A Guide to the Odyssey: A Commentary on the English Translation of Robert Fitzgerald
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The final turn in our archeology, however, brings us to note that nothing in the Homeric poems suggests that the author or authors intended the audience or audiences to have any such multilayered sense of the past. For the poet and his audience, the texture of the heroic past is one seamless web, both separated from and linked to the poet’s and audience’s present: separate, in that the heroes of the past were greater than the mortals of their own day (a vision of continuous human decline made even more explicit in the myth of the successive ages of humanity, starting with the gold age and descending to ever baser metals); and linked, in that humans of the poet’s day are supposed to be morally educable by the examples of the heroes of the past.
THE GODS
The heroes rather than the gods are the models of exemplary behavior. It is easier to say what Homer’s gods are not than what they are. Historically, the Olympians too are palimpsests and superregional composites. Each embodies traits attributed by local cults to various deities worshiped at different sites over centuries. As something like a pan-Hellenic culture was forged (and at the time Homer lived, this national culture was still at a relatively early stage of formation), traits were added so that Aphroditê, to take one example, combines elements of a graceful and pacific sky deity, traces of whose cult can be found on the island of Kythera, with those of a fertility goddess worshiped in Paphos on Cyprus. (Among her other eastern Mediterranean/Anatolian connections, note that she favors the Trojans in The Iliad.) Not as many of the Olympians have important roles to play in The Odyssey as in The Iliad. Athena, Poseidon, and Zeus are the only three gods who are important throughout The Odyssey. Hermês functions as messenger of the gods; as far as the machinery of the plot is required, we could do without the rest of the divinities. But they are there. Apollo and Artemis are invoked, and Hermês is also mentioned in his guise as the guide of souls to Hades. Hêra, Zeus’ consort, is relatively marginal in The Odyssey. Were it not for the amusing story of the dalliance of Aphrodite, goddess of love, with Ares, god of war, they, along with the aggrieved husband, Hephaistos, god of fire, would hardly appear at all.
Lesser gods and goddesses play important roles in The Odyssey, such as Leukothea, the sea nymph who helps Odysseus land among the Phaiákians, and Eidothea and her father, Proteus, with whom Meneláos has traffic. These may have been gods of local cults that were not internationalized in religious practice, but they achieve that wide renown, in mythology at least, thanks to Homer’s poems. Figures such as Kalypso and Kirkê were probably never actually worshiped as even minor divinities; in other versions of the homecoming narrative, the females who delay the hero’s return might be sorceresses or merely mortal temptresses.
It is important to note that despite the range and significance of roles the gods play in The Iliad and The Odyssey, the Homeric poems were never sacred texts in the way that the Jewish or Christian scriptures, or the Koran, were and are. Many of the gods’ quarrels and battles recall divine battles and interventions preserved in the Hindu Vedas and the ancient Near Eastern texts (in Babylonian, Akkadian, Sumerian), as well as in the myths of Africa, the pre-Columbian Americas, and the European North. (Many scholars have found traces of such battles in early books of the Jewish Bible, but these are submerged as deeply as possible by the redactors and subsequent interpreters, for whom any implications of polytheism are distinctly heretical.)
Homer’s gods partake to some extent of the nature of these fierce and autonomous deities known from a wide range of cultures. Their battles may originally have represented the imagined wars of various natural forces (light and dark, land and sea). But they are also members of a polity not unlike an ideal monarchy (which is not to say that none of the other pantheons just mentioned exhibits a political structure). While each of the Olympians has rights over aspects of the lives of men and women everywhere, each has special privileges in his or her domains as well as favorites among mortals. Like a king ruling over his nobles, Zeus is the supreme god, who under ideal circumstances hopes to keep his nobles in line by persuasion but can also threaten the use of force. All the gods at one time or another appeal to “justice” or what they perceive as justice (often a very self-serving view). But although he has his “private” favorites and interests, as ruler of the gods Zeus is expected to be held to, and in a certain sense to embody, justice. Hence, in The Iliad, no matter how many diversions he permits the other gods to introduce and how many delays their mortal subordinates may effect, Hektor must die and Akhilleus must surrender his body to Priam just as, ultimately (i.e., beyond the limits of The Iliad), Troy must fall and Helen return to Meneláos. In The Odyssey, while for offenses both old and new14 Odysseus may be tested, detained, and stripped of his ships and comrades, Zeus wills that he return to Ithaka and recover wife, house, and status. Athena, Zeus’ daughter and Odysseus’ special champion, knows this, and when her doing everything she can is not enough, she reminds Zeus and has him renew his promise. Poseidon may interfere, but only within limits.
