How much humor has there been so far?
Isn’t epic Serious Business?
What does laughter mean in epic?
Has Telemachus come of age yet?
What does a Greek child do to become an adult?
How are different social classes portrayed?
What is The Plan? What are its pitfalls?
Is Odysseus a good person?
Ὀδύσσεια 17
time to get the plan moving
Odysseus sent to town to beg
Telemachus goes home
Ὀδύσσεια 17
Eurycleia greets Telemachus
Penelope greets Telemachus
T: I brought a stranger home.
Ὀδύσσεια 17
the second assembly
Spear in hand,
Telemachus strode on through the hall and out,
and a pair of sleek hounds went trotting at his heels.
And Athena lavished a marvelous splendor on the prince
so the people all gazed in wonder as he came forward.
χάρις — charis — grace
The swaggering suitors clustered, milling round him,
welcome words on their lips, and murder in their hearts.
Piræus: what about the stuff?
Ὀδύσσεια 17
The Stranger goes home with Telemachus
Penelope debriefs Telemachus
“I will tell you the whole true story now.”
“The lord of the warcry, Menelaus, asked at once
what pressing need had brought me to lovely Lacedæmon.”
Odysseus is alive but trapped
Calypso will not let him leave
Ὀδύσσεια 17
The Stranger prophesies
“I swear Odysseus is on native soil, here and now!
Poised or on the prowl, learning of these rank crimes
he’s sowing seeds of ruin for all your suitors.
So clear, so true, that bird-sign I saw…”
Ὀδύσσεια 17
meanwhile the suitors…
And so the three confided in the halls
while all the suitors, before Odysseus’ palace,
amused themselves with discus and long throwing spears,
out on the leveled grounds, free and easy as always,
full of swagger.
Remember the Panathenaic games?
Who else threw the discus and spears?
Ὀδύσσεια 17
Eumæus and the begger go to town
fountain of Ithacus, altar to nymphs
Melanthius, son of Dolius: goatherd
“Look! one scum nosing another scum along,
dirt finds dirt by the will of god —it never fails!
Wretched pig-boy, where do you take your filthy swine,
this sickening beggar who licks the pots at feasts?”
kicks Odysseus in the hip
17.535
Hierarchy of Herdsmen
βουκόλος
cowherd
(Sun)
Philœtius
ποιμήν
shepherd
(Cyclops)
(Athena)
αἰπόλος
goatherd
Melanthius
cattle sacrificing
& sheep &
fat goats
βοῦς ἱερεύοντες καὶ ὄϊς καὶ πῑό νας αἶγας
Ὀδύσσεια 17
Now, as they talked on, a dog that lay there
lifted up his muzzle, pricked his ears…
It was Argos, long-enduring Odysseus’ dog
he trained as a puppy once, but little joy he got
since all too soon he shipped to sacred Troy.
Infested with ticks, half-dead from neglect,
here lay the hound, old Argos.
But the dark shadow of death closed down on Argos’ eyes
the instant he saw Odysseus, twenty years away.
Ὀδύσσεια 17
Xenia?
And now Athena came to the side of Laertes’ royal son
and urged him, “Go now, gather crusts from all the suitors,
test them, so we can tell the innocent from the guilty.”
But not even so would Athena save one man from death.
Melanthius
“Listen to me, you lords who court our noble queen —
I’ll tell you about the stranger. I’ve seen him before.
I know for a fact the swineherd led him in…”
Ὀδύσσεια 17
Your highness, swineherd—why drag this to town?
Haven’t we got our share of vagabonds to deal with,
disgusting beggars who lick the feasters’ plates?
Isn’t it quite enough, these swarming crowds
consuming your master’s bounty—
must you invite this rascal in the bargain?
Telemachus tries to end the quarrel
Ὀδύσσεια 17
“Give me a morsel, friend. You’re hardly the worst
Achaean here, it seems. The noblest one, in fact.
You look like a king to me!
So you should give a bigger crust than the rest
and I will sing your praises all across the earth.
