59 at some length: Or “earnestly.”
60–68 There is an obvious charm to Athena praying to Poseidon (60–66), particularly since he is the major obstacle to her achieving her aim (see the council of the gods at the opening of Book I, at 42ff.); the narrator underlines the irony in lines 67–68.
65–66 third Athena cleverly lets her hosts know with whom they are dealing and with great cunning virtually binds them in advance to agree to what they will be asked by including this hope in her public prayer.
75–76 To have waited until after the guests had eaten to ask these questions is yet another sign of Nestor’s excellent manners and observation of protocol.
79–81 corsairs is an inspired choice, for “pirate” has too negative a connotation. The career of “privateer” or professional raider has been regarded in many cultures and over many centuries as a viable if not entirely respectable option; indeed, “corsairs” have been lionized from the ancient Greek novels to Byron, from Sir Francis Drake to John Paul Jones. Nestor himself refers to sailing for pillage below (114). To the argument that this was a time of war we might respond that the intense competition for goods around the Mediterranean amounted to a virtually constant state of war through much of the second and first millennia B.C.E. and, indeed, for many centuries after. We may well ask if it has ceased yet.
89–90 Though very subtle, this distinction between public and private business is a reminder of what is rotten in the state of Ithaka: were all things as they should be, the affairs of Odysseus’ household would be of public concern.
94–99 Telémakhos and his family are suffering the uncertainty that all the loved ones of people missing in action undergo.
111–217 Nestor was noted for the loquacity to which this speech gives ample testimony.
117–20 Note the increasing weight as Nestor goes through this minicatalog: two heroes each receive one half line, one hero receives one line, and finally one hero—Nestor’s son—receives tribute of two whole lines, exactly as in the Greek [109–12]. This structure is called crescendo; when there are three elements, it is called tricolon crescendo (see XI.294–95, below). It is a frequent building block of units ranging from single lines to full episodes.
122–25 Gould any mortal man …: On the one hand, it is a commonplace to convey the immensity of something by claiming it can’t be related in speech (the inexpressibility topos) and is thus utterly traditional; on the other hand, if we posit one organizing talent as creator of The Odyssey, it is hard not to see this as a witty and ironic self-reference. The irony would increase if the poet of The Odyssey were also the singer of The Iliad. (On the likelihood of both hypotheses, see Introduction, pp. xxxiii—xlii.) If we put the emphasis on “the whole story,” this might be a jab at those poets who attempted to do just that. The creator or creators of both The Iliad and The Odyssey understood the value of selectivity and structure, and later classicizing critics (e.g., Aristotle, Horace) praised Homer and castigated the cyclic poets for just this; the most severe judgment on the latter is of course the fact that their creations survive only in the most meager of fragments and précis.
132–35 your father?: Nestor raises the very question troubling Telémakhos—is he really Odysseus’ son? (in the Greek [122–23], this is more explicit than Fitzgerald’s question mark alone)—only to answer with a resounding affirmative.
139 all the good advice: Nestor is not embarrassed to voice his complete self-satisfaction.
146ff. Athena must be gratified that Nestor understands perfectly well why she grew angry with the Greeks. (For an extended interpretation of the entire Odyssey from the perspective of Athena’s wrath, see Jenny Strauss Clay, The Wrath of Athena.)
167 On the taking of slave women and concubinage, see I.482ff., above.
183–97 long sea route: Pious man that he is, Nestor waited for an omen (187) before he decided which route to take. He chose the route that involved more open-water legs, that is, with fewer nearby ports in which to seek shelter if a sudden storm should arise. Thanks to his trust in the gods, nothing untoward happened. Further aspects of his piety emerge at 192–93 and 197. Contrast impious Aias at IV.534ff., destroyed although he sailed what would have been considered the more conservative route.
202–11 The whole speech (lines 111–217), but particularly these lines, serves as partial link and sequel to The Iliad, which ends before the sack of Troy, indeed, before the death of Akhilleus, much less the journey home.
