13 Traces of different stages in the historical development of the Greek language, as well as dialectal variants, likewise coexist in the epic idiom, making it in some sense the idiom of no one particular time or place. (The details can, obviously, only be discussed with reference to the text in the original language.)
14 It is clear that by blinding Polyphêmos, the son of Poseidon, Odysseus earns the sea god’s enmity. This is the only offense against a god on Odysseus’ part so marked in the poem, and it becomes a crucial element in his life. Even after his return, he will have to go on a pilgrimage to make amends; only then, as Teirêsias informs him, will Poseidon be satisfied. Poseidon, a backer of Troy in The Iliad, was hardly likely to be well-disposed to Odysseus to start with. There were also the offenses that Odysseus committed at Troy, above all, the theft of the Palladium during the sack of the city, considered significant for The Odyssey by Jenny Strauss Clay in The Wrath of Athena: Gods and Men in the Odyssey (Princeton, 1983), a fascinating if unconventional reading of the poem. Odysseus would have been a well-known figure to audiences hearing The Odyssey for the first time, and not just from previous versions of his homecoming: he was made the subject of The Odyssey because he had a prehistory and stood for something. These other stories are always hovering around our Odysseus like a narrative penumbra, but it is still worth noting that Poseidon’s wrath, not Athena’s, is thematized in The Odyssey.
15 Sheila Murnaghan makes the further, subtle observation: “Telemachus’ reunion with Odysseus is the culminating moment of Telemachus’ growth to a point where he no longer needs Odysseus’ return” (Disguise and Recognition in the Odyssey [Princeton, 1987], p. 37).
16 Presentations of the example to Telémakhos which follow the one quoted are those by Nestor (III.208–17 and III.328–37), by Athena disguised as Mentor (III.250–54—she had assumed the form of Mentês the first time), and by Proteus, whose account is narrated by Meneláos (IV.554–73). That Orestês also killed his mother is mentioned in only one of these accounts, and then merely in passing (III.335–36).
17 Marylin Arthur Katz reminds us that the etymology of “Klytaimnéstra”—“renowned for being wooed”—would fit Penélopê as well or better (Penelope’s Renown, p. 45, citing the insight of K. Kunst, “Die Schuld der Klytaimnéstra,” Wiener Studien 44 [1924–25], 18–32, 143–54, here p. 26). Actually, both Helen and Penélopê are more famous than Klytaimnéstra for being wooed if fame is measured in the number of wooers. The pact among the suitors of Helen (1) to abide by her choice and (2) to come to her husband’s aid if she is ever abducted is presented elsewhere in Greek legend among the necessary preconditions for the Trojan War; tradition has it that this pact was suggested by none other than Odysseus. Helen succumbed to Paris’ blandishments, and Klytaimnéstra to Aigísthos’. It is Penélopê alone who in the face of a great number of suitors prevents their success at wooing. From the man’s point of view, a good woman can only succeed at being wooed by permitting successful wooing to one man.
18 According to The Odyssey this took some seven years. An alternate tradition would eventually develop that after the sack of Troy, Meneláos didn’t simply regain Helen. According to this plot, the Helen at Troy turned out to have been a wraith, while the “real” Helen had long since been wafted to Egypt, where Meneláos had to go rescue her. See, for example, Euripides’ Helen.
19 For a superb example, see Bernard Knox’s “Introduction” to The Iliad, especially pp. 23–43.
20 For a recent highly intelligent and suggestive study, see Andrew Ford, Homer: The Poetry of the Past (Ithaca, 1992). On these “paths,” see Commentary, Book VIII. 79–80.
21 The episode (XIX.451–552) was known as “the bath” or “the bathing” (ta Niptra) in antiquity. One of the most famous modern analyses constitutes the first chapter (“Odysseus’ Scar”) of Erich Auerbach, Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, tr. Willard R. Trask (Princeton, 1953), pp. 3–23, although later scholars would be rather more hesitant in drawing the global distinctions between Homeric and Biblical narrative styles that Auerbach does in his nonetheless stimulating discussion.
22 I intend this pose as “learned” rather than “willed ignorance,” but those who see it as the latter might do well to recall the Greek sophist Gorgias’ insight that people who willingly permit themselves to be deceived by literary fictions are wiser than those who resist the deception.