I too once lived in a lofty house that men admired;
rolling in wealth, I’d often give to a vagabond like myself,
whoever he was, whatever need had brought him to my door.”
“But Zeus ruined it all—god’s will, no doubt—
when he shipped me off with a roving band of pirates…”
Ὀδύσσεια 17
Antinoüs refuses Stranger,
blames other suitors for feeding him:
it’s easy to be generous
with other people’s stuff
“What a brazen, shameless beggar! Scrounging food
from each man in turn, and look at their handouts,
reckless, never a qualm, no holding back, not
when making free with the next man’s goods—
each one’s got plenty here.”
Ὀδύσσεια 17
Antinoüs throws footstool at Odysseus
hits him in the back, right shoulder
…steady as a rock,
unstaggered by Antinous’ blow—just shook his head,
silent, his mind churning with thoughts of bloody work.
Odysseus curses Antinoüs
Was Antinoüs justified or over the line?
Ὀδύσσεια 17
«μαῖ’, ἐχθροὶ μὲν πάντες, ἐπεὶ κακὰ μηχανόωνται·
Ἀντίνοος δὲ μάλιστα
μελαίνῃ κηρὶ ἔοικε.»
“Dear old woman,”
alert Penelope replied, “they’re all hateful,
plotting their vicious plots. But Antinoüs
is the worst of all —he’s black death itself.”
Ὀδύσσεια 17
“My queen,” you answered, Eumaeus, loyal swineherd,
“if only the lords would hold their peace a moment!
Such stories he tells—he’d charm you to your depths.
Three nights, three days I kept him in my shelter;
I was the first the fellow stumbled onto,
fleeing from some ship. But not even so
could he bring his tale of troubles to an end.
You know how you can stare at a bard in wonder—
trained by the gods to sing and hold men spellbound—
how you can long to sit there, listening, all your life
when the man begins to sing.”
individual books vary in length
book 6: 331 lines book 4: 847 lines mean: 504 lines
groups of four deviate far less from mean
Lines
1–4
2222
Dev
Lines
204
5–8
1757
-261
9–12
2233
215
13–16
2011
-7
17–20
2032
14
21–24
1855
-163
Mean/AveDev
2018
144
11 lines/min. = 1980 lines in 3 hours
Dev
3979
-58
4244
207
3887
-150
4037
138
Odyssey = 3 days × 6 hours per day
Ὀδύσσεια 17
“My queen,” you answered, Eumaeus, loyal swineherd,
“if only the lords would hold their peace a moment!
Such stories he tells—he’d charm you to your depths.
Three nights, three days I kept him in my shelter;
I was the first the fellow stumbled onto,
fleeing from some ship. But not even so
could he bring his tale of troubles to an end.
You know how you can stare at a bard in wonder—
trained by the gods to sing and hold men spellbound—
how you can long to sit there, listening, all your life
when the man begins to sing.”
Ὀδύσσεια 17
introducing the beggar to Penelope
“I’ll tell her the whole truth and nothing but,
Icarius’ daughter, your wise queen Penelope.
I know all about that man…
it’s been my lot to suffer what he’s suffered.”
but he defers until night
to talk in private
Ὀδύσσεια 18
Now along came this tramp, this public nuisance
who used to scrounge a living round the streets of Ithaca—
notorious for his belly, a ravenous, bottomless pit
for food and drink, but he had no pith, no brawn,
despite the looming hulk that met your eyes.
Arnæus was his name,
so his worthy mother called him at birth,
but all the young men called him Irus for short
because he’d hustle messages at any beck and call.
Ὀδύσσεια 18
“Out of your mind?
What damage have I done you? What have I said?
I don’t grudge you anything,
not if the next man up and gives you plenty.
This doorsill is big enough for the both of us —
you’ve got no call to grudge me what’s not yours.
You’re another vagrant, just like me, I’d say,
and it lies with the gods to make us rich or poor. So,
keep your fists to yourself, don’t press your luck, don’t rile me,
or old as I am, I’ll bloody your lip, splatter your chest
and buy myself some peace and quiet for tomorrow.”
