The Odyssey

  413-71: Meanwhile Rumor had rapidly spread word round town of the suitors' violent deaths, and those who heard it gathered, wailing, outside Odysseus' house. They fetched away their dead and buried them; those from other islands put the bodies on ships to be ferried home, but themselves went to the assembly place, mourning. Antinoos' father, Eupeithes, grieving for his son, spoke to them: This man's committed vile acts against the Achaians! First he lost many men who crewed his ships. Then he came back and slaughtered the best of the Kephallenes! Let's get after him before he slips away, to Pylos or Elis: we'll be disgraced forever, if we don't avenge our sons' and brothers' deaths! It'd be no pleasure for me to go on living otherwise: I'd sooner die (413-37). Medon and Phemios arrived. Medon said: Odysseus had divine backing for what he did. I saw one god, who stood by him and joined the killing in the likeness of Mentor: he scared the suitors, and dispatched many of them. At this fear gripped them. Then old Halitherses, the seer, spoke: What happened was your own fault! you wouldn't listen to me or Mentor, and stop your sons' criminal folly, wasting the substance and abusing the wife of a nobleman they said would never return. So don't let's take violent action, don't bring disaster on yourselves. At this more than half sprang up shouting angrily (the rest sat tight, said nothing), because they agreed with Eupeithes. They rushed to get arms, then reassembled outside the city, with Eupeithes leading, thinking he'd avenge his son's murder (438-71).

  472-548: Athene now questioned Zeus, saying: What purpose do you have in mind now? Do you mean to foster civil war? Or will you reconcile the two sides in friendship? Zeus replied: Why question me thus? Wasn't it you who arranged for Odysseus to take revenge on these men when he returned? So please yourself, but I'll tell you what's fitting. Now that Odysseus has paid back the suitors, let them [the Ithakans/Kephallenes] all swear this oath: He's still to be king, for life. They and he are to be friends as before--our part will be to make them forget the killing of their sons and brothers, and to have wealth and peace abound. So saying, he encouraged Athene (who was eager enough already), and she swooped down from Olympos (472-88). Meanwhile, when they'd finished their meal, Odysseus said: Someone go outside and see if they're near. A son of Dolios went to the doorway, looked, and said: They're coming! We need to arm. They all got up and donned their armor. Odysseus and his men were four; there were six sons of Dolios, as well as Laertes and Dolios himself, both of whom armed themselves perforce, despite their age. Then they went out, Odysseus leading. Now Athene approached them, in the likeness of Mentor. Odysseus was glad to see her. To Telemachos he said: Son, you're now where battle reveals the bravest. This is where you learn not to disgrace our ancestors, who in time past have shone in strength and bravery worldwide. Telemachos replied: Watch me! If my courage holds, I'll bring no disgrace on our ancestry! Laertes said: What a day, gods! My son and grandson arguing about who's the braver! (489-515) Athene stood by him and said, breathing great strength into him: Son of Arkeisios, of all my comrades the dearest, pray to the grey-eyed maiden and to Zeus, then throw your spear! He prayed and threw, piercing Eupeithes through his helmet, felling him. Odysseus and Telemachos now charged the front-rank fighters, attacking with sword and spear, and would have killed them all had Athene not stopped them, shouting: Stop fighting, men of Ithake! You need to part without bloodshed! Terrified, they dropped their weapons, and turned back toward the city, trying to save their lives. Odysseus now gave a fearsome shout and went for them like an eagle. But Zeus then flung down a smoldering thunderbolt, that landed in front of Athene, who said to Odysseus: Hold off, stop fighting, or I fear Zeus may become angry with you! He obeyed, and rejoiced at heart. Then a solemn oath of peace for the future was imposed on both sides by Pallas Athene, likening herself to Mentor in both voice and appearance (516-48).

  Notes

  INTRODUCTION

  1.The review appeared in the Times Literary Supplement, no. 5867 (September 11, 2015): 10.

  2.On this, see now West 2014, 69-82.

  3.For other improbable similes, see, e.g., 6.232-35; 7.106; 20.25-27.

  4.See 16.281-98 and n. 2 ad loc.

  5.The Greek, protes steileies, is of uncertain meaning: it seems to refer to the end (protes) of the axe's helve, haft, or handle, leaving the exact nature of the hole undescribed.