CHRONOLOGY
MAP AND ILLUSTRATIONS
2. The Palace at Pylos. A grand Mycenaean palace on the order of the majestic home of Nestor, like the one above, impresses Telémakhos in Book III, as he is used to simpler life on Ithaka. Excavations on a ridge, Epano Englianos, four miles north of Navarino Bay, in southwestern Messenia, have uncovered extensive remains of a large palace destroyed by fire ca. 1200 B.C.E. The complex grew from an older, more modest palace to the southwest to include a much grander multistoried central palace, with richly decorated walls and floor, the latter with an octopus motif.
A. Throne room
B. Portico
C. Court
D. Covered porch
E. Inner porch
F. Waiting rooms, pantries
G. Storerooms
H. Bathroom
J-L. Women’s quarters
J. Hall with hearth
K. Inner court
L. Rooms
M. Archive room
N. Throne room, old palace
P. Covered court or antechamber
Q. Workshops
3. The Homeric ship. A: Mast. B: Yard. C: Sail. D: Braces. E: Sheets. F: Forestays. G: Pulley-hole and halyard. H: Backstay. I: Rudder-oar. J: Stem. K: Half-decks.
4. This depiction of Odysseus’ escape from Polyphêmos’ cave graced a proto-Attic wine vase painted ca. 675–600 B.C.E. by a stylist so distinctive that art historians call him or her the “Painter of the Ram Jug.” The illustration is a loose interpretation of the episode (Book IX.463–505) where Odysseus ties each of his men beneath the middle of three rams while he clings to the fleece, not the horns, of the largest ram.
5. A bow like Odysseus’ prized hunting bow which Penélopê uses to test the suitors. The amount of tension on the bowstring made it a powerful and effective weapon, and a hard one to string. The suitors fail, but Odysseus has the requisite knowledge, strength, and dexterity. On the peculiarities of this double-torsion composite bow and the trick one needs to know to string it, see the note on Book XXI. 12.
6. A fifth-century coin from Thebes shows how an archer is to string the double-torsion bow. Whether sitting (like Odysseus) or crouching (as here), one pushes the bow against the heel of the foot planted behind on the ground. Only in that way can one muster sufficient force to bend the composite bow far enough to get the string around the upper end.
7. This is one possible arrangement of the axe heads through which Odysseus sends his prize-winning shot. Debate continues about the precise arrangement Homer intended us to imagine (see the note on XXI. 132–37). One solution, depicted above, envisages Minoan/Mycenaean cult axes with rings at the bases of their handles by which they could be hung up and displayed. In this case, the prize shot would pass through the series of rings at the top of the inverted axes.
8. A second argument has the axe heads fixed in the ground. The challenge is to shoot through the series of holes in the axe heads into which handles would normally be fitted. This is the image that Fitzgerald presents in his translation (“iron axe-helve sockets,” XXI.80, and “socket ring(s),” XXI.137 and 483). Visible is the earthen ridge that Telémakhos forms “to hold the blades half-bedded” (XII. 134–35). In either case a successful archer would have to be seated, as Odysseus is (XXI.480).
9. This fragment from an early vellum book of the late third or fourth century C.E. displays Book XV. 189–210 of The Odyssey (corresponding to XV.235–60 in Fitzgerald’s translation; on its back are XV.161–81, XV. 198–225 in English). Since the oldest extant complete manuscript of the epic date
s from the tenth or eleventh century, earlier fragments can give us insight into the history of the text. This fragment exhibits the standardized or vulgate text that was well established by ca. 150 B.C.E. Greco-Roman booksellers, like their later cousins, wished to purvey the most authoritative and popular text.
10. A page from the Editio princeps (1488), the first printed edition of The Odyssey (the original is 12¾ inches high). The Greek text (lines I.1–32 in Fitzgerald’s translation) begins with the large initial alpha—the A of andra, man—which a calligrapher filled in after the book was printed. This artist also decorated the left and lower margins and inscribed the capital O at the top of the page that begins the hypothesis: a summary of Book I of The Odyssey. Calligraphic initial capitals (majuscules) were among the features of medieval manuscripts preserved in the earliest printed books.
