We urge you to use the discussion board to ask questions and to make comments and observations. Lafayette is a community of learners and we invite you to join the community of readers now. You do not have to wait until classes begin at the end of August to be a part of the intellectual enterprise that is at the center of the Lafayette experience. Be an active participant in a virtual classroom composed of the entire Class of 2003. The more questions and comments there are, the more interesting and useful the discussion will be for you. Visit the discussion board regularly and contribute to the ongoing conversation frequently. All information concerning the author's names and email address will be kept confidential. Students with questions or comments about the Odyssey should contact: Professor Howard Marblestone marblesh@lafayette.edu Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Lafayette College, Easton, PA 18042. (610) 330-5256    Question:     At times the content of the "Odyssey" seems rather repetitive and redundant. When the characters speak to each other, obviously they don't know what has occurred in the rest of the story, but the reader certainly does. What reason would you cite for using such a technique? As the reader, I'm reading some of the same things over and over.       Answer:     You're asking two very good questions to start off our discussion. First, some of the content of the poem really is "repetitive", but not "redundant" in the sense of being unnecessary. What I mean is that the oral epic poet uses many formulae and stock lines (see Dean Gray's comments on these under "Advice About Reading the Odyssey" in the Study Guide) as part of his repertoire of language. While we may find this merely repetitive, even annoying, the ancient audience was LISTENING, not reading, and enjoying the play of words and language--just as anyone does who listens to a good story. In this respect children who love to hear stories and adults who allow themselves the pleasure are really not much different from each other in this respect. There is much more to be said on this subject, but for now, try to imagine yourself listening. In fact, if you can, do listen to Mr. McKellan's marvelous reading of the story! As for the other question, yes, we as readers/hearers often know what the characters do not. That is part of any good suspense story, which is often what the Odyssey is. For example, from the beginning we know that Zeus orders Hermes to tell Calypso to release Odysseus. But Odysseus does not know that, and we go through the Telemachy (the first four books) until Hermes finally arrives. It seems as if Odysseus has to wait a long time before his release. Actually, we are tricked in a way because Hermes goes to Calypso right away while Telemachus starts on his journey, and later, both father and son head for Ithaca at the same time.            Comment:   Many thanks to our first questioner, who has also added two other useful questions. I'll turn to these tomorrow. I hope that the students who are checking out this Conference Board are enjoying the Odyssey. Please allow me to help you as well as I can to enhance your enjoyment of the poem. I am sure you will be very glad you've read it. Best regards. Howard Marblestone    Question:     Why were the mortals in ancient Greece so concerned with hospitality? The depiction of such hospitality also seems overdone in the epic after a while. What are your comments on why the writer focuses on the hospitality issue? Does it have something to do directly with pleasing the gods?       Answer:     Another useful question. The Odyssey reflects hospitality in the early ages of Greece, during the time of Homer, c. the 700's BCE, and what he had heard by tradition of the custom from earlier times. But "hospitality" does not denote merely the niceties of entertainment, as it does now. Unlike the later, historical eras, the earlier ages of Greece had little overall political structure and security, especially for travelers, who had mostly to walk from place to place through difficult terrain, and often enough, highwaymen or robbers. Roads were often primitive, inns were few and there were no "service areas". In such uncertain and often dangerous conditions of travel, to take someone into your home was an act of basic human kindness. The Greeks called the stranger-guest xenos and the practice of hospitality xenia (we have the word xenophobia, "fear of strangers", from this root). Zeus, the highest of the gods, was called Xeinios, which means that he favored and rewarded hospitality, and, equally importantly, punished its breach. So, as you note, hospitality does indeed have to do with pleasing the gods. Finally, beside all the rights of the guest and the duties of the host, strangers like Odysseus were usually welcome in households because they broke the tedium of routine and brought interesting stories from other places and people. If, like Odysseus, they could tell good stories, the might prolong their visits. As you note, the Odyssey from beginning to end deals with hospitality as well as its abuse. We see that the suitors, who abuse all the decent forms of hospitality, are moving toward a terrible, and well deserved, end.    Question:     Just out of curiosity, when did Greek civilization disband with their ancient religion and adopt the modern Christian doctrine? Were there any historical events or movements that directly or indirectly caused the change?       Answer:     This is a big question. Let me mention here just a few points. After the Apostle Paul visited Athens, Corinth and other Greek towns in the late first century CE, some communities established groups of believers, which we now call "churches". Within a remarkably short time, the early Christian movement spread throughout the east Mediterranean world, and the churches of Greece were prominent. But paganism, the belief in the old gods, heroes, and myths, lasted for hundreds of years and, at some times and in some places, competed for believers with the growing Christianity. Persecutions of Christians threatened, but did not destroy, the powerful religion. The Roman Emperor Constantine in 313 CE made Christianity a "licit" religion in the Empire, and the age of great changes and growth in the Christian movement was under way. But later in that century an "apostate" Emperor Julian, tried to reintroduce paganism. As late as the next century, the fifth, one could still find people who believed in the old gods and heroes. The ghost of Achilles, the great Greek warrior at Troy, who had become a divinity at his death, a kind of Greek "saint", was felt by some to protect their lands. But Christianity by now had clearly triumphed.    Question:     On page 142, Book I, Line 635, Homer refers to a place called the Elysian Fields which the index in the back describes as "the distant home for those fortunate after death" and it is guarded by a "gold-haired" man named Rhadamanthys. Now obviously the Greeks or anybody else on the planet didn't have any concept of Christ, but I couldn't help making the parallel between Elysian Fields and "Heaven" and Rhadamanthys and "St. Peter", if you're familiar with the Bible. Are the Elysian Fields the Greek version of heaven?. I'm wondering if man has created a universal understanding of a heaven and a hell that spans across all religions?       Answer:     To address first the last part of your question: yes, notions of heaven and hell are widespread in ancient and modern cultures, though not universal. Most common in the ancient world was the idea that the spiritual remains of the dead, no matter what their status when they were alive, stayed forever in a distinct place, usually below the earth. The Greeks called this Hades and the Hebrews Sheol. As you will see in Book 11, when Odysseus visits Hades, the souls of even the most glorious heroes, e.g. Achilles, Agamemnon, and Ajax, are there. Gradually the Greeks and the Hebrews developed the idea that the good and righteous went to a happy ever-after, here the Elysian Fields, and the wicked to a place of torment. Curiously, both places are often below the ground, within Hades. Moreover, whereas Hades (as you will see in Book 11) houses only insubstantial, ghost-like remains of the dead, those who make it to Elysium keep their bodies and bodily powers. Unlike us, the Greeks did not believe that their form of Heaven was "up there", and Hell "down there". For one thing, "up there" belonged to the gods, and for another "down there" held all compartments of the usual afterworld. Curiously, Menelaus is told that he will go to the Elysian Fields not because he is righteous, but because as husband of Helen, he is well-connected as Zeus's son-in-law. Unlike St. Peter, Rhadamanthys, like Minos, King of Crete, mentioned in Book 11, is not a gatekeeper; but he seems to be of some authority in Elysium. By way of comparison, in Book 11:650-655, Minos is a "judge" in Hades, but for disputes among the souls there, not for matters of admission or rejection.    Question:     Why is the text arranged in the line format? The introduction says that the Odyssey is written in some type of poetic format but in reading it doesn't make much sense. What format is this work written in and for what purpose does Fagles put the text in line format?       Answer:     Homer composed the Odyssey and the Iliad in "heroic verse", stately, long lines of six beats each (called Dactylic Hexameter), which the ancients thought suited the dignity of epic poetry. In every other sense as well, including the nature of the language and the subject, the verse of Homer is poetry. Most significantly, Homer's verse was meant to be heard, not read. Its power and beauty come from several effects, chiefly the musicality of the language and the marked rhythm of the line. Each line of the original usually makes sense by itself. Fagles, who is a highly skilled translator and a poet, reproduces the effect of Homer's verse about as perfectly as one may do in a very different language. Other translators in their time have been successful in this respect as well, while some have chosen to use prose.    Question:     How old is Telemachus? If Odysseus was away for twenty years, Telemachus has to be around 19-21. Yet the way people talk about him in the first book, you would think he's about 14. Is he just immature and acting a lot younger than he really is?       