicones • The Lotus Eaters Drug of Forgetfulness • Polyphemus, the Cyclops • Aeolus, Lord of the Winds Gives Bag of Winds; men open it; blown back • Laestrygonians (Man-eating giants) Every ship destroyed except Odysseus'
Circe, the Sorceress a. Men turned to pigs b. Odysseus and Moly, the magic herb c. Odysseus and Circe get together d. They all stay for a year The Trip to the Underworld a. The ghost of Elpenor b. Tiresias' prophecy c. The Parade of Women d. Agamemnon: Don't trust women e. Achilles: Asks about Neoptolemus f. Ajax: still bitter, walks away g. The sufferers: Tityus, Tantalus, Sisyphus,
ORIENTALIZING STYLE: The story portrays Polyphemus as a giant, one-eyed cyclops who is blinded by a spear by Odysseus and his friends. The Cyclops is shown in a sitting position, and his monstrous size is noticeable in comparison to Odysseus and the others who are standing.
Works Cited • Kim, Lawrence. Odyssey: Phaeacian Tales. 15 Nov 2004. 4 May 2005 <http://www.utexas.edu/courses/larrymyth/28OdysseyI.html>. • Pottery Styles. 5 May 2005 <http://www.archaeonia.com/arts/pottery/styles.htm>.
Odysseus and Nausicaa:Athena visits Nausicaa, princess of Scheria, in a dream and tells her to go wash clothes at the river. She meets Odysseus. Try to visualize Odysseus' meeting with this young woman. What do we learn about Odysseus' character in this encounter? What information does he withhold?
with the return of the heroes • The other Homeric epic, the Odyssey, is concerned with the peace that followed the war and in particular with the return of the heroes who survived.
wandering in unknown seas • Its subject is the long, drawn-out return of one of the heroes, Odysseus of Ithaca, who was destined to spend then years wandering in unknown seas before he returned to his rocky kingdom.
twenty years of war and seafaring • When Odysseus’s wanderings began, Achilles had already received, at the hands of Apollo, the death that he had chosen. • Odysseus struggles for life, and his outstanding quality is a probing and versatile intelligence that, combined with long experience, keeps him safe and alive through. the trials and dangers of twenty years of war and seafaring
archetypal adventurer • Although Odysseus has become for us the archetypal adventurer, the Odyssey gives us a hero whose one goal is to get home. • He struggles not simply for his own and his shipmates’ personal survival but also to preserve and complete the heroic reputation that he won in war at Troy.
Odysseus’ Tricks • It may seem ironic that Odysseus succeeds by concealing his name, as when he tricks the Cyclops by presenting himself as “Nobody,” or when, at home on Ithaca, he tricks his wife’s suitors by disguising himself as a beggar. • But Odysseus’s shiftiness, his talent for disguise, deception, and plain lying, is part of his versatility.
The adventures on the voyage home test these mental qualities, as well as Odysseus’s physical endurance, but tempting him to lapse from the struggle homeward. • The Lotos flower offers forgetfulness of home and family. • Circe gives him a life of ease and self-indulgence on an enchanted island. • In Phaeacia, Odysseus is offered the love of a young princess and her hand in marriage.
The Lotus-Eaters17th century etching/ Theodor van Thulden (1606 - 1669)Fine Art Museum of San Francisco
The Sirens tempt him to live in the memory of the glorious past. • Calypso, the goddess with whom he spends seven years, offers him the greatest temptation of all: immortality. In refusing, Odysseus chooses the human condition, with all its struggle, its disappointments, and its inevitable end.
Return to ordinary life • The Odyssey celebrates return to ordinary life and makes it seem a worthy prize after excitement, toil, and danger. • The adventures occupy only four of twenty-four books (or eight if we include Calypso and the Phaeacians).
Ithaca • For the entire second half of the poem, Odysseus is back on Ithaca, winning his way, by deceit that only paves the way for force, from the swineherd Eumaios’s hut to the center of his own house.
Odysseus and Eumaios/ 17th century etchingTheodor van Thulden (1606 - 1669)
Telemachus • There, and in books 1-4, we see the social disorder on Ithaca that Odysseus’s return is to set right. • We also see Telemachus, his son, emerging from adolescence and impatient with all that keeps him from assuming a man’s role (his mother as well as her suitors).
Penelope • And we see Penelope’s dealings with her son, with her suitors, and with the beggar who is really her husband in disguise.
Penelope’s cunning • Penelope is a challenging figure, because the narrative does not give us full access to her thoughts and motives. • But she seems, with a cunning that matches Odysseus’s, to keep in balance two contradictory requirements of her situation.