205–7 Idómeneus’ not losing any of his comrades on the voyage home contrasts markedly with Odysseus, who loses all.
209–17 Again, though the name is not spoken, Orestês appears as the model for Telémakhos to emulate. The swift conclusion of the speech, turning from Orestês to Telémakhos, leaves open the way Odysseus’ son will have to avenge the wrongs against his father.
228–30 My dear young friend …: Now we realize how delicately Nestor refrained from bringing up this painful subject, waiting for Telémakhos to broach it first.
235–39 Athena’s special care for Odysseus was well known to all the Greeks.
247ff. What strange talk you permit yourself …: Telémakhos’ response, not merely modest but verging on despair, now provokes Athena/Mentor’s theology lesson. She does not disagree with his implication (245) that there are limits to what the gods can do; she does, however, make clear that only death puts a mortal beyond their capacity to help (254–56). Returning Odysseus from the farthest point of his travels is well within their powers.
254–55 as for death, of course all men must suffer it …: Although, as we will soon learn (V. 142–43, 217–18), Kalypso has offered Odysseus immortality as her consort.
258–61 Here it seems as if Telémakhos is not just being cautiously pessimistic but rather expressing his most sincere belief.
269–70 Argos here does not refer to the city, whose ruler was Diomêdês, but more generally the kingdom of the sons of Atreus. By asking where Meneláos was, Telémakhos suggests that he imagines Sparta and Mycenae to be more or less contiguous, and so they may well be in poetry, even if fifty miles separates the archeological sites.
278–79 no burial mound: To lie unburied, prey for birds and dogs, was the worst fate imaginable for Hellenes (see I.280–87, above, and V.321–23, below, and compare Iliad I.4–5—a very prominent passage. This is also the fate of the “minstrel” to watch over Klytaimnéstra, as described immediately hereafter, line 292). Orestês buried both Klytaimnéstra and Aigísthos (see 335–36).
285–90 Klytaimnéstra is an obvious antitype of Penélopê, who not only starts out faithful but remains so (and for twice as long). The “minstrel” or bard makes for an interesting companion and appears in no other ancient version of the story. Homer may be prodding his audience (and especially present or prospective patrons) to recall the moral value of his songs and his singing: by telling of virtuous forebears and their opposites, he reminds his listeners that their good deeds will be a source of undying praise, their misbehavior of equally undying blame. For another perspective on the minstrel, see VIII. 70, below.
302 Phrontis means “foresight” or “prudence.” His father’s name might be rendered “Benefactor.”
325–27 In the next book we will hear more of Meneláos’ doings in Egypt. The story of one who, returning from the war, spends some years in trade is not unlike the one that Odysseus, calling himself a Kretan, will put out when he returns to Ithaka.
334 snake: Fitzgerald’s term is figurative and has no literal basis here in Homer [307–8]. Fitzgerald may be alluding to the snake of Klytaiméstra’s dream described in Aeschylus’ Libation Bearers (523–50) and which stands for the avenging Orestês.
362–67 Even immortal Athena seems to have wearied of good Nestor’s lengthy speeches. He has literally talked until the sun set (359).
377 Zeus is the special god of guest friendship, often invoked in this regard with the epithet Xenios. The laws of hospitality, which Zeus safeguards, demand that Nestor provide them quart
ers in his home (see VI. 130–31, VIII. 175, XIV. 189–90, below).
387–401 Athena/Mentor speaks to Nestor as one elder to another. This whole story (388–401) is a bluff—just the sort her ward Odysseus might improvise—to explain why she will have disappeared by morning. One element is not bluff, however: Athena quite explicitly tells Nestor to send Telémakhos overland (400–401). In her absence, she prefers Telémakhos to stay clear of Poseidon’s realm. Then, after her alibi is prepared, she reveals her divinity by flying off as a bird (402–3). This has its intended effect of astonishing and heartening both the Pylians and Telémakhos (404–17).
