Episode 13: His Mind Teeming

Homer’s Odyssey, Books 9-16

Hello, and welcome to Literature and History. Episode 13, His Mind Teeming. This episode is the second of three programs on Homer’s Odyssey, an ancient Greek poem likely set down in its current form around 700 BCE. If you’re just jumping in, I’d recommend first listening to the previous show, in which I introduce the characters and situation of the Odyssey, and lay out the story of the first eight books. In today’s show, we’re going to sail through the most famous part of the Odyssey – Odysseus’ perilous journeys in the two or three years after the Trojan War, and his arrival, after twenty years of wandering, on his homeland of Ithaca.

Let’s review what’s happened in the story so far. Last time, we covered the first third of the Odyssey. In Books 1-8, we first learn that after the decade long Trojan War, poor Odysseus wandered for an additional nine years. When the Odyssey begins, Odysseus is being held captive on an island by a beautiful nymph called Calypso, who tortures him by giving him all the food and wine he can drink and making love to him every night. Ever loyal to his homeland and wife, Penelope, and a little leery of being a gigolo for a goddess, to boot, Odysseus has only stayed with Calypso for seven years because he’s been forced to, and the first time we meet him, he’s crying near the ocean and thinking of home.

Fortunately for Odysseus, he is also friends with another female divine being, one considerably more powerful than Calypso. Good old Athena, the daughter of Zeus, with gray eyes the color of a still ocean, finely honed intelligence, and a knack for wearing disguises and trafficking in falsehoods, has Odysseus’ back. In the opening of the Odyssey, Athena sets in motion a plan to get the lost hero home. And there is urgent reason for Odysseus to come home.

At Odysseus’ palace on his small island kingdom of Ithaca, all is not well. Since he’s been gone for twenty years, many of the local nobles have assumed that he’s dead, and that his wife, kingdom, and treasures, are all up for grab. In total, 108 suitors, four attendants, and a bard have all converged on Odysseus’ wife Penelope, pressing their offers of marriage to her. Their presence is a sausage party in more ways than one, for in addition to rather rudely insisting that Penelope give up on her missing husband and marry one of them, the suitors are devouring Odysseus’ pigs, goats, cows, wine, and other foodstuffs.

Odysseus and Penelope’s son Telemachus has also been victimized by the 113 freeloading men who’ve moved into the palace. Telemachus is not quite of age yet, so he can’t just tell them they’re legally required to get lost. And so young Telemachus has languished there, not quite having the martial abilities of his father, a little socially inexperienced, but nonetheless tough and stalwart in his criticisms of the unwanted guests. In the previous episode, we traveled with him on a journey east to the Peloponnese – first to Pylos, and then to Sparta, to speak to his dad’s old army buddies Nestor and Menelaus. We left young Telemachus, the son of Odysseus, in Sparta, about to return home to Ithaca, and not aware of a plot on his life by the scheming suitors.

After books 1-4, which were all about Telemachus, we joined Odysseus for books 5-8. With Athena’s help, Odysseus escaped the twenty-four hour feasting and sex slavery of Calypso’s island and then became caught in an intense storm. After drifting for days, Odysseus finally made land in a place called Phaecia, where he staggered onshore and fell asleep in a leaf pile. The next morning Odysseus awakened to the sight of a princess and noblewomen washing their clothes in a river. Odysseus stepped out of the leaf pile in the nude and scared the girls, but, being Odysseus, managed to articulate why he was there and impress the Phaeacian princess so much that she compelled him to come to her father’s palace. There, Odysseus’ social skills continued to shine. There were banquets, and wine, and games in honor of the visiting stranger. And when the king noticed that his mysterious guest became teary and emotional over bardic recitations of the Trojan War, the king finally asked Odysseus to tell his story, the autobiographical narrative that will, in itself, occupy several books of the Odyssey in a minute here.

As in the previous episode, unless otherwise noted, quotes come from Stanley Lombardo’s translation, published by Hackett Classics in 2000. And the book titles come from the E.V. Rieu translation, first published by Penguin in 1946.

Map of Odysseus’ journey by Giulia Zoccarato, DensityDesign Research Lab. As the story opens for this episode, Odysseus is at (13), and will be telling the story of (1-12).

Now, I just want to make one thing clear again here before we pick up the story. This is chronology. Let start by imagining a timeline of twenty years – big horizontal line drawn across a sheet of paper. Roughly speaking, let’s say that at year zero, Odysseus set out to fight in the Trojan War. That war lasted ten years, so at year ten, Odysseus left the city of Troy to go home. The Odyssey takes place in year 19 or so. The whole poem takes place in the month before he gets back to Ithaca, and then in the month afterwards – present day of the Odyssey is 19 years after the Trojan War began. So when Odysseus begins telling the Phaeacians – again, that’s the people onto whose shore he washed up – when he begins telling the Phaeacians about his adventures, he’s talking about events that happened between year 10 – the end of the Trojan War, and year 13, or so, before he became the captive of Calypso. So, to recap, years 0-10, Odysseus fought in the Trojan War. Years 10-13, he journeyed and encountered many monsters – you’ll hear about this part in a minute. Years 13-19, he was imprisoned in Calypso’s buffet slash outdoor sex dungeon. And during year 19, he escaped Calypso, met the Phaeacians, and is just about to escape back to Ithaca. I hope that helps, and that I didn’t make it sound too dry. The middle years of Odysseus’ adventures – years 10-13 – contain the most famous parts of the Odyssey, so take a deep breath, and get ready for what is possibly the most famous flashback in all literature. [music]

The Odyssey, Book 9: The Cyclops¹

The Story of the Cicones

Odysseus sat at the feast table of the Phaeacians, all eyes on him. The assembly was cheerful, the banquet tables stocked with food and drink, and wine flowed freely. It was all beautiful, but behind it, Odysseus felt the old anguish of the Trojan War. Odysseus wondered where to begin, and started by telling them his name. He was Odysseus, he said. And then, he began his story.

When Odysseus and his warriors left Troy, they traveled to a town called Cicones. There, Odysseus informed them, “I pillaged the town, and killed the men. / The women and treasure that we took out / I divided as fairly as I could among all hands” (IX.43-45).² Though he had told his men to leave immediately after the city was sacked, they stayed, drinking and feasting on the spoils of the invasion. Their protracted visit cost them dearly, because the relatives of the townspeople arrived from the surrounding countryside, inflicting heavy casualties on Odysseus and his men and causing them to have to flee. It’s a bit of an odd story to tell to his Phaeacian hosts – this yarn about killing all the male citizens of a city and then looting it and presumably raping the women – not perhaps, the first thing I would share with hosts I’d just met, but anyway, Odysseus continued his story.

Following the ugly incidents at the town of Cicones, Odysseus and his men were out at sea. There, they were struck by a hurricane. The storm was so tremendous and fierce that it was as though night itself were rising up out of the ocean. The sails started to shred into tatters, and the men packed them away and paddled doggedly toward the mainland. By dawn of the third day, conditions seemed to improve, but then blustery, strong winds pushed their ships far, far off course, until they came to a strange island, where there dwelt a people called the Lotus-Eaters. [music]

The Lotus-Eaters

Odysseus and his men disembarked on the Island of the Lotus-Eaters, weary from the wet weeks at sea. They prepared food and water, and sent emissaries to the strangers on the island. But the men sent to the Lotus Eaters did not come back. The lotus fruit was a potent drug, and when a man drank it, he lost his will, and forgot about home, and merely wanted to stay on the island, mild-eyed, and maybe a bit melancholy, and eating the lotus forever. Odysseus recovered his men under the influence of the narcotic and bound them to the ship, and the men voyaged on, their oars fast in the churning pale ocean.

The Island of the Cyclops

Odysseus and his men sailed, then, to a new land. It was a place where wheat, barley and grapevines grew and intertwined without having ever been planted. The forests were thick there, and wild goats wandered amidst the trunks, and grass waved in the lush meadowlands by the seashore. Odysseus and his men arrived in the murkiest hour of the night, running unwittingly into a gentle beach and then sleeping there. When they awoke, they found themselves in a natural harbor, the outlet of a clear spring, where poplars grew in droves. They had come to the land of the Cyclopes, a giant, rugged race who dwelt high in mountain caves and had no dealings with men. The Cyclopes, by the way, had deep associations with the island of Sicily in Ancient Mediterranean literature, so northeasten Sicily is often thought to be the home to the famous episode of the Odyssey that you’re about to hear.

As dawn blossomed in the sky, the men went out in hunting parties, bringing back a plentitude of goats to eat. Later, Odysseus told his men he wanted to see what sort of people dwelt on the island – savages or civilized – and whether he might have some dealings with them. The adventurers boarded their ships and sailed around the island, coming to a lofty cave shagged over with laurels. Studying it even from afar, the Greeks could tell that sheep and goats wandered around the cave by day, but were penned into it at night. It was the cave of a hermit, and a giant one.