Answer:     Agamemnon mentions in Book 11: 508-510, that Penelope was nursing Telemachus when the heroes departed for Troy, and that therefore he must be a man by now. While that is generally correct, if we consider Telemachus's age just before Odysseus's arrival home in disguise, there is a slight anachronism here, though not one that would have bothered Homer's audience (Such "slips" are common in oral epic poetry, and on the whole, not important): Odysseus meets Agamemnon in Hades in the third year after his departure from Troy, or roughly 13 years after Odysseus left home. And so, when Agamemnon thinks of Telemachus, the boy is indeed about 14 years old. But of course, as the Odyssey opens and Telemachus faces the overbearing suitors, he is about 21. Even so, unlike his peers in age, he is immature, inexperienced, and untested in the usages of the adult world. The "Telemachy" will prepare him for that, the reunion with his father, and the battle with the suitors to set the house of Odysseus once again in order.    Question:     In Book 1, the goddess Athena appears to Telemachus in the form of Mentes. Are we to take this literally? Where is the real Mentes while Athena is impersonating him? Or are we to imagine that Mentes speaks so wisely that we are to imagine that Athena, the goddess of wisdom, is somehow present?       Answer:     We must suppose that Mentes is at home, on his own nearby island, and that he has no idea of Athena's impersonation of him, which might startle him to know about. For Homer and his audience, Athena has most definitely changed her appearance and voice to simulate Mentes, as she will soon do for Mentor. Homer's world is full of gods intervening in human affairs, but people are not merely puppets manipulated by the gods. The real ethical question is how well Homer's characters manage these divine interventions and determine their own decisions, for good or ill.    Question:     In Telemachus's visits to Pylos and Sparta, one thing that Homer seems to emphasize is the sensual side of life -- being bathed by servants, rubbed with oil, dressed in soft clothes, fed off gold and silver cups and plates, first-rate meals of meat and bread, bedded down under comfortable fleeces. Homer gives us a picture of a comfort-loving society.       Answer:     Often true indeed. Homer's Pylians and Spartans know how to live comfortably and to enjoy the simple sensual pleasures in life, even if these cannot compare to the delights of the ever-living gods. The archaeological remains of the palace at Pylos confirm that the royal society lived elegantly. And interestingly enough, Sparta, the society that became renowned for the harsh military lifestyle in later Greek times, was early on an example of the refined and sensual style. Men wore their hair long, took good care of it, rubbed their bodies with fine oils, and devoted themselves to poetry and to exercise. More broadly, Homer offers us a full picture of life as he knew it from his own times and as he understood it from the ages of the heroes. The Iliad is the world at war and the Odyssey the pleasures of peace--for all but Odysseus.    Question:     Why does Clytemnestra plot to kill her husband Agamemnon when he returns from Troy? Is it just a love triangle, a soap-opera?       Answer:     Early legends told that while Agamemnon and his brother Menelaus were marshalling the Greek forces to sail to Troy, Agamemnon gravely offended Artemis, goddess of the wild lands and wild animals, by killing an animal sacred to her. She demanded a life for a life, that of his daughter Iphigeneia (Artemis had little sense of humor or of proportion). Though distraught, he complied and slew Iphigeneia on the altar, for otherwise Artemis would not have let the great army sail. When Agamemnon's wife heard of his deed, she vowed vengeance, the thought of which she cherished the whole twenty years of his absence. She took as her lover Aegisthus, Agamemnon's cousin, who, at his return, murdered him, as we hear within the first 50 lines of Book 1. All this is, in a way, a grim love-triangle, but Zeus uses the story to illustrate human folly and people's tendency to blame the gods for their own errors ("The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars, but in our selves").    Question:     Is there any significance in the exact numbers of days that Odysseus uses when he relates his story to his hosts? For instance, in Book 7:290-291, he claims that he drifted on the seas for NINE days, and on the TENTH, was cast up onto Calypso's island. He does this several times throughout the poem with a few different events. Any particular reason?       Answer:     This is a good question, based on keen observation. Generally, there is a sequence x --> (x+1), where (x+1) is not yet complete, as in "on the tenth" or "when the eighth came wheeling around", or "on the eighteenth", sequences that occur in the same passage (pp. 187-188). The sequence nine-->ten will occur in Books 9,10, 12, and 14, while elsewhere in the Odyssey we find 3--> 4 (Book 2,about Penelope's deceiving the suitors), and in the Iliad a few other sequences, e.g. 12-->13, The numbers 7, 9, 12, and 20 (and others) themselves often are intrinsically significant in Homer, in Greek literature, in the Bible, and in the literature of the ancient near east. But in east Mediterranean epic literature, including Homer, the sequences have become conventions and in Homer, formulae. Their precise number does not matter so much as the interestof the sequence in a dramatic oral recitation. As always, we should remember that the text of Homer is a STORY, brilliantly told, with its appeal to the best techniques of story-telling, including some repetition and number sequences. Compare a familiar east Mediterranean text,Genesis 1:31-2:2: "And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day...On the seventh day God finished the work that He had been doing, and He ceased on the seventh day from all the work that He had done."    Question:     Coming from a nation where pagan worship is still very prevalent, I find it hard to understand the off-hand attitude in which the Greeks in Homeric times referred to their deities, a classical example being the minstrel Demodocus's tales of the entrapment of the adulterous gods Ares and Aphrodite. There are also many references to sexual encounters between the gods and mortals throughout the Odyssey. Did the Greeks have no reverence for their gods (if so what was the reason), or were the gods so much a part of their daily lives that they tended to assign human attributes and follies to them?       Answer:     This is an important and valuable question. About 500 BCE Xenophanes of Colophon, poet, philosopher and theologian, made three significant objections to Homer's portrayal of the gods and goddesses (translations by Kirk and Raven): 1. 'Mortals consider that the gods are born, and that they have clothes and speak, and bodies like their own.' 2. 'Homer and Hesiod [late 8th century BCE) have attributed to the gods everything that is a shame and a reproach among men: stealing and committing adultery and deceiving each other.' 3.'The Ethiopians say that their gods are broad-nosed and black, and the Thracians that theirs have light-blue eyes and red hair.' The Greeks' notion of their gods, then, derives broadly from the dictum of Protagoras, a pre-Socratic philosopher, 'Man is the measure of all things.' This means that the Greeks envisioned the gods in their own image, such that the powers and limitations of the gods reflect those of human beings. Xenophanes said it better: 'If cattle and horses or lions had hands, or were able to draw with their hands and do the works that men do, horses would draw the forms of the gods like horses, and cattle like cattle, and they would make their bodies such as they each had themselves.' The gods are like human beings whose virtues, and especially, vices are those of humans on a grand scale. Not that the Greeks really had a choice in their conception of the gods; they were subject to the inherent conceptual limitations of polytheism/paganism: the gods' appearance was anthropomorphic, which means having the form of human beings, while the gods' behavior was anthropopathic, that is, having the feelings and emotions of humans. A basic corollary of what we call 'paganism', or perhaps less pejoratively, 'polytheism' (the belief in many gods), is that the deities, like mortal humans, are predicates of nature, not prior to, and beyond, it, as is the God of the Hebrew, Christian, and Muslim faiths. In some polytheisms (not the Greek), gods may even die. In virtually all, gods, even the mightiest, are subject to a mysterious Fate. Among the most significant implications of all this is that Homeric and Greek gods, super-endowed beings and part of the natural order, are not the sources of morality and virtue; they do not issue commandments for behavior or dictate law codes, as they can barely keep moral laws themselves (there are a few exceptions: e.g. Zeus upholds kindly reception of guests, as I indicated above). As one great scholar of the Greeks said, the gods embody "sublime frivolity": no matter what their failings, all too manifest, they are the gods who must be worshiped. One strives to have their favor, usually by offering elaborate and punctilious sacrifice; the failure to do so will usually bring down catastrophe on one's head. In a remarkable insight, which must have inspired Plato, Xenophanes highlighted the fundamental difference between the pagan notions of his time and the exalted idea of god he espoused (trans. Kirk and Raven): 'One god, greatest among gods and men, in no way similar to mortals either in body or in thought. Always he remains in the same place, moving not at all; nor is it fitting for him to go to a different place at different times, but without toil he shakes all things by the thought of his mind.' Xenophanes may not have been quite the monotheist, but he anticipated remarkably the major and fatal objections to paganism in the western world.            Comment:   Thanks to each student who has so far submitted a question. Every one has been a valuable index of your reactions to The Odyssey, and I have found it a pleasure to try to formulate a useful answer. If you have a question to ask, or a comment to make, please do so. I'll look forward to receiving it. Please remember that your question will benefit the community of readers as well as yourself; someone else will probably be glad that you asked the very question that she or he was thinking of. As you continue reading this incomparable epic poem (which I have read over and over both in Greek and in English), you will find that your difficulties in understanding disappear, the mystery deepens, the enchantment grows, and the wondrous pleasure of Odysseus's company will remain with you always.    