I was worried about this reading. Who am I to assign The Odyssey to a group of seniors? I am not a classical scholar; I have never actually studied The Odyssey; I am just a reader. And why again did I have to choose this ambitious book? What did I think I wanted to accomplish?
Most of these doubts and fears vanished when I began reading. Not that I immediately "clicked" with the reading: I had forgotten that The Odyssey begins with Telemachus in Ithaca and the free-loading suitors. At first, I got confused by the many names, the place of the Gods in Odysseus's mishaps (why is Poseidon so against him? Why is Athene initially not for him or the other Achaians [hm, got to review my knowledge of the Trojan War and how it started...], and why does she so much turn things in his favor as The Odyssey begins? Or was she always for him? Always on the side of the Achaians in the conflict against Troy? Clearly, without Athene, neither Odysseus nor Telemachus would have a chance. Zeus seems to have forgotten him a bit and it's only Athene's advocacy that reminds him of Odysseus.
I must admit to really liking Athene. I like her grace--the golden sandals--her speed, her ability to assume the figure of men, her military prowess, her absolute intelligence, and her solicitude for Penelope, who has trouble sleeping. I am amused by how she "improves" on the looks, speech, and confidence of Telemachus; and how she transforms Odysseus, making him look taller and broader, even curling his hair! after he washes off the sea brine and reappears before the young Princess Nausicaa. Athene has a golden touch!
Reading Book One, I remembered being puzzled before about Odysseus's standing in Ithaca. He is the King. Shouldn't Telemachus become King? What gives the suitors the right to feast on Odysseus's sheep, bulls, and swine, to drink his wine and lounge around in his house? And why is Penelope obliged to marry one of them? Perhaps more modern notions of kingship don't apply. Odysseus is a tribal leader, and tribal leadership might not be inherited, automatically, to the son?
There are other things I love:
I love the language, the compound adjectives that describe major characters: clear-eyed Athene, sound-minded Telemachus, god-like Odysseus, etc.
I also like the way certain phrases are repeated almost exactly. For instance,
"And when the early-born, rosy-fingered dawn appeared." Or the way the mixing of wine and the offering of food is described. Always in the same terms. There is something reassuring about this. As there is, I imagine, in the law of hospitality itself. And what hospitality there was! Before one even knew the name or identity of a stranger, he was treated, most generously, as a guest, provided with food, drink, a bath and clothes.
I once heard that in Greek the word for stranger and guest is the same; the roots might be in ancient Greece, when a seafaring, traveling people absolutely depended on the generosity of others for survival. No questions asked--or not before you extended hospitality.
So here are some of the questions that interest me (so far):
1. Why does The Odyssey begin with three books in which Telemachus, Odysseus's son, is the protagonist and focus of attention?
2. What are we to make of Odysseus when we first encounter him, on Calypso's island? So far, we heard about him--as God-like and cunning. And now we meet him in person. What do we think? What would Greeks at the same time, listening to the poem, have thought?
3. I am intrigued by the different accounts we get of Agamemnon's death. Some say it was Aigisthos's doing: he ensnared Clytemnestra (against her will, it seems) and then killed not only Agamemnon but also Agamemnon's men plus the men who helped him kill Agamemnon (Book IV). Earlier, however, he says his brother was killed "through the cunning of his accursed wife." None of them mention, however, that Clytemnestra was enraged at Agamemnon because he had sacrified their daughter Iphigenia to the Gods--so that they would marshal the winds to send him to Troy. Is such lack of consistency typical, perhaps, of a culture in which "news" travels exclusively by stories, told and retold numerous times by individual guests, hosts, travellers?
It would be great if we could "hear" The Odyssey. I hope all of you will bring in a favorite passage and be willing to read it aloud.
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