Taking a skin full of delicious wine and twelve of his men, Odysseus prepared to meet the stranger. When they arrived at the cave, however, its inhabitant was gone. Within his domicile, the stranger had an incredible quantity and variety of food. Whole pens of animals, together with jars full of milk and crates stocked with cheese, filled the cave. The men suggested looting it and fleeing. But Odysseus insisted on meeting the stranger.

The Greeks ate some of the stranger’s cheese, and suddenly, the Cyclops arrived. His appearance was so terrifying that the Greeks ran and hid deeper within the confines of the cave. The Cyclops rolled a stone slab over his cave’s entrance, and proceeded with his night’s chores, milking his livestock and preparing more cheese. When the Cyclops lit a cooking fire, he saw the Greeks. He spoke, and his voice seemed to make the air vibrate. He asked, “Who are you strangers? Sailing the seas, huh? Where from, and what for? Pirates, probably, / Roaming around causing people trouble” (IX.246-8).

Odysseus replied that they were Greeks, and that they were at his mercy. They only sought hospitality, and giving hospitality was an obligation that everyone had under the gods. The Cyclops was not impressed. Cyclopes, he said, didn’t care about the gods. They were stronger than the gods. If he wanted to spare them, he would. He asked where their ship was. Odysseus said they had wrecked, and were helpless.

The Cyclops felt no pity. He seized two Greeks and crushed their heads into the cave floor, and then tore them apart and ate the pieces whole. He chased the meal of human flesh with his milk, and then drowsed off. Odysseus prepared to strike, but then stopped himself. If he drove his blade into the Cyclops’ liver, no one would be able to move the stone. Odysseus and his men spent an awful night in the cave with the sleeping monster, and in the morning, the Cyclops ate two more men, and left, shutting them in the cave for the day.

In his absence, Odysseus planned. Now, you might ask, did Odysseus have the brainpower to escape the den of a cannibalistic giant? Why yes – yes he did. He was Odysseus. Odysseus found a giant mast of wood and sharpened it, hardening it in the fire, and then hid it. That afternoon, when the monster returned, he ate two more men, and Odysseus goaded him into taking some wine, and then more wine, and more still. The Cyclops asked Odysseus’ name, and Odysseus said his name as “Noman” (IX.364). Burping, his breath reeking of human flesh, the Cyclops sunk to the ground, intoxicated, and promised that “Noman” would be given the prize of being eaten last.

Odysseus and the surviving men then heated up the mast of wood and plunged it into the single eye of the Cyclops. The stake was so hot that it caused the monster’s eye to boil, and it singed his eyebrow and eyelids. The creature shrieked and arose, pulling aside the giant stone that blocked the cave’s entrance, calling out to his brethren, but his petitions for help were ignored. The Cyclops sank by the opened door of the cave and put his hands down low, waiting for anyone stupid enough to attempt an escape.

The Greeks quietly gathered around the Cyclops’ large sheep. Tying themselves to the sheep’s undersides, they waited for dawn, and when the first light appeared in the sky, the livestock clamored to be released into the fields. Then, tied to the bellies of the sheep, the Greeks shuttled past the Cyclops, Odysseus last of all. They brought the sheep down to their ships and, not waiting to mourn their losses, got the vessels out to sea.

Once they were at a safe distance, Odysseus shouted at the Cyclops, taunting him. The idiot had made a mistake, he said – he had abused guests, which was a loathsome act in the eyes of Zeus. Then, terrifyingly, the Cyclops hurled a section of cliff at the Greek ships, its undertow threatening to drag them back to the island, but the Greeks managed to regain control. This time, they pushed even further out, and Odysseus could not resist the urge to taunt the Cyclops. Remember, he said to the Cyclops, that if anyone ever inquired how he’d lost his eye, “Tell him that Odysseus the marauder did it, / Son of Laertes, whose home is on Ithaca” (IX.502-3).

More harsh words followed this, and the Cyclops, realizing his own powerlessness, said a prayer to his father Poseidon. “Here me, Poseidon, blue-maned Earth-Holder, / If you are the father you claim to be. / Grant that Odysseus, son of Laertes, / May never reach his home on Ithaca” (IX.526-9). Now, this curse, voiced only a few weeks after the close of the Trojan War, would haunt Odysseus for almost a decade, though Odysseus didn’t know it at the time. He and his sailors moved on, and that afternoon, Odysseus and men ate the Cyclops’ sheep on a nearby island and slept on the beach. By dawn, the darkness of the experience began to set in, and as their oars splashed through the gray sea, Odysseus and his men continued on in shock, thinking of their lost shipmates.

Let’s take a brief tangent here. What you’ve heard is the most famous story about the Cyclops in Greco-Roman mythology. But there was another one that was actually almost as famous, and very, very different, and it’s so fun that I have to take a second and share it with you. This other story, told by Theocritus, Virgil, and Ovid, isn’t about the Cyclops being a bone-crunching monster, but instead a lover, and it was said to have happened in the days before Odysseus met him.³ The Cyclops, we learn from later Greek and Roman writers, had once been smitten by a nymph called Galatea. He worked hard to comb his hair, practiced his romantic overtures, and enumerated all the gifts he would give Galatea, acknowledging that while he wasn’t much to look at, he was strong and would be devoted to beautiful Galatea all his life. In all the various versions of the Cyclops-Galatea story, unfortunately, the nymph Galatea rejects the one-eyed giant’s efforts to woo her, and Theocritus and Virgil end the Cyclops’ story with him, in the end, deciding that he is okay with himself, after all – that even though his heart is broken, the Cyclops can still believe in himself. It’s a terrific and unexpected back story to Homer’s Cyclops – I’m sure we’ll get to it in later episodes but I couldn’t resist telling you about the courtship of the Cyclops legend.

And the Cyclops story here in the Odyssey is important for another reason still. There’s a major genre of literature we call pastoral – in Anglophone literature, writers like Spenser, Sidney, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Marvell, Milton, and others wrote works in this genre. The Latin word for “shepherd” is pastor, and pastoral poetry, at its inception, was about shepherds singing songs – often love songs. Sicily – again the land of the Cyclopes – had old ties to pastoral poetry. As you heard a second ago, the poets Theocritus and Virgil wrote love poems about the Cyclops – Theocritus was probably from Sicily. And while the non-Homeric love story of the Cyclops and Galatea is part of the history of the pastoral genre, the Odyssey itself is also important to pastoral literature. The Cyclops, after all, is a shepherd, and we hear all about his livestock, and his food stores, and get a sense of his daily life on the island of Sicily. Later in the Odyssey, Odysseus is going to team up with a pig herder and a cowherd – a goat herder also gets involved in the story, and moreover a number of scenes on Ithaca are filled with barnyard details that give us a sense of how rural folk on the island worked and spent their days. So, somewhat strangely, in the deep prehistory behind works like Spenser’s Shepheardes Calendar, Shakespeare’s As You Like It, and Milton’s Lycidas lies the pastures and pig pens of the Odyssey, and the belching, one-eyed giant at the heart of this part of the story. Well, we got sidetracked there for long enough. Let’s continue on with Homer’s Odyssey. [music]

The Odyssey, Book 10: Circe

Aeolus and the Bag of Winds

Having left the island of the Cyclopes, the Greeks reached an island that was home to a being called Aeolus, the god of the winds. This island was a sublime sight to behold, for it was surrounded by a wall of stone capped with bronze, and seemed to float above the ocean.

The Greeks were welcomed on the island of Aeolus. They were entertained and regaled for a month, and Odysseus told Aeolus all about the Trojan War. The courtyard of Aeolus echoed with Odysseus’ recitations and savory odors wafted through the palace corridors. When it came time for Odysseus to continue his journey, Aeolus gave Odysseus a great blessing – a bag filled with the winds, opened in just such a fashion that only the west wind could escape – the wind that would blow the Greeks home.

They left the home of Aeolus, propelled for nine days by the west wind, until they came within sight of Ithaca, Odysseus’ homeland. He was so close he could see the fields that he knew, and peasants tending fires, but then exhaustion overwhelmed Odysseus. He’d been manning the sails for nine days, and could do so no longer. And while he slept, his men wondered what sorts of treasures were in the bottom of Aeolus’ bag. They opened it, and a chaos of winds blew the Greeks far out to sea, and back, they were stricken to find, to the island of Aeolus.

They disembarked once more on the island of the god of the winds, but when Odysseus asked for help again, Aeolus was disgusted. Clearly, Aeolus said, Odysseus was cursed. He told the wanderers to leave and not come back. And so the Greeks set out to sea once more, paddling laboriously over the now windless ocean. In this fashion they continued for a week, until they came to a new land. [music]

The Island of the Laestrygonians

It was a land of unending twilight. The Greeks passed into a natural harbor shaped like a giant maw. Headlands projected far out on either side, and as they went forward, sheer cliffs dwarfed their vessels. The water was smooth and silver as glass. A band of scouts was dispatched, and found a girl drawing water from a place near the harbor. She led them to her father’s house, but Odysseus’ men were mortified to see that the girl’s parents were giants. An unfortunate Greek was caught, slaughtered, and devoured, and the others fled back to the ships.

