Why Everything You Know about the Odyssey Is Wrong

So, what do you know about the Odyssey? You should know something. It is, after all, the beginning of Western literature, and a masterpiece. It feels, somehow, that Greece lived in darkness for five centuries and then, BAM, they woke up one day, remembered how to write and jotted down the Odyssey.

(Not what happened, btw. Just saying.)

So the Odyssey is taught in most schools, some students even get to read bits of it, and a select few enjoy it in Greek (and Homeric Greek is to die for, it actually connects with your brain's pleasure centres – but more on that in a future post). And yet, you're probably thinking about a guy who tries to get home – and monsters. Mostly monsters. Cyclops, sirens, ogres, talking cows, ghosts.

All these things are in the book – well, in three chapters out of 24, but still – and chances are, these are the only chapters you know about, or the only ones you remember. In fact, most of you will remember Odysseus as a brave explorer, which is how he is depicted...in Medieval works. Dante is especially to blame for this. In the Inferno, Odysseus says, "Nor fondness for my son, nor reverence for my old father, nor the due affection which joyous should have made Penelope, could overcome within me the desire I had to be experienced of the world, and of the vice and virtue of mankind".

Exceptional poetry, but definitely not a description of Homer's Odysseus.

So, what is the Odyssey about, if not monsters?

Half of it is actually about Telemachus, Odysseus' son, and his half-hearted attempts to establish himself as the ruler of Ithaca. Thing is, the only way he's going to be able to challenge the Suitors is by proving that Odysseus is dead. And that’s why  we follow him as he goes knocking on doors to find out exactly what happened to him. Remember, back then people didn't write, and Ithaca is a small island in the middle of nowhere, so Penelope hasn't heard from anyone in quite a while. She only knows that the war is over, and that no one has seen her husband in ten years.

This state of affairs seems shocking today we all have iPhones and things in our pockets and live in a Foursquare and FB world. But until very very very recently, things still happened this way. People got lost after wars and you wouldn't know what had happened to them. My great-grandmother's husband was a German officer who was captured and shipped off to Britain. He was detained for a while, then they let him go. He was gone for five years. His wife was sure he was dead, and there was no one who knew, no one she could ask. And it was 1945, and the guy was in freaking Britain, not some jungle. But back then, all his wife could do, and all Penelope did, was wait and hope, as expressed in Konstantin Simonov's heartbreaking poem.

Wait for me, and I'll come back!

Wait with all you've got!

Wait, when dreary yellow rains

Tell you, you should not.

Wait when snow is falling fast,

Wait when summer's hot,

Wait when yesterdays are past,

Others are forgot.

Wait, when from that far-off place,

Letters don't arrive.

Wait, when those with whom you wait

Doubt if I'm alive.

So that’s the first surprise about the Odyssey: it’s not about weird stuff. Not really.

And another incredible thing we don't normally learn in school, or we forget about, the thing where Homer's genius is shown most clearly, is not what is in the Odyssey, but rather how the Odyssey is told.

Many school books only feature a few chapters about the Odyssey, in random order; stuff like, Odysseus and the Sirens, Odysseus and Polyphemus, and so on. But in fact, these things are told as flashbacks, because those ten years Odysseus has disappeared are lost, and our two main characters, our hero and his son, live in the same temporal reality. The day Telemachus decides to leave on his journey, Odysseus is washed up on the shores of Scheria after a huge storm has shipwrecked him. 

Let’s take a closer look at that.

The Odyssey is told in 24 books, and was probably meant to be recited over three days (four books every morning, four books every afternoon).

In the first four books, Odysseus is barely mentioned. We are told briefly, in the very first lines, that he is alone and miserable, and then the focus shifts on his son, Telemachus, and his journey to see his father's friends.

In the afternoon of the first day we see Odysseus leave Ogygia and reach Scheria. The bit everybody remembers comes on the second day, when the whole morning is devoted to the monsters and dangers Odysseus has seen on his journeys. 

The next set of books (13-16) is split between father and son as they both reach Ithaca and are reunited. The evening of the second day would end with a cliffhanger, as Penelope learns that the Suitors are plotting to get Telemachus killed.

The morning of the third day is devoted entirely to set the scene for this bloody act – only, it won't be Telemachus who dies, but the Suitors. And finally, the battle begins in the afternoon, as Odysseus easily strings his bow, shoots an arrow through twelve axes's heads

and then proceeds to slaughter the Suitors and execute the servant women who slept with the. On the image above you can see the Lego version of it, but, admittedly, those axes look remarkably similar to the 'real thing', ie, these things:

In the Odyssey, the metal heads would be stripped from their handles and arranged in a row, creating a broken up tunnel. So managing to shoot an arrow through them would be the coolest thing ever, especially if you consider that Odysseus was using a bow a dozen of strong men were unable to string. 