Zeus does embody justice, but at times this seems less like “Zeus wills only what is just” and more like “whatever Zeus wills is just.” This is as handy a narrative device as it is a theological one. The whole logic of The Odyssey is based on the premise that the suitors are so evil that to a man they deserve death at the hands of Odysseus and his allies. But there is nothing in the procedures of Ithakan justice that would compel the kin of the slain suitors to admit this, nothing that would put a stop to a never-ending series of acts of vengeance. Homer’s solution is simply that Zeus wills the quick and virtually bloodless final settlement between the suitors’ kinfolk and the house of Odysseus. That this is Zeus’—and Homer’s—will makes it just.
All the gods, Zeus included, are subject to fate. Like justice, which has a name (dikê) separate from Zeus’, fate is moira. It is often close to the will of Zeus, but palpably separate. Homer at times personifies fate with the plural “Fates” (Moirai). Fate is not, however, to be conceived along the lines of Christian foreknowledge, much less predestination: there is no eternal mind of God which knows before the creation of time everything that will happen in time, even if the Olympians, and Zeus in particular, are often presented as regarding some events (e.g., the fall of Troy, the homecoming of Odysseus) as certain. Mortals have an even more limited insight into fate, via oracles, prophecies, prophetic dreams, and omens. Since these are open to misinterpretation (even outright manipulation), only the most credulous or benighted characters would rely on them for knowledge of the future. Significantly, neither fate nor divine intervention is assumed to relieve mortals from the responsibility of doing all they can to achieve their ends. The Homeric pantheon helps those who help themselves. In a sense, fate functions not unlike justice: fate is in the end what happens. Something is only finally known to have been fated after it has occurred.
Only fairly recently has European tradition become aware of the global distribution of epic poems and myths describing the internecine struggles of divinities and their activities as opponents and allies of heroes. The recovery of tablets and the deciphering of dead scripts and languages have brought to light the mythological literature of “old world” cultures and have allowed Europeans to explore the cosmography of “new world” civilizations. Previously, European tradition had regarded Homer’s as the gods of poetry (as both Pope and Goethe put it). The epic machinery of an Olympian pantheon was adapted by the Roman poets, and via Vergil and his successors it was imitated in some fashion by every European epic poet. Leaving aside for the moment the essences they would have had for those who took part in their cults (“belief” is a misleadingly anachronistic concept; most ancient religions were based on practice rather than faith), the gods provided the poet with opportunities to sketch another set of compelling characters. They also helped him effect transitions of time and place, and with their superhuman perspective as well as their shape-changing capabilities they provided him endless opportunities for dramatic irony. But the gods were not merely pl
ot devices or colorful figures to vary the landscape. The Homeric poems are ultimately grounded in the serious concerns of humans: as later Greek ethics put the question, How is life to be lived? The gods, who are immortal and for that reason have no mortal cares, are not held to human standards of conduct. Excellent forebears, not the gods, are presented as examples for mortals aspiring to greatness. Where the gods play a role in the life of a good man or woman is simply this: it is right to sacrifice to the gods, to hold them in honor, to hope for their aid.