The people who lived in this land of continuous twilight – of still waters and high cliffs – were called the Laestrygonians, and they poured from the surrounding countryside upon hearing of the arrival of the Greeks. Within the Laestrygonian harbor, the Greeks faced horrors. Huge rocks were flung down from the cliffs, crushing and sinking Greek ships in their entirety. The Laestrygonians themselves attacked from the shore, impaling the Greeks and carrying them off to eat. Odysseus sliced his ship’s ties to the shore and the Greeks paddled frantically back out to sea, helpless to avoid the falling boulders. When it was over, only Odysseus’ own ship survived. [music]

The Island of Circe

This single ship made its way slowly away from the land of the Laestrygonians until it reached another island. The surviving Greeks, traumatized by their losses and physically battered from their recent run in with the Laestrygonians, drifted into a sandy harbor and rested for several days on the ship. Their hearts were sore with grief, and recent experience had taught them caution in launching expeditions into new lands, but on the third day there, Odysseus left the ship, climbed a precipice, and looked around. He hoped to see arable farmlands and people and hear the calls of men’s voices. Instead, he saw a single column of smoke, curling through a dense canopy. Odysseus did not investigate. He went back to his ship, killing a stray stag on the way to serve as food for his men. The fresh food, and Odysseus’ heartening words, filled the men with new hope. The next morning, Odysseus said it was time to investigate the island, and with some reluctance, his men formed a scouting party. Odysseus himself, this time, would remain with the ship.

The men went through the quiet woods, and found the source of the smoke. A solitary house stood there, made of polished stone. All around the structure were wolves and mountain lions, perched on their hind legs, their tails swishing back and forth. Eerily, the animals watched the Greek scouts. And rather than leaving, Odysseus’ men lingered around the house, and the strange animals. And from the house came singing – singing clear and beautiful – singing that caused the ground to thrum gently beneath their feet. Indoors, a woman was weaving a shimmering tapestry, a graceful light from the fabric spilling out onto the clearing around the house. The men called out to the strange woman, and she opened her house’s doors and ushered them in. Only one man remained outside.

The men who had entered the strange house were given a concoction of wine, and in this wine were dangerous narcotics. The men felt their effects immediately, and only shortly thereafter the doors opened again and the surviving man saw the woman for what she really was. She was a witch, and as she waved her hand at the gullible men they grew bristles and took on the appearance of pigs. Contemptuously, the witch tossed the pigs acorns and berries. Her name was Circe, and the Greeks had come to her island.

Odysseus and Circe

The surviving man – the one who had remained outside – fled through the forest and back to the ship, telling Odysseus about the awful events that had taken place. Odysseus nodded, buckled on his sword, and followed the lone survivor back to Circe’s house in the thick woods. On the way, Odysseus met the god Hermes. Hermes gave Odysseus a special herb to protect Odysseus from the witch’s spells, and gave Odysseus specific instructions on how to deal with his dangerous adversary. Hermes, who could see into the future a little bit, predicted that when Circe saw that Odysseus was undaunted by her attacks, in the Lombardo translation,

She’ll be afraid and invite you to bed.
Don’t turn her down – that’s how you’ll get
Your comrades freed and yourself well loved.
But first make her swear by the gods above
She will not unsex you when you are nude,
Or drain you of your manly fortitude. (X.317-22)

And so Hermes gave Odysseus a black rooted herb that blossomed into a pale flower, and, his brow furrowed, Odysseus finished his journey through the thick woods. Now, you might ask, would Odysseus be able to survive ingesting some sketchy narcotics and then having sex with someone he definitely shouldn’t? Why yes – yes he would. He was Odysseus.

Odysseus knocked on the door, and the witch invited him in. Circe had him sit on a fine silver chair. His heart was pounding in his chest, but, trusting Hermes, when the witch handed him a golden cup laden with even more drugs, Odysseus drank it. Then the witch Circe tapped him with her wand and told him to get to the pig sty with all the others. Instead Odysseus drew his sword.

The witch Circe’s jaw dropped. He wasn’t like other men, she said. He must have a very powerful mind – an unassailable one. He must be Odysseus. Circe said, “Well then, sheathe your sword and let’s / Climb into my bed and tangle in love there, / So we may come to trust each other” (X.355-7). Odysseus was skeptical. Having such a powerful and capacious mind, he knew that when someone switches from trying to drug you and turn you into a pig to requesting sexual intercourse in the space of about twelve seconds, all is not well. Odysseus growled, “[Y]ou want to trick me / Into going to bed with you, so that you can / unman me when I am naked” (X.361-3). He made her swear that this was not the case. Circe swore, guaranteeing that no unmanning would take place. Trusting her oath, Odysseus said he was ready, and climbed into her bed.

Afterwards, the not unmanned Odysseus was given a nice bath, wine, some food, and a new tunic. There was just something about Odysseus that made people want to bathe him, feed him, and hook him up with nice new tunics. Anyway, notwithstanding his recent copulation with another agelessly beautiful woman, being bathed by her lovely maidens, and all the food and wine he could gulp up, the hero was nowhere near happy, and the witch could sense it. He pleaded that she turn his men back into men, and Circe complied. As she saw the horror that she had inflicted on them, the witch was moved to pity. She told Odysseus to beach his ship and bring all of his men. She no longer meant anyone any harm. Soon, all of Odysseus’ men save one were in Circe’s house, and she was pulling out all the stops with her hospitality. Every one ate, everyone got new tunics, and was rubbed with oil. She said they’d all suffered, and they looked badly underfed. It was time to rest and get some food back in their bellies.

So the men stayed that night. And the next. And days stretched to weeks, which stretched to months, and then they’d been there an entire year. Evidently Odysseus did not feel that extensive infidelity was impermissible to a man of his stature. Finally Odysseus’ men confronted him. Had he forgotten his home? they asked. Had he forgotten Ithaca, and his wife Penelope, and his son Telemachus?

Odysseus went to Circe’s bed, and, touching her knees, told her that it was time for them to go. She said she’d keep her promise. He was perfectly free to go. Only, he had to go to hell. No, seriously, he needed to go to Hades, to the underworld, to consult the ghost of a blind seer. Circe promised him that she’d see him safely there, and gave him lengthy instructions on how to access the underworld when the time came. Only the blind seer, Circe said, could tell him the correct route home, and how long it would take him to get there.

Hearing this, Odysseus prepared his men, telling them the joyous news that he was going to – uh – Hades – to consult with the blind seer. Now, I’ve mentioned this blind seer a couple of times. His name was Tiresias. He’s not a major character in the Odyssey, but he comes up again and again in world literature, from Sophocles to Virgil to Ovid to Statius to Dante to T.S. Eliot. So, telling his men that they were going off to the gates of Hades so that their leader could chat with this famous blind seer Tiresias, Odysseus had his men board the ship. Seen safely off by the witch Circe, they were soon moving swiftly toward the entrance to the underworld. [music]

The Odyssey, Book 11: The Book of the Dead

Odysseus and his men sailed for days, and the ocean grew deeper and deeper beneath them, until they came to a land where it was always night, and mist hung over the dark water. There, the men undertook a ritual that Circe had prescribed. A pit was dug, and sacrifices made over it, so that inky blood pooled in its depths. The rituals opened the underworld and awoke the dead. The dead churned up to the pit from below, seemingly from nowhere, those who had died old and young, warriors and maidens, their sudden famished cries making Odysseus go limp with fear. Another sacrifice seemed to control the procession of the dead. A man who had just died an accidental death on Circe’s island came first, and made Odysseus promise to return to Circe’s island and give him a proper burial. Odysseus’ mother came to him, but he was most anxious to speak with the blind seer Tiresias.

The blind seer’s ghost appeared, his gilded staff bright in the deep darkness. Odysseus allowed the seer to drink the blood of the sacrifice. Then, the seer delivered his prophecy. Tiresias told Odysseus he’d have to face Poseidon again, and again. The seer Tiresias said Odysseus would face various trials on his long journey home, and told him of the suitors, and even said that after Odysseus had reestablished himself on Ithaca, his journeying would not be at its end. Then Tiresias gave Odysseus advice on how to talk to other ghosts, since Odysseus had the portal open to Hades. You know – I guess if you have a portal to the underworld open you try to get as much mileage out of it as possible.

Odysseus spoke to his mother first, and when asked, admitted that he had still not come home. She told him about the situation on Ithaca, and said that Odysseus’ father was broken by his disappearance. When Odysseus tried to hug the ghost of his mother, she was like a shadow, insubstantial and untouchable. The intangibility of his mother brought his loss of her home once more, and she told him that it was the same with everyone – that after we die, we exist only as apparitions.

