Report in Humanities- Odyssey

8/4/2019 Report in Humanities- Odyssey

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Odyssey


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The Odyssey(a long wandering and eventfuljourney) is one of two major ancient Greek

epic poems attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a

sequel to the Iliad, the other work traditionallyascribed to Homer. The poem is fundamental

to the modern Western canon. Indeed it is the

secondthe Iliad being the firstextant workof Western literature.


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The poem mainly centers on the Greek hero

Odysseus (or Ulysses, as he was known inRoman myths) and his long journey home

following the fall of Troy. It takes Odysseus ten

years to reach Ithaca after the ten-year TrojanWar. In his absence, it is assumed he has died,

and his wife Penelope and son Telemachus must

deal with a group of unruly suitors, the

Mnesteres or Proci, competing for Penelope's

hand in marriage.


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Major characters:

Odysseus:Odysseus is the maincharacter of the Odyssey, a tale

which chronicles his homecoming

and his journeys since his

departure from Troy. The story

focus on his trials at sea and on

land and how, once he gets home,

he must avenge his family's honorfrom the suitors who have been

besieging his house waiting for his

wife to choose a new husband.


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Penelope: Odysseus' wife and mother of

Telemachus. She remains loyal to Odysseus

even after he is gone for twenty years. She

constructs elaborate ruses such as weavingand unweaving at a loom. She has trouble

believing that her husband has returned when

she first sees him and is very cold until shegets undeniable proof of his identity.


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Zeus: Father of Athena and King of the gods,

Zeus appears frequently in this poem but

mostly to give assent to another god who

either wants to help Odysseus or hinder him.

He gives Athena license to help Odysseus butalso strikes Odysseus' ship with lightning

after he has committed wrongs against the

gods. He gives frequent signs to Odysseusand others in the forms of lightning or storms

throughout the poem.


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Poseidon: Zeus' brother and the god of the

sea, he is upset with Odysseus first for not

offering sufficient sacrifices to him. He is

even more unhappy after Odysseus blindshis son Polyphemus. It is Poseidon that

Odysseus still must appease at the end of

the poem. Poseidon keeps Odysseus frommaking it home on multiple occasions.


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Minor Characters:

Mentes(Mentor): An older man of Ithacawhose form Athena takes first to help

Telemachus travel to Pylos and then to

help Telemachus and Odysseus fight thesuitors.

Phemius (Phemios): Minstrel who sings at

the house of Odysseus He begs for his lifeand Telemachus tells Odysseus that he

doesn't deserve to die.


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Nestor: Old king of Pylos who entertains

Telemachus and advises him to go seek news

for his father from Menelaus.

Peisistratos: Nestor's son who accompanies

Telemachus to Sparta.Menelaus (Menelaos): King of Sparta and

husband of Helen for whom the Trojan War

was fought. In this tale, Menelaus entertainsTelemachus and gives him news of his father.

He also tells the tale of his own journey back

from Troy.


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Helen: Wife of Menelaus and reason the Trojan

war was fought. In this tale, she drugs the wine

of Menelaus and Telemachus so that they willforget their sorrow.

Proteus: Sea god who Menelaus captures in a

cave of seals, from whom he learns how to gethome.

Calypso (Kalypso): Nymph who kept Odysseus

on her island for many years by means ofenchantment. Hermes orders her to release him

by the authority of Zeus at the request of Athena.

She has him make a raft to journey on.


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Hermes: messenger of the gods, he deliversthe edicts of Zeus to gods and mortals. He

instructs Calypso to release Odysseus. He also

accompanies souls to the land of the dead.

Nausicaa (Nausikaa): Daughter of Alcinous

who finds Odysseus in the thicket near the

river where he washed up on the island. Shewas prompted to go to the river by Athena.


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Arete: Wife of Alcinous who was approachedby Odysseus for her help

Alcinous (Alkinoos): King of the Phaiakians

who welcomes Odysseus and hears his longtale. He presents Odysseus with great treasure

and gives him secure passage to Ithaca.

Demodocus (Demodokos): Minstrel who singsat the palace of Alcinous.


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Achilles (Akhilleus): Hero of the Iliad. He

dies before the end of the Trojan war and isshown in the land of the dead regretting his

fate.

Ares: God of war who had an affair with

Aphrodite and was caught by her husband

Hephaestus.

Aphrodite: Goddess of love and lust whose

affair with Ares is discovered and revealed by

her husband Hephaestus.


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Polyphemus (Polyphemos): Cyclops son of

Poseidon who is blinded by Odysseus because

he eats some of his men and won't release them.

Polyphemus' plea to his father sidetracks

Odysseus for many years.

