Homer the Meteorologist – Part 2: The Odyssey

 

Homer the Meteorologist – Part 2: The Odyssey

            Now that we have studied Homer’s use of weather-related images in the Iliad, in Part 2 of this paper we turn our attention to the same theme in the Odyssey. There is a very interesting study that was reported in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society in 1993 by Randall S. Cerveny of the Department of Geography of Arizona State University in Tempe Arizona. He studied the first eighteen days of the six voyages that Homer reported being taken by various leaders on their way home after the Trojan War, namely Odysseus, Menelaus, Agamemnon, Ajax, Nestor and Diomedes of Argos. Though Homer wrote his account some 600 years after the events of the Trojan War, commonly thought to have occurred in about 1200 BCE, Cerveny reports that the author’s accounts were highly accurate and represented quite accurately the meteorological conditions of the day. One of the conclusions that he makes, based on the evidence presented in the Odyssey, is that these six voyages chronicled actual historical events that happened as reported by Homer. As Cerveny states,

“But if the weather events described by Homer during the Achaeans' return from Troy follow meteorological paradigms, an argument may be proposed for accepting the validity of some of the events that occurred after the fall of Troy as put forth by Homer.”

            Cerveny goes on to say that,

“It would therefore appear that a reasonable chronology of the six major Achaean fleets departing Troy produces a major cyclonic system passing through the Aegean Sea six days after the Achaeans’ departure from Troy.”

And with this assertion, Cerveny gives Homer credit for reporting the first known instance in history of what modern meteorologists have come to refer to as a ‘microburst’. In other words, Homer knew what he was talking about when it came to weather and the author of the study concludes that Homer’s reporting is beyond coincidence.

“A reconstruction of the weather associated with the voyages of the Achaeans in Homer's Odyssey reveals a realistic meteorology. No event that modern scientists would classify as "supernatural" or "miraculous" occurred during the 18 days following the departure from Troy. Rather, the Odyssey shows a remarkably credible set of weather observations.”

His conclusions support my initial assertion that Homer was, at the very least, an amateur meteorologist, if indeed not a historian as well. Let us look more closely at his use of weather-related phenomena in the Odyssey.

            That microburst that Cerveny refers to in his study was a terrific and unexpected storm that struck the fleet of Menelaus as it made its way back from Troy to Sparta. Part of the fleet was driven to Crete and the remainder of the ships were thrown over the waves as far as Egypt. Homer tells us that Menelaus had delayed his journey so that he could give proper burial rites to one of his crew members who had died en route and then disaster struck as they again set forth. Homer describes the storm as follows:

But when he sailed over the wine-dark sea in his hollow ships and arrived in swift course at the height of Malea, then wide-eyed Zeus, whose voice is carried from afar, planned for him a horrid journey and poured over him blasts of raging winds and the waves thickened into mighty things like mountains. Then dividing his fleet in half, some drew near Crete where the Cydonians dwelt around the streams of Iardanus. There is a smooth high cliff, high up facing the sea on the edge of Gortyn in the dark misty ocean, where the Southwest Wind drives huge waves against the headland on the left toward Phaestus and a little rock holds back the great swell. Some of his ships came there and with great effort the men escaped utter destruction but the ships were broken into pieces, dashing against the reef. But the other five dark-prowed ships were born on the wind and the waves brought them to Egypt.

            Menelaus was told that his brother Agamemnon was struck by the same or a similar storm but was saved from destruction by the goddess Hera. Things turned out better for the King of Mycenae.

Your brother escaped the fates and avoided them in his hollow ships for Queen Hera saved him. But when he was about to arrive at the high hills of Malea, then a squall snatched him up and carried him, groaning heavily, over the bountiful sea to the farthest part of the land where Thyestes had dwelt in the past but now where Aegisthus the son of Thyestes lived. From that place he was shown a safe way home and the gods changed the winds so that they blew fairly and they indeed got home. Then Agamemnon rejoiced to set foot on his native and he touched it with his hands and kissed it and many hot tears flowed from his eyes for his land was indeed a welcome sight for him.

            This one major storm struck Odysseus as well with disastrous consequences. Calypso reported to Hermes what had happened.

I saved him when he was floating alone on the ship’s keel after Zeus had struck his swift ship with a thunderbolt and had shattered it in the middle of the wine-dark sea. All the rest of his goodly companions perished there but the wind and the waves carried him along and brought him here.

            Then, as he sailed towards Phaeacia, Poseidon unleashed his fury on Odysseus.

So he spoke and gathered the clouds and taking his trident in his hands, he roused up the sea and stirred up the blasts of all kinds of winds and hid all the land and the sea with clouds and night descended from the heavens. The East Wind and the South Wind clashed together and the fierce-blowing West Wind and the North Wind, born in the clear sky, rolled a great wave before him.

Thereupon a great wave tossed him this way and that along his course. Just like in autumn when the North Wind blows the thistles over the plain and carries them along clinging to one another, so did the winds push his raft this way and that over the sea. Now the South Wind blew it to the North Wind to drive it along and then the East Wind would give it up to the West Wind to push it forward.

            In telling his story in the palace of King Alcinous in Scheria, Odysseus described what happened to him off of Calypso’s island, “Zeus had struck my swift ship with a bright thunderbolt and had shattered it in the middle of the wine-dark sea.” He also spoke of how Poseidon had attacked him at sea and had driven him to the king’s shore. “He stirred up the winds against me and blocked my way forward and roused up the unutterable seas and the waves would not allow me to stay aboard my raft and I groaned ceaselessly. The hurricane scattered me to the winds and I swam through the midst of the sea until such time as the winds and the water brought me to your land.”