Odysseus’ mother vanished, and next he spoke with various wives of legendary heroes – a great many – too many to recount. In fact, if you’ll remember the recitation of all these adventures – from the Lotus Eaters to Hades, is delivered by Odysseus himself, seven or eight years after they happened, and he is in the kingdom of the Phaeacians. Once Odysseus paused his narrative of his adventures, the Phaeacians realized how long he’d been speaking, and the full depth and breadth of his narrative. Now, you might ask, did Odysseus have the narrative talent to make his adventures shine and crackle with excitement – even when he spoke for hours on end? Why yes – yes he did. He was Odysseus. The Phaeacian king Alcinous praised his story thus far, and said that the famous Greek hero would receive lavish gifts and a fine escort home indeed. Alcinous said, “[Y]ou have told your tale with the skill of a bard. . .Your words have outward grace and wisdom within” (XI.378,377). King Alcinous asked Odysseus if he’d seen any of the other Trojan heroes in Hades? Couldn’t he tell them? It wasn’t that late, after all.

This, by the way, is a narratively famous moment in the Odyssey, one perhaps built for its original bards. Maybe you’ve heard a story in which someone works up to a climax, only to break off – a whole tale built around the mystery of, for example, what’s behind an ominous door, and just as the door is going to be opened, the story stops. At such a juncture, just as the audience is completely engrossed, like Odysseus’ Phaecians, a narrator or bard in Ancient Greece might break things off and then say, “Hey, if you want to hear the rest, how about you toss some silver in the tip jar?” Odysseus’ tale-within-a-tale, then, is a bardic performance that would have drawn audience attention to the talents of bards in Archaic and Classical Greece and afterward who were singing the Odyssey itself, inviting the poem’s ancient audiences to remember that live storytelling was no negligible feat.

To return to the Odyssey, flattered by the praises of the Phaecians, Odysseus continued with his narrative. He had seen Agamemnon, the Greek king who’d been murdered by his wife’s lover. Agamemnon recollected the nightmarish circumstances under which he’d perished. At a feast, he and many others loyal to him were killed. King Agamemnon’s ghost warned Odysseus against trusting women, although, Agamemnon said, Odysseus’ wife Penelope was really quite reliable. Still, said the shade of Agamemnon, when Odysseus got back to Ithaca, he’d better get off his ship in secret and do some reconnaissance work first, just in case there was a plot against his life.

In Hades, Odysseus saw the ghosts of his friends from the Trojan War – Achilles, Patroclus, and Ajax. The ghost of Achilles, in particular, spoke to him, and Odysseus tried to console the dead warrior. This again is the Stanley Lombardo translation, published by Hackett Classics in 2000.

[N]o man, Achilles [said Odysseus],
Has ever been as blessed as you, or ever will be.
While you were alive the army honored you
Like a god, and now that you are here
You rule the dead with might.
You should not lament your death at all, Achilles. (XI.503-8)

But Achilles was not so easily convinced that he’d been fortunate to fall as the greatest hero of the Trojan War. His words in this scene are some of the most well-known lines in the Odyssey.

Don’t try to sell me on death, Odysseus, [said Achilles].
I’d rather be a hired hand back up on earth,
Slaving away for some poor dirt farmer,
Than lord it over all these withered dead. (XI.510-3)

Understanding now the distinction between what we talked about in the previous episode – the distinction between kleos, or battle-glory, and nostos, or homecoming, Achilles has decisively concluded that it would have been far better to live a long and undistinguished life at home than to die a blood soaked hero. After emphasizing that there was nothing good about death, Achilles asked Odysseus about Achilles’ son. Odysseus said Achilles’ son had distinguished himself bravely at the end of the Trojan War and had survived unscathed. This seemed to bring the ghost of Achilles some peace.

Odysseus tried to get the ghost of giant Ajax to talk to him, but Ajax would not speak – we’ll learn learn more about that little tiff later in Sophocles’ Ajax and Ovid’s Metamorphoses. So Odysseus gazed around the expanses of Hades and saw various creatures of myth and legend – Minos, and Orion, Tantalus, and Sisyphus, observing the ways that each suffered. And he saw Heracles. Heracles was darker than the rest of Hades, and his ghost scared countless other ghosts away. After waiting a bit longer, Odysseus finally decided he needed to turn tail and head back to his ship, and the men began first by rowing, and then sailing, putting ever more distance between themselves and the gates of the underworld. [music]

The Odyssey, Book 12: Scylla and Charybdis

The Greeks went all the way back to the island of Circe, and when they arrived late at night, they drove the ship into the beach and slept on the shore until dawn. When the morning broke, the men went and got the remains of the Greek who had accidentally died the day they’d all embarked for Hades, and he was given a fitting burial.

The witch Circe joined them after the funeral, her maidens bringing food and wine. She told the Greeks to spend the day resting. Good bread and bright red wine, she said, should help them do away with the dark memories of Hades. Everyone feasted, and at dusk the men drowsed off by the ship’s moorings. Circe asked Odysseus to speak with her in private, and gave him advice on how to get through several upcoming challenges he’d face on his journeys.

The Sirens

The next day, once again, the Greeks set out from the island of Circe, and as the ship sped over miles of waves, Odysseus told them a little about what he’d heard. The water became increasingly still. The ship was fast approaching the island of the Sirens, beings who entranced travelers with their promising songs and sweet voices, only to bring them to bad ends, for the Sirens were hungry monsters and sung their songs atop heaps of rotting bones. Circe had told him all about the Sirens. Odysseus, heeding her advice, cut up wax and put it in all of his rowers’ ears, and had them bind him to the mast so that he could listen to their song.

As the crew passed the island of the Sirens, Odysseus heard the tantalizing words of their song. They knew everything, they said – “We know all that happens / on the teeming earth” (XII.198-9). Odysseus longed to know, too, and asked the men to cut him loose so that he might go to them, but, following his prior instructions, they only secured him more tightly to the mast. In such a fashion, safely insulated from forbidden knowledge, Odysseus and his men made it past the Sirens.

The next challenge brought greater terror. The men had to navigate between two rocks, about an arrowshot across, and only Odysseus knew about what would happen – Circe had told him earlier. To the right was a rock with a fig tree on it, but beneath the rock there was a large whirlpool called Charybdis, a vortex of water that engulfed anything that came near it. To the left of the ship was a tall stone, smooth as glass, and within it dwelt a six headed monster named Scylla. Their only chance, Odysseus had been told, was to hug the rock of Scylla, for even if Scylla killed a few of them, it was far better than the lot of them perishing to the dark, spiraling waters of Charybdis.

The men rowed quickly, ever wary of being drawn to the starboard. Odysseus looked at the glass smooth rock and waited for Scylla to appear, clutching his weapons. The ocean roiled. To the right, the men could see Charybdis, the mass of water swirling and bubbling like a cauldron, heaving spray hundreds of feet overhead. In the midst of the pull of water the rock bellowed, and as the whirlpool deepened the men could look down and see all the way down to the black sand of the sea floor. Even Odysseus took his eyes from the high rock at the dizzying sight of the huge concavity of moving water, and when he did, the monster Scylla tore down her rock and seized six men – one in each of her heads. The hero watched, helpless, as the men reached out to him, but Scylla had already rushed back up to her rock den, and the men in her mouths soon ceased to writhe. With this sacrifice, which Odysseus had known about and accepted, they made it through the narrow passage between Scylla and Charybdis.

The Cattle of the Sun God

Moving ever onward, feeling as though death lurked in every direction, the Greeks came within sight of a lovely and warm island. They were exhausted and soaked to the bone, but Odysseus said they would not be able to make land there. Remonstrations from his crew finally convinced him otherwise. Night was falling, after all. Odysseus said they could make land there, but not, under any circumstances, to kill any of the livestock on the island. They were the cattle of Hyperion, the sun, and to kill them would bring the wrath of a god on the wanderers. Besides, Odysseus said, they had plenty of provisions from Circe. The men were forbidden, regardless of what happened, to kill the cattle of the Sun God, and they had no need to do so, Odysseus said.

The men moored their ship and prepared supper, and thinking of their comrades fallen to Scylla, fell into an uneasy sleep. In the middle of the night, an intense storm wracked the ocean, causing the Greeks to move their entire ship into a sheltered cave. Odysseus warned his men again to stay away from the cattle of Hyperion. Then, for thirty days, the winds roared to the south and east. The ship lay sheltered from the wind’s blustering, and the men slowly went through the provisions they had onboard. Odysseus fretted, thinking ever of home. It was hot, and the wind blasted over the island, as though it would never stop.

One day, when Odysseus went off to pray, his crew corralled a number of the sun god’s cattle. The cattle were killed, some parts offered to the gods, then cut up and roasted on spits. And when Odysseus awoke, he saw his men barbecuing the forbidden cattle. The sun god told Zeus about the crime, and Zeus promised the sun god retribution. For six days, even in spite of Odysseus’ chastisement, the Greeks slaughtered cattle and feasted on them. Upon the seventh, the winds finally abated and the men set out again on their ship.