  6.As West (2014, 115) rightly says: "Neither the individual adventures nor the travelling from one to the next occupied long periods of time. It was hard to make them fill up ten years in aggregate, and Q [West's title for our Odyssey's composer] only makes it at all plausible by keeping his hero's progress stalled for a year with Circe and for seven years with Calypso. It has struck more than one scholar that without that stay with Calypso the ten years would be reduced to three: just the length of time suggested by the references to the suitors' three-year presence in the palace and Penelope's three years of weaving." That of course, would leave Telemachos a mere thirteen-year-old. Not impossible: children grew up fast and early then.

  7.Some of what follows here has been adapted from my review-article "Homer Now," published in The New Republic 243, no. 10 (June 28, 2012): 36-41, and is used by kind permission.

  8.Preface on translation prefixed to the Second Miscellany (1685), reprinted in The Works of John Dryden, ed. G. Saintsbury (Edinburgh, 1885), 12: 281-82.

  9.In fact, it was not as long as the clumsy (and rhymed) "fourteener" employed to translate Homer (1598-1616) by the Elizabethan scholar George Chapman, who has always had a good press from literary critics.

  10.See his remarks in The Aeneid of Virgil (Garden City, NY, 1953), 8-9.

  11.Indeed, a similar argument, and comparison, could be made in justification of yet another translation of the Odyssey: Would anyone ever raise serious objections to one more interpretation of J.S. Bach's six unaccompanied suites for cello?

  12.A nice instance in the Odyssey is the Homeric use (paralleled in Latin) of the human head as a summation, personal no less than physical, of the individual: most famous from the Underworld (e.g., at 10.521) as the "weak heads of the dead."

  BOOK 1

  1.The epithet applied to Aigisthos is amumon, which usually carries the formulaic meaning "blameless" or "peerless." This seems inappropriate here, since Aigisthos murdered his cousin Agamemnon. A.A. Parry 1973, 123-24 argues on etymological grounds that amumon could also mean "handsome" or "stately." I accept this explanation faute de mieux, but suspect (see pp. 15-17 above) there may be some other reason for the presence of the surprising formulaic title.

  2.There is an untranslatable pun here (and elsewhere) involving the name Odysseus and the verb odussomai, meaning to hate, or be wrathful. Cf. 19.409 and note ad loc.

  BOOK 2

  1.The term "Achaians" is properly used of the Greeks as a whole in Troy (e.g., at 1.239, 326). But the author of the Odyssey also applies it throughout, incorrectly, to the male inhabitants of Ithake.

  2.Tyro, daughter of Salmoneus, king of Elis, and married to Kretheus, bore Neleus to the god Poseidon, and was thus Nestor's grandmother. Alkmene, Amphitryon's wife, bore Herakles to Zeus. Mykene, daughter of the Argive river god Inachos, and mother of Argos, was the eponymous heroine of Mykenai (Mycenae), but is otherwise unknown to us. Whether she too bore offspring to a god while married is uncertain. They all seem singularly unsuited as parallels to the faithful wife Penelope. Nor is there any reason (Stephanie West in Comm., 1:139) to regard them as especially shrewd planners. These three great names from the past make for a vaguely flattering comparison, but that is all. As we shall see, Antinoos' rhetoric tends to be hit-and-miss.

  3.The Furies (Erinyes) were born to Gaia (Hes., Th. 185, with West's note) specifically to pursue intrafamilial crimes, from the castration of Ouranos by Kronos on. For their support of mothers against sons, see, e.g., 11.279-80; Il. 21.412-13; they were also associated with curses (Comm., 1: 140).

  4.This line is missing from numerous MSS, and largely ignored by ancient commentators; as West points out (Comm., 1: 143), it is clearly modeled on Il. 1.562
.

  BOOK 3

  1.This line (identical with 1.95) is clearly an interpolation. It is missing from most medieval mss (and also from two papyri: Comm., 1: 165).

  2.Amphitrite was a sea goddess: a Nereid (q.v. Gloss.) and wife of Poseidon (Hes., Th. 243, 930). Here and at 12.60, she is simply used as an image of the sea; but she is also presented elsewhere (5.422, 12.97) as nurturing or breeding various sea beasts and monsters, e.g., sharks and dolphins.

