The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel

by Nikos Kazantzakis

  In every line of my hexameter, the metrical count will always be six, but the rhetorical stress can vary from a hypothetical one (in actual practice, four) to a possible twelve. Let us take some new examples. Here is line 947 the Book VI: . This has only four rhetorical stresses, and only weak syncopation, that is, on the syllables “of” and “on.” Line 446 of Book VII also has four rhetorical stresses: but although it, too, has a weak syncopation on the syllables “a,” “on,” and the last syllable of “complainingly,” it has a strong syncopation on the syllable “clear.” An example of a line that has five rhetorical stresses (with strong syncopation on “God” and “deep”) is line 414, Book XX: . Line 511, Book XVIII, has six rhetorical stresses which coincide exactly with its six metrical stresses: but though line 904 in Book XVIII also has as many rhetorical stresses as it has metrical accents (that is, six of each), the relationship between the two is syncopated or counterpointed: Line 425 of Book XIV shows seven rhetorical stresses: I have rarely gone beyond the eight rhetorical stresses shown by line 6 the Book I, and which I have already quoted, or by line 925 the Book XXIII: . A reader may recite line 795 of the same book with nine stresses if he chooses to stress the adjectives as well as the nouns of the last half of the line: . Theoretically, it is possible to have as many as twelve rhetorical stresses, as in a line, for example, which contained a packed catalogue of animals, all monosyllables: .

  The metrical accents in all these lines are always six, though at times a certain unit, or foot, of a line may be inverted for the sake of a minimum variety, or augmented by the occasional use of anapests. The rhetorical stresses, on the contrary, are always free, and vary from a theoretical one to a possible twelve, though their placement and their number often depend on how an individual reader may wish to stress the meaning or the emotion involved. Though all metrical accents have the same mechanical emphasis and weight, the rhetorical stresses are of different weights and intensities and range considerably in pitch. Oftentimes a syllable is not so much stressed as held on a level tone, either because it carries less emphasis than the one preceding or following, or because there is a great difference in duration between syllables, as in the last line quoted, between “ing” of “prowling,” “eyes,” and “glazed.” In line 1003 the Book IX, for instance: the syllables range in duration from “and” to “fierce”; each stressed syllable would receive different intensities according to the interpretation of the reader, and “both” might be held, if not stressed, in order to bring out the proper meaning. In: (Book XII, line 1209), the first syllable of “grappling,” for instance, would be held and not stressed by most readers. It will be noted that the semantic meaning (qualitatively) and the prevalence of consonants (quantitatively) in a word or syllable determine to a great degree the long or short duration with which it is pronounced.

  This by no means exhausts the prosodic complications of a line, but I have thought it necessary to make clear at least the relationship between metrical accent and rhetorical stress because, the two are still often confused in academic and creative circles. In a traditionally metrical line, many readers still confuse stresses and accents when they attempt to scan a line. Metrists have often been led astray by the metrical system of inflected languages, and have imposed this system on English, unaware of the great role Anglo-Saxon monosyllables play in the English metrical system, not only giving English poetry its peculiar beauty but also forcing on the language the creation of a meter indigenous only to a tongue which is based on stress and contains a plethora of monosyllables. Because a monosyllable can never be mispronounced in terms of stress, it may be placed in a weak part of the foot or in the accentual meter, and yet receive a strong stress in the rhetorical reading. The various groupings into which the rhetorical stresses or the unstressed syllables fall, whether iamb, trochee, amphibrach, dactyl, etc., should not be confused with the metrical scansion which may only be found among the metrical accents—unless, of course, a regular pattern is set up and then repeated among the stresses, in which case another problem is involved.

  What I have written holds true only for the traditional meters of English, and not for such a syllabic system as that of Marianne Moore, the sprung rhythms of a Gerard Manley Hopkins or his adaptors, or the various complications of free verse. An unjustly neglected book which contains the best analysis I know of the relationship between metrical accent and rhetorical stress (though it is inadequate in a consideration of more modern measures) is Pattern and Variation in Poetry by Chard Powers Smith (Scribners).