For a while, everything seemed normal. The island of the sun god was left behind, and all they could see was the bright blue of the sky and the deep wine-purple color of the ocean. But then a cloud passed over them, and the sea grew even darker, and the west wind exploded over them. The forestays and mast all snapped, and the helmsman was killed. Then lightning hit the ship, smoke boiling up from the greenwood. Men fell overboard in the explosion, and the surge of waves snapped the boat’s keel. Odysseus used rigging to secure himself to some flotsam, but the wind pressed him hard, and he drifted back the way they’d come. He was terrified to find himself once again near the whirlpool Charybdis, and as the whirlpool sucked him into its spiral, he leapt out of the seawater and atop the rock that perched above the whirlpool. He waited for the wreckage to reemerge, and when it did, he dropped back into the sea, letting the whirlpool heave him outward. For nine days, then, he floated, and on the tenth, he washed up on the island of Calypso, where, he told his Phaeacian listeners, wrapping up his narrative, he had spent the next seven years. [music]

The Odyssey, Book 13: Odysseus Lands in Ithaca

Odysseus Bids the Phaecians Farewell

After four books of talking, Odysseus finished the story of his travels. The Phaeacians had been held captive by the long narrative. And lucky for us, all the flashbacks and multiple timeframes of the Odyssey are now over. It’s about nineteen years after the Trojan War, Odysseus’ travels are really over, and the second half of the Odyssey will see him home. Alcinous, the king of the Phaeacians, told Odysseus that the Phaeacians would take him to Ithaca. There were no more nymphomaniac nymphs, sultry witches, weird drugs, forbidden wind bags, sacred cattle, or cannibalistic monsters. The Phaeacians went to bed, and the next day, as king Alcinous made sacrifices, all Odysseus wanted was to go home.

Odysseus gave his blessings to the Phaeacians and their queen. Then, a procession led Odysseus down to the seashore. His ship’s hold was stocked with bread and wine, laundered clothing and rugs, and Phaeacian women set out bedding on his ship’s deck. Odysseus bade the Phaeacians farewell, and when his crew began stirring the ocean with their oars, he fell into a deep sleep. In the nighttime hours the ocean was colored indigo, but as morning rose the dawn star colored the water all silver. Soon enough, the ship had reached the harbor of Ithaca. [music]

The Landing Back in Ithaca

The natural harbor at Ithaca was a site to behold. Appendages of rock arced out into the water. At the harbor’s headlands, and olive tree grew near a cave, a cave where bees hid their honey away and nymphs wove dark shrouds. The Phaeacian ship passed into the harbor, and Odysseus, still asleep, was lifted out of the ship and set gently onto the sand. His gifts and goods were hidden nearby, and, leaving Odysseus to repose peacefully on the warm earth of his homeland for the first time in almost twenty years, the Phaeacians headed home.

As Odysseus slept peacefully, Poseidon fumed. Poseidon told Zeus that Odysseus had arrived home with all the grace of a returning hero. Poseidon was displeased. After some discussion about the matter, Zeus and Poseidon, head honchos of the gods, came up with a plan that would save Poseidon’s reputation amidst the other gods. The Phaeacian ship which had carried Odysseus home, just as it came into sight of its home city, was turned into stone. That would teach those perfectly innocent and entirely inoffensive Phaeacians to – uh – take people places – and offer hospitality to strangers – wait – didn’t Zeus like that? Well, the Homeric pantheon were a powerful bunch, but not necessarily logical, equitable, or bright. The Phaeacian king Alcinous, seeing the beautiful ship turn to stone, reacted quickly. He had heard about this in a prophecy. They needed to sacrifice bulls to Poseidon, and stop giving people escort to where they needed to go. Then they’d be okay. The bulls were sacrificed, and the Phaeacians, we are to assume, received no more bullying from Poseidon.

Athena and Odysseus

Back on his homeland of Ithaca, that slender island off the west coast of the Greek mainland, Odysseus awakened. Athena, frequently absent in recent books of the Iliad, will now begin to take a more prominent role for the remainder of the epic. Athena began by making Ithaca look different for Odysseus. He arose, seeing curving trails and tall rocks, wind-pressed trees and the deep harbor, but recognized none of it. Odysseus smacked his hands on his thighs and wondered aloud where in the world he’d come now. The Phaeacians, Odysseus concluded, must have robbed him and dropped him off in some remote island in the middle of nowhere. But when he searched his treasures, found nothing missing.

Then Athena appeared to Odysseus in the form of a young shepherd. Odysseus addressed the disguised Athena. He asked the shepherd boy to keep his goods safe, and asked where he was. The boy seemed surprised Odysseus didn’t know, and explained, in the Penguin E.V. Rieu prose translation,

Sir. . .you must be a simpleton or have travelled very far from your home to ask me what country this is. It has a name by no means inglorious. In fact it is known to thousands, to all the peoples who live in the direction of dawn and sunrise and all who live in the opposite direction, towards the twilight West. True, it is rugged and unfit for driving horses, and though not extensive it is very far from poor. Corn grows well and there is wine too. Rain and fresh dew are never lacking; and it has excellent pasture for goats and cattle, timber of all kinds, and watering-places that never fail. And so, my friend, the name of Ithaca has traveled even as far as Troy. (XIII.236-49)

Hearing that he’d come to his homeland, Odysseus experienced a surge of joy, but quickly concealed it. He didn’t, after all, know who the shepherd was. Odysseus lied and said he was from Crete. He made up an elaborate story about having murdered a Cretan youth and explained how he’d come to the harbor at Ithaca.

The disguised Athena smiled. She changed into her own appearance, her eyes turning ocean blue. She was a tall woman, and she put her hand kindly on Odysseus’ cheek. The speech she makes to him is another one of the most famous moments in the Odyssey – here’s Emily Wilson’s translation of it:

. . .To outwit you
in all your tricks, a person or a god
would need to be an expert at deceit.
You clever rascal! So duplicitous,
so talented at lying! You love fiction
and tricks so deeply, you refuse to stop
even in your own land. Yes, both of us
are smart. No man can plan and talk like you,
and I am known among the gods for insight
and craftiness. You failed to recognize me:
I am Athena, child of Zeus. I always
stand near you and take care of you, in all
your hardships. I made sure that you were welcomed
by the Phaeacians. I have come here now
to weave a plan with you and hide the treasure
which, thanks to me, they gave you to take home.
I will reveal the challenges you face
at home. (XIII.291-308)

First of all, Athena said Odysseus would need to stay in hiding for a while. Odysseus said he knew her, and knew she had helped him for a long time. But, he was concerned. If they were on Ithaca, why didn’t it look anything like Ithaca?

Athena used her powers to undo the illusion she’d first placed in front of Odysseus. The mist cleared, and he saw in sharp relief his harbor, and the great olive tree that stood near a cave where he used to perform sacrifices. Then, finally, Odysseus knew he was home. He sunk to the ground and kissed it, and he said a prayer.

Athena said it was time to concoct a plan. They were the two greatest minds in the universe, after all, weren’t they? They’d come up with one whopper of a plan. They could certainly take down a bunch of freeloading suitors. And they’d also test Penelope, to confirm that she was still as loyal to Odysseus as she’d ever been. The first step was to give the hero Odysseus a disguise. She made him look shriveled and old, and made his black hair become withered and thin. Odysseus’ eyes became clouded and uncertain. For clothing, he was given a piece of sail cloth. If Odysseus wore a disguise like this, no one would even want to be around him, let alone recognize him. He’d first go to an old swineherd who was loyal to him. A swineherd, by the way, is someone who herds pigs, and this pig herder ends up being an important character. This swineherd dwelt by a tall rock, and his pigs enjoyed drinking water from a spring there and gobbling up acorns. Meanwhile, Athena said, she’d go to find Telemachus, and bring him back from Sparta.

And so Athena disguised Odysseus. When Athena was finished, Odysseus looked old and saggy. His clothes were grimy rags, and his only possessions a staff and a battered, empty pouch. Their plans set in motion, the hero and his patron goddess went their separate ways.

The Odyssey, Book 14: In Eumaeus’ Hut

Odysseus took a winding path up from the harbor, the rough route eventually leading him to an elevated woodland that looked out over the ocean. There, Odysseus found his loyal swineherd. The man had kept care of Odysseus’ property through thick and thin, and the disguised Odysseus found the swineherd sitting in his yard. Nearby, large pigpens were home to a plentitude of sows and hogs. When Odysseus approached, the swineherd’s many dogs rushed him, but the swineherd was able to call them off.

The swineherd then welcomed Odysseus, and gave him a comfortable place to sit. The swineherd’s name was Eumaeus. Side note, by the way. Homer really, really likes Eumaeus. In the latter books of the Odyssey, Homer addresses Eumaeus directly, and uses terms of endearment. So, when Odysseus thanks Eumaeus for his hospitality, you would expect Homer to write, “And Eumaeus nodded and answered back.” Instead, Homer writes, “And you answered him, Eumaeus, my swineherd” (XIV.63), as though speaking directly with this relatively minor character. Don’t get me wrong – I like swineherds as much as the next person does – I just think, like most who read the Odyssey, that Homer’s privileging of Eumaeus the swineherd is a little odd. A lot of scholars have addressed this topic, but to keep things moving forward, let’s just assume that Homer really, really liked bacon.