            Odysseus made a detailed report of his travels to King Alcinous and his retinue. He talked about how they were tossed around by the winds after his crew members had opened the bag that Aeolus had given him and later how they had rowed for seven days in calm waters after those same winds had disappeared. He mentioned the helpful following wind that Circe had arranged for them after they had left her palace to continue their journey, as well as the storm that hit them on the island of Helios.

But when it was the third watch of the night and the stars had moved across the sky, then Zeus the cloud-gatherer whipped up a strong wind against us and a roaring tempest and hid the land and the sea with a great mass of clouds and night descended from the heavens. When rosy-fingered Dawn arose, we dragged the ship and harboured it in a hollow cavern.

Odysseus reported that the South Wind blew for over a month and stranded them on the island of Helios. Finally the adverse winds ceased and a storm ushered in weather more suitable for sailing, but their peace at sea did not last long.

It did not sail on for a long time for right away the furious shrieking West Wind arose and blew with a raging tempest and the wind’s blast shattered the forward stays and the mast fell backwards and all the tackle was scattered over the hold.

Zeus thundered and hurled his thunderbolt at the ship and all whirled around struck with terror and there was the stink of sulphur and my comrades fell from the ship.

Then the West Wind stopped blowing tumultuously and the South Wind arose rapidly and that carried pain into my heart in case I was swept back again to destructive Charybdis.

            Odysseus told Eumaeus the swineherd the fictional story of his coming to Ithaca and reported his journey from Crete, which went without incident for the winds were favourable.

On the seventh day we went aboard and sailed from broad Crete and with the North Wind blowing freshly, we sailed along easily like we were going downhill. No harm came to my ships and they were unscathed and sound and the wind and the helmsman made straight our path.

Then disaster struck one more time as they approached the land.

After we had left Crete and no other land was in sight, but only sea and sky, the son of Cronos covered the hollow ship with a great mass of black clouds and the sea grew dark beneath the ship. Then Zeus thundered and cast a thunder-bolt against the ship, which shook from one end to the other when it was struck and the smell of sulphur smoke filled the air and all the crew fell out of the ship.

A foul night came and a frosty North Wind blew cold. Snow fell down on us from above and ice crystals formed on our shields.

            Unlike his stories in the Iliad, Homer rarely used weather-related similes in the Odyssey to enhance his narrative. One exception was when he was weaving a tale of fiction for Penelope, as he sat in her home disguised as a beggar. He likened her tears to the melting snow.

In this way he spoke falsehoods but they appeared to be true and on hearing them she shed tears and her face melted, in the same way that snow melts on a lofty hill, the snow that the East Wind melts after the West Wind has blown it and as it melts down, the rivers flow full. In the same way her cheeks melted as the tears flowed down them, as she lamented for her husband who was actually sitting right beside her.

            Once he had revealed himself to Penelope, Odysseus told her the entire story of his ten year journey home and included such events as when “a hurricane snatched him up and carried him over the abundant sea” as well as when “the high-thundering Zeus had smote his pointed ships with a smoky thunderbolt”.

            The Odyssey comes to a conclusion with one final thunderbolt being cast by the son of Cronos.

Then the much-enduring godlike Odysseus shouted terribly and rushed upon them like an eagle in flight. But the son of Cronos sent forth a smoky thunderbolt and down it fell in front of the flashing-eyed daughter of the mighty father. Then flashing-eyed Athena spoke to Odysseus. “Zeus-fostered son of Laertes, resourceful Odysseus, restrain yourself and make an end to any strife that resembles war, lest the son of Cronos becomes angry with you, namely Zeus whose voice is heard from afar.”

Homer’s treatment of weather-related phenomena in the Odyssey is very different from what we encounter in the Iliad. In the first epic, Homer makes extensive use of the simile, a literary device designed to compare something familiar with something unfamiliar. He uses the weather to help his listeners clearly picture in their minds an accurate image of what he is saying. For example, his listeners may never have witnessed a warrior or an army in action on the battlefield, but they would certainly be familiar with the image of a storm lashing the land and the sea. Homer draws the comparison between the two:

He seized all of these leaders of the Danaans and thereafter the whole throng, just like when the West Wind drives the mass of clouds of the white South Wind and besets them with a violent storm. Many swollen waves roll onwards and the spray is cast and scattered beneath the wild raging wind. In the same way were many of those warriors laid low by Hector.

            I have found just the one weather-related simile in the Odyssey but numerous reports of seemingly accurate weather-related events. As noted previously, Cerveny contends that many of these reports are of actual historical events, and that their presence in the epic is beyond coincidence.    

I have spent the past year and a half translating the Iliad and the Odyssey and after completing only twenty lines of the Odyssey, I reached the conclusion that they were the products of different authors. I said at the time that the Iliad was written by a story teller and that the Odyssey was written by a news reporter. I believe that the very different treatments afforded weather-related events and phenomena in the Iliad and the Odyssey bears out this conclusion. The story-teller ‘Homer meteorologist’ uses the weather in the Iliad to enhance the narrative, to make it more believable to the listener and to paint a canvas to admire. The news reporter ‘Homer meteorologist’ in the Odyssey simply reports weather events as they happened. Story teller or news reporter notwithstanding, with his in-depth knowledge of weather, Homer at the very least can be called an amateur meteorologist.