Anyway, for a proper reunion between Penelope and Odysseus we have to wait until book 23, while the very last chapter is concerned with Laertes: arguably, in ancient Greece the relationship between father and son (and also between a former king and his heir and present king) was considered more important than a relationship between spouses, and this is why the meeting between Odysseus and Laertes is given such emphasis.

So, there you have it. The Odyssey is mostly about Telemachus and politics and stuff which has nothing to do with monsters. We remember the monsters for the same reason we remember our nightmares, and freak coincidences, the same reason we stop to get a look at accidents, and watch TV series about serial killers. The dangerous things, the unknown things, the things living in the dark are exciting in a way normal life is not. People in ancient Greece felt the same. Just take a look at the art based on the Odyssey: most of it is about monsters. Odysseus escaping Polyphemus' cave. Odysseus listening to the Sirens. Odysseus’ men turning into pigs.

What's more surprising is that most people assume the Odysseus is telling the truth. I mean, how weird is that? Odysseus is a famous liar and trickster, he's the one who came up with the idea of the Trojan Horse, for crying out loud, and yet when he says, "I've totally seen a giant with one eye and blinded him," no one bats an eye (apologies for the lame pun).

But the thing is, Homer doesn't take any responsibility for these stories. He describes Odysseus as a liar, he shows us the man lying (when he tells Eumaeus he came from Egypt, for instance), and then he gives him the floor and allows him to tell his monster stories. And Odysseus happily complies. He tells these stories, and he tells them in a potentially hostile environment (the Phaeacians have been nice so far, but they could still behead him for no good reason). So it's totally possible that he's playing the card of the "Strong Guy Who Has Been Hurt" – women have been falling for that for centuries, and Scheria is ruled by a queen. 

And it gets weirder. The Phaeacians are the only human witnesses to Odysseus' shipwreck, and their island is destroyed when Odysseus leaves it. Which means that our Sacker of Cities reaches Ithaca as a rich man (gifts from the Phaeacians) and we have no idea where he's coming from.

This is a clever mixture of possible and extraordinary, and is kind of what happens with Helen (who features in the Odyssey as a guest star). Many Greek writers have wondered whether Helen was even in Troy – surely any normal king would have given her up, rather than see his city torched? Much more probable, some thought, that Paris only brought back a ghost, and that the real Helen had a long holiday someplace else (enchanted wonderland Egypt was first pick).

The Odyssey gives us the same teasing wink. It takes our breath away with its monsters and witches while spelling out quite clearly that it's all nonsense, and we shouldn't believe a word of it. And this, I think, it's the real wonder of this masterpiece. The way it plays its audience, the way its structure leaves us on the brink of tragedy every four books, the way it shifts between dream and reality. The real challenge, for any writer, is to suspend his audience's disbelief, and Homer does it in a masterly way. He presents us with this fantastic tale, this fatherless boy, this faithful wife, and the witch, and the other witch, and the gods...And in the midst of it all, Odysseus, a jewel of a character, Odysseus who appears out of nowhere after ten years, sails home on a ship full of gold and then disappears again. A flawed hero, a liar, a coward sometimes; and our first hero, the guy who will define thirty centuries of literature.

But wait, what? He disappears again?

Well, yes. That's the last little secret of the Odyssey. Our hero isn't home to stay. Tiresias, the blind diviner, has foretold another journey for him, and he will have to travel to places he has never seen, places where his beloved, his feared sea is unknown to men. Tiresias said...or, rather, Odysseus told us Tiresias said, and we can't trust his words. It's possible Odysseus is lying again, and he really is the man Dante describes – a wild adventurer who can't sit still. 

[Sources: Dante's quote courtesy of Wikiquote. Read Simonov's incredible poem here. Admire “Odysseus and Calypso by Max Beckmann, here. Lego Odyssey, here. The Odyssey is set just after the Trojan war, so around 1180 BC. That's why I like to imagine that Odysseus shoots his arrow through these things, and particularly this, a Minoan labrys from the Iraklion Museum (wishful thinking is a dirty job, but someone has to do it). The Circe vase is a red-figure pelike, see here. And finally, imho the best guys who commented on the magnificent weirdness of the Odyssey are Denys Page, Agathe Thornton and Moses Finley.]

 

Up Next: Narcissus' Dirty Secret and Other Freudian Tales.