So, after the steadfast swineherd Eumaeus proved to be a hospitable, gentlemanly fellow after the long absence – even to the ignominiously disguised Odysseus, Eumaeus explained his situation the shabby stranger. His master, Eumaeus said, was gone. It was a tragedy, and it had jeopardized his safety and stability as an upstanding swineherd. Eumaeus then treated the stranger to a meal of – you guessed it – pork, and lamented that the suitors always took his best hogs, and the goats of Odysseus’ other herdsmen. Again and again, Eumaeus lamented that his master Odysseus was gone – a man who had treated him with mildness and respect, a man under whom he would have prospered all of his days.

Odysseus, still in disguise, begged to differ. Odysseus, Odysseus said, was not dead. He said that the king would return, and that he would return within a month, and that in the dark of the moon he would come back to his palace and take vengeance on all who had disrespected his family. Eumaeus, however, refused to get his hopes up. He said that things were dire indeed, for some of the suitors, anchored on a rocky island near Ithaca, planned to ambush poor Telemachus upon his return from the mainland. No, said Eumaeus, nothing could be done. But what about the stranger, Eumaeus asked? Who was Odysseus?

Now, you might ask, did Odysseus have the duplicity and creativity to concoct a second elaborate and fictitious origin story in a single day? Why yes – yes he did. He was Odysseus. Odysseus told Eumaeus the swineherd that he was from Crete, and, embellishing his narrative with certain features of his real autobiography, Odysseus told a rollicking tale of his youth on Crete, his early battles, his participation in the Trojan War, a journey to Egypt, where he stayed seven years. After more shipwrecks, battles, and a handful of divine interventions, said Odysseus, he wound up on Ithaca. His story is, in fact, quite long, suggesting that he enjoyed inventing the fictitious story about his origins.

In any case, Eumaeus pitied the stranger for his travels and trials. But Eumaeus repeated his skepticism that King Odysseus would ever come back. The disguised Odysseus then proposed a wager. If Odysseus returned within the month, Eumaeus would owe him a cloak and tunic. If Odysseus didn’t, then Eumaeus could throw him off a cliff. The swineherd, really believing his master would never return, declined. In general, if someone challenges you to a wager in they bet their life in exchange for some sort of unspecified ancient garment, it’s best to take the path of Eumaeus and decline the wager. Turning down Odysseus’ proposal, Eumaeus prepared the disguised Odysseus an elaborate meal.

After a hardy dinner, the sun went down and a moonless night rose all around them. A clammy wind blew in from the west, and rain began to fall. Odysseus told Eumaeus a fictitious story about serving under Odysseus in the Trojan War. As the snow fell and his bronze armor was crusted with frost, he’d been terribly cold, and Odysseus, in his story had secured a cloak for him. Then, maxing out his karma points with his former master, Eumaeus gave the stranger a cloak and went out into the rainy night to keep close watch over Odysseus’ herds.

The Odyssey, Book 15: Telemachus Returns

Telemachus Heads Back to Ithaca

Meanwhile, as Odysseus got cozy with his terrifically loyal swineherd Eumaeus, Athena went to find Telemachus. Odysseus’ son was awake, staring up at the sky, and thinking of his father. The goddess told Telemachus it was time to go back to Ithaca. The suitors were as bad as ever – and one of them, Eurymachus, seemed on the verge of actually wooing Penelope. Just as bad, they’d set up an ambush for Telemachus. But not to worry, the goddess said. She’d speed Telemachus back to Ithaca. From the harbor, he needed to walk up and spend the night with the swineherd, after which he could go back to Penelope and the palace.

Telemachus didn’t question the goddess’ orders. Telemachus awoke a companion he’d been travelling with, and proposed that they leave immediately, driving their chariot by starlight. But his companion said they should at least say farewell. Later that morning, Telemachus had to politely refuse the Spartan King Menelaus’ elaborate offers of gifts and tours of Sparta’s marvelous towns. Seriously, he said, he needed to get going. So, with a fancy bowl from the king, a nice robe from Helen Formerly of Troy Now of Sparta, and, inevitably, sacrifices, meat, wine, and decorous speeches, Telemachus was ready to go. A favorable sign – an eagle carrying a goose, seemed to portend Odysseus’ return to Ithaca. Menelaus and Helen waved farewell, and Telemachus hustled back across the wheat fields of Sparta, and across the rocky lands of Pylos. When they came upon the outskirts of wise old Nestor’s town, Telemachus asked his companion if he might just be dropped off at his ships. No offense to Nestor – it was just that Telemachus, and, perhaps, the audience of the Odyssey, had had about enough scenes of people feasting together and complimenting one another’s merits for the present. Telemachus’ companion – Nestor’s son – said that this would be fine.

When Telemachus got back to his ship, he met another youth. This second youth offered Telemachus a story all about his origins, and then asked if he could come along back to Ithaca with Telemachus. Telemachus assented. It was time to voyage to Ithaca. The mast was raised and they brought up the sail. With a wind sent by Athena, the ship rushed across the bright saltwater, sailing into the night. Looking at the nearby islands, Telemachus wondered where the ambush lay. [music]

Odysseus Visits with Eumaeus

As Telemachus began heading back to Ithaca, Odysseus was still in the company of the swineherd Eumaeus. He told his host that he’d soon go to Odysseus’ palace and look for work. Perhaps they’d let him split firewood, or prepare food or wine. In any case, he didn’t want to trouble Eumaeus too much. On a side note, this is one of many instances in which Odysseus tests a former acquaintance to see how loyal, or virtuous, or selfless they are. Others from his old life will soon be subjected to the same treatment.

But Eumaeus’ virtuousness remained faultless. He told the disguised Odysseus it would be very dangerous to go to the suitors. They were supercilious, and violent, and unpredictable – they’d make mincemeat out of the old beggar. The swineherd Eumaeus told Odysseus to just stay with him. Odysseus thanked the swineherd extensively, and then he asked about the parents of Odysseus – whether they still lived, and their current doings. He learned that his mother had died of grief missing him, and that his father was wasting away in a remote corner of the island. Odysseus then asked about Eumaeus’ origins.

Homer’s favorite swineherd responded with an extensive origin story. Eumaeus said that his parents had been wealthy. At a young age, he’d been kidnapped by Phoeneican traders, and, after long voyaging, had been purchased by Odysseus’ father Laertes.

As Eumaeus finished his autobiography, Telemachus and his shipmates had arrived in the harbor. They packed sails away and secured their ship to the beach. Telemachus and the youth who’d come with them from Pylos saw another favorable sign in the sky – a hawk with a dove in its talons – which evidently indicated that Telemachus’ lineage would continue on Ithaca. With this promising omen, Telemachus told his ship’s crew farewell, and took the rocky path up to meet Eumaeus, and also, though Telemachus did not know it, for the first time in his life, to meet his father Odysseus.

The Odyssey, Book 16: Odysseus Meets His Son

As Telemachus came up the path, Odysseus and Eumaeus were making breakfast. When Telemachus entered, Eumaeus was stunned. The swineherd Eumaeus greeted his master’s son effusively, offering kisses and praise. As for Odysseus, this was the first time he’d seen his son. But he was in disguise, and he had to keep his composure. The men shared a meal, and Telemachus asked about the stranger in the hut – the disguised Odysseus. Eumaeus explained the stranger’s origins, as he’d heard them. Telemachus wished that he could help the disguised Odysseus. At the least, he’d give the stranger a sword, and sandals, clean clothing, and a free journey to wherever he needed to go. But, Telemachus added, it wouldn’t be safe for the stranger amidst the suitors. Telemachus worried that “They are far too reckless and arrogant, / And I fear they will make fun of him, mock him, / And it would be hard for me to take that” (XVI.94-6).

The disguised Odysseus said he pitied Telemachus. He said he wished he were Odysseus, and could strike back against the suitors with deadly force. Telemachus nodded sadly, and went into detail about how the suitors had flocked the palace. Then Telemachus told Eumaeus to tell Penelope that he had returned, and send word to his grandfather Laertes, as well. Eumaeus left, headed out to do Telemachus’ bidding.

A moment later, Athena entered, and, invisible to Telemachus, summoned Odysseus outside. She said it was time for Odysseus to tell his son the truth, and changed his appearance back into his normal one – clean, taller and younger, and with a shining black beard and tanned skin. When Odysseus reentered Eumaeus’ hut, Telemachus was startled at the sight of him. He said the stranger must be a deity – only deities could change their appearances. No, said the other man. He was no stranger. He was Odysseus. The hero kissed his son, his tears falling freely to the ground. But Telemachus still couldn’t believe it – not until Odysseus explained that Athena had caused the transformations.