COMMENTARY
BOOK I
A Goddess Intervenes
1 Sing in me, Muse: The poet asks the collective cultural memory to sing through him, even breathe into him [ennepe, 1]. The Muse, or Muses (on the number of Muses, see XXIV.68, below) are the daughters of Zeus (see I.17, or Iliad II.491). Hesiod, Homer’s near contemporary—chronological certainty is not possible, but Hesiod (c. 700 B.C.E.) clearly knew the Homeric poems and can thus be placed later than Homer—names Mnemosyne, “Memory,” as the mother (Theogony 54). Such divine genealogies provided Greek thinkers a way of expressing the close connections of ideas and attributes. (For a mortal example, see I.142ff., below.) The Muse guarantees that what the bard relates is true memory (on “Memory” and epic, see Introduction, p. lxvi).
For a comparison of this prologue or proem and that of The Iliad, with which it has much in common, see West (HWH I.67–69).
2 skilled in all ways of contending represents one of the most important epithets of Odysseus, in Greek polytropos [1], which means “versatile,” “with many twists and turns.” This is the first of a veritable family of poly-epithets, bound together in the Greek by the shared first element, poly-, “many-.” Though English has a few such phrases (“many-splendored”), Fitzgerald rightly does not attempt to create a comparably recognizable series in his translation, preferring variety and above all what seems to fit best in the immediate context. When polytropos appears next, it is as “O great contender” (X.371 [330]).
The most frequent poly-epithets for Odysseus are polytlas, “much enduring” (Fitzgerald’s “For all he had endured,” V.181 [171]), polymêkhanos, “much conniving” (“versatile,” V.212 [203]), and polymêtis, “with many wiles” (“the strategist,” V.223 [214]; see also XIX.65, below). Both aspects—Odysseus’ creative cunning and his manifold misfortunes—are reflected in the less frequent poly-compounds connected with him. Both his nurse (“in his craftiness,” XXIII.85 [polyïdriêisi, 77]) and one of the suitors (XXIV. 187 [polykerdeiêisin, 167]) highlight his wiliness, as does the narrator (XIII.324–25 [polykerdea, 255]). Athena will shortly refer to him as “wise” (I.108 [polyphrona, 83]).
Odysseus is made to use poly-compounds when he refers to his suffering: twice he refers to his polykêdea noston, “homeward journey involving pains of all sorts” (to the Phaiákians, IX.41–43 [37], to Penélopê, XXIII.398–99 [351]) and yet another poly-compound is behind the words “My heart is sore” that Odysseus, now disguised as a wayfaring Kretan noble, utters to Penélopê (XIX. 141 [polystonos, 118]). Another member of this poly-system is the octopus to which Odysseus is compared (see V.451, below).
Flexibility, adaptability, and trickiness belong to the core of Odysseus’ being, as The Odyssey shows at every turn (see, for example, XXIII. 149–58, below). The first time the narrator (as opposed to a speaker) mentions Odysseus in The Iliad, it is with the epithet polymêtis (Iliad I.311). On the all-important characteristic of mêtis, “cunning intelligence,” see IX.394, XX.21, and XXIII. 142, below; also M. Detienne and J.-P. Vernant, Cunning Intelligence in Greek Culture and Society (cited in the Bibliography, below).
4–5 after he plundered … Troy: Odysseus, in large measure thanks to his wiliness—the ruse of Trojan horse was his idea (see VIII.84–85, below)—was indeed the key to Greek victory. While not the equal of Akhilleus or Aias in pure killing power, he was a formidable soldier. However, no one could equal him in those qualities which are as valuable at home and in peace as in combat: persuasion and strategy.
7 learned the minds of many distant men: In fact, of many different people [anthrôpôn, 3]. On this aspect of Odysseus’ character, see IX.184ff. and XII. 193, below.
10–12 shipmates …: None of Odysseus’ shipmates [hetairoi] will return. In the proem, Homer emphasizes Odysseus’ attempts to save them from their own folly, especially marked in the episode highlighted here (13–16) when they killed and ate of the sun god’s sacred cattle (XII.339–555). But many were already lost in other gruesome ways (so claims Odysseus’ narrative that begins in Book IX). In fact, Eurýlokhos accuses Odysseus of having caused the deaths of some by just the sort of “recklessness” described here (“foolishness,” X.484). On Vergil’s implicit critique of Odysseus’ irresponsibility, see Introduction, p. xx.