Question:     Both the Introduction [of The Odyssey] and the Discussion Board tell us that The Odyssey is written in dactylic hexameter, a meter that "the ancients thought suited the dignity of epic poetry." Were other types of meter commonly found in oral verse that Homer could have "chosen from" when composing The Odyssey? Could you elaborate more on why dactylic hexameter is used exclusively and other types of meter are not introduced in sections where a break in the dactylic hexameter might've been appropriate?       Answer:     Dactylic Hexameter is the earliest and only known form of epic meter, from the era of Homer and Hesiod (middle to late 8th century BCE). Its origins, though obscure, are in the end of the Late Bronze Age (c. 13th-12th centuries BCE), perhaps even earlier, when poets composed epic ballad and song about the Trojan War (which took place c. 1230-1200 BCE) and other colorful events. Only well after the era of Homer did Greek poets develop other meters to suit new varieties of poetry, especially 'lyric poetry', which was sung to the accompaniment of the lyre, a simple one-stringed instrument. In short, Homer had only the traditional dactylic hexameter at his disposal. This meter is based on length of syllables, long and short, unlike English verse, which depends on accent, that is, stress. There are six units (hence the name hexameter), each of which has syllables either long-short-short or their metrical equivalent, two long syllables. A rough equivalent in musical notation would be two half notes or half-quarter-quarter in 4/4 time. The long-short-short unit is called a 'dactyl', which means 'finger' in Greek, because a finger (not the thumb) has one long and two short joints; the long-long unit is called a spondee (In English, the word 'butterfly' is dactylic, based on stress). Though each line of dactylic hexameter must have either dactyls or spondees, and the sixth unit is always a spondee, the line does not become monotonous (see the valuable comments of Bernard Knox, Introduction, pp. 12-13). The poet makes the sound suit the sense. For example, a line with mostly dactyls moves quickly, to describe rapid narrative or excitement, while a line with more spondees, which moves more slowly, may describe serious or somber events. The sheer length of the hexameter line suits the expansive, grand movement of epic narrative. In his essay 'On Translating Homer', Matthew Arnold includes some lines from the third book of the Iliad in an English hexameter translation, based on stresses, from the mid-nineteenth century. A few lines: Helen on the walls of Troy says: 'Clearly the rest I behold of the dark-eyed sons of Achaia;/Known to me well are the faces of all; their names I remember.' A famous example of dactylic hexameter in English verse is the opening of Longfellow's 'Hiawatha': 'This is the forest primaeval, the murmuring pines and the hemlocks.' Alfred Lord Tennyson in his Ode 'To Virgil' was moved to call the Latin dactylic hexameter 'the stateliest measure ever moulded by the lips of man'. Some modern translators of Homer have tried to reproduce the effect of the dactylic hexameter in English, though the 'fit' is not natural.    Question:     Introductions in The Odyssey (and other Greek myths that I have read) seem to place emphasis on title and genealogy (for example "Wise old Anchialus was my father. My name is Mentes, lord of the Taphian men who love their oars."). Was this practice common to everyday Greek culture at the time or is this form of introduction a formality introduced by the oral/epic poets to dramatize and place emphasis upon the stature of the character being introduced?       Answer:     Homer's use of titles, genealogy, and pedigree reflects the practices of the traditional society much before his time, which he is describing, and doubtless the usages of his own time, c. the mid 8th century BCE. It is therefore not merely a formality of oral epic poetry. Put another way, not to include a reference to one's own father (a 'patronymic') or earlier ancestors would be unthinkable in a society based on ancient traditions, including reverence for one's forebears. The patronymic is therefore as essential an element of one's identity as our last (family) name. So, in the beginning of Book Nine (p. 212), Odysseus identifies himself, at last, to King Alcinous, and with epic highmindedness notes his world-wide reputation: 'I am Odysseus, son of Laertes, known to the world for every kind of craft--my fame has reached the skies.'    Question:     Could you talk a little bit about the role and position of women in Greek society? On the one hand women appear to have power and a sense of independence, as seen in the various goddesses-they even have a certain control over the mightiest of men (ex. Calypso's over Odysseus). Even the fact that women can be goddesses seems to put them on a similar level with men. On the other hand, women are talked down to and are expected to let men take care of things (for example: "So, mother, go back to your quarters. Tend to your own tasks, the distaff and the loom, and keep the women working hard as well. As for giving orders, men will see to that, but most of all: I hold the reins of power in this house."). Is this example I mentioned purely adolescent rebellion or is it an accurate reflection of Greek society at the time?       Answer:     The two examples contrasting women's 'power' and 'sense of independence' with their being 'talked down to' are very interesting and important, but not representative either of Homeric or of later Greek society. First, (a) there is a strict difference between the power and prerogative of female deities, that is, goddesses, and the condition of mortal women, and (b) there is a large difference between the status of Homeric women and that of women in classical Greece. I'll try to answer each point as well as I can, but briefly. (a) Archaeologists have shown that all the way back to European pre-history, that is, as far back as the Neolithic Age (c. 8000-10,000 BCE), goddesses, particularly of fertility, enjoyed enormous prestige and universal worship in all of Europe, including Greece; the evidence is usually large numbers of stone figurines or images of female deities. Some scholars have postulated a 'matriarchy' based on the the power and prerogative of goddesses in charge of the world. After c. 2000 BCE, with the arrival of an Indo-European population in Greece, the matriarchy shifted to a patriarchy with the ascendance of the high sky-god: Zeus in Homer. Though many goddesses retained their power and prestige, they were assimilated into the 'family' of Zeus, the Olympian gods, and became subordinate to him. It is not that 'women can be goddesses'. Rather, the goddesses represent survivals of female prerogative and power, once very great, among the gods. (b) Homeric women generally have and exert power in their households, and they enjoy respect in society, though they, too, are plainly subordinate to their men. Think of Queen Arete, wife of King Alcinous, or even of Helen, back in Sparta, not to mention the subtle and wise Penelope, for whom all men have great regard. Telemachus's mouthing-off to his mother is indeed his first taste of post-adolescent power, and not an accurate reflection of disrespect toward women. But later in Greek culture, the 6th and 5th centuries, women's position worsened greatly. Though they may well have known how to use what power they could get in their own households, men individually and collectively showed them little respect. It was indeed a 'man's world' in all ways, at home and in society. Marriages were arrangements to legitimate property and children. Men found friendship and even love outside of marriage. Women had no role in government, a Greek passion, and social life. Put most crudely, they were expected to stay home and shut up. Representative of the time was the remark of Pericles, the famous Athenian statesman: 'That woman is best of whom men speak least.' The mistreatment of women must always form part of any balanced assessment of the glories of ancient Greece.            Comment:   One student writes:I have found the Odyssey to be a book that is very hard to put down. I have read it three times over and am on my fourth reading. Each time I read it,I find something new to discuss (My father ordered a copy for himself and we share views about it almost daily). I think it is excellent experience as I prepare for college. I have, after reading it, asked myself what is most important to me, and how much am I prepared to sacrifice for it? Odysseus longed for home and for the warmth of family. For it, he gave up a chance to become immortal and live forever in bliss with Calypso (I wonder if I would pass on immortality or something as magnificent if it meant losing what I longed for?) I think college to be full of endless opportunities and I find it important to be able to make (and stick to) decisions that would in the long run lead me to my goals in life. The Odyssey, to me therefore, is a testament to, and a reminder of, loyalty to one's purpose in life. Another student observes: “The Odyssey” is loaded with references that I am sure will appear over and over in other literature that my class is bound to read in the future. The story is a classic and its myths are part of our culture. While reading “The Odyssey”, I found that I was familiar with many of the myths even though I had never read any part of the poem before. It's important for the Class of 2003 to have read this poem in its original form. Finally, the poem is just an excellent adventure story that reads very fast—I was surprised at how far from “dry” “The Odyssey” is.    Question:     I have a question based more around the ideology of mythology. One day, while reading The Odyssey, I got a tad frustrated. A character was reintroduced into the story and who he was, I did not remember. I paged through the book and finally saw his name where he was first introduced and his background was explained. ( I have to admit that I am a tad ignorant when it comes to Greek mythology.) I then began to think about the book and how it seems that it is more or less a 2,700 year old "Star Wars", where there are unrealistic characters, exciting confrontations and so on. I just want to know. Is it?       