Then Telemachus knew he was being told the truth. The father and the son embraced one another and wept, the long years of loss and pain and exhaustion coming to an end in the humble hut of the swineherd. As the light faded outside, the pair finally regained their composure, and Telemachus asked how Odysseus had come to Ithaca. Odysseus briefly told the story of his stayover with the Phaeacians, and then, changing the subject, said it was time to plan how to kill the suitors. Telemachus balked and said that this would be impossible. When asked, he revealed that there were 108 suitors, 4 attendants, and a bard. A bit much for two guys, Telemachus added. Maybe if they didn’t have that bard. Odysseus agreed that they needed help. And Odysseus said that fortunately, they had the help of Athena and Zeus. But still, Telemachus was not convinced.

Odysseus explained his plan, a plan which involved him being brought into the palace as a beggar, Telemachus hiding the suitors’ weapons, and then Odysseus and Telemachus killing absolutely everyone. Part of the plan was also talking with Penelope and other attendants to test who was loyal to him, and who’d gone over to the suitors. Telemachus, in spite of some reservations, agreed. It’s interesting to put ourselves in poor Telemachus’ shoes here. Imagine that if the first time you ever met your father, he told you it was time for you to help him kill over a hundred people, and that the gods had sanctioned it. I think I might propose having some ice cream, or a beer, or going on a bike ride, instead. I guess Telemachus was more loyal than I am – and he did have a bone to pick with those suitors. [music]

Penelope Confronts the Suitors Alone

Meanwhile, in the palace, Penelope found out that her Telemachus had come back safely to Ithaca. The suitors were not pleased at this news. Their assassin ship had come back already, indicating that Telemachus’ vessel had passed it. One of the suitors, Antinous, proposed killing Telemachus in the palace. Another, gentler suitor – one whom Penelope actually liked – said this wasn’t a good plan, or at least Zeus ought to be consulted first.

As the suitors ate lunch in the palace, Penelope descended into the room where the men were eating. She had heard of Antinous’ plot to kill Telemachus in the palace, and said she was disgusted. Odysseus had done much for Antinous. They all needed to stop their murderous plotting immediately. Another suitor promised Penelope that Telemachus would be safe from the suitors, although he didn’t mean it. Exhausted and powerless, Penelope went back upstairs, only falling asleep with the help of Athena. [music]

The Heroes Put their Plan into Action

Back at the hut of the swineherd Eumaeus, Odysseus and Telemachus were making dinner. When the swineherd returned, Athena disguised Odysseus again. Eumaeus said he’d delivered the news, and also, revealed that he’d seen a weapon-laden ship full of suitors return to Ithaca. The first assassination attempt on Telemachus, then, had failed. The young Ithacan smiled and he looked at his father. The suitors, he thought, would soon be the ones who had to run. [music]

The Wily Bastard

Well, that takes us two thirds of the way through Homer’s Odyssey. And because we saw so much of Odysseus today, and indeed, heard a four book long solid block of Odysseus telling the story of his adventures to the Phaeacians, I think we should spend some time discussing Odysseus – what sort of a figure he is in the epic, and then a little later, how he was received by all the generations of people who read this story.

In contrast to some of the more stock figures in the Odyssey – ireful, blue-maned Poseidon, for instance, or the kind and generous King Alcinous, Odysseus so dynamic, so constantly changing from scene to scene, that Homer risks making Odysseus a cipher, an enigma that moves like mist through his own story, never quite coalescing. A Homeric epithet used to describe Odysseus over and over again throughout the Odyssey, nineteen times total by my count, is often used before he says something. This epithet is, “his mind teeming,” the title of this episode. This epithet is most commonly used as follows: “Odysseus, his mind teeming, said ‘x,’” or “Odysseus, his mind teeming, said ‘y.’” At a simple level, it means that the hero of the Odyssey is turning things over in his mind, or using his powers of induction and deduction to make decisions. Yet “his mind teeming” also means that Odysseus is trying to decide who to become in any given moment. Homer scholar Sheila Murnaghan writes that “Odysseus is a master at assessing situations, devising plans, using language for his own ends, and manipulating the relations of appearance and reality. . . His most characteristic and successful tactic is his use of disguises, which depends on a rare willingness to efface his own identity and a cool-headed capacity to say one thing while thinking another. Odysseus disguises himself at every stage of the Odyssey’s plot.”⁴ Odysseus really does spend much of his story disguised, always prevaricating or making up stories about himself.

We covered one of the most famous moments in the Odyssey in this episode. Odysseus has come to Ithaca, and a shepherd boy – actually Athena in disguise, asks him who he is. Odysseus is about to tell the boy the truth, but then, Homer writes that Odysseus “checked that impulse, And, jockeying for an advantage, made up this story: ‘I’ve heard of Ithaca, of course [Odysseus tells the boy] —even in Crete, Far over the sea, and now I’ve just come ashore’” (XIII.265-6). Then, his story about being from Crete goes on and on. Athena, not having any of it, replies with the lines we heard earlier, and I’ll quote the Lombardo translation this time:

You wily bastard,
You cunning, elusive, habitual liar!
Even in your own land you weren’t about
To give up the stories and sly deceits
That are so much a part of you. . .Here we are,
The two shrewdest minds in the universe,
You far and away the best man on earth
In plotting strategies, and I famed among gods
For my clever schemes. (XIII.301-10)

It’s a memorable moment, a goddess likening herself to a mortal, and you can almost imagine Athena giving Odysseus a high five or fist bump. The two are the most duplicitous characters in Homer, and Athena gloats about it. Duplicity, along with its second cousin, correct social deportment, are the things that get Odysseus where he needs to be in most of the Odyssey. He charms Nausicaa, and the Phaeacians. He hoodwinks the Cyclops. His trickery leads the witch Circe, who wanted to turn him into a pig, instead to want to get naked with him. Later, as he journeys between Scylla and Charybdis, he doesn’t tell his men that some of them will have to die to get past the six headed monster. The omission may help save more lives, ultimately, but it seems to be the kind of thing you might want to discuss with your crew. Odysseus, however, has no problem keeping it under wraps. Nor does Odysseus have any trouble with the elaborate rituals he uses to trick Hades into letting him have an audience with the dead. Even – in fact I think this is the most interesting thing – even being himself involves duplicity, for whenever he casts off a disguise and becomes Odysseus, Athena magically enhances his appearance, making his beard dark and thick, his muscles larger – making him glow with a divine sheen. Even when Odysseus is himself, then, he still drips with illusions. The biggest mistake he commits in the entire Odyssey is a spontaneous act of honesty. Twelve years after the start of the Trojan War, as he leaves the island of the Cyclops and dodges the huge stone projectiles hurled by the angry monster, he tells the Cyclops his name. The Cyclops knows, then, that Odysseus blinded him, he tells his father the god Poseidon, and Poseidon makes Odysseus pay for his moment of honesty – for eight long, harrowing years.

Now I have something fun for us to think about – it’s fascinating if you haven’t heard it before and it’s something that would likely come up in a college course on Homer. Today, we heard a massive swath of the Odyssey, in which, between Books 9 and 12, Odysseus tells the Phaeacians about his adventures between the end of the Trojan War and his arrival on their shores. It’s a long first person narrative, and one that contains the Odyssey’s most famous scenes – that comic strip involving the Lotus Eaters, the Cyclops, the Laestrygonians, the sultry witch Circe, Scylla and Charybdis, the Sirens, and several other sequences central to European literature. Odysseus tells this sprawling story in the middle of a Phaeacian party – wine is being sipped, a bard is performing, and most of the way through Odysseus’ tale, King Alcinous exclaims that indeed, Odysseus has the power of a bard (XI.377). And that line, along with many other details in the Odyssey, lead us to wonder. How much of what Odysseus tells the Phaeacians actually took place?

Juvenal’s Interpretation of the Odyssey

Here’s the thing. We have already heard Odysseus telling all sorts of lies, and false stories about himself. He tells Athena a fictitious origin story in Book 13, and he tells Eumaeus another fictitious origin story in Book 14. Later, as we’ll see next time, in Book 17, the disguised Odysseus tells the head suitor Antinous another fake autobiography. Later still, in Book 19, while in disguise, Odysseus tells his wife Penelope yet another fake origin narrative about his past. And incredibly, when Odysseus meets his father Laertes in Book 24, even after the crisis on the island of Ithaca has been resolved, Odysseus unnecessarily tells his dad a long fable about being from Sicily. When he’s not simply making things up, Odysseus is carefully packaging the truth to suit his advantage, eminently diplomatic in his goodbye to Calypso, brilliantly complimentary upon meeting Nausicaa, shrewdly investigative while talking with Eumaeus, and in all cases weaving fact together with fiction to accomplish various purposes. So, why, then, when elsewhere the Odyssey contains hundreds of lines of Odysseus’ fraudulent narratives, should we suppose that he ever met any Sirens, or wove between Scylla and Charybdis, or poked out the eye of the Cyclops?