Ὀδύσσεια 18
“Look who’s talking!” the beggar rumbled in anger.
“How this pot-bellied pig runs off at the mouth —”
“I’ll batter the tramp with both fists, crack every tooth
from his jaws, I’ll litter the ground with teeth
like a rogue sow’s, punished for rooting corn!
Belt up —so the lords can see us fight it out.”
Ὀδύσσεια 18
“Friends, nothing like this has come our way before—
what sport some god has brought the palace now!
The stranger and Irus, look,
they’d battle it out together, fists flying.
Come, let’s pit them against each other—fast!”
All leapt from their seats with whoops of laughter,
clustering round the pair of ragged beggars there
as Eupithes’ son Antinous planned the contest.”
They all cheered, but Odysseus, foxy veteran, plotted on…
makes suitors swear not to help Irus
Ὀδύσσεια 18
fewer rags, more handsome
Odysseus belted up, roping his rags around his loins,
baring his big rippling thighs—his boxer’s broad shoulders,
his massive chest and burly arms on full display
as Athena stood beside him,
fleshing out the limbs of the great commander…
Despite their swagger, the suitors were amazed…
Ὀδύσσεια 18
BUMFIGHT!!!!
Irus hits Odysseus in the right shoulder
Odysseus breaks Irus’ jaw
ἀτὰρ μνηστῆρες ἀγαυοὶ
χεῖρας ἀνασχόμενοι γέλῳ ἔκθανον
but the noble suitors
holding up their hands died from laughter
Odysseus props up Irus against the wall
to scare off pigs and dogs
Ὀδύσσεια 18
Amphinomus gives Odysseus a sausage
Odysseus gives Amphinomus a warning
“Of all that breathes and crawls across the earth,
our mother earth breeds nothing feebler than a man.”
Odysseus is coming
“I say he’s right at hand —and may some power save you…”
Even then Athena had bound him fast to death
at the hands of Prince Telemachus and his spear.
Ὀδύσσεια 18
Penelope wants to address suitors
Athena gives Penelope a makeover
The suitors’ knees went slack, their hearts dissolved in lust —
all of them lifted prayers to lie beside her, share her bed.
Penelope chastises Telemachus
Ὀδύσσεια 18
Penelope recalls Odysseus’ advice
not everyone makes it back from war
Watch over my father and mother in the palace,
just as now, or perhaps a little more,
when I am far from home.
But once you see the beard on the boy’s cheek,
you wed the man you like, and leave your house behind.’
So my husband advised me then. Now it all comes true…”
suitors send for gifts
Ὀδύσσεια 18
Melantho, daughter of Dolius
“You wait—a better man than Irus will take you on,
he’ll box both sides of your skull with heavy fists
and cart you from the palace gushing blood!”
“You wait,
you bitch”—the hardened veteran flashed a killing look.
Ὀδύσσεια 18
Polybus, son of Eurymachus
jokes about stranger’s baldness
offers to employ stranger on farm
“In the late spring, when the long days come round,
out in the meadow, I swinging a well-curved scythe
and you swinging yours —we’d test our strength…for work”
Polybus grabs another footstool
Ὀδύσσεια 19
That left the great Odysseus waiting in his hall
as Athena helped him plot the slaughter of the suitors.
Ὀδύσσεια 19
hide the weapons
“And a god reminded me of something darker too.
When you’re in your cups a quarrel might break out,
you’d wound each other, shame your feasting here
and cast a pall on your courting.
Iron has powers to draw a man to ruin.”
Ὀδύσσεια 19
Telemachus goes to bed
That left the great king still waiting in his hall
as Athena helped him plot the slaughter of the suitors…
Enter Penelope to sit
and her maids to clean
Ὀδύσσεια 19
And yet again
Melantho lashed out at Odysseus: “You still here?—
you pest, slinking around the house all night,
leering up at the women?
Get out, you tramp—be glad of the food you got—
or we’ll sling a torch at you, rout you out at once!”