Aeolus (Aiolos): King of the winds who

entertained Odysseus at an early part of his

journey. He presents Odysseus with a bag of the

winds so that he may get home safely. WhenOdysseus' men release the winds and the ship is

blown back, Aeolus has no pity.


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Circe (Kirke): Witch-like woman who atfirst turns Odysseus' men into pigs but is

impressed when she cannot affect Odysseus.

She lusts after him and he stays

Tiresias (Eurylokhos): Blind prophet who

Odysseus goes to find in the land of the

dead. He tells Odysseus how to get home

and that he must appease Poseidon once he

gets there.


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Eurymachus (Eurymakhos): The second

suitor, Eurymachus always speaks afterAntinous or in place of him. He is the

second suitor to die.

Eurykleia (Euryklea): Odysseus nurse as achild and a servant in his house. She hides

Telemachus' journey to Pylos and is the

firstwoman to recognize Odysseus. Shehelps Odysseus sort out the good hand-

maidens from the bad ones.


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Autolycus: was a son of Hermes andChione

Melanthius (Melanthios): Goatherd who

insults Odysseus and taunts the swineherdand the beggar.

Laertes: Odysseus' father. He appears only

at the end of the poem and prepares tostand with his son against the Ithacan mob.


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Objects/Places:

Suitors: Princes and nobles from Ithaca and the

surrounding islands who take up residence in thehouse of Odysseus waiting for Penelope to choosea new husband. This is so important to thembecause whoever marries her becomes king by

transfer of her power.

Mt. Olympus (Mt. Olympos): Mythical home ofthe gods. Amountain in Greece where the Greeks

believed the gods made their home.Ithaca (Ithaka):Odysseus' home island over

which he rules as king. It was located on thewestern side of mainland Greece.


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Pylos: City on mainland Greece over whichNestor rules.

Sparta (Laikedaimon): City over whichMenelaus rules. Telemachus goes here in searchof his father.

Crete (Krete): Legendary home of King Minos,

the labyrinth and the Minotaur. This is the islandOdysseus keeps claiming he is from when he liesto his family and the swineherd.

Skheria: Island of the Phaiakians where

Odysseus tells his long story and secures passageback to Ithaca after so many years.

Lamnos: Nightless island where some ofOdysseus' men were eaten by giants.


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Sirens (Seirenes): Singing women-like beastswho inhabit an island and guide sailors to their

deaths with their beautiful songs. Odysseushas himself tied to the mast of the ship so hecan listen to their song.

Scylla: Six-headed beast who inhabits thecave parallel to thewhirlpool Charybdis.Scylla eats six of Odysseus' men.

Charybdis (Kharybdis): A whirlpool thaterupts three times a day sucking anything nearit down into its depths and then vomiting itback up.


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EXPOSITION

The Odyssey begins ten years after the end ofthe ten-year Trojan War, and Odysseus has still

not returned home from the war. Odysseus' son

Telemachus is twenty and is sharing his absent

fathers house on the island of Ithaca with his

mother Penelope and a crowd of 108 boisterous

young men, "the Suitors", whose aim is to

persuade Penelope to marry one of them, all thewhile enjoying the hospitality of Odysseus'

household and eating up his wealth.


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Penelope and the suitors

Od h dd A h


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Odysseus protectress, the goddess Athena,

discusses his fate with Zeus, king of the gods, at a

moment when Odysseus' enemy, the god of the sea

Poseidon, is absent from Mount Olympus. Then,

disguised as a Taphian chieftain named Mentes

(otherwise known as Mentor), she visits

Telemachus to urge him to search for news of hisfather. He offers her hospitality; they observe the

Suitors dining rowdily while the bard Phemius

performs a narrative poem for them. Penelopeobjects to Phemius' theme, the "Return from

Troy"because it reminds her of her missing

husband, but Telemachus rebuts her objections.

Th t i ht Ath di i d T l h


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That night Athena, disguised as Telemachus,

finds a ship and crew for the true Telemachus.

The next morning, Telemachus calls an assembly

of citizens of Ithaca to discuss what should bedone with the suitors. Accompanied by Athena

(still disguised as Mentor), he departs for the

Greek mainland and the household of Nestor,most venerable of the Greek warriors at Troy,

now at home in Pylos. From there, Telemachus

rides overland, accompanied by Nestor's son,Peisistratus, to Sparta, where he finds Menelaus

and Helen, now reconciled. He is told that they

returned to Sparta after a long voyage by way of

Egypt.


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There, on the island of Pharos, Menelaus

encountered the old sea-god Proteus, whotold him that Odysseus was a captive of

the nymph Calypso. Incidentally,

Telemachus learns the fate of Menelausbrother Agamemnon, king of Mycenae

and leader of the Greeks at Troy: he was

murdered on his return home by his wife

Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus.