411 his third child: After Apollo and Artemis. This explanation for the epithet tritogeneia [378], while possible, is now considered by scholars to be less likely than “true-born” or “legitimate daughter.” Since Athena was born from Zeus alone, without a mother’s aid, her legitimacy as Zeus’ offspring is unquestionable.
414 dear wife: The Greek is nearer “chaste consort” [381]. As the diametrically opposed examples of Klytaimnéstra and Penélopê indicate, no Greek wife could be dear unless she was chaste.
430, 432 showed Telémakhos / … to a fine bed near the bed of Peisístratos: Homer more simply says, “settled Telémakhos in bed … beside Peisístratos” [397–400], an unusual practice in Homer, but, then again, Peisístratos is Nestor’s only unmarried son.
436–542 In the final hundred lines of the book, two complete days pass from sunrise to sunset. (Indeed, the Greek of lines 436 and 534 is precisely the same [404, 491], as is the Greek of lines 530 and 542 [487, 497]). The sacrifice with all due ceremony was obviously a poetic set piece, the details pleasing to its original audience, and even we, for whom such rites are foreign, can sense the ceremonial splendor and pious grandeur it bestows on the penultimate scenes of Book III. The final scene carries Peisístratos and Telémakhos to the plains of Sparta, with a proper “fade-out” in the final verse.
489 The “wail of joy” is part of the ceremony.
506–8 Polykástê, a fair girl …: This bathing was an honor for both Telémakhos and Polykástê (see VI. 137–39, below). Later legend had Polykástê bear Telémakhos’ son, Persepolis (Hesiod, Catalogue of Women, fr. 221). West has proposed “that the poet of The Odyssey devised this episode to foreshadow a union already familiar in legend” (HWH 1.189 [on III.464ff.]). Even later Homer was named as the child of this union.
516–42 charioteers: Note that transport is by horse-drawn chariot; Homeric heroes did not ride horseback (see V.384ff., below). The idea that one could actually have gone from the historic site of Pylos over Mount Taÿgetos to that of Sparta by chariot in Homer’s day, much less before, is pure fantasy. Again, it is a mistake to seek geographical and/or topographical realism in the Homeric epic.
BOOK IV
The Red-Haired King and His Lady
3–16 Telémakhos and Peisístratos arrive at a moment when the splendor and sensuality of Meneláos’ and Helen’s court is displayed to the full. Sparta’s splendor puts modest Ithaka in perspective. Telémakhos has never seen anything like it (see 77–81). But be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home (see 186 and 641, below, and for the sentiment, IX.38–40).
The “double wedding feast” is that of Hermionê, the daughter of the royal pair, to Neoptólemos, Akhilleus’ son, and of Megapénthês, Meneláos’ son by a nameless slave woman, to the daughter of Alektor. Megapénthês’ name means “great sorrow” and would refer to Meneláos’ distress at Helen’s departure with Paris. Homer says that “the gods had never after [Hermionê] granted Helen / a child” (13–14), which sounds to modern ears like a discreet reference to fertility problems. It’s more likely an oblique reference to Helen’s infidelity: the couple have been apart for most of the past twenty years, during the first ten of which Helen was Paris’ lover. Finally, it highlights the fact that, in contrast to Odysseus and Nestor, Meneláos has no legitimate male heir.
For all their superficial congeniality, Helen and Meneláos are not the ideal couple of one mind that Odysseus and Penélopê will eventually be proved to be. Nonetheless, Meneláos, Helen, and Telémakhos form a temporary family structure, something Telémakhos cannot even remember. The encounters with Nestor in Book III and Meneláos and Helen in Book IV bring Telémakhos into physical proximity with the heroes and major figures of the Trojan War, thus indirectly with the father he seeks.
31 someone free to receive them: In other words, not already occupied in hosting a large number of friends, retainers, and other guests. As Meneláos’ response shows, this was a crassly inhospitable (if practical) suggestion.
35–37 The hardships of the return are never far from anyone’s mind, and, in the present context, we must also think of Odysseus, likewise relying on “the kindness of strangers.”
67–69 forebears and families …: This was an aristocratic culture, and one’s “breeding” was expected to be evident.