Ὀδύσσεια 19
“Make no mistake, you brazen, shameless bitch,
none of your ugly work escapes me either—
you will pay for it with your life, you will!
How well you knew—you heard from my own lips—
that I meant to probe this stranger in our house
and ask about my husband…my heart breaks for him.”
Ὀδύσσεια 19
“Stranger, let me start our questioning myself…
Who are you? where are you from? your city? your parents?”
μηδέ μοι ἐξερέεινε γένος καὶ πατρίδα γαῖαν,
μή μοι μᾶλλον θυμὸν ἐνιπλήσῃς ὀδυνάων
μνησαμένῳ
odunē = pain
“…but don’t, please, search out my birth, my land,
or you’ll fill my heart with pain to overflowing even more
as I bring back the past…”
Ὀδύσσεια 19
Penelope tells her story
weaving burial shroud for Laërtes
three years
Ὀδύσσεια 19
Odysseus tells his story
“Still, my story will tell you all you need to know.
There is a land called Crete…”
Ὀδύσσεια 19
Crete
Achæans, True Cretans, Cydonians,
three tribes of Dorians, Pelasgians
The stranger is Idomeneus’ brother
Æthon: ἐμοὶ δ’ ὄνομα κλυτὸν Αἴθων
Met Odysseus, who’d been blown
off course at Cape Malea
Ὀδύσσεια 19
Falsehoods all,
but he gave his falsehoods all the ring of truth
Penelope tests the Stranger:
what clothes was Odysseus wearing?
“I noticed his glossy tunic too, clinging to his skin
like the thin glistening skin of a dried onion,
silky, soft, the glint of the sun itself.
Women galore would gaze on it with relish.”
Ὀδύσσεια 19
“I will tell you the whole truth and hide nothing…”
Odysseus is at Dodona, has lots of stuff
crew dead — killed the cattle of the Sun
Odysseus reached Scheria
he is coming
Ὀδύσσεια 19
Bath time? Nice sheets and bed?
NO! TRUST NO ONE
except maybe Eurycleia
Eurycleia: You look like Odysseus
Stranger: That’s what they all say.
Ὀδύσσεια 19
Anagnorisis
Eurycleia recognizes Odysseus’ scar
Ὀδύσσεια 19
Autolycus — Maternal Grandfather
“The man was his mother’s noble father, one who excelled
the world at thievery, that and subtle, shifty oaths.
Hermes gave him the gift, overjoyed by the thighs
of lambs and kids he burned in the god’s honor—
Hermes the ready partner in his crimes. ”
Ὀδύσσεια 19
Autolycus gives Odysseus his name
ὀδύσσομαι—to hate, to be hated
πολλοῖσιν γὰρ ἐγώ γε ὀδυσσάμενος τόδ’ ἱκάνω,
ἀνδράσιν ἠδὲ γυναιξὶν ἀνὰ χθόνα βωτιάνειραν·
“Just as I
have come from afar, creating pain for many—
men and women across the good green earth—
so let his name be Odysseus…
the Son of Pain, a name he’ll earn in full.”
Ὀδύσσεια 19
hunting = coming of age
hunt on Parnassus
boar wounds Odysseus in thigh
Odysseus stabs boar with spear
in right shoulder
Ὀδύσσεια 19
Eurycleia recognizes scar
Athena distracts Penelope
But Odysseus —
his right hand shot out, clutching the nurse’s throat,
with his left he hugged her to himself and muttered,
“Nurse, you want to kill me?”
Ὀδύσσεια 19
Penelope’s Doubts
“…so my wavering heart goes shuttling, back and forth:
Do I stay beside my son and keep all things secure —
my lands, my serving-women, the grand high-roofed house —
true to my husband’s bed, the people’s voice as well?
Or do I follow, at last, the best man who courts me
here in the halls, who gives the greatest gifts?”
Ὀδύσσεια 19
Penelope’s Dream
“I keep twenty geese in the house, from the water trough
they come and peck their wheat —I love to watch them all.