Answer:     This is a valuable intuition, for "Star Wars", old and new versions, and "The Odyssey" resemble each other in significant ways: both have heroes ("good guys")larger than (ordinary) life, characters of exaggerated evil ("bad guys"), monsters and eerie creatures, "exciting confrontations" and narrow escapes, often demanding supreme courage as well as ingenuity. Both stories feature a perilous and lengthy quest, and both involve reconnection between fathers and sons. In some senses the epic quest is timeless. It never disappears, but reappears in different times and cultures with features appropriate to each. This is so because in some fundamental ways the hero's quest is "archetypal": it answers to some deep yearnings of the human soul in all times and places for the exciting and redeeming adventure. Some scholars think that the heroic quest is a symbol for the maturation of the male psyche from childhood to adulthood. The hero's journey is then Everyman's quest. The links between the ancient and the new epic should not really be a surprise, and not only because the epic journey is archetypal. George Lucas, the originator of the Star Wars epics, was a student of, and deeply influenced by, the late Professor Joseph Campbell, whose book on the heroic quest, "The Hero With a Thousand Faces", a work of enormous influence, establishes a kind of blueprint for that journey. Campbell believed that all heroic journeys embodied what he called "Departure, Initiation, and Return". Both the Odyssey and Star Wars conform interestingly to Campbell's broad scheme, as do many other epics.    Question:     I read the study guide and totally agree with the purpose of making The Odyssey our summer reading book. What I would like to know more about is this: is it more important to concentrate on how the book portrays what the people in Homer's era thought about their history, or would you like us to concentrate our thinking on the exact details of the story? We cannot take the book as a historical document in the sense of taking the text literally as what happened. But we can read the story and understand what these people 2,700 years ago thought about history. The answer probably is both, but I would like to know more about the importance of mythology in its teaching morals, truths, etc. to millions throughout time.       Answer:     I am certainly glad to see that you find the time spent with The Odyssey worthwhile. To answer first your second concern: you should, of course, read the story with close attention to the "exact details", for that is where the pleasure of the tale resides, especially the turns and twists of the story, the deepening suspense, the insights into daily life, normal and paranormal, both on Ithaca and during Odysseus's adventures on land and sea. But your concern with the "details" should not overshadow the larger and more significant matters or issues. The "forest" should always appear beyond the individual "trees". What is the "forest", especially as it concerns "history"? The Greeks of Homer's time (8th century BCE)and later looked to the great epic poet both as a source of "history" and as a guide to how to live life best. They assumed that the Trojan War and its aftermath took place as Homer described them because he was their greatest poet, whom the Muse, the goddess of song, had inspired with truth. His status among the Greeks of his own and later times resembles that of the Bible in western culture. The Greeks therefore did not use criteria of what we consider "history" to evaluate their greatest poet. And so, yes, we generally do not "take literally" what Homer suggests is "history". History as a discipline would emerge only at the end of the sixth century, and when it developed fully, it established once and for all what we consider its best canons and procedures. The Greeks did not demand objective multiple sources and a rational reconstruction of the causes of events (what some scholars have called the "temporal analysis of causality"). For them, as they heard the Homeric epics, the Trojan War resulted from the actions of passionate Olympian gods and the abduction of Helen of Troy, not from secular economic, social, or military factors, as we might suggest. The wanderings and sufferings of Odysseus, the stuff of the heroic quest, came about from the wrath of Poseidon, whose monstous son, the Cyclops, Odysseus had blinded. To pursue for a moment the broader implication of your question: the Greeks' notion of their "history" included a vision of the best form of "lifestyle" for the person seeking to live life honorably. In this, Homer was, as Plato said, the "educator of Greece", rather as the Bible has been for us. Even when they stopped believing his myths, they saw in them sources of truth and value, teachings deeply important for living a good life. Just so with the Bible: many people no longer accept its miracle-stories or other non-rational elements (and I mean no disrespect to those who do), while they see the Bible as a paramount source of values, ethics, and morals.    Question:     I'm interested in finding out about other authors of mythology. Was Homer the first, the only, or was he one of a hundred authors who based their stories around the ancient gods of Greece? Hopefully these questions, when answered, will help those a little more confused around the importance of the book rather than what happens in the book.       Answer:     Homer is the earliest Greek literary source to survive antiquity. The Greeks did not consider Homer the earliest, for they had heard of his predecessors, such as Orpheus or Linus, who sang myths as well as epics of war and heroic quests. But they considered Homer their finest poet and accorded him incomparable prestige. As I noted in the previous question, he was the "educator of Greece" for Plato. The Iliad, a story of men at war, and the Odyssey, a tale of peacetime, encompassed for the Greeks the two poles of human life, and Homer was the unchallenged master poet of both epics. The great dramatist Aeschylus (c. 525-456 BCE) said that his plays, which we today consider profound masterpieces, were only "crumbs from great Homer's table". As for Homer's contribution to Greek myths, the Greek historian Herodotus (c. 484-425 BCE) put it best: "Hesiod [end of 8th century BCE] and Homer...were the ones who created the gods' family trees for the Greek world, gave them their names, assigned them their honours and areas of expertise, and told us what they looked like (Translated by Robin Waterfield)." And as if to suggest that earliest means best, Herodotus concludes this subject: "Any poets who are supposed to have lived before Homer and Hesiod actually came after them, in my opinion."    Question:     In the translation we are reading, how were phrases chosen? In many cases, it seems that the translator chose phrases which seem oddly familiar. For example, in Book Five, lines 247-248, Homer writes, "Add this to the total--/bring it on." It sounds a bit like the much more modern phrase "bring it on." Is this the source of that phrase, a direct translation, or an attempt to connect better with the audience?       Answer:     You've touched well upon one of Mr. Fagles's basic concerns as he expresses it on p. 490 in his ' Translator's Postscript', something well worth reading (as is the superb Introduction by Bernard Knox). To sum it up with his words: 'What I have tried to find is a cross between the two [the 'more literal approach' and 'more literary'], a modern English Homer.' Your feeling that many phrases sound 'oddly familiar' confirms Mr. Fagles's success, for the language he uses makes Homer accessible to those who read 'modern English': elegant and beautiful, or rapid (as Matthew Arnold said) and compelling, or slow and ponderous (though not often), or free and colloquial, or even mundane and coarse: --each as the occasion and context require. Fagles's fidelity both to the text and to modern English is clear in the phrase you cite. The Greek says literally: "Now let this [the chance that a god will wreck me on the sea] take place in addition to those [the harsh adventures I've already had on the waves and in war]." For one thing, you should be glad you don't have to read a translation by me. Even the splendid and popular translation by Richmond Lattimore says here only, 'So let this adventure follow.' The fine version by Alan Mandelbaum reads: 'To those afflictions I can add one more.' Fagles's use of a high colloquial tone here in 'bring the trial on' comes, as you suggest, from his sensitivity to modern English. The contemporary phrase 'bring it on' must have struck him as just right for this context, in which Odysseus expresses weariness from his past sufferings, but resigned determination to face stalwartly any new ones. If Odysseus's own language were English, he might speak to us just so. In this regard, as in all others, Fagles's translation is a triumph. By the way, remember that he will speak at Lafayette the night of 8 September. You should feel free to direct some questions to him. He is a gracious speaker who, I am sure, will be glad to respond to your questions.    Question:     I very much enjoyed the elaborate metaphors that Homr uses throughout The Odyssey. One of my favorite examples from early on in the work is found in Book 7, lines 251 through 256 ("The belly's a shameless dog...") Were such comparisons found in the original? Did Homer use metaphors to make the story more entertaining and engaging for the audience when the work was read?       Answer:     Homer uses metaphors like this one much less than similes, which are a fundamental part of his traditional oral language. The simile, as you suggest, is an explicit comparison, often elaborate and extended, between two different registers of experience. Through the point-by-point comparison, which often entails domestic details familiar to the audience, the hearer can better understand a far-off or otherwise unfamiliar experience. See, for example, the two similes attending the shocking description of the blinding of the Cyclops Polyphemus (Book 9, p. 223): 1. the thrust of the glowing olive wood stake straight into the giant's eye is like the boring of the shipright's drill into a beam as the workers whip the strap round and round; 2. the blazing and hissing of the 'boiling eyeball' resemble the sounds made when one thrusts a glowing axe or adze into ice-cold water, as 'the metal screeches steam and its temper hardens'. Can there be more vivid comparisons? They may 'gross out' the English hearer, but they surely enable him or her to feel present at the scene. The description you cite, the 'belly's a shameless dog', is indeed a metaphor that uses canine behavior as a measure of shamelessness, an image rather frequent in Homer. The line says literally, 'there is nothing more doggish than the hateful belly.' Elsewhere in Homer, 'dog-faced', meaning shameless, cowardly, and a disgrace to one's fellows, has the approximate sense and oral affect, as well as effect, of our contemporary 'son of a bitch'. In this scene, Odyssseus, tired, testy, and hungry, acknowledges in direct, colloquial language, which Fagles captures brilliantly, as usual, that no matter what else one must deal with, he must eat. Generally, Greek literature has few kind words for dogs, though they and horses are the only domestic animals to have names. Note the touching words of Eumaeus about Argos, Odysseus's 20-year old dog who senses the presence of his master disguised as a beggar in the courtyard, and then dies (Book 17, pp. 363-364).    