A Guide to the Odyssey: A Commentary on the English Translation of Robert Fitzgerald
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327 Krete: Home of Minoan culture before and during part of the great Mycenaean civilizations on the Greek mainland. Any specifics would long since have faded from the memories of eighth-century B.C.E. Greeks. For them, Krete was a way station for traders between Greece, Egypt, and the Levant frequently visited by merchants from all three lands.
There is also an important tradition claiming that Kretans are notorious liars. How far back it goes is uncertain. The earliest extant testimony is a famous dictum of the late-sixth-century B.C.E. Kretan mystagogue and wonder-worker Epimenides: “The Kretans are always liars, evil beasts, idle bellies.” Now whether or not we believe a Kretan telling us that Kretans always lie (a logical conundrum), Kretan mendacity did enter the popular tradition and become proverbial. The Greek krêtizô, “speak like a Kretan,” could be used to mean “lie.” The proverb is carried far beyond the ancient world by the Pauline Episde to Titus 1:12–13, where the author quotes Epimenides, then resumes with sublime naïveté, “This testimony is true.” Odysseus’ choice of a Kretan mask for his lying narratives may well not be accidental.
331ff. The story Odysseus invents presents him as a tough contender—there is an implicit warning that his unidentified interlocutor had better not try anything untoward, for this Kretan knows how to take care of himself and protect his interests.
332 Idómeneus: Grandson of Minos and in his own day king in Krete, he commanded the Kretan forces at Troy. He is mentioned with some frequency in The Iliad, although he would hardly count as one of its major heroes.
349 Phoinikia: Odysseus’ Kretan alter ego ships with a Punic merchant, just the kind of person the Phaiákian “Seareach” [Euryalos] had insultingly accused him of being (VIII. 167–73).
363 Sidon: The geography of the Punic world was well known throughout the Mediterranean (see also IV.661, above).
366ff This is another surprise. No intervention of a god in the affairs of humans so far in The Odyssey has developed this way. Recall that the poet at one point made a distinction—Athena will help Odysseus openly only when he reaches Ithaka, no matter how much she has helped him all along. Now that he is on his home island, she appears.
371–72 … guileful as a snake: Homer’s Greek does not give us a comparison to a snake but the language of commercial cunning and even thievery, something like “you’re always out to get something, you rogue, by all sorts of tricks” [291]. (This vocabulary is also behind line 325 of the English translation [255].) Here, Fitzgerald is clearly drawing on a different tradition, which attributes the primal act of Satan’s seduction and persuasion of Eve to the devil in snake form.
387–88 I who made / the Phaiákians befriend you, to a man: See also VIII.203–9; and XIII. 147–48, above.
398ff Odysseus has said he is a Kretan, but he is not. His interlocutor now claims to be Athena—is she or is she not? Her change of appearance suggests she is a goddess, but Odysseus has had experience with Kirkê, has questioned the motives of Kalypso, and wondered if he should trust Ino. No surprise, then, that he demands more assurances from this divinity.
419 coolheaded: See 509, below.
432ff. Athena makes Ithaka visible to him, removing the mists she had covered it with (240–43).
482–84 The counterexample of Agamémnon and Klytaimnéstra is made explicit by Odysseus’ own words.
484–85 Odysseus realizes that the most important help Athena gives him is this advance report of the situation in his home.
494–98 This outcome is hardly to be doubted now that Odysseus has also heard this prophecy from Athena. As always, it is a question of how, not what.
508 as ever translates the difficult homôs [405]. The scholia take it “as from the beginning;” “as before” is likely. The point is important in judging how well Odysseus knew Eumaios before he left for Troy (see XIV.4 and XV.464ff., below).
509 Penélopê: In the Greek, Athena refers to Penélopê with an epithet [ekhephrona, 406] which means “prudent,” “keeping one’s wits about one.” This is the same epithet she had applied to Odysseus (419 [332]), translated there by Fitzgerald as “cool-headed.” Odysseus and Penélopê share epithets as well as qualities of mind.