This approach to the central portion of the Odyssey is an old one. The Roman satirist Juvenal, some time around 130 CE or so, imagined the Phaeacians listening to Odysseus story’ and being insulted and incredulous at Odysseus’ bald faced lies.⁵ Juvenal writes in his fifteenth Satire,

. . .When Ulysses
narrated this crime over dinner, he shocked King Alcinous
and some others present, perhaps, who, angry or laughing, thought him a braggart liar. [someone grumbled] ‘Won’t somebody throw this fellow
back in the sea? He deserves a real-life Charybdis, a maelstrom,
with his lying tales of Cyclopes and Laestrygonian monsters!
I’d sooner believe in Scylla, or the Clashing Rocks,
or that leather bag stuffed with every kind of storm-wind,
or Circe, with one light touch of her wand, transforming
[the crew] into grunting pig-oarsmen.
Did he really take us Phaeacians for such credulous numskulls?’(Sat XV.13-23)⁶

In other words, the later Roman writer Juvenal imagines that Odysseus made his entire story to the Phaeacians up, just as he makes up his later origin stories in the Odyssey.

On one hand, telling your hosts an elaborate web of lies when they ask you who you are is terribly rude, and Juvenal, who’s often nostalgic for a simple and plainspoken past, glowers at the possibility that the heart of the Odyssey is a wholesale fabrication. But the verbal performance that Odysseus offers is done after the performance of a bard has just taken place, and we should always remember that this story’s original audience in the ancient world would have heard a bard telling Odysseus’ tale to the accompaniment of musical instruments, and so it’s quite fitting that the Odyssey’s most famous chapters bear some evidence of a bardic creation.

I think Homer’s original audiences, just as sharp and perceptive as we are, and likely far more so with interpreting the works of Homer, since their native language was close to the literary one of Homer – I think Homer’s original audiences would have been conscious of the tantalizing possibility that the central four books of the Odyssey are simply made up by Odysseus. Now, there is one important piece of evidence to the contrary. Zeus, in Book 1 – in other words in third person omniscient voice that narrates the Odyssey – Zeus recalls that Poseidon is furious with Odysseus. Zeus says, “Poseidon is stiff and cold with anger / Because Odysseus blinded his son, the Cyclops” (I.74-5). That part of the story, then, with the Cyclops, seems to have taken place, although if we continue to remain skeptical to the veracity of Odysseus’ story to the Phaeacians, it might have happened in a number of ways far different than what Odysseus describes in Book 9. But on the whole, Odysseus is otherwise so fond of disinformation and prevarication throughout Homer’s epic that we have no compelling reason to believe anything that he tells the Phaeacians. The Cyclops, Circe, the communion with Tiresias, the words of Achilles, the Sirens, Scylla, Charybdis – all these central scenes of Greek mythology might have been understood, to some of the poem’s early audience members – as nothing more than Odysseus’ tall tales, told for a mug of wine and a safe voyage home. [music]

Odysseus Across the Ages

Trickery and verbal prowess have almost always been the qualities readers find most salient in Odysseus, rather than goodness or courage. In Homer’s own time, as city states re-knit their ties and economic relationships after the Greek Dark Age – as commerce grew ever more robust and new interstate relations had to be negotiated, the story of a brilliant raconteur who could go anywhere, ingratiate anyone, and entertain whole courts with the story of his past was surely an exemplum that cosmopolitan traders of the 600s and 500s might attempt to measure up to. And Odysseus’ story could have found no better audience than Athens of the 400s BCE, which committed itself to naval strength under Themistocles during the ominous years between the Battle of Marathon in 490 BCE and the Battle of Salamis ten years later. The Athenians, following their victory in the Greco-Persian Wars, were for three quarters of a century the rulers of the eastern Mediterranean, and as the Delian League came to its pinnacle in the mid-400s in the central Aegean, a great many Athenian Odysseuses were island hopping in the Eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea, committed, in their military affairs, to swiftness, strategy, and logistics far more than brute force and numbers. During the Peloponnesian War of 431-404 BCE, Athens’ naval prowess kept the Spartan league at bay for a generation, and their strategy during these decades was far more often swiftness and precision, rather than shield walls and phalanxes. The philosophers and military minds of Classical Athens, in short, found Odysseus, even for his occasional ruthlessness, the paragon of their waterborne civilization.

To Rome, which had a love-hate relationship with Greek culture, Odysseus was the paradigm of a scheming, untrustworthy, silver-tongued easterner. A character in Virgil’s Aeneid, as the Trojan Horse is about to be brought into the walls of Troy, famously warns, “Beware Greeks bearing gifts” (Aen 2.49). And the horse, built by the design of Odysseus himself, is the ultimate emblem of Greek culture’s slow incursion into the Roman world. Aeneas, patriarch of the Romans, is, after all, a Trojan, and his whole civilization falls due to the strategy of a certain very slippery Ithacan. Romans, when they read Odysseus’ story in Homer, were keen to remember this. But we shouldn’t get too far ahead of ourselves. We could talk about Odysseus’ reception in Late Antiquity as Christianity began to subsume the literary cultures once dominated by Homer. We could discuss the adaptation of Greco-Roman epics during the 11th and 12th centuries CE into stories palatable to the emerging Christian world of courtly love like the French Roman de Troie, or Legend of Troy, or the Roman d’Eneas, or Legend of Aeneas. We could get into Joyce’s Ulysses and the twentieth century’s singular obsession with the figure of the man apart, alienated from his culture do to his identity or his culture’s intrinsic venality or falseness, drifting, just as Odysseus drifts, from place to place but never ultimately able to come home. Odysseus is going to come back again and again in this podcast, because he is without qualification one of the most marvelous, enigmatic, and influential characters in literature. And at its heart, the Odyssey is the tale of a trickster – a glib liar whose ultimate allegiance is to himself and his own dignity. When Athena calls Odysseus a “wily bastard” or a “cunning, elusive, habitual liar!” these are words of camaraderie, but they’re not, pure and simple, compliments. She is not claiming that they are good, or kind, as a goddess and hero. She is saying that they’re very smart, and that they can make things happen that others can’t make happen.

Tricksters are one of literature’s most common refrains. I think we love to read and hear stories about tricksters, because they get to break the rules that we can’t. They get to pass through social barriers. They understand hidden wires of motivation, and know just how to pluck them. Tricksters get things for free – wealth, travel, sex, and fun – things that the rest of us accrue only slowly and cautiously in our lives. Tricksters ultimately emblematize the possibilities of human intelligence, for their greatest strengths are their ever teeming minds. In reading their stories, we get to dream of having our own adventures, transcending the humdrum circuit of the everyday, and seeing what’s far beyond the hills and horizons that we pass by every day on our way to work. [music]

Moving on to Books 17-24

Next time, we’re going to see Odysseus home. And the suitors are going to learn that even if his queen is beautiful, and even if his kingdom promises great riches, and even if you have 112 other dudes with you, it’s still a really, really bad idea to move into an epic hero’s house and disrespect his family. I’m excited to take you into the final third of this great poem. We’ve talked a lot about those central four books that Odysseus narrates – those books that seem to inspire the most artwork and retellings. And what we tend to not think about – especially if we’ve only heard of the poem, or maybe if we haven’t read it for a while, is that the end of the Odyssey gets pretty dark. That’s not to say that people being eaten by the Cyclops or Scylla is necessarily all ages fun, but the mythological beings and wind filled sails at heart of the Odyssey, toward the end of the epic, give way to a much more vindictive and grisly story – a tale in which humans, rather than mythological creatures, become the monsters.

A couple of episodes ago, we talked about the world that produced the Iliad – a slowly evolving civilization obsessed with bronze weaponry and the warriors who wielded it. And we’ve talked about kleos and nostos – the schism between the search for battle glory on one hand, and the desire to return home, one of the central themes in Homer. We also, in our final program on the Iliad, explored some of the main theories of Homeric authorship, and how scholars have used various tools to try and figure out how the Iliad and Odyssey were produced. One thing what we haven’t done much is discuss Homer’s style – most importantly, his trademark similes. Many readers find Homeric similes a window into the ideology behind the epics – a worldview that, while it indeed portrays the lives of ordinary humans as vulnerable and often tragic, also sees a majestic, cyclical order governing earthly events. So next time, we’ll finish up the Odyssey and spend some time considering what Ancient Greece’s most famous two stories ultimately say about the experience of being human. As always, I have a quiz available at literatureandhistory.com if you’re standing in line for coffee and want to run through some of the names and events of the Odyssey. I have a song coming up if you want to hear it – if not, see you next time.

Still listening? Well, Homer’s love for Eumaeus is contagious. I got to thinking. I mean this guy is the most famous pig herder in the history of creation. In terms of loyalty to his employer, Eumaeus didn’t mess around. I got to wondering – what if a couple of Eumaeus’ fellow herders wrote a song about him? How would they enumerate the fine qualities of this ancient, illustrious pig breeder? What would they sing, and what style of music would they use? I think that their rhapsody to Eumaeus the swineherd would sound something like this.






References

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