A Guide to the Odyssey: A Commentary on the English Translation of Robert Fitzgerald
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325–29 An out-and-out lie on Odysseus’ part, but one of discretion and diplomacy. Even to have explained that it was a sense of propriety that made Nausikaa have him enter the town center after her would not have done; it would have raised the topic of marriage and suggested that it was on the princess’ mind. In line 329 we see only a trace of the sarcastic and gossiping workers of whom she had painted an imaginative picture for Odysseus; now, however, the specifics are transformed into a general and intentionally banal observation.
333–39 Seemingly without prompting, Alkínoös speaks of the possibility of marriage, reading with his wonted sensitivity between the lines of Odysseus’ account of his encounter with Nausikaa, or out of instinctive (but somewhat rash) generosity.
345–46 That the Phaiákians regard the island of Euboia, which lies just east of the Greek mainland, as “most remote” is one way Homer can suggest that they inhabit a world far from Greece, since for Greeks, nothing was less remote than Euboria.
367–71 How welcome the word “bed” …: All is well, and Odysseus is tucked into a real bed after three weeks (seventeen nights on the raft, three in the water, one in the leaves). But the story is of course far from over. Mention of Alkínoös’ “dear consort” (371), with whom he retires into “his inner chamber” (370), reminds us that Odysseus still must regain his house, his wife, and, as we will see, the right to join her in their bed.
BOOK VIII
The Songs of the Harper
24–25 mastering every trial: These lines announce that there will be “contests” or “games” [aethlous, 22]. Homer’s audience would, upon hearing this word, have looked forward to enjoying the poet’s particular treatment of what was a standard feature of both Greek life and Greek epics.
30 nameless to me still: It is a mark of Alkínoös and Arêtê’s exquisite hospitality that they did not press their guest for his identity. Odysseus, like Homer, knows that certain things, postponed until the right moment, will have the greater impact.
41 tholepins: See II.444, above.
48 Demódokos’ name is the rough equivalent of “esteemed by the people.” The role of narrative poetry in heroic society and of the bard in the halls of the wealthier and more powerful members of that society was so well established that, in presenting Demódokos or other bards in his poetry, Homer is not indulging in professional narcissism. This said, there is a great deal of interest in his presentation of the singer, ranging from his repertory to his interaction with his patron and other members of the society. It would not be wrong to look closely into these scenes for a picture of Homer’s own vision of his role as poet and his expectations of his audience, always remembering that in creating this picture we should weigh the factors of tradition and idealization, for each of Homer’s singers and audiences is different.
65 tuskers: Much more likely domesticized pigs than boars.
70 For she … made him blind: The bard Demódokos, like the seer Teirêsias (see X.547), is blind; in both cases, it is suggested that a greater and more powerful inner vision replaces their eyesight. The legend of Homer’s own blindness, quite ancient, is almost certainly based on his description of Demódokos, although, as commentators have pointed out, there are numerous examples of blind poets and singers (think of John Milton, Ray Charles, and Stevie Wonder).
The poet of The Odyssey is noted for the wordplay he.weaves into his poem. For the most sophisticated instance, see IX.394, below, but note also characteristic etymologizing (see I.299, I.439, VI.261, VII.57, above, IX.104, XIV.144, and XIX.478–81, below) and clever compound nonce words (see XVIII.87, XIX.693, and XXIII.20–21 and 110–11, below). Forthat reason I venture to suggest as a remote possibility a secondary link between the Homeric bard and blindness, one we could only impute to an inveterate punster like our author. The word for “bard” is aoidos, the parallel verb being “to sing” aeidô or aweidô, if the digamma is pronounced (on the digamma, see I.448, above, and XIX.478–81, below). My suggestion is to entertain the re-etymologization of aoidos as a + (w)oidos, “unseeing” if, that is, one treats (w)oidos as a compoundable element deriving from (w)eidô, “I see” (cognate with Latin uideo), the perfect of which is oida (it is common and means “I know [because I have seen]”).