516 the great beauty’s land of Sparta: The reference to Helen is implicit in the Greek, beneath the surface and without mention of her name [Spartên es kalligunaika, 412]. It would be hard for Odysseus to think of Helen, the cause of “all their woe,” with anything other than, at the least, very mixed emotions.
528–29 to make his name / in foreign parts: While there is some question whether it is right to see Telémakhos’ journey as educative, this seems a clear statement that Athena did think it important that he undertake some mission to “win his spurs” and begin to come into his inheritance as the son of a hero, if not yet a hero himself.
535 I rather doubt they will: Ironic understatement, in a goddess’ mouth.
Athena doesn’t respond directly to Odysseus’ questions of lines 522–25. Her silence implies that this is something that Odysseus and Telémakhos had better take care of themselves. Without suggesting that Athena or Homer is anything like a modern psychologist, they do seem to have an understanding that for a father and son to be reunited after twenty years (nearly half of which time the son has had to live with the likelihood that his father was dead and the uncertainty that he may be alive, with no end to despair and no period of mourning) requires a catharsis of greater proportions. Athena does assure Odysseus that he need not worry for his son’s physical safety.
BOOK XIV
Hospitality in the Forest
3 the swineherd: In Greek, the swineherd is called “noble” [dion, 3] (see I.92, above). For his own account of his heritage, see XV.441ff. In fact, both men are of higher station than they appear to be. Eumaios, enslaved now for many years, still takes pride in playing as well as he can the unexpected role fate has handed him. Odysseus is transformed and outfitted to play the beggar for a time.
4–24 There is no finer image of the passionately devoted and energetic servant than Eumaios, the swineherd, who has not “hid his talent in the earth” (Matthew 25:14–30 and Luke 19:12–27) by merely preserving Odysseus’ goods. Instead, he has improved the facilities and considerably augmented his master’s holdings. It would not be at all unusual for the most trusted and skilled slaves in a large household or estate to have this much latitude and responsibility, nor would it be unusual to have them supervise underlings. Female slaves would not operate so autonomously outside the house, but they would have supervisory capacities within the household, always under the executive control of the mistress.
in the old days (4) is an interpretation of the Greek (see XIII.508, above, and XV.464ff., below).
19 In Greek, the suitors are “godlike” [antitheoi, 18], and while the epithet is conventional, they are like the gods even here insofar as they demand good food and live a life of luxury (see I.92, above).
32–42 Eumaios’ watchdogs nearly savage Odysseus: this episode shows to what point the master has sunk. Even his customary craftiness is of no use—letting drop his staff, with which he might have attempted to beat the dogs back, was supposed to show them that he had no hostile intentions. Eumaios must save him. The canine reception here forms a contrast with the one when Odysseus reaches his own home (XVII.375–417).
46–52 These are of course fine words for the swineherd Eumaios to say in Odysseus’ presence, but not so wise before having ascertained the identity—and the sympathies—of the beggar before him. This speech does show, however, the true temper of the swineherd: plain speaking and right thinking.
49 foreigners: In Greek Eumaios simply says “others,” which is in a sense more accurate, since not all the suitors were foreigners. (For the census, see XVI.294–300.) But “foreigners” conveys better than “others” the disdain Eumaios intends: in his view, anyone who is not a member of Odysseus’ household is an outsider; his allegiance would be to his master’s family, not to any putative Ithakan nation.
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br /> 65 O my swineherd!: The fifteen times in Books XIV-XVII that the narrator addresses the swineherd (fourteen times with this formula, once with slight variation, XV.325) constitute one of the more curious features of The Odyssey. While the poet of The Odyssey uses this strange convention only of one character, the poet of The Iliad employs it in connection with five males (Patróklos, eight times; Meneláos, seven times; Phoibos, two times; Melanippos and Akhilleus, once each (data from Stanford 2.218 [on XIV.55]). The relative frequency of these apostrophes in The Iliad may indicate that they were still a living convention in the poet’s repertory but by the time of The Odyssey had become outdated, surviving in one, frozen case. Stanford reports that H. Hayman, in his three-volume commentary on The Odyssey (London, 1866–1882), suggested that “it may be a vestige of a primitive ballad-singer’s phrase.” The protocol of ballads to this day requires the narrator to apostrophize one or more figures.