Question:     Did the Odyssey exist in oral tradition for a long time before Homer wrote it down? Was his version of events the result of years upon years of story-telling (possibly elaborated and embellished from the original events)?       Answer:     To this big and important question let me suggest as a comprehensive and accessible answer the remarks of Bernard Knox in the Introduction, pp. 12-22, of which the most salient points are these: yes, oral traditions about the Trojan War and other great heroic adventures bridged the centuries between the Late Bronze Age (which ended c. 1200-1100 BCE) and the time of Homer (late 8th century BCE). This was a period of 'illiteracy', taken in its literal sense to mean only the absence of writing (to come to Greece in the form of an alphabet by the 8th century BCE), and not of wisdom or intelligence. The language of Homer is, then, the traditional repertory of oral epic verse (see my response to earlier questions on the Dactylic Hexametre, and better still, Knox's remarks, pp. 12-13). Therefore, Homer primarily 'composed', not wrote, either in smaller episodes or in a monumental structure of episodes. The prevalent view in the twentieth century of Homer's compositional technique is that it was entirely oral, based on the use of recurring formulae and stock phrases. But lately many scholars argue that writing must have formed part of the composition of the two Homeric epics, which are too grand in conception and architectire to have been based solely in the oral medium. The argument continues, and Bernard Knox is a superb guide.    Question:     In all parts of the Greek world, were bards/minstrels so well admired and well treated? It seems that the Greeks held a special place for the storytellers (as in the example of the court of Alcinous in Books 7-8).       Answer:     The two major bards of the Odyssey, Demodocus of Alcinous's court at Phaeacia, and Phemius of Odysseus's (in Book 1), illustrate, both in the practice and in the breach, the honor due to bards and the treatment that they earned. Of Demodocus Odysseus says (Book 8, p. 206), 'From all who walk the earth our bards deserve esteem and awe, for the Muse herself has taught them./ She loves the breed of harpers.' To Demodocus himself, as he hands him a special cut of meat from the feast, he says: 'I respect you, Demodocus, more than any man alive--/surely the Muse has taught you, Zeus's daughter,/or god Apollo himself. How true to life,/all too true...you sing the Achaeans' fate." Most scholars assume that these remarks reflect accurately the views of the Greeks in and around Homer's era. For, as Odysseus himself says at the opening of Book 9, feasting, drinking wine and listening to a godlike singer amount to 'the best that life can offer.' As if to confirm the view by illustrating its breach, the outrageous suitors so dishonor Phemius that they force him to sing against his will (p. 82) over the background noise of their carousing. And yet, such was his power that later Homer says (p. 88): 'Amidst them all still/ the famous bard sang on, and they sat in silence, listening/ as he performed The Achaeans' Journey Home From Troy...'    Question:     In Book 10, when the crewmen are turned into swine (starting on line 254, p. 237), did they, in pig-form, remember anything (i.e., having been men, their homes, what had happened to them)? The book says that all memory of home was wiped from their memories (paraphrasing of line 260), but then a few lines later, it reads that "only/the men's minds stayed steadfast as before."       Answer:     The 'wicked drugs' that Circe administers in the potion remove memories of the crewmen's own land, and, presumably, of previous experiences. They are seemingly suspended in the moment, like animals, who neither think about the past nor plan for the future, as we usually suppose. But the mens' 'minds stayed steadfast as before', that is: they could think and feel as men. Homer uses the word 'nous', which usually means the intellectual capacity. The men's transformation therefore becomes pitiable because their hideous outer form and animalistic behavior conceal their essential humanity, even if their memories are wiped out. What greater contrast could there be than between men, who think and feel, and pigs, which 'root and roll in mud' (p. 238)? Only another drug, a complete antidote (p. 242), restores the men's human bodies and memories. Much later in literature, the Roman poet Ovid (43 BCE-17 CE), following Greek models, composed his 'Metamorphoses' (Transformations'), an epic poem controlled by the theme of change-of-form, most often human to non-human. There the poet paints the poignant contrast between the inside of a creature with its human thoughts and feelings and the non-human form outside e. g., in a tree or an animal. The episode of Circe's transformation of the crewmen may be compared to, and contrasted with, that of the benign Lotus-Eaters (Book 9, p.214), who give the crewmen the Lotus, the 'honey-sweet fruit'. After eating it, they have only the 'wish to linger there with the Lotus-eaters, gazing on lotus, all memory of the journey home dissolved forever.' The lotus seems to obliterate mainly the prospects of future life, especially return home, whereas Circe's drugs cruelly cause retrospective loss of memory. Both episodes are variations of a widespread folktale about magical, drug-induced forgetfulness, a folktale that scholars have long studied. Homer has transformed the story of the Lotus-eaters from a piquant folktale into an archetypal story symbolizing the allure of forgetfulness of duty and responsibility. No wonder, then, that Odysseus is eager to get his men away from the Lotus-eaters.            Comment:   I would like to add that I am enjoying the Odyssey very much, and I think that it is an excellent book to read and discuss. Not only does it give you the chance to read a celebrated work of literature, it also opens a door to explore and learn about many other aspects of Greek culture itself.    Question:     I know that in earlier Roman religion the Romans thought of their gods and goddesses purely in the form of spirits or entities, and that depicting them with bodies and attributing to them certain human characteristics was a practice that they learned from the Greeks. Was there ever a period in Greek religion where they did not depict their gods and goddesses in human form?       Answer:     The Romans referred to their deities as 'numina', which one scholar has recently defined as 'the expressed will of a divinity', while others have conceived the numen (singular) more as an impersonal divine force. Frank Adcock, an eminent British scholar of the Romans, once wrote of their religious practice: 'It was formal and formalistic...a matter of correctness and scruple rather than of emotion or faith, of punctual performance of obligations, a species of honest diplomacy between earth and Heaven' . The numina often represent sheer pragmatic necessity, e.g. Stercutus, the patron deity of manuring, enormously significant in an agrarian society, or Robigo, the divinity that averted mildew or red rust from the crops. Adcock added wryly: 'Had the primitive Romans ridden bicycles, they would, I imagine, have had a domestic goddess named Punctura.' As you note in part, under the impact of Greek culture, which began to become powerful at the end of the fourth century BCE, the Romans' idea of their gods underwent two major changes: 1. the images, personalities, and functions of the Greek gods displaced those of the Romans, so that, for example, the old Roman deity Minerva was gradually identified with the Greek Pallas Athena, or the vegetation deity Ceres with the Greek Demeter 2. the Roman deities became anthropomorphic, that is, with the form of human beings and anthropopathic, having human emotions and feelings. As a result, the Roman gods began to have some of the dynamism of the Greek, for better or worse, as their interactions with mortals and mortal affairs became more complex than the 'honest diplomacy' that Adcock formulates. Though we simplify things in textbooks of mythology, a given Roman god was never the 'equivalent' of the Greek, as if merely the name were different. Around 500 BCE Xenophanes (see the question and answer on paganism, above) was discrediting the Homeric picture of the gods who act dishonorably. By the end of the fifth century BCE, a period sometimes known as the 'sophistic enlightenment', the Greeks were questioning the traditional, and by then, increasingly implausible, even burdensome, anthropomorphism and anthropopathism of the gods. The tragic poet Euripides all but scoffed at the existence of the gods based in the Homeric poems in favor of plumbing the psychological depths of human motivation. Socrates (469-399 BCE), as represented in writing by his brilliant disciple Plato, posited in effect a single God whose wisdom could guide men to live the best way possible. Socrates also claimed a personal relationship with that god, who mainly advised him against bad or harmful courses of action. Under the impact of the conquests of Alexander the Great (356-323 BCE), and the opening up of much of the rest of the world to the Greeks, their notions of the gods underwent even more profound change. The system of Epicurus, who lived and worked in Athens at the end of the fourth century BCE, assumed the all but irrelevant existence of gods who lived, blissfully and utterly unconcerned with human beings, out in 'metakosmia', places beyond our cosmos. At the same general era, the Stoic teaching of Zeno of Citium (in Cyprus), which evolved into major phases of what we now call Stoicism in the Greek and Roman worlds, made the traditional classical divinities irrelevant. God is understood as divine reason (in Greek Logos), which controls the world and manifests itself as Fate, providence or necessity. While Epicureanism had a relatively short vogue, especially among the Romans, Stocism, a system much more congenial to their views of responsibility and duty, lasted until the third century CE. It considerably influenced the development of early Christian values among the Church Fathers.    Question:     In the Odyssey, when Homer refers to something Eumaeus said he first phrases it as though he is speaking directly to Eumaeus. A good example would be in Book 16:68 when he says "You answered him, Eumaeus, loyal swimeherd,". I was wondering if there is a purpose in referring to him in this way and if so, what is it?       