In other words, it is in the relationship of mortals to immortals, rather than that of immortals to mortals, that the gods have the most importance for The Odyssey. Despite all his trials, and his offense or offenses notwithstanding, Odysseus is presented as a pious man, and when he gets to Ithaka we see him fostering piety in his son. Heroes can, in their excellence, be “godlike,” which seems to mean that they are supreme in a particular branch of excellence; the term “godlike” is appropriate because whatever a god is, he or she is that absolutely (on “godlike” epithets, see the Commentary, Book I.92, below). Odysseus displays excellence in many spheres, and in that he resembles his patron, Athena. Or, as it is also presented, it is because of these qualities in Odysseus that she is so fond of him. Like Athena, Odysseus excels in prudence, craftiness, and battle, as does Penélopê (battle excepted). Although there are specific Homeric virtues that overlap with those we today would consider virtues (for example, charity to beggars, hospitality), “goodness” is not in itself a relevant concept. Neither, as we will have occasion to see, is honesty. The Greek concept of “help your friends, harm your enemies,” is very much in force, and if guile can be employed to this end, Odysseus and Athena—and Penélopê—will be among the first to use it. Nor is there anything inherently good about perpetual restraint from violence, a point which deserves particular emphasis.
VIOLENCE
The ideal reader of The Odyssey will weep in Book XVI at the meeting of Odysseus and Telémakhos, and will laugh with joy in Book XXIII when Penélopê’s craft finally provokes Odysseus to burst forth, a self-revelation which permits their reunion. But I maintain that no one can truly appreciate The Odyssey for whom Book XXII—in which Odysseus and Telémakhos take back their home by force—is not the real climax. There is considerably less bloodshed in The Odyssey than in The Iliad, but when it comes it must be thoroughly appreciated, even enjoyed. It is not considered proper in many circles today to condone violence in any form, but an inability to suspend such a reservation while reading The Odyssey will prove a detriment to appreciation. When at the conclusion of Book XXI Odysseus strings the bow and sends his arrow through the twelve axe heads, a thrill of excitement should shoot through our breasts, the same kind of thrill the makers of Robin Hood or Star Wars movies aim to inspire. Telémakhos and the two loyal herdsmen arm, and as they get ready to take on the suitors, we should be looking forward to the massacre. The first arrow kills Antinoös, and the suitors in their folly still have not recognized that Odysseus is before them. Homer describes the deaths of all the named suitors; it is for this episode that he reserves his fullest, most detailed account of virtually every one of them. And, in true heroic fashion, our hero bests them despite overwhelming odds.
If this scene might be compared with the violence in a contemporary film, The Odyssey as a whole cannot be. Homer has established that the suitors are bad. That they have gorged themselves on Odysseus’ property is the least, if the most chronic, of their ills. They have plotted to kill Telémakhos, and they continue plotting after their first attempt fails. Homer shows that they are cruel to beggars and suppliants; in short, they are impious, and the presence of Athena herself ranged against them in Book XXII shows us exactly where divine justice falls. While there may be some suitors who are not as actively evil as the notorious ringleaders, they have nonetheless willingly participated in evil and are punished. This too is an important and sophisticated lesson of justice. The twelve serving maids who have betrayed the household are bad, and their end is by definition to be considered just.
What readers of The Odyssey take pleasure in is not violence or bloodshed in itself, but the exacting of justice. That evil characters meet violent ends must be satisfying in the narrative universe of The Odyssey. As is clear, this does not solve all Odysseus’ problems. Violence almost always breeds more violence, and it takes one council in Ithaka and another on Olympos, as well as one more death in a small skirmish in Book XXIV, to convince the suitors’ families to regard their murders not as acts requiring vengeance but as just punishment. The easy composition of the feud between Odysseus’ house and the slain suitors’ kin may seem a sleight of hand by the poet; its necessity and occurrence are part of his poem, even if a realistic explanation of the resolution is not. More important is the fact that Odysseus himself must go on what later ages would call a pilgrimage to atone for previous, albeit justifiable, violence. This is very much on our minds, for at the moment of regained bliss in Book XXIII, Odysseus himself apprises Penélopê of the journey Teirêsias told him he must make. This journey is required to settle accounts with Poseidon for the earlier blinding of the god’s son, but reemerging in Book XXIII it doubles, poetically at least, as the deed Odysseus must do to atone for killing the suitors in the previous book.