Stanford rightly rejects the idea that this apostrophe “is a mark of the poet’s special affection for Eumaeus” (see scholium on Iliad XVI.787) as “highly uncharacteristic of Homer’s very impersonal style.” A translator of The Odyssey into English might well be justified in removing this last vestige of the convention.
69–70 Eumaios is pious as well as kindhearted and loyal.
77 Note that property, house, and woman/wife—the word gunê has both meanings—are all goods to be given the slave by the master.
78 that other men … courted: The epithet in Greek is polymnêstên [64] (see Introduction, note 16, above). In The Odyssey it is significant that Penélopê too receives poly-epithets.
84 race of Helen: Not the Spartans but women. Eumaios gives voice to misogyny typical of ancient Greek men, indeed of many men in many societies down to and including our own. Also typical is the inconsistency in the misogynist’s position: not ten lines earlier he wished he had been given a woman/wife, and here he’s cursing all women and wishing them dead. The illogic of this male mode of thinking wasn’t lost on ancient Greeks: Aristophanes has the female chorus of his Thesmophonazusae (performed 411 B.C.E.) pose the question in the parabasis, “if we are an evil, why do they marry us?” (v. 789).
100–101 Eumaios speaks even more clearly in the Greek of divine vengeance [opida, 82] of which the suitors ought to be mindful: Homer does not miss an opportunity to keep the climactic resolution of The Odyssey in his audience’s mind.
10810 having some word … of my lord’s death: This seems to be an inference on Eumaios’ part. In any event, it suggests to Odysseus that the suitors’ behavior has shifted to a new level of outrageousness.
113–30 Who better than Odysseus’ swineherd to give an exact account of Odysseus’ property before the suitors started to diminish it, and to note in quantitative terms how much they were consuming? It is Eumaios’ professional responsibility to keep such a detailed count and report it. Telémakhos and Penélopê are outraged at the expense but do not go into such detail.
131–33 Three lines which characterize Odysseus: keeping his counsel, he eats, taking care of his immediate human needs while never losing sight of his ultimate goal, to regain control of his home. We may observe—without imagining that this was in the poet’s mind—that in his capacity to coordinate means and ends in and through a wide range of situations, Odysseus is not unlike the poet of The Odyssey. (A further indication of his mastery may be hidden in lines 134–36 if the Greek [111–13] means, as some argue, that Odysseus filled his own cup and gave it to Eumaios.)
144 roamed [alêthéh, 120]: Fitzgerald cleverly re-creates the echo with “rover” (150 [alalêmenos, 122]). But Homer’s punning stretches even further. He uses another word based on the same root in “Wandering men” (151 [andres alêtai, 124]), and, with this ringing in our ears, finally produces the root of his pun: “truth” (152 [alêthea, 125]). Eumaios says that “wandering men lie and do not wish to tell true things” [andres atêthea / pseudont’, oud’ ethelousin alêthea muthêsasthai, 124–25], but Homer’s wordplay reveals a truth over Eumaios’ head: Odysseus is hidden within this wanderer, as “truth” is in the word “wanderer.” (Eumaios isn’t quite done with this word family: “traveller,” 153 [alêteuôn, 126].)
148–60 Homer is playing, again, with our eager anticipation to hear the name “Odysseus,” the first step toward the revelations and recognition even more hotly desired by his audience. But instead of prompting the praise of Odysseus we might have hoped for from Eumaios, Odysseus’ question unleashes “who hasn’t claimed to have known my master?” Eumaios suspects that this unknown traveler wants to learn the master’s name so that he can make up some story about having seen him, the purpose of which would be to ingratiate himself further with the family and receive gifts and extended hospitality (151–60). That the disguised Odysseus meets this rebuff is of course ironic. Perhaps more significant, Homer shows how suspicious Eumaios is, a quality which can only recommend itself to Odysseus, who, in this situation, needs allies who are cautious, truly loyal to him, and not likely to be misled and betrayed by that most insidious of enemies: hope. Odysseus would not do otherwise in the same situation.