13 children and fools: One word in Greek [nêpioi, 8], and entirely negative in connotation here (see also XIII. 300–317, below: “great booby,” XIII.302). For a striking instance of cultural transvaluation, contrast a considerably later Greek writer’s use of the same word: St. Paul’s “babes in Christ” (I Cor. 3.1). Long before Paul, Greek writers were marking their distance from Homer by employing words familiar from his texts—for Homer was the staple of Greek education for more than a millennium—in new ways.
13, 39–41 Homeric figures, both gods and humans, take pleasure in feasting, which is one of the central images of the poem as it was a central institution of Homeric society. The feast is a social event, ideally a symbol of harmony, not only among humans but, if the sacrificial ceremonies have been properly observed, between gods and men. However, like all rites, it can be perverted. The theme of eating is remarkably prominent in The Odyssey, both good (the meal in Eumaios’ hut), and more frequently bad (e.g., monstrous cannibalism, Odysseus’ crew’s eating of Hêlios’ herd, and the suitors’ gorging themselves in Odysseus’ home on his substance).
16 The dawn of their return: The translator waxes slightly poetic to mark the end of his verse paragraph. Homer merely says, “he [Hêlios] took away the day of their homecoming” [9]. Which is not to say that Homer is unpoetic, and surely not as prosaic as my literal translation might suggest. He achieves his effects over the longer stretches, that the rhythmic roll of dactylic hexameters makes possible.
17 Muse, Daughter of Zeus: See 1, above.
18 us: Not just the poet but the audience as well.
19 Begin: On the issue of starting points and narrative order, traditional in epic proems, see IX. 14–15, below.
19–21 all the rest…: The other surviving Greeks, most prominently Agamémnon, Nestor, and Meneláos. The Odyssey places Odysseus’ homecoming [nostos] alongside the homecomings of the other Greeks. Indeed, one may regard it as a study in comparative homecomings, in which Odysseus’, though the most difficult and longest delayed, is in the end the best. Agamémnon of course reached home only to die at once (see the Introduction, pp. lix-lxi, for extensive comparisons of the two families). We will see Nestor and Meneláos at home in Books III and IV, respectively, and each will relate his own homeward journey and news of others’.
The Nostoi belonged to the “epic cycle,” a cumulative collection of lesser epic accounts of the entire Trojan War, including the lead-up to it and its aftermath. These poems are extant today only in fragments and summaries. Even in their own day, the two Homeric poems were recognized as the jewels in the cyclic crown; the others were but fretwork.
22 home and wife: The winning or regaining of these two characterizes roughly the first and second halves of the poem, respectively. Odysseus places his feet on Ithaka once again at the beginning of Book XIII, and is fully reunited with Penélopê in Boo
k XXIII, the penultimate book of the epic.
28 ordained for him: For the conception of fate, see Introduction, pp. l-li. The verb used here draws on the metaphorics of spinning [epeklôsanto, “assigned to by spinning,” 17]. For the fates, Moirai, as spinners, see VII.212, below.
29–30 These lines foreshadow the second half of The Odyssey, after Odysseus lands in Ithaka. His is a story not merely of travels in exotic regions and adventures beyond human experience—that justly famous section in fact only occupies Books IX-XII—but more deeply of reintegration, of homecoming. He must not only arrive on the shore of Ithaka but also become a father to a son he has never seen and win back his wife—which in turn involves besting the suitors as well as regaining her trust. Finally he must restore order to Ithakan society, which is on the verge of civil war after he massacres the suitors. As yet, however, there is no mention of the suitors; “trials and dangers” are unspecified.
31–34 all but Poseidon: Homer refers to the wrath of Poseidon directed at Odysseus but does not explain the reason for it at this point. It may well have been traditional, in which case the audience would have understood the reference. If not, they would only have to wait until line 92 to find out. Without pre-Homeric texts, we simply cannot say with absolute certainty when Homer was following or adapting tradition and when he was effecting a major innovation.
A Guide to the Odyssey: A Commentary on the English Translation of Robert Fitzgerald Page 8