  3.Nestor's narrative (262-75) is clearly based on a very reasonable tradition that saw Aigisthos as having seduced Klytaimnestra while Agamemnon was still in Troy: see pp. 15-17 above.

  4.The drops were a preliminary ritual, designed to be poured out by way of libation.

  BOOK 4

  1.This was Neoptolemos, also known as Pyrrhos, Achilles' only son, conceived on Skyros by Deidameia when Achilles was concealed there as a girl (Cypria, fr. 19; West 2003, 96-99). The alternative version has Achilles blown off course and putting in to Skyros, clearly an attempt to provide a more "manly" occasion for his son's begetting. After the death of Achilles, whose armor Neoptolemos inherited, Odysseus fetched him to Troy (Little Iliad, arg. 3; West 2003, 122-23), where he was one of the select band in the Wooden Horse. For his subsequent career, see 11.505-37 below and HE, 2: 569-70.

  2.The name is unknown. Achilles' Homeric kingdom of Phthie formed part of the SE tetrad of Thessaly (BA, 55, C-D 3).

  3.Again, we see that these elaborate travels have no purpose but to explain how it was that Menelaos somehow did not return home while Aigisthos was still alive, during his seven-year rule of Mykenai. See also pp. 17-18 above.

  4.Presumably, this refers to the claim, to which commentators pay scant attention, that when Paris ran off with Helen, they also carried off--we are not told how--much family treasure (Cypria, arg. 2; West 2003, 68-71). "We may find it hard to sympathize with this lament for bygone prosperity in view of the preceding emphasis on Menelaus' riches," Stephanie West observes (Comm., 1: 199).

  5.The Homeric gold talent was certainly far lighter than the classical silver talent, which weighed approximately 57 1/2 lbs. In gold this would have had a huge value, far beyond anything possible on the occasions where Homer mentions it. If William Ridgway (cited by Leaf, 2: 253-4) was right, it in fact was equivalent in value to one ox, and this would seem a fair estimate in context: 4.526; 8.393; 9.202; 24.274; cf. Il. 9.122, 202, 264; 18.507; 19.247; 23.69, 614, 751, 796; 24.232.

  6.The charmingly aristocratic Antilochos, Nestor's son and Peisistratos' brother, a frequent presence in the Iliad, close friend of Achilles', and the only person who ever makes him smile (Il. 23.555-6), was killed by the Dawn's son Memnon, whom Achilles then slew (Aeth., arg. 2; West 2003, 110-13).

  7."Only one species of seal occurs in Mediterranean waters, the Mediterranean monk seal, Stenorhynchus albiventer, now an endangered species" (S. West, Comm., 1: 219).

  8.Who this sea goddess is remains uncertain: probably either Thetis or Amphitrite.

  9.The epithet ambrosios has a range of meanings, from "fragrant, sweet-smelling" to "divine, immortal," sometimes, but not always, with reference to the divine food of the gods, ambrosia (see, e.g., 445 below). It has been suggested (Comm., 1: 220) that, when applied to night (as here) it can also carry the sense of "restorative."

  10.The narrator assumes, correctly, that the audience would know at once that this was not the more famous Aias (1) son of Telamon (q.v. Gloss.), whose madness and suicide were notorious, but Aias (2) son of Oileus (q.v. Gloss.), better known for his rape of Kassandre during the sack of Troy.

  11.This implies that they put up a fierce resistance; but at 11.412-13, they are slaughtered like pigs, and Klytaimnestra (11.410, 424-34) is very much involved in Agamemnon's assassination. See also pp. 15-17 above.

  BOOK 5

  1.This is probably the likeliest interpretation of the phrase diaktoros argeiphontes, a titular epithet of Hermes that has been debated by scholars ever since the Hellenistic age. "Argos" here is taken as referring to the hundred-eyed "all-seeing" monster that guarded Io after her transformation into a white cow by Here (to put a stop to Zeus dallying with her). But it is also the only evidence we have that Hermes slew the monster. See Hainsworth in Comm., 1: 258-59.

  2.In this "unimportant passage constructed of conventional lines" (Comm. 1: 263-64). Hermes is in fact seated too soon for the fomulaic line 91 (omitted in the best MSS, clearly because of the inconsistency) and simply ignores Kalypso's invitation, as indeed she does herself.