Granted, the other alpha-privative (“un”-prefix) compounds involve the verb’s root, wid-(aidêlos, Aïdês), rather than a conjugated perfect form. That would only mean that this is not a standard linguistic development, but a (linguistically) uninformed and ad hoc coinage—not even a coinage, merely an etymological reinterpretation. If there is anything to this suggestion (which seems daring even to me), we would want to activate it also for the aoidos anêr [III.267; Fitzgerald’s “minstrel,” 288], who was assigned to watch over Klytaimnéstra in Agamémnon’s absence and who was “an unseeing man” in another, figurative sense (see III.285–90, above). Finally, twisting a + wid-forms further and still more unconventionally, we might note that aïdêlos applies to Ares not only in the sense “too terrible to be seen,” hence “devastating” (VIII.327 [309]), but also in that particular context as “unseeing” in that he failed to spy Hephaistos’ invisible netting before hopping into bed with Aphroditê one more time.
Whether or not “not seeing” is related in some deeper and essential sense to “singing”—in other words, something that stands in for “seeing” in sight’s absence—will have to await further exploration elsewhere.
73 harp: For a description of the phormigx [67], see I.189, above.
79–80 Andrew Ford translates these lines [73–74] “the Muse then stirred up the singer to sing the fames of men [klea andrôn] / from that path [oimê] whose fame at that time reached broad heaven,” explicating the keyword oimê, “path” as the way Homer and his fellow bards conceived of “individual themes”: “The stability and continuity of individual stories are metaphorically expressed as paths, and the tradition is figured as the great tract in which these stories may be joined end to end” (Homer: The Poetry of the Past [Ithaca, 1992], 41).
79 The “Muse” knows that it is better to inspire her singer after the audience has satisfied its hunger and thirst. (On the Muse, see I.1, above.)
81ff. It is obviously a carefully calculated stroke on Homer’s part to have Demódokos sing of Odysseus in the presence of the unrevealed hero. Certainly the singer’s muse knew, and perhaps the singer himself sensed, the identity of the stranger. That Homer has Demódokos choose to sing of “the clash between Odysseus and Akhilleus” (81) is noteworthy, for it represents a clash between the hero of this epic and the hero of the other great epic poem (whether it was the earlier work of the same poet or that of another). This incident is not found in the extant Iliad, and, in fact, the author of The Odyssey never recounts any incident from the Trojan War also related in The Iliad. To a number of scholars it has seemed as if he studiously avoided doing so, which some take as proof that the author of The Odyssey knew The Iliad in the form in which we have it today. Not a few argue on this basis that the authors of the two poems were the same person, although it might with as much certainty be used to support the contrary.
84–85 joy … / for such had been foretold: There is no certainty, but the oracle Agamémnon recalls probably ran something along the lines “Troy will not be taken before there is a quarrel among the leading Akhaians.” There was also a tradition that the quarrel revolved around the question of whether Troy would be taken by force or by guile. It is clear that Akhilleus, greatest of warriors, would argue for the former, the wily Odysseus for the latter. And indeed, Homer refers elsewhere in The Odyssey (IV.291–312) to that famous product of Odysseus’ cunning, the Trojan horse, by which Troy was ultimately taken. However, in the present situation, Agamémnon is, as so often, mistaken. From the perspective of the post-Iliadic Odyssey, it is clear that the quarrel to which the oracle referred as preceding the fall of Troy did not involve Akhilleus and Odysseus. Rather, the significant quarrel is the one which breaks out between Agamémnon and Akhilleus at
the beginning of The Iliad. Agamémnon’s “inward joy” is unfounded.
What is significant here is the way the poet plays with variant traditions, and in particular the ironies that emerge if we privilege the Iliadic account.