Answer:     This keen observation, to which there is, I think, no clear answer, has exercised ingenious scholars. Nearly all the time Homer narrates actions plainly and objectively, and he moderates speeches often with formulaic phrases such as in the passage just after the one you cite, Book 16, line 100 (p. 341): 'Friend--the long-suffering Odysseus stepped in--'. The literal translation of the formula is: 'Then in turn long-suffering brilliant Odysseus addressed him.' Fagles does not reproduce literally each time the precise words of the formula, which might grow tedious in English, though the influential translation of Richmond Lattimore does so. In other words, Homer nearly always lets the characters speak for themselves and to each other, and he does not address them. But in Books 14-16 of the Odyssey, Homer directly addresses Eumaeus 14 times with the identical formula,'You answered him, Eumaeus, loyal swineherd', and once with a small variation thereof, and no other character. The practice is somewhat more common in the Iliad, where the poet speaks to Patroclus, the dear companion of Achilles, 8 times; to Menelaus, brother of Agamemnon and husband of Helen, 7 times; and once each to two others, and twice to a third. Homer may address Patroclus directly to increase the pathos of his imminent death, which he selflessly meets when the rageful Achilles refuses to fight, as an ancient commentator (called a scholiast) observed. Some scholars have argued that both Patroclus in the Iliad and Eumaeus in the Odyssey receive the direct address because the prominence of each represents a special creation of the poet Homer, whereas the other major characters in each story are traditional, therefore well known, and little needing special address. Others argue that both Patroclus and Eumaeus were also traditional and well known, especially Eumaeus in the stock role of the 'faithful swineherd'. Thanks to this student for asking such a good question that I can't answer it!    Question:     I wonder if you might comment on the many roles women play in this story. In what ways do the female characters contribute to the numerous plot lines? What image(s) of female identity can we derive from this text? How have these images remained part of the fabric of world literature into the present? Thanks!       Answer:     The British poet and critic Samuel Butler (1835-1902) published in 1897 his book on 'The Authoress of the Odyssey, who, the author believed, lived and worked on Sicily. For Butler the signs of feminine realities and the sensibilities of women in the Odyssey were so marked that a woman must have composed it. One of the most brilliant, original and insightful recent works on the poem, 'Homer's Odyssey', by John H. Finley, Jr., published in 1978, begins by examining the character and role of Penelope as the central motivating force of the poem. The Odyssey opens with the Telemachy, the story of Telemachus's maturation, because, as Finley says, 'only his new independence will bring Penelope to the question that she could evade until then, the bitter question of her marriage.' When she uncannily or unconsciously reads the meaning of the disguised beggar's presence (Book 19), as the goddess Athena works inscrutably in the background, Penelope herself comes to determine the Contest of the Bow, the revelation of Odysseus's return, and thereby the stunning conclusion of the epic. If Penelope's role is central and critical for the Odyssey, other women contribute significantly as well, each one in an archetypal way. I exclude here the goddesses, whose origins, identities and roles form a different issue, as I've noted briefly above. Circe and Calypso are powerfully alluring but we remember, as Odysseus tactfully does, too, that they are, finally, goddesses, and out of permanent reach for a mortal, despite Calypso's offer of immortality. Helen, daughter of Zeus (and in other contexts worshipped as a goddess), once infamous and accursed, is, as she appears in Book 4 during her interview with Telemachus, now simply too fabulous and fascinating a woman to revile for her past wrongdoing. She herself has epic tales of Odysseus's prowess to relate as only she can, and hardly to her own credit. Symbolic of her power ever to enchant is, I think, the Egyptian drug she mixes into the winebowl (p. 131) to cause forgetfulness even of extreme cares. Besides, as she says (p. 132) her betrayal of her home, husband, and child was an act of 'madness' caused by Aphrodite. Whether Menelaus has 'forgiven' her, or whether their homelife represents an odd happily-ever-after are subjects that commentators view variously. Arete, the revered wife of King Alcinous on Phaeacia, represents the good sense and order of a woman firmly, if subtly, in command of the household, notwithstanding her husband's formal role. Nausicaa, the princess, reminds Odysseus and us of the true joy of family life. A 'grand array of [ghosts of] women' (p. 256) approaches Odysseus in Hades. Even if their glory comes from their marriages to heroes, or affairs with gods, the splendor of these women in their own right somehow abides even in Hades,and Odysseus wishes to speak individually with each. Although Greek culture was later to become disrespectful of women, and often enough misogynistic (see the question and response above), Homer's broad, deep, and universal humanity encompasses both men and women, the good and the bad, in peace and in war. Though they generally stay at home, with the major exception of Helen, and though they remain subservient to men, they may extend their influence well beyond what their men even understand. Occasionally, other notes are heard but not as main themes. For the dead Agamemnon in Erebos (Hades. Book 11, pp. 263-264) the action of Clytemnestra, the wife who murdered him, is enough to condemn 'the whole breed of womenkind, even the honest ones to come, forever down the years' and to render them, even Penelope, unworthy of trust. Odysseus nods his assent in noting, but quickly, that armies of men died for Helen's sake.            Comment:   19 August 1999 As you prepare to embark, each of you on your own odyssey, at Lafayette College, I hope that Homer's Odyssey has helped prepare you to think about fundamental questions in life, and has initiated as one student put it, the 'momentum' to cultivate great books and stimulating ideas at college. The best gift you can give yourself during your time at Lafayette is to develop your own mind, judgment, and taste. Your questions to the Discussion Board are a sound index of your thoughtful interaction with the Odyssey of Homer. For me it's been a pleasure and a privilege to address them. Though only one week remains before you arrive on campus, there is still the chance to send in questions, which I'll be happy to respond to. My dear colleague Jim Lennertz of the Department of Government and Law has just shown me a section of Thomas Moore's book 'Care of the Soul' based on the quest of Telemachus to find his father, and on that of Odysseus to become a father. As we noted in a previous response, the epic journey of the hero out and back may represent the quest of Everyman's soul to grow and know the world, to find and internalize the sources of wisdom and authority whereby to live. The Odyssey of Homer opens significantly with the quest of Telemachus, who has lacked a father all his life. As vital as the Mother archetype is in his, and our, lives, we see that Telemachus lacks the firm, centered archetype of the Father. In reality the Father archetype has little to do with sex or gender. As Moore asks, 'Where do I get those feelings of protection, authority, confidence, know-how and wisdom that I need in order to live my life? How can I evoke a fatherly myth in a way that will give my life the governance it needs?' At the beginning of the Odysseym Telemachus, on the beach, is bereft of his father, while 'Odysseus is on another beach of the same sea, pining for the same conclusion. If we understand the Odyssey as one of the stories of the soul's fatherhood, then at the very moment when we feel the confusion of a fatherless life and wonder where he could be, the father has been evoked. As we wonder where he is, he is finding his way back.' I'll cite a few brief sections of Moore's book that read the Odyssey as a story of 'the soul's fatherhood'. Some of them may connect with your experience, or what awaits you in college. 'Why don't the gods look compassionately on this broken family and allow Odysseus to make a beeline home? What possible value is there in this father taking ten years on the sea, telling his stories and surviving his risky adventures, before he can finally return home and restore peace?...this long, dangerous, adventure-filled journey is the making of the father...Who is my father? I won't know until the soul has been on its odyssey and returns with its stories of love, sex, death, risk and afterlife...a genuine odyssey is not about piling up experiences. It is a deeply felt, risky, unpredictable tour of the soul...[a father's] perspective and knowledge are rooted in the underworld and tied to the forefathers...A father's wisdom and moral sensibility find their direction from voices that are not now in life...Telemachus is on the same sea where his father is being initiated...we, identified with the son who feels the absence of his father, have to enter that same uncharted sea of odyssey if we are to link up with the spirit that is becoming father. We have to dare to experience the unknown, to open ourselves to unexpected influences on the soul... ...the image of odyssey serves the many-faceted soul. It offers an openness to discovery and a trust in movements that are not intended or even expected. The sea is fate, the world one is born into...unique and individual, always uncharted, teeming with its own dangers, pleasures, and opportunities. One becomes a father to one's own life by becoming intimately acquainted with it and by daring to traverse its own waters...care of the soul's fathering...requires that we sustain the experience of absence, wandering, longing, melancholy, separation, chaos, and deep adventure. There is no shortcut to the father. In soul time it takes ten symbolic years to establish a solid sense of father--that is to say, odyssey takes place eternally. It has its endings and its rewards, but it is also always in progress. And in the soul, time periods overlap; in part we are always on the sea, always approaching a new island, always returning home to be recognized as father after deeply felt transformative experience.    Question:     Don't you think that the clarity and ease of reading brought about by the repetition of certain stock phrases in the book is contradicted by the complexity of the relationships and large number of characters? I find it hard to imagine how, when the epic was being performed orally in ancient times, the audience could keep track of who was who, and what relationship one character had to another.       