FATHERS AND SONS
For many, the charm of The Odyssey lies largely in Odysseus’ time in the land of the Phaiákians, from the moment he sees Nausikaa through his narrative of his fantastic adventures. And indeed, the adventures are memorable, as are Sindbad’s. But The Odyssey is ultimately about family relationships, and Odysseus’ voyages, however brilliantly they showcase his fortitude (and consummate narrative skills), constitute in some ways the least Odyssean episodes in the epic. They mark the point most distant from the central issue, just as his exotic ports of call are most distant from his goal—home—and must, however great the temptation to appreciate them as set pieces, be read in the larger context of Odysseus’ return. It has often been lodged as a charge against The Odyssey that the epic begins with four books focused on Telémakhos, the so-called Telemachy. Let us leave aside the point that by means of this narrative device we easily learn of the sad state of affairs in Ithaka, the deep moral depravity of the suitors and Penélopê’s antipathy to them, and the fatal homecoming of Agamémnon. We observe the loving couple in Sparta—Meneláos and Helen. The Trojan War is well and truly over. Leave this aside, because, albeit with less elegance, the poet could have told us of all this directly.
But the Telemachy makes sense if we understand that The Odyssey is from the start about the mutual discovery of father by son, and of son by father. Not mere recognition, mind you, but discovery: Telémakhos has never seen his father, he has never had as a present exemplar the great hero he knows it his destiny to emulate. Likewise, Odysseus has never seen Telémakhos (at least not since he was an infant in swaddling clothes) and has thus not fulfilled the role of a father, which means in part guiding and training his son, in diplomacy, battle, and piety. Homer presents us first with the son in search of his father, then the father in search of—his home. Having no acquaintance with Telémakhos past infancy, Odysseus could not have focused his longing on that aspect of his home. Nonetheless, it is not by accident that in Eumaios’ hut, his first lodging in Ithaka, he finally meets the young man who is his son, reveals his identity alone to him, and with him begins to plot the final resolution. Nor is Telémakhos’ itinerary, in this regard parallel to Odysseus’ more fantastic voyage, complete until their moment of mutual recognition in Book XVI.15
Odysseus is father; he is also son. He must make peace with his parents before the epic plot can be fully resolved. His mother has died of grief over his long absence. Fortunately, given the economy of the poem and the tradition of the nekuia (visit by the epic hero to the land of the dead), his mother’s death does not preclude an interview. It is in Book XI, the first nekuia, that he speaks to her. From her he learns that while she has died, her husband and his
father, Laërtês, is suffering a living death of grief at his son’s absence. Again, it is not by accident that Homer reserves the reconciliation of this father-son pair for Book XXIV, where it serves as a capping episode of the poem. This reconciliation is linked to the composition of the nascent feuds between the kin of the suitors and the house of Laërtês and Odysseus. The artful arrangement cannot go unnoticed: the epic opens with a son in search of his father and concludes with a father who has regained his son. The complicating, or rather enriching, factor is of course that the father in the first equation is the son in the second. We have an unbroken chain of generations. The fact that we move from young to old is of a piece with the fact that, as we will have many occasions to see, The Odyssey is an epic of maturity. Maturity, the ripeness of adulthood, even of age, is privileged over the rashness of youth. Not that there is any sentimentalizing or softening of the harshness of extreme old age: Laertes is grievously weakened in spirit and in body. But it is somehow deeply fulfilling that Athena lets him fight yet one more time with the younger men, with his son and grandson. In the generations of Odysseus’ family, The Odyssey addresses all the ages of human development.
The father-son recognition and the drawing together of the generations rounds out this theme, so central to The Odyssey. It is worth remarking that, despite the many differences, The Iliad too in its final book stages a father-son reconciliation. As in The Odyssey, this involves multiple fathers and sons, and in fact the situation is more complex than in The Odyssey. In The Iliad we are dealing not with generations within one household but with different families, indeed families on opposing sides of the conflict. As you may recall, the final episode of The Iliad is Priam’s visit to Akhilleus, in the latter’s tent, behind enemy lines, a visit the Trojan king makes in order to beg for the now mutilated body of his son Hektor. Akhilleus is moved to accede to Priam’s request only when he thinks of his own absent father, and how he will grieve for his imminent death. The passing of time, in other words inevitable aging and death, is thematized in both Homeric epics by the transfer of power from fathers to sons. In the final moment of each poem, a temporary halt to this process provides a respite from the ineluctable slide toward death at the same time that it reminds us of its inevitability.