  3.The offense was that of Aias son of Oileus, who had raped Kassandre at the sack if Troy and profaned Athene's altar where she sought refuge: Sack of Ilion, arg. 3; West 2003, 146-47, cf. Returns, arg. 3; West 2003, 154-55.

  4.See 15.404 and n. 8 ad loc.

  5.As Stanford 1971 (1: 300-301) observes, H. here lists "the four most striking constellations of the northern sky" (cf. Il. 18.487-89). This is H.'s sole reference to astronavigation: in most of the Aegean, sailors could take bearings from visible land. But, like the eastern Mediterranean, the sea surrounding Kalypso's island was thought of as vast and landless. The Bear that Odysseus watched as a guiding beacon was Ursa Major, with a possible error of as much as 13deg. (Ursa Minor, used by the Phoenicians, did much better at 4deg.) The Pleiades and Bootes were more often used to mark seasons: their functions in ancient navigation are uncertain. Cf. Hainsworth in Comm., 1: 276-78.

  6.While true in the context of stars that H. himself mentions, there were in fact one or two other stars that were circumpolar in antiquity (e.g., Draco in Ursa Minor and most of Cepheus). Today, owing to the precession of the equinoxes, most of the southernmost stars of Ursa Major now dip below the horizon for an observer in Greek latitudes (Hainsworth in Comm., 1: 276-78).

  7."Far off" indeed. Major Homeric deities (especially Zeus) are long-sighted: Poseidon (cf. Il. 13.11) is no exception. But Odysseus is sailing in an easterly direction from western seas; and the Solymoi seem to have been located as far east as Lycia (Hdt. 1.173; Hainsworth in Comm., 1: 279). This caused confusion in antiquity: Strabo (1.2.10, 28) used a far-fetched argument to suggest that H. was really referring to Ethiopia. Possibly we have here a survival from a very different variant return route of Odysseus.

  8.See 19.409 and note ad loc.

  9.See 19.409 with note ad loc.

  BOOK 6

  1.At first sight this looks an odd provision; but in H. it invariably follows any kind of bathing, and we see below (line 96) that the girls took a dip before lunch when they'd finished the laundry.

  2.The entire passage, simile and all, is designed to emphasize Odysseus' ultra-masculine appearance in erotic terms. A direct signifier is provided by the verb used here for "mingle," mixesthai, which is also the regular verb in H. for having sexual intercourse.

  3.Nausikaa never completes this sentence directly, though the point of what she wants to stress becomes clear from line 273 on. The whole speech is a cleverly contrived fast nervous gabble: despite her control of the situation, the king's daughter is nevertheless embarrassed by the social situation (there's bound to be gossip) and its undeniably erotic--and marital--associations.

  BOOK 7

  1.We learn from C.W. Shelmerdine, The Perfume Industry of Mycenaean Pylos (1985), 505-96, the perhaps surprising fact that fabrics treated with oil became "not greasy, but supple and shining," and remained so after washing.

  2.I owe this brilliantly ingenious translation of meliphrona to the late Albert Lord, who communicated it to me years ago, when we were working together in Chicago on a radio dramatization of the Odyssey.

  3.The Spinners (Klothes) are mentioned as such only here by H.: the name is a personification taken from the verb klothein, to spin, this being the action, real or metaphorical, performed to determine each individual's destiny by what were first in Hesiod identified as the three Fates, Klotho, Lachesis, and Atropos (Moirai, Hes., Th. 218, 905).

  4.A group of huge and monstrous beings, the offspring of Ge (Earth) and the b
lood of Ouranos (Hes., Th. 185; Apollod. 1.6.1). H. refers to them again at Od. 7.59. The great battle between Gods and Giants (Gigantomachy), won by the gods in an epic struggle, was one of the most popular Greek myths, and later came to symbolize the triumphant fight of civilization against barbarism.

  5.One of several improbably lengthy delays necessitated directly by placing the commencement of Aigisthos' seven-year reign over Mykenai after the murder of Agamemnon on his return from Troy. See pp. 17-18 above.

  6.Scheria must be thought of as lying somewhere in the far west, since Euboia, the long island lying off the E. coast of Attika, could hardly be better known to either mainland or Ionian Greeks. In Comm., 7: 339, Hainsworth also suggests the possibility of "some proverbial comparison predating the colonial era," but this seems unlikely.