Answer:     This is an interesting and important question reflecting some concerns that contemporary scholars have about the theory that Homeric epic was entirely an oral product. For that reason, many scholars now think that writing must have contributed to the process. The Introduction of Bernard Knox treats the problem with exemplary clarity: I recommend pp. 12-22. The broad outlines of the issue are as follows. The 'clarity and ease of reading' that you mention do come about in part from the use of formulae and stock lines (see Knox, p. 16). These allow Homer to compose continually and to set up stock scenes, such as banquets or sacrifices, from traditional material that he can deploy effortlessly. Homer, we remember, was the culmination of a long and creative tradition that abounded in formulae, stock lines, and set scenes. As Fagles and Knox emphasize, Homeric recitation was also 'performance' characterized by improvisation. The poet, says Knox, 'is improvising, along known lines, relying on a huge stock of formulaic phrases, lines, and even whole scenes, but he *is* improvising (p. 16).' Homeric epic is of course much more than set scenes strung together, what a German scholar at the beginning of the 18th century called a 'wretched patchwork'. The enchantment of Homer's poetry does not arise only from the formulaic component, no matter how great that may have been (see Knox, p. 17, for one estimate of 90%), or even from the improvisatory power of the poet. Homer, by universal agreement an unsurpassed epic poet and beguiling storyteller, is far more than the sum of his parts. While the building blocks and even some of the mortar may be evident, the mystery of Homer's genius abides partly in the structure of the story, in the power of observation, the broad and deep understanding of humanity, and in what Matthew Arnold called the 'rapid' and 'noble' movement of the epic. Part of the enchantment of the Odyssey is the complexity that you refer to, the number of characters and their relationships, as well the interwoven stories and the cunning construction of suspense. No less important is the consistent development of complex characters, Odysseus and Penelope being the prime examples. Could all of these magisterial elements of Homeric epic have existed in a purely oral performance? Some scholars think so and point to existing parallels for such complex oral epic in Ireland, Yugoslavia, Turkey, and Somalia. Let me address the point by referring to the particular difficulty that you note: 'I find it hard to imagine how [during epic performance] the audience could keep track of who was who, and what relationship one character had to another.' The audiences of Homer and of other bards must have retained in their memories a large body of traditional lore: myths, legends, and folktales, that they had received from earlier generations. Since reading formed no part of this process, the power of retention in memory must have been much stronger than we can even imagine. Scholars of 'orality' have documented this phenomenon in many traditional illiterate societies. Therefore, keeping track of who was who, or what the relationships of characters were, was not so daunting a task as we might imagine. The same general point applies to the epic poet, who both memorized traditional material and improvised. For the decisively important issue that your question raises, let us quote Knox (p. 18): 'All this [the non-mechanical, creative and sometimes unique use of formulae] together with the monumental scale and magnificent architecture of the Iliad, the complex structure of the Odyssey, makes the image of Homer as an illiterate bard, totally dependent on ready-made formulas and stock scenes for improvised peformance, hard to accept.' Once again, Knox is quotable (p. 20): 'Why should an oral, illiterate poet, whose poetry exists only in its performance before an audience, create a poem so long that it would take several days to perform? For that matter, if his poetry consisted only in performance, how *could* he create a poem of such length?' Knox also asks: if the poet improvised different parts of the story at different times or places, how could he have created a monumental epic with such close 'inner structural correspondences'? The monumental splendor of Homeric epic must derive in some measure from writing. The gulf between oral and written epic may, then, not be so great as scholars assumed under the impact of the theory of pure orality in Homeric epic, which is essentially a Romantic idea. These are only the outlines of a difficult, fascinating problem, to which no decisive answers may be given.            Comment:   Saturday, 21 August 1999, Professor Mary Lefkowitz of Wellesley College published on the Op-Ed Page of the New York Times an essay '2,800 Years Old And Still Relevant'. Her students in Classical Mythology, she writes, suggested for the reading list more, not fewer, of the 'old standbys', and no new books. 'So this year again, by popular demand, we will be reading the same old texts, all by dead white males.' For, as Professor Lefkowitz notes, 'the old books are new enough: every year I find that the same texts can be read in challenging new ways.' The work she chooses to illustrate this verity is the Odyssey of Homer. Professor Lefkowitz enumerates the ways she has read and taught the Odyssey for 35 years. Among other insights it offers, the poem shows 'what civilization meant to the Greeks', including the 'ethics and rules of etiquette'. On a broader canvass, Odysseus, ever the keen observer, learns, as few others in literature have, the varied ways people live, think, and feel. Over the years Professor Lefkowitz's emphases in teaching have included the archetypal journey of the hero and the development of the epic plot. 'In the past few years I have begun to discuss how long it takes Odysseus to imagine how he might look to other people. As our society has become increasingly diverse, I have learned to question my own assumptions about other people's attitudes and thoughts. Like Odysseus, I have not always found it easy to look outside of myself.' In the future, Professor Lefkowitz surmises, approaches to the Odyssey will be different as new experiences serve to uncover new meanings in the ancient epic. 'No one in the course of a semester or even of a lifetime can completely grasp everything these books have to tell us. We will always be surprised and enlightened by what our own lives have taught us about how to see.'    Question:     I won't waste your time by asking if the Trojan War actually happened (I'll find out once I get into the intro [of Fagles's Iliad]). I was just wondering if the concept of fighting a ten-year war over a woman would seem a little bit, well, for lack of a better word, excessive. I could understand if Menelaus and Agememnon were going to sail over to Troy with a few of their buddies and challenge Paris to a duel. But to me, a modern reader, it seems unlikely that such widespread enthusiasm could be raised for such a war.       Answer:     First, I'm glad to hear that your reading of the Odyssey makes you want to read the Iliad. Fagles's translation (1990) is superb, driving and propulsive, really hard to put down. Knox's Introduction is also outstanding, a perfect example of his ability to convey complex argument in lucid and elegant prose. Most scholars believe that between c 1250-1220, that is, toward the end of the thirteenth century BCE, a great and devastating war took place at Troy, which, to judge from its physical remains, must have been a fabulous city then and earlier. There had been a city on the site for at least a thousand years, and at the site layers of ruins, or strata revealing many different eras of the city, have been uncovered by archaeologists. Both in history and in myths/legends, the heartbreaking fire is the end of a city under enemy seige. The objective evidence for the destruction of Troy is entirely archaeology, which reveals layers of conflagration typical to a city under seige and then set afire by the enemy both deliberately and in the course of fighting. That the picture suggested (but not impressively) by archaeology for (what archaeologists call) Troy VIIa represents the war famous in legend and myth, most scholars accept. Naturally, they seek reasons other than the Abduction (or Rape) or Helen (more on that below). The end of the thirteenth century was a tumultuous time in the East Mediterranean. Among other events occurred the Exodus from Egypt and the fall of the mighty Hittite Empire. Geo-political or economic reasons have been adduced to explain the objective causes of the Trojan War, though it also remains a great historical problem. The last night of Troy was a powerful theme among Greek dramatists in the fifth century BCE, while the second book of Vergil's Aeneid in the first is the most vivid and shocking description of the Fall of Troy. Overall, moreover, the Trojan War, which even the most sober-minded Greek historians believed to have been the greatest war up to their own time, became encrusted with legends, myths, and romantic elements of all sorts. Some of these served to 'explain' the cause of the War. The most famous, of course, was the Judgment of Paris, the ultimate cause of the war, for to Paris, a Trojan shepherd, Aphrodite gave the privilege of having for himself the most beautiful woman in the world, Helen of Sparta (only later Helen of Troy), who had, as Christopher Marlowe sang, 'the face that launched a thousand ships'. As for a duel between Menelaus and Paris, the two centres of the War, there was one in Book 3 of the Iliad. But it turned out to be a farce, for as Menelaus's spear was about to penetrate Paris's armor,as if in true poetic justice, Aphrodite swept him from the battlefield, in a cloud, straight to Helen's fragrant bedroom! Yes, as you suggest, the idea of fighting a war devastating both to victors and victims over one woman seems 'excessive'. To be sure, there are fairly close parallels to the idea in the epics and legends that were recorded in cuneiform script between c. 1400-1200 BCE at the city of Ugarit in North Syria (now called Ugaritic literature), and even in the Bible. The literature of Ugarit is important literary backdrop and background both to the Bible and to Homer. The so-called 'Helen of Troy' motif shows up in an Ugaritic legend, in which a king named Kret has to rescue his wife Hurrai from a foreign land. In the Bible Abraham and Isaac need to recover a wife from a foreign palace. But the ironies and absurdities of Helen's being the cause of the Trojan War were not lost on the ancient Greeks. Even if they may have ridiculed the idea privately or inwardly, they acknowledged it outwardly often as a symbol of the gods' malevolence in so trifling with mortals. After all, the Trojan War was entertainment on a grand scale for the Olympian gods. Worse yet, as Herodotus (fifth century BCE) wrote, 'divinity is a jealous thing': that is, the gods begrudge mortals too much happiness and prefer to administer its sufferings. It mattered little to them what the specific cause of the War was or if it were just (in some authors there is a quasi-moral basis for the War, the overpopulation of the earth, most efficiently and entertainingly relieved by a war). By the 7th century, a legend circulated of the Phantom Helen: as if it were not bad enough that Helen were the cause of the War, the legend claimed that Paris, not one of the mental giants of antiquity, abducted from Sparta a *phasma, a phantom of some sort with which he stayed in love, while the real Helen stayed in Egypt during the War. So did Zeus and the other immortals have their grim fun with credulous and suffering mortals. The story of the phantom forms the basis of the drama Helen of Euripides, late fifth century BCE, who had long been ridiculing the Greeks' beliefs in the traditional gods. The poet Stesichorus, the earliest to tell the legend, received from Helen herself, who was a goddess (daughter of Zeus), blindness in punishment for his presumption. So he wrote a 'palinode', or 'recantation', in which he disavowed the legend and got back his sight.    