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Telemachus departing from Nestor


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Telemachus & the Nymphs ofCalypso


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Escape to the Phaeacians

Then the story of Odysseus is told. He has spent

seven years in captivity on Calypso's island,

Ogygia. Calypso falls deeply in love with him but

he has consistently spurned her advances. She is

persuaded to release him by Odysseus' great-

grandfather, the messenger god Hermes, who has

been sent by Zeus in response to Athena's plea.Odysseus builds a raft and is given clothing, food

and drink by Calypso.


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When Poseidon finds out that Odysseus has

escaped, he wrecks the raft, but Odysseus

swims ashore on the island of Scherie (helped

by a veil given by the sea nymph Ino), the

home of the Phaeacians, where, naked and

exhausted, he hides in a pile of leaves andfalls asleep. The next morning, awakened by

the laughter of girls, he sees the young

Nausicaa, who has gone to the seashore withher maids to wash clothes, after Athena

appeared to her in a dream and told her to do

so.


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Odysseus and Nausica


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He appeals to her for help. She encourages him to

seek the hospitality of her parents, Arete andAlcinous, or Alkinous. Odysseus is welcomed and

is not at first asked for his name. He remains for

several days, takes part in a pentathlon, and hearsthe blind singer Demodocus perform two narrative

poems. The first is an otherwise obscure incident of

the Trojan War, the "Quarrel of Odysseus and

Achilles"; the second is the amusing tale of a love

affair between two Olympian gods, Ares and

Aphrodite.


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Finally, Odysseus asks Demodocus to return

to the Trojan War theme and tell of the Trojan

Horse, a stratagem in which Odysseus had

played a leading role. Unable to hide hisemotion as he relives this episode, Odysseus

at last reveals his identity. He then begins to

tell the story of his return from Troy.


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Odysseus Overcome by Demodocus'Song


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Odysseus' account of his adventures

After a piratical raid on Ismaros in the land of the

Cicones, he and his twelve ships were driven off

course by storms. They visited the lethargicLotus-Eaters who gave two of his men their fruit

which caused them to forget their homecoming,

and then were captured by the Cyclops

Polyphemus, escaping by blinding him with a

wooden stake.


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While they were escaping, however,

Odysseus foolishly told Polyphemus his

identity, and Polyphemus told his father,

Poseidon, that Odysseus had blinded him.

Poseidon then curses Odysseus to wander thesea for ten years, during which he would lose

all his crew and return home through the aid

of others.


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Giant Polyphemus blinded byOdysseus


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After unsuccessfully pleading with Aeolus to helpthem again, they re-embarked and encountered the

cannibalistic Laestrygonians. All of Odysseuss

ships except his own entered the harbor of theLaestrygonians Island and were immediately

destroyed. He sailed on and visited the witch-

goddess Circe. She turned half of his men intoswine after feeding them cheese and wine.


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Hermes warned Odysseus about Circe and

gave Odysseus a drug called moly which

gave him resistance to Circes magic. Circe,

being attracted to Odysseus' resistance,

agreed to bargain with him. She agreed to

change his men back to their human form in

exchange for Odysseus' love.


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They remained with her on the island for one

year, while they feasted and drank. Finally,

guided by Circe's instructions, Odysseus and hiscrew crossed the ocean and reached a harbor at

the western edge of the world, where Odysseus

sacrificed to the dead and summoned the spirit

of the old prophet Tiresias to advise him of how

to appease the gods upon his return home. Next

Odysseus met the spirit of his own mother, who

had died of grief during his long absence. Fromher, he learned for the first time news of his own

household, threatened by the greed of the

Suitors.


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Here, too, he met the spirits of famouswomen and famous men. Notably he

encountered the spirit of Agamemnon, of

whose murder he now learned, and Achilles,

who told him about the woes of the land of

the dead (for Odysseus' encounter with the

dead, see also Nekuia).

Ci ff i h


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Circe offering her cup


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Returning to Circes island, they were advised

by her on the remaining stages of the journey.They skirted the land of the Sirens, who sang an

enchanting song that normally caused passing

sailors to steer toward the rocks, only to hit them

and sink. All of the sailors except for Odysseus,

who was tied to the mast, had their ears plugged

up with beeswax. They then passed between the

six-headed monster Scylla and the whirlpoolCharybdis, and landed on the island of

Thrinacia.


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There, Odysseus men ignored the warnings of

Tiresias and Circe, and hunted down the sacredcattle of the sun god Helios. This sacrilege was

punished by a shipwreck in which all but

Odysseus drowned. He was washed ashore onthe island of Calypso, where she compelled

him to remain as her lover for seven years

before she was ordered by Zeus to release

Odysseus.