  A word about the difference in syllabic count between English and Greek lines: Because of the uninflected and monosyllabic character of the English language, the majority of verses written in that language end on a strong or “masculine” accent, and the lines therefore are counted in even numbers; but because the Greek language, in common with all inflected tongues, is polysyllabic, and because the accent falls frequently on the syllable before the last, the lines are counted in uneven syllables, and are predominantly weak or “feminine” in their endings. Typical English lines are ones of six, eight, ten or twelve syllables; typical Greek lines are ones of nine, eleven, thirteen or fifteen syllables.

  NOTES

  Following are a few brief notes, primarily about modern Greek folk songs, tales, legends, sayings and beliefs. Although Kazantzakis made some conscious use of anachronism, and although the action of the poem really takes place in the timeless realm of myth, he had a deep conviction that many of the customs and rituals among the Greek peasantry were also prevalent in archaic and classical times. Anyone who is familiar with the persistence of pagan rites in the ritual of the Greek Orthodox Church today, is easily persuaded. Those folk songs, sayings, or beliefs where the text needs but brief exposition or is self-explanatory, I have grouped together for easier comparative reference.

  BOOK I

  251: The princess is Nausicaå. See Homer’s Odyssey, Book XVI, 360. 306: The owl is one of the attributes of the goddess Athena, protectress of Odysseus.

  604: Camomile and cypress trees are planted in Greek cemeteries and are symbols of death. See I, 640, 949; XI, 704-05; XXIV, 135, 1190-91.

  633-34: The fig tree, a soft wood, is symbolic of woman; the oak tree, a hard wood, of man. See II, 1261-63; XIII, 232-35; XVII, 683-85.

  691: See note to II, 603.

  1199: See note to XIV, 414.

  1235: According to folk tales, the black cock crows when it is still night, the red cock just before dawn, and the white cock when dawn breaks. See II, 1448; VII, 722; VIII, 1179; XVII, 665; XIX, 229.

  1268: The apple is an erotic symbol in all Greek folk songs, legends, and tradition. When a girl favors a young man, she gives him a bitten apple; if he wishes to accept her favors, he eats it. See II, 1170, 1321-22; III, 238-39, 7n; VII, 771-75; IX, 579-89, 610-18; XI, 10; XII, 1091-95; XIV, 1391-93; XVI, 61, 68, 671-73; XVII, 178, 435, 668, 689-91; XVIII, 264-65, 323-24; XIX, 1152, 1392; XXIII, 372-76; XXIV, 375-79, 432-39, 595-96, 623-24.

  BOOK II

  603: The pomegranate is a symbol of fertility in marriage. As a bride crosses the threshold of her new home, she casts a pomegranate to the ground, and the marriage guests wish her as many children as the scattered fruit has seeds. See especially II, 1251-57; also I, 691; VI, 1176-82; XVII, 687-88; XVIII, 818-21, 832-39; XX, 643-45.

  1134: Made of fine butter and spices for holidays (especially Easter) and marriages.

  1136: Red is a symbol of joy.

  1170: See note to I, 1268.

  1211: Maidens braid seashells and charms in their hair to ward off the evil eye.

  1220: The boy who performs this ritual must not be an orphan.

  1221-23: This is still observed in Crete, for the reasons given.

  1225-27: In Crete the moon is a symbol of the female, the sun a symbol of the male.

  1231; During the marriage ceremony, wreaths made of white wax flowers are interchanged by the best man on the heads of the bride and bridegroom. These are later framed and hung in
the bedroom or parlor.

  1236; The bride must enter her house with her right foot first in order to bring it good luck. See also note to V, 1292-93.

  1243-50, 1261-71: A bride must make her obeisance to the water of her household well and to the fire of her hearth.

  1251-57: See note to II, 603.

  1261-63: See note to I, 633-34.

  1282-84: On the night before her wedding, when the bride goes to the well to fetch the water with which she is to wash herself, she must not speak either going or coming. See also note to VII, 771-75.

  1321-22: See note to I, 1268.