90ff. Odysseus’ tears are likely to give him away and lead to the recognition scene we are all awaiting, but Homer manages to put it off, even after Alkínoös sees and hears Odysseus weeping (101). The king, of course, is polite, and, seeing also his guest’s desire to cover his tears, skillfully changes the subject, quite clearly to put an end to Odysseus’ distress, whatever its cause (104ff.). Note, too, that Odysseus’ quarrel with Akhilleus looks forward to the altercation between Seareach and the hero, 166ff.
113–14 That Demódokos is brought along to the games is probably more than simple kindness. He might be called on to sing at an appropriate break in the contests (and he is, 280ff., although his harp must first be fetched, 268f). He might also have been brought to create a song commemorating some part of the games. Homer’s Demódokos sings of Greek gods and heroes, but bards were also the recorders and repositories of each people’s history. A great athletic victory might well be worth remembering (on Pindar’s victory odes, see VIII. 155–59, below).
117ff. Homer’s list of Phaiákian athletes is a tour de force of onomastic fantasy. All the names are invented—or were invented at some time in the telling of this segment of Odysseus’ story—and the point is that the poet has composed for the Phaiákians names he imagines a sea-loving people would have. Fitzgerald has quite properly translated the constituent parts into English, so that the names appear as obvious and as fantastic to us as Homer’s Greek names did to his original audience. (However, there is nothing in the Greek which corresponds to the phrase “with seaside names” in 118, by means of which Fitzgerald wanted to make sure we understood what he and Homer have done.)
131–33 mule team … oxen: Homer must have applied this logically unimpeachable but outrageously unsuitable simile to his sprinters (see Iliad X.351–2) with no little sense of ironic amusement. It has the further advantage of putting the race into virtual “slow motion,” long before film and television gave sportscasters this option.
134–38 Homer devotes two lines (134–35) to the first of the subsequent four events, and one line each to the rest. This is a good point at which to observe Homer’s economic structure, quickly setting up a norm for the succession of events, then describing a rather important departure from that norm. First, the list, almost a procession of athletes (118ff.), capped by the three princes (125–26); then one event (the footrace) described briefly (127–33); next, four events for which he gives the winners’ names only (134–38). Then there is a pause while Prince Laódamas suggests the young Phaiákians try to involve Odysseus in the games (139–50). Laódamas invites him politely but does not win Odysseus’ assent (151–65). “Seareach” [Euryalos] puts the challenge in the rudest of terms (166ff.), and Odysseus rebukes the offense. He then decides to compete, not by entering any organized competition but by hurling the discus farther than it had been cast before (195–209), winning the event in an extraordinary heat. He is prepared to enter other contests (214ff.), but Alkínoös prefers (248ff.) to have Demódokos cool tempers with a song.
As a result of the variety of events in this scene, Homer’s audience would have had the sense of experiencing these extraordinary games in their entirety. Typically, when the narrative contains a series of events, one of them is treated at length and the rest in summary. The Kyklops episode, for example, gets lengthy treatment in the series of Odysseus’ wanderings. (HWH 1.353 [on VIII. 104–255]). At the same time, it is obvious how another poet, or the same poet in another performance, could alter the structure by varying events, slotting in others, or actually describing one or more of the competitions for which Homer gives only the final result.
145 not old: Or, perhaps, “not past his prime” [136–37]. Laódamas recognizes that Odysseus is a good bit older and will shortly address him with the same xeine pater (VIII. 153 [145]) used by the “little girl” (the disguised Athena) who met him on his way to Alkínoös’ palace. There (VII.31) Fitzgerald translates the phrase as “good grandfer,” here (VIII. 153) as “Excellency.” Both work in their contexts.
This is a convenient reminder that the translator often renders the same Greek word differently in different contexts, and, likewise, that different Greek words may be translated by the same word in English. This is not a license granted only to translators of ancient poetry, who face difficulties of a very particular kind. In fact, it would be wrong to expect a translator of any but the most technical of texts consistently to render a recurring word or phrase in his source with an unvarying equivalent. Why? Because no two cultures—not even contemporary cultures—have exactly the same descriptive methods, and, perhaps even more important, no two cultures break down the world they share at precisely the same points. (For the example of color words, see IV. 146, above.) The translator is thus in some sense doomed to only partial success, but one can choose to look at the partial “failures” of translation archeologically, as revealing the slippages between different times and cultures.