Odysseus and his men in the Isle of


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Odysseus and his men in the Isle ofthe Sirens

Return to Ithaca


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Return to Ithaca

Having listened with rapt attention to his story,

the Phaeacians, who are skilled mariners, agree

to help Odysseus get home. They deliver him at

night, while he is fast asleep, to a hidden harbour

on Ithaca. He finds his way to the hut of one of

his own former slaves, the swineherd Eumaeus.

Athena disguises Odysseus as a wanderingbeggar in order to learn how things stand in his

household.


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After dinner, he tells the farm laborers afictitious tale of himself: he was born in

Crete, had led a party of Cretans to fight

alongside other Greeks in the Trojan War, and

had then spent seven years at the court of the

king of Egypt; finally he had been

shipwrecked in Thesprotia and crossed from

there to Ithaca.


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Meanwhile, Telemachus sails home from Sparta,

evading an ambush set by the Suitors. He

disembarks on the coast of Ithaca and makes for

Eumaeuss hut. Father and son meet; Odysseus

identifies himself to Telemachus (but still not to

Eumaeus) and they determine that the suitors mustbe killed. Telemachus gets home first.

Accompanied by Eumaeus, Odysseus now returns

to his own house, still pretending to be a beggar. Heis ridiculed by the suitors in his own home,

especially by one extremely impertinent man

named Antinous.

His son is beat up by the larger men to


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His son is beat up by the larger men toshow his "transition to manhood", andOdysseus attempts to stop the fight; as a

result, Antinous throws a chair at him andlaughs at him. Odysseus meets Penelopeand tests her intentions with an invented

story of his birth in Crete, where, he says,he once met Odysseus. Closelyquestioned, he adds that he had recently

been in Thesprotia and had learnedsomething there of Odysseuss recentwanderings.


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Odysseus meets his wife Penelope

Odysseuss identity is discovered by the


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y y y

housekeeper, Eurycleia, as she is washing his feet

and discovers an old scar Odysseus had received

during a boar hunt. He had received the scar whenhe was hunting with the sons of Autolycus. They

had been told to go boar hunting so that they could

prepare a meal with the meat. The three climbedMount Parnassus and eventually came across a

boar in a large and deep meadow. Because of the

meadow's depth, the three hunters were ambushed

by the seemingly invisible boar and when

Odysseus first saw the animal, he rushed at it but

the animal was too fast and slashed him in the

right thigh.


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Despite being gored by the boar, Odysseus still

hit his mark and stabbed the boar through the

shoulder. Odysseus' bleeding was staunched by

a spell that was chanted by the sons of

Autolycus and he received great glory and

treasure for his bravery. Having seen this scar,Eurycleia tries to tell Penelope about

Odysseus' true identity, but Athena makes sure

that Penelope cannot hear Eurycleia.Meanwhile, Odysseus swears her to secrecy,

and she promises not to tell.


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Slaying of the Suitors

The next day, at Athenas prompting, Penelope

maneuvers the Suitors into competing for her hand

with an archery competition using Odysseus' bow.The man who can string the bow and shoot it

through a dozen axe heads would win. Odysseus

takes part in the competition himself: he alone is

strong enough to string the bow and shoot it through

the dozen axe heads, making him the winner.


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He then turns his arrows on the Suitors and

with the help of Athena, Telemachus,

Eumaeus and Philoteus the cowherd, he kills

all the Suitors. Odysseus and Telemachus

hang twelve of their household maids, whohad betrayed Penelope or had sex with the

Suitors, or both; they mutilate and kill the

goatherd Melanthius, who had mocked andabused Odysseus.

Od h ti t th


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Odysseus shooting an arrow to thesuitors


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Now at last, Odysseus identifies himself to Penelope.

She is hesitant, but accepts him when he mentions

that their bed was made from an olive tree still rooted

to the ground. Many modern and ancient scholars

take this to be the original ending of the Odyssey, and

the rest to be an interpolation.

The next day he and Telemachus visit the country

farm of his old father Laertes, who likewise accepts

his identity only when Odysseus correctly describesthe orchard that Laertes had previously given him.


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The citizens of Ithaca have followed Odysseus on

the road, planning to avenge the killing of theSuitors, their sons. Their leader points out that

Odysseus has now caused the deaths of two

generations of the men of Ithaca: his sailors, notone of whom survived; and the Suitors, whom he

has now executed. The goddess Athena

intervenes and persuades both sides to give up

the vendetta, a deus ex machina. After this, Ithaca

is at peace once more, concluding the Odyssey.


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Report in Humanities- Odyssey