  1448: See note to I, 1235.

  BOOK III

  238-39, 711: See note to I, 1268.

  670-75: Kazantzakis replied to a critic who could not understand why Odysseus does not possess Helen erotically: “You do not see the obvious: Helen’s abduction by Odysseus was not an erotic one. Helen was stifling in Sparta, and she longed to leave; Odysseus wanted to take her with him as a new Trojan horse, to lean her against the disintegrating civilization of Knossos in order to destroy it. The same episode is capable of another interpretation: Helen is the Achaean beauty who by merging with the Doric barbarians creates the new Greek civilization. As soon as his plan was realized (that is, when he saw her in the arms of the barbarian gardener), Odysseus departed, leaving Helen to fulfill her mission, to transubstantiate in her womb the barbaric seed and to give birth to her son, Hellene. But naturally Odysseus does not part from Helen so serenely . . . he leaves with the incurable sorrow a man always feels when he sees a beautiful woman in the arms of another, even though he never desired to possess her. Helen was warm flesh, not a disembodied idea, and Odysseus could not part from her forever without being deeply troubled. However, he had to leave, and he did so. What could he do with her? It was not his only purpose to contribute to the creation of the new Greek civilization by uniting Achaeans and barbarians. Helen was but one stage on his onward journey.” See VIII, 903-18.

  836-39: See note to IV, 1091-1119.

  BOOK IV

  66: According to Greek folk belief, when a person is born, the worm of his death is also born and sets out to meet him and to devour him. See especially XVII, 977-81; also XXIII, 38-58, 136-45, 1284-86.

  182: Folk saying. Also IX, 286, 1057, 1144, 1278, 1282, 1305; X, 288, 489, of a man who travels much; 604, 611, 618, 632, 852, of extremely prissy women who are easily hurt; 888, 1174; XI, 341, 454, 486; XII, 30, 682, 691; XIII, 538, 645-46; XVI, 303, 1239; XXIV, 730-31.

  286-92: Folk lore and beliefs. Also V, 1-3, 144; IX, 884-85; X, 106, for a flag of revolution; XI, 117-19, 367, 1190-91; XIII, 568-69, 651; XV, 1143; XVII, 1315-44; XXIII, 827-30.

  456-57: From folk songs. Also V, 330-31; VI, 1173-76; VIII, 490-91, 569. 793-94; IX, 60, 67, 1115; X, 1174; XI, 1-2, 440-42, 499-500, 696, 1322-23; XII, 1-4: XV, 196-98, 232, 651; XVI, 1-4, 705; XVII, 1068; XIX, 791, 1187; XXII, 85-98, 596, 1450-51; XXIII, 668-69.

  1091-1119: According to Stesichorus, Helen was not really carried off to Troy by Paris. Instead, she was carried to Egypt and kept there by the king, Proteus, till her husband could claim her; it was a phantom that accompanied Paris to Troy. This version was adopted by Euripides in his Helen and Electra. See also III, 836-39.

  BOOK V

  97-100: When Paris and Helen ran away from Sparta, they stopped for a while on an island near the mouth of the Eurotas.

  1105: Zeus was hidden in a huge stalactitic cave on Mt. Dikte in Crete by his mother, Rhea, to prevent his father, Cronos, from swallowing him. The cave, a place of religious worship since ancient days, may still be visited. It was in this cave that King Idomeneus invoked the Mother Goddess in Book V.

  1158: If the bride is a virgin, the bridegroom gives her a black-hilted sword for a present.

  1292-93: An evil-footed man is one who brings evil into the house he enters. The first person who enters one’s house on New Year’s Day brings with him either good or evil for the ensuing year, according to his character. See also note to II, 1236.

  BOOK VI

  386: The “milk of birds,” like Coleridge’s “milk of Paradise,” is an imaginary food, a heavenly nectar.

  636: Grapes, oranges, or honey are placed in the hands of the dead as a present for Cerberus in Hades.

  723: See I, 1235.

  734-39: Small poems such as these, usually in couplet form, are sung to the bride and bridegroom before and after their marriage.