155–59 While a man lives he wins no greater honor: The importance of sporting competitions and the honor bestowed on participants and above all winners (155–56) was demonstrated by local and national games—not just those at Olympia, which we have revived in this century, albeit in a very different form, but others, such as the Pythian, Isthmian, and Nemean games. The only complete poems we have of the great poet Pindar (late sixth—early fifth centuries B.C.E.) are odes commissioned and sung to celebrate the victors of these contests.
The idea of athletic competition as respite from more serious troubles is expressed directly by Laódamas in the next line (157), which Odysseus, given his war experiences, inflects rather differently (compare 162–3 and 191–2). Laódamas’ closing remark only sets up a further irony: Odysseus’ arrival in Ithaka now seems assured (the gods willing), but as the audience of Books I-IV knows very well, his troubles are far from over.
165ff. Now Seareach put his word in …: The confrontation between Seareach [Euryalos] and Odysseus and the hero’s decisive victory clearly foreshadow the more extended confrontation between him and Penélopê’s suitors, also younger men. There, too, an athletic competition of sorts will be crucial (Book XXI, to which Fitzgerald has given the tide “The Test of the Bow”).
167–73 It is very important to recognize that Seareach does not insult Odysseus by saying that he is too old. It would merely be a statement of fact, given the general respect for elders in Greek society (see VII.203, above). Rather, Seareach’s slight is based on social status. He insults Odysseus by claiming that he is not an aristocrat, who would have had the money and leisure to learn a sport and develop skill (168). Seareach charges that Odysseus is the captain of a merchant ship, and traders and all businessmen were despised by the aristocracy and the warrior class, who derived their wealth from tribute or the revenues of inherited property they did not work with their own hands. Even piracy was more respectable than trade.
This social perspective should be kept in mind in the second half of The Odyssey, when Odysseus claims to be just such a trading merchant. It is an integral part of his disguise, in all particulars calculated to keep the suitors from seeing him as a threat. Their attitude toward merchants is the same as Seareach’s.
175 friend: The word Odysseus uses is xein’ [166]. Xeinos is at once “guest” and “host,” “stranger” and, in certain contexts, “friend.” Odysseus is primarily rebuking Seareach for a violation of the codes of hospitality (see “host,” VIII.220). Insofar as aristocrats and nobles were not exempt from the code of hospitality (indeed, as befitted their position and wealth they were expected to uphold it rigorously and ostentatiously), Odysseus sharply throws Seareach’s insult back into his teeth. (Fitzgerald’s “fool” is on the weak side; the Greek [166] would support “vicious” or even “wicked.”)
231–32 Philoktêtês alone …: In fact, according to another oracle (see also 84–85, above), Troy could not fall without Philoktêtês’ bow. If Sophocles’ tragedy of the same name represents the stories circulating at the time The Odyssey took shape, Odysseus’ mention of Philoktêtês verges on bad faith, since Philoktêtês was, for a time at least, treated very shabbily by the Ithakan hero.
235–40 Although it appears an example of scrupulous modesty, in fact, for Odysseus to rank himself with the greatest archers of all time only aggrandizes his claim, especially since the two he mentions were in the same league as the gods, with fatal consequences in Eurýtos’ case. According to the story (which follows a very standard pattern), Eurýtos challenged all comers to an archery contest. To anyone who could beat him he would give his daughter Iole. Heraklês took up the challenge and won, but Eurýtos then refused to make good on his promise. Heraklês killed Eurýtos, laid waste his city, and took Iole anyhow.
Note that Odysseus is invoking these names and the story to a king with a marriageable daughter.