But down from a mountain swooped
this great hook-beaked eagle,
yes, and he snapped their necks
and killed them one and all
and they lay in heaps throughout the halls while he,
back to the clear blue sky he soared at once.”
Ὀδύσσεια 19
the eagle in the dream speaks:
“Courage, daughter of famous King Icarius!
This is no dream but a happy waking vision,
real as day, that will come true for you.
The geese were your suitors—I was once the eagle
but now I am your husband, back again at last,
about to launch a terrible fate against them all!”
Ὀδύσσεια 19
Do dreams come true?
δοιαὶ γάρ τε πύλαι ἀμενηνῶν εἰσὶν ὀνείρων·
αἱ μὲν γὰρ κεράεσσι τετεύχαται, αἱ δ’ ἐλέφαντι. τῶν οἳ μέν κ’ ἔλθωσι διὰ πριστοῦ ἐλέφαντος,
οἵ ῥ’ ἐλεφαίρονται, ἔπε’ ἀκράαντα φέροντες·
οἳ δὲ διὰ ξεστῶν κεράων ἔλθωσι θύραζε,
οἵ ῥ’ ἔτυμα κραίνουσι, βροτῶν ὅτε κέν τις ἴδηται.
ivory = deception
horn = reality
Ὀδύσσεια 19
Penelope has a plan
“The hand that can string the bow with greatest ease,
that shoots an arrow clean through all twelve axes—
he’s the man I follow, yes, forsaking this house
where I was once a bride, this gracious house
so filled with the best that life can offer ”
“Before that crew can handle the polished bow,
string it taut and shoot through all those axes—
Odysseus, man of exploits, will be home with you!”
Greek
Bronze Age (6th c.)
Axe Head
Ὀδύσσεια 20
And there Odysseus lay—
plotting within himself the suitors’ death—
awake, alert, as the women slipped from the house,
the maids who whored in the suitors’ beds each night,
tittering, linking arms and frisking as before.
Ὀδύσσεια 20
Athena visits Odysseus in the night
omens and portents
Telemachus climbed from bed and dressed at once,
brisk as a young god—
over his shoulder he slung his well-honed sword,
he fastened rawhide sandals under his smooth feet,
he seized his tough spear tipped with a bronze point
Hearing that,
Telemachus strode out through the palace, spear in hand,
and a pair of sleek hounds went trotting at his heels.
Ὀδύσσεια 20
Melanthius arrives
Philœtius the cowherd — new character
As once more the suitors were plotting certain doom
for the young prince —suddenly, banking high on the left
an omen flew past, an eagle clutching a trembling dove.
Ὀδύσσεια 20
Telemachus becomes more assertive
Ctesippus throws an oxhoof at the Stranger
Telemachus tells Ctesippus off
“Ctesippus, you can thank your lucky stars
you missed our guest—he ducked your blow, by god!
Else I would have planted my sharp spear in your bowels—
your father would have been busy with your funeral,
not your wedding here.”
Ὀδύσσεια 20
Agelaus tells Telemachus
to get his mother to marry
Telemachus refuses to drive her away
So he vowed
and Athena set off uncontrollable laughter in the suitors,
crazed them out of their minds—mad, hysterical laughter
seemed to break from the jaws of strangers, not their own,
and the meat they were eating oozed red with blood—
tears flooded their eyes, hearts possessed by grief.
Ὀδύσσεια 20
Theoclymenus freaks out
“Poor men, what terror is this that overwhelms you so?
Night shrouds your heads, your faces, down to your knees —
cries of mourning are bursting into fire—cheeks pouring tears—
the walls and the crossbeams dripping dank with blood!
Ghosts, look, thronging the entrance, thronging the court,
go trooping down to the world of death and darkness!
The sun is blotted out of the sky —look there —
a lethal mist spreads all across the earth!”
suitors laugh even more, insult prophet
Ὀδύσσεια 20
Laughing rowdily, men prepared their noonday meal,
succulent, rich—they’d butchered quite a herd.
But as for supper, what could be less enticing
than what a goddess and a powerful man
would spread before them soon?