75 An islander from Ithaka, Telémakhos rather than Nestor’s son is more impressed by the splendor of the court.
84 Meneláos cannot let Telémakhos’ comparison (80–81) of his wealth with Zeus’ stand, lest he suffer divine envy. The ancient gods were quick to punish any mortals whose presumption led them to vie with the gods (see also 193, below).
90 the sun-burnt races: The Ethiopians [84], whom the Greeks imagined had been darkened by their proximity to the sun (see I.36, above).
91 men of … Arabia: The “Eremboi” [84] are mentioned nowhere else. “Arabs” may well be intended (the ancient geographer Strabo thought so), but no certainty is possible.
92–96 The travelogue becomes ever more fantastic; the wonders of exotic places hold a perennial fascination, from Homer through the classical and medieval periods up to the present day (we might instance television travel programs).
97ff. But while I made my fortune …: There is no little self-reproach in this speech. Although he is wealthy, Meneláos’ homecoming lacks the joy and satisfaction awaiting Odysseus, even if the latter must wait longer and suffer more.
98 a stranger killed my brother: Not so much a “stranger” in the strict sense (murderer and murdered were first cousins) as an “interloper” [alios, 91].
114–23 Even before Homer describes Telémakhos’ reaction (124ff.), the listener can imagine the emotions—simultaneous pride and grief—that go through him hearing Odysseus praised thus, the speaker unaware of the identity of his interlocutor. In Book VIII (533ff.), an unidentified Odysseus will likewise hear of his own exploits, although he has manipulated the situation to a certain extent.
127 Meneláos knew him now …: One of the many moving recognitions in the poem: Meneláos knows Telémakhos from his tears (124–27). Homer leaves it open for us to wonder if Meneláos didn’t have a strong suspicion and if his speech, though sincere, wasn’t calculated to test such a hypothesis.
131ff. The poet cleverly places the entrance of fabled Helen at this very juncture, when the other characters have been reduced to either sobs or embarrassed silence. The Helen of The Odyssey is not the Helen who precipitated the Trojan War: beautiful, elegant, loving luxury, yes, but now with a mature and gentle grace (she is after all the mother of the bride, not the bride).
138 in the treasure city, Thebes: Mention of the wealth of Egypt and in particular of the fabled upper-Egyptian city, Thebes, very likely reflects renewed trade between Greece and Egypt in the eighth and seventh centuries B.C.E., near Homer’s time. It is possibly a reminiscence of the important contacts between Egypt and Mycenaean Greece much earlier.
146 dusky violet wool: It is unlikely that the wool is already dyed. Rather, “violet” probably suggests a rich and lustrous sheen. It is notoriously difficult to correlate ancient color terminology with the modern spectrum, much less find entirely adequate translations.
Words describing colors provide an uncontroversial example of how the same “reality” is perceived and described differently in different languages. Scientists can establish the frequenc
y of the light waves reflected by a range of substances, yet speakers of one language will call a certain range red which speakers of another language would insist is orange, purple, anything but red. Ancient Greek color vocabulary suggests that the Greeks responded as much or more to the reflectivity and brilliance of colors as to the frequency of the light waves, as here “violet” seems to describe the wool’s tone rather than its tint.
152–55 Never … likeness: A further confirmation of Telémakhos’ identity as true son of Odysseus: although Helen didn’t witness Telémakhos’ reaction to her husband’s reminiscences (124–27), she independently and spontaneously recognizes Telémakhos. She is also smarter—and semidivine.
157 the wanton that I was: Helen is frank about her shortcomings, indeed, so blunt and cold she might as well be talking about a different person. In fact, Helen pointing out the Greek forces from the walls of Troy refers to herself in exactly the same terms (Iliad, III. 180), to which the passage here alludes.
170 gentle: “Sensible” might be a safer rendering of saophrôn [158]; in any event, there is no implication of softness in the Homeric adjective.
A Guide to the Odyssey: A Commentary on the English Translation of Robert Fitzgerald Page 13