  768-69: A bride dedicates her girdle to Aphrodite.

  1176-82: See note to II, 603.

  BOOK VII

  255-57: Cretan distich.

  366: The body of a dead man is often washed with wine.

  722: See note to I, 1235.

  761: A common longing among pregnant women of the Greek peasantry.

  771-75 On June 24, St. John’s Day, girls throw their individually marked apples in a large jug or tub of “speechless water.” As one of the girls recites a prophetic distich, a young boy pulls out an apple which indicates to whom the distich applies. The poems are often very bawdy. See also note to I, 1268, and to II, 1261-63.

  1327: Earthen jars are often broken and cast into the grave to denote death.

  1332-33: Deathless water, equivalent to the Fountain of Youth or Eternal Life, is death itself, or may be found only in death. See especially VIII, 1253-59; also IX, 1260-1350;; XII, 1238-48; XIII, 1346-51; XIV, 990; XVII, 1295, 1303; XVIII, 1117; XIX, 1354; XXII, 1465-76; XXIV, 543, 1255-56.

  1343-46: If his fire blazes to a great height, a Greek peasant believes that he will soon be visited by an important guest.

  BOOK VIII

  66: In Greek legends, a magic herb exists which opens all doors.

  266-69 Statues of gods were often bound with rope so that they might not abscond to other villages or countries. See also VIII, 531-32; XXII, 1063-66.

  623: A letter burnt in each of its four corners is often sent as a challenge or insult.

  1179: See note to I, 1235.

  1253-95: See note to VII, 1332-33.

  1262-95: An abbreviated form of a story in Herodotus.

  1290: Taken from an Egyptian hieroglyph.

  BOOK IX

  120: There is a folk belief that shortbuttocked women bear children best.

  579-89 See note to I, 1268.

  610-18 See note to I, 1268.

  761: Ancient Heliopolis, near the site of modern Cairo.

  803-20, 875-83: Ikhnaton (known also as Amenophis or Amenhotep IV), 1375-38 B.C sought to make Aton, the solar disk, the one supreme god of Egypt. His wife was Nefertiti.

  1026: Ancient Thebes, near modern Quena. See 1026 the.

  1260, 1350: See note to VII, 1332-33.

  BOOK X

  613: A brainy worm, in folk tales, comes when cattle are dying and coils between their eyebrows. See also note to IV, 66.

  552-55 See the vision Odysseus had of a vagabond god in XIV, 1179-96.

  624-41 Kazantzakis has taken this from an actual letter written by a king of Cyprus to a king of Egypt.

  647: Garments were exposed to the stars to exorcise them of evil.

  1359-60 From folk tales. Young men going off to war are thought of as having an invisible crimson string about their throats. See XIII, 123; XV, 1204-09; XVIII, 691-93; XXIII, 920.

  1361: There are many versions of the Prince or King Sunless in Greek folk legends, but all agree that he was so named because he would die if the sun but looked upon him. One legend says that he lived in an underground palace by a river which he would cross every night to visit his mistress, Lady Irene. Noticing that he always left much before dawn, she resolved to keep him longer one night, and ordered all the roosters in her land slain. He started out later than he thought, and just as he reached the river, the sun rose, struck him, and killed him. See XXII, 822.

  BOOK XI

  10: See note to I, 1268.

  704-05 See note to I, 604.

  1088-90: Part of the Negative Confession from Chapter CXXV of the Egyptian Book of the D
ead. Before the forty-two gods in the Hall of the Double Maāti, the deceased must recite a prescribed negative statement of the sins he did not commit.

  BOOK XII

  574-76 Many folk tales end with this formula, as though all were a dream, like a wine barely tasted.

  1091-95 See note to I, 1268.

  1238-48: See note to VII, 1332-33.

  BOOK XIII

  123: See note to X, 1359-60.

  232-35: See note to I, 633-34.

  997: In folk legends, an eye fluttering means that a friend is coming, and a palm itching means that it will either strike someone or be filled with gold. See XIV, 36.

  1346-51 See note to VII, 1332-33.