Question:     There are moments when The Trojan War in The Iliad reminds me of Fortinbras's pointless expeditions in Hamlet. It almost seems that Homer is making a comment about foolish warring, as Shakespeare did much later; the way Homer combines moments of peaceful, pastoral life with war scenes seems possibly to further suggest this point (which by the way, has some of the most amazing writing I have ever come across, the way these two extremes are combined). But it seems unlikely to me that Homer would be telling a Greek audience that they often fought foolishly and needlessly (like how Fortinbras later fought). Homer is obviously condemning excessive pride (via Achilles's action). Is my feeling that Homer is making some (negative) comments on war really just the extension of his comments on excessive pride?.       Answer:     Your intuition about Homer's conflicted feelings on war is sound and valuable. The topic has many important ramifications, of which I can mention here only a few. For Homer and his audience battle was 'kudianera', which Fagles translates (in Iliad 4:225 and many other places) as 'where men win glory'. Then as now, war was horrible, as Homer's graphic descriptions of battlefield death in the Iliad (and this is why some people are repelled by the great poem for a time) make clear. In the heroic tradition great heroes, like Odysseus, earned the honorific epithet or title 'waster of cities' because they attacked and destroyed enemy cities wholesale, killed the defenders, and brought back women and children as slaves. In Greek ethics, harming one's enemy is a paramount value. Both myths and history reflect this reality. And yet, war brought out in mortals not only horror and bloodlust, but great bravery and nobility. In the hideous context of battle, suffering, and dying, men performed both the basest acts and the most ennobling kindnesses. What could be more inspiring than defending one's land from an enemy? Homer, as you note, does not preach anti-war feelings, but we sense that as a great poet of humanity in its short and suffering course in the world, he could not glorify war per se. He let his descriptions speak eloquently. And as you note, the vehement contrast between the worlds of war and peace argues powerfully for the latter. See, for example, a famous Homeric simile in Iliad 4: as the Trojan Pandarus shot an arrow at Menelaus, Athene 'skewed the tearing shaft, flicking it off your skin as quick as a mother flicks a fly from her baby sleeping softly [Fagles].' (Notice also that this is one of the few passages in the Iliad in which the poet speaks directly to a character, as one questioner noticed earlier about Eumaeus in the Odyssey). Homer uses the tender simile not merely to make clear how easily the goddess Athene deflected the tearing arrow; he reminds us thereby of the powerfully affective and effective contrast between violent battle and peaceful domesticity, something never far from his thoughts. The story of Achilles is indeed a tale of excessive pride, tragic in its consequences for him and all others, as the opening of the Iliad says. In a way, the tragedy of Achilles, his short, violent, and unforgiving life, the excess of his self-absorption, is Homer's way of standing back from the heroic culture and its values and looking at them with the detachment and the sympathy that only a great poet like him could achieve. So yes, Homer's treatment of Achilles's tragic wrath is one of the ways in which he views the tragedy of heroism and its most basic context, war. If Homer is, as many believe, the same poet who composed the Iliad and the Odyssey, his views of heroism, represented in the extreme by Achilles, began to change in the Odyssey to a more balanced whole. While Achilles is a hero because he fights and kills in the most violent war-context imaginable (he is a veritable death-machine in Books 21-22), Odysseus is the hero because in peace he survives equally great dangers and odds to pursue a whole vision of life in which, as John Finley says, ends are united with beginnings.    Question:     In English class we read the play Antigone, which I seem to recall commenting on excessive pride. It was a while ago and we read it in class. (There is no worse way to be introduced to a classic piece of literature than to have bored teenagers read it aloud in a monotone voice). Is this a very common theme in Greek literature?       Answer:     Too bad about the reading by 'bored teenagers'! Anyone, teenagers included, can ruin the beauty and power of a text by careless or indifferent reading. The converse is also true. In the Antigone the theme of excessive pride shows up most plainly in Kreon, the king of Thebes, who after a terrible civil war has refused burial to an enemy attacker, though he is also a native Theban. His body is to lie in the sun as prey for dogs and birds. In his refusal to allow the burial, Kreon violates common decency, and worse still, the ancient 'unwritten laws' of the gods invoked by Antigone, sister of the enemy. Whatever the outcome of war, decent treat of the enemy dead is a universal value; its violation draws notice. Kreon sets himself as proud arbiter of what is right and wrong, as the law itself, and as the opponent of the very gods of Olympus. These qualities make him what the Greeks called *hybristes, one filled with *hybris, overarching arrogance and disregard of religious values. In the end Kreon suffers immeasurably, and as such he is the 'tragic hero'. His theme is indeed well-known in Greek literature. But Antigone herself is moved by a stubborn pride in her defense of her beliefs. She acts to reverse Kreon's edict as she symbolically buries her brother's body by throwing dust over it. She courts with relish the danger of defying king Kreon. While most people read Antigone as nobly hard-headed and persistent in upholding religious principles and faithfulness to family, she also has a hard edge: she utterly rejects her sister, who counsels acquiescence to Kreon's edict and she seems obsessed with meeting death. The genius of Sophocles's characterization is plain, for otherwise the conflict between Kreon and Antigone would be reductive, 'good' Antigone versus 'bad' Kreon. If I may make a 'plug' for my course, Greek Literature in English, which I'll teach in the Spring semester, we read and argue about Antigone and we also view a superb video of it.            Comment:   The remark of Professor Mary Lefkowitz in her New York Times Op-Ed piece on teaching 'the old standbys' (see the excerpts in the previous Comment), that she knows the Odyssey 'by heart', has prompted lots of interesting discussion on 'Classics', an electronic e-mail based discussion of classical studies, about feats of memorization in ancient and modern times. The following, by an eminent scholar, will be of interest to readers of the Odyssey: Being a bit apprehensive over the way age is chipping away at my memory, I decided on a limbering up exercise. Three weeks ago I started memorizing the 9th book of the Odyssey [and he means in Greek], with the goal of having 9-12 by this time next year. Starting with only a couple lines a day, I quickly found that the more I stored away, the larger I could make my daily quota. One thing I noticed, though. Description went much more slowly than narration. For example, the description of the island unexploited by the Cyclopes (Od. 9.116-141) took much longer than narrative passages of comparable length. …. this exercise has proved to me that memorizing one of the Homeric poems is not so formidable a task, especially for anyone who has read a lot of Homer. And it provides enormous pleasure at times when reading is impossible, as, for example, on a long bike ride, or flat on one's back in a hospital bed.            Comment:   Further to the subject of oral tradition, a scholar of the ancient Vedas of India comments: Nobody has yet mentioned what is probably the oldest living oral tradition – the Vedic tradition of India. To this day pandits still learn the Vedas by heart. Even though the texts were written down in ancient times and may be used for reference, the actual transmission of the texts is usually still purely oral. Entire texts of great length are still passed down orally from father to son, sometimes for centuries in the same family. The texts are written in metre and are chanted to various melodies. Perfect pronunciation and precise accuracy are regarded as essential. Often two or more pandits chant in unison, so that any error by one of them would immediately be obvious. Scholars disagree about the age of the Vedas, but there is little doubt that they are pre-Homeric. So we still have in the modern world a living, continuous, unbroken tradition of oral recitation, which was already old when Homer was composing his epics. Regarding length of memorised material, I've just been trying to work out how long it would take to chant the whole Rig Veda. I have a recording about 2 hrs 45 min long which covers 67 suktas of Rig Veda. The whole Rig Veda consists of 1017 suktas, so that means it must take upwards of 40 solid hours of chanting. There are many texts of varying length which are traditionally memorised. Some pandits know one or two, some know several.