153–60 Every time some traveller …: Odysseus will play this kind of traveler when he finally appears before Penélopê. Eumaios’ words are the truest testimony Odysseus could have that his wife still remembers him, loves him, longs for him.
161 On Eumaios’ certainty that Odysseus is dead, see XIV. 108–10, above.
170–73 We learn more of Eumaios’ past at XV.490–585.
175 Odysseus: The name is postponed to near the end of Eumaios’ answer [144] and closely follows Eumaios’ use of the verb connected with the root of the hero’s name, oduromai [142]: “I grieve” or “I lament” (technically represented by “I miss” at line 171 of the English, but the force seems to have been transferred by Fitzgerald to the more pathetic “I ache,” 174, placed even closer to the name). The two words, “distressed” and “Odysseus,” are placed in one line at 208 [174]. On the etymology of Odysseus, see I.84, above, and XIX.463ff., 478–81, and 480, below.
180–93 All this is true, yet it is not a revelation. Eumaios would take this as the wishful optimism that mirrors his own pessimism.
185, 191 As Fitzgerald notes (p. 463), he has omitted three lines from Odysseus’ speech which are suspected by many critics to be interpolations. After “his own hall” (185), some manuscripts include a line which reads, “a cloak and a tunic, good clothes, to clothe me” [154; the uncertain and at best awkward syntax is one of the problems of fitting this fine in the passage]. And between 191 and 192 Fitzgerald has omitted two lines [161–62] that also appear in a similar passage in Book XIX: “Between this present dark and one day’s ebb, / after the wane, before the crescent moon, / Odysseus will come” (XIX.360–62 [306–7]). The issue is that lines 185 and 191 are the best conclusions to the lines that precede them. (It is interesting to consider the way such an error in the manuscript tradition might have occurred. An ancient scholar or scribe, having noticed the three-line overlap between the passages [XIV. 158–60 are very close to XIX.303–5 (in Fitzgerald XIV. 189–91 and XIX.356–59)], decided that the parallel could be extended, and imported the following two lines from Book XIX into Book XIV. Such occurrences seem endemic in canonical literature: many similar instances of “harmonizing” can be seen in manuscripts of the Greek New Testament.)
187–88 I hate as I hate Hell’s own gate … [156–57]: See Akhilleus’ words to Odysseus (Iliad IX.312–13). While the formulaic poet and experienced audience would know that this is the “right” way for anyone to talk about lying, there is a richness for connoisseurs of epic poetry who think of the moment in The Iliad when similar words were addressed to Odysseus instead of uttered by him [Odyssey XIV. 156 is identical to Iliad IX.312].
189–90 Zeus …, the table, … / and … hearth: It is not strange to invoke Zeus to witness an oath, but why a table and a hearth? The ideas underlying this may be multiple: (1) Zeus is far away, the table is
very much present and tangible: to invoke the table is to say, “My claim is as certain as this table is a real object;” (2) the table or hearth may be called on as a more active witness of truth—as fire, water, or any object could be—a belief which underlies the trial by ordeal, a type of trial in which the physical world, which could not be out of step with the Truth, was believed to reveal the truth or falsehood of a particular statement; (3) “the table garnished / for strangers” and the hearth (add from the Greek, “to which I’ve come” [159]) are closely linked to the reception of guests, meaning that they may be being invoked as attributes of Zeus Xenios (see III.377, above), or as objects holy to him. Homer most likely wasn’t thinking about all these concepts behind what sounds like a traditional oath: oaths tend to be formulaic (and gain power from that character), and this one recurs in The Odyssey (at XVII. 194–95 [XIV. 158–59 = XVII. 155–56]).