Νόστος – Homer’s Hero Returns

Νόστος – Homer’s Hero Returns

            We may not all be warriors and strongmen like Homer’s heroes, but even the lesser mortals among us once in a while get the chance to go home, and those of us who do not get the opportunity to do so, still dream about taking such a trip. It is said that ‘you can’t go back’, but indeed you can. A few years ago we held a town reunion for the small mining town where I grew up and I was asked to write a poem to commemorate the event. This was my offering:

Going Home 

Words recalled and faces I have seen

Paint me pictures of where I have been

While photos crumble and disappear

And fade to blank from year to year

The people postcards in my head

Recall for me what was once seen and said

To smiling faces, to familiar places

I am going home

 

The bonds we formed so long ago

Stay with us as we to and fro

First dates, first dances, first kisses and more

Still touch us to our very core

These memories are treasured in the heart

No matter the distance we are apart

To smiling faces, to familiar places

I am going home

 

There are those loved we all hold dear

Who sadly are no longer here

We wipe a tear and raise a glass

To those dear friends who now have passed

Those we look for and cannot find

Create fond memories in the mind

Smiling faces in familiar places

Who we bring home

 

My glance is over my shoulder now

As life before me wanes somehow

The more uncertain the future looks

The more I wish to connect with hooks

Seeking comfort in old friends again

Embracing laughter, forgetting pain

To smiling faces, to familiar places

I have come home

 

            On many pages of the Iliad one can find a reference to someone’s ‘dear fatherland’ or ‘a safe passage home’ or ‘setting sail for home’. Homer’s heroes seem to be forever casting their eyes over the wine-dark sea and longing for their homelands across the waves. Though he speaks the following words while testing the mettle of his men, King Agamemnon seems to sum up the current feelings that exist among the Achaeans after spending almost ten years in battle.

“I say that the sons of the Achaeans outnumber the Trojans who inhabit that city. However, they have many spear-brandishing allies who greatly hinder me and attempt to keep me from sacking the well-inhabited citadel of Ilium. And now nine years of mighty Zeus have passed by and the masts and ropes of our ships have rotted while our wives and children sit at home awaiting us. But for us, the purpose for which we came here has not been fulfilled. But come now all of you and obey what I command. Let us flee with our ships to our dear fatherland, for we will not now capture the city of Troy with its wide streets.”

            Despite their collective desire to return home, the Achaeans are convinced by Odysseus to stay and fight. He was set upon the task of persuading them to stay, after Hera intervened with the goddess Athena. The Danaans would not allow themselves to be considered cowards for leaving the battle and yielding the field to the Trojans. In this case, Κλέος won out over Νόστος.

Athena circulated among the forces of the Achaeans, urging them onwards, and each one was stirred in his heart to war and battle without hesitation. Immediately the thought of war became sweeter to them than the prospect of returning home to their beloved fatherland in the hollow ships.

            The great hero Achilles, the top fighter among the Achaeans, was faced with the prospect of giving up his Νόστος in order to achieve Κλέος, or fame and glory. An embassy from King Agamemnon was sent to him to try and convince him to return to the fighting. He tells them,

“For my mother the silver-footed goddess Thetis had advised me that a double-fated death approaches me. If I stay here and fight about the city of Troy, then lost is my return home but great will be my fame. If I return home to my dearly beloved fatherland, then my glorious fame will be lost and I will live a long time and the fate of death will not soon come upon me.”

            Fueled by the wrath that he bears for Agamemnon who has seized the girl Briseis from him, Achilles decides that giving up the fight and returning home is the best alternative. It is the death of his beloved companion Patroclus and his desire to seek revenge for his killing that persuades him otherwise. His mother’s prophecy is still very much in his mind and he knows that in staying to fight he will incur and early death, but the prospect of returning home now takes second place to his desire to avenge his friend’s death. The motivating power of Νόστος has been overcome, and even the desire for Κλέος has been surpassed by the forces of love and revenge.

            The search for the theme of Νόστος in Homer’s Odyssey is an easy one, for the return of the hero is the central theme of the entire narrative. Odysseus is a man on a mission and that mission is to once more set foot on the shores of his beloved Ithaca and to embrace his family who are faithfully awaiting him. He has spent ten years fighting in the Trojan War and now his journey home takes an additional ten years, during which time he encounters many perils and difficulties.

            It is ordained that Odysseus must return home to Ithaca and Zeus tells the messenger Hermes, “Such is his fate to see his dear friends, his high-roofed palace and his native land.”

But this proclamation by the king of the gods is a bit of a spoiler, because we now know, even if Odysseus does not, that whatever perils he may face along the way, he will be successful in his wanderings and return to his beloved home. What we do not know is what will happen to him when he gets there. But in the meantime, while visiting her island, Hermes tells Calypso,

“Zeus now orders you to send him off with all speed for it is not his fate to die here far away from his friends, but it is destined that he should see his friends and his high-roofed palace and his native land.”

            That Νόστος, that desire to return home, is such a strong motivating factor that our hero is even willing to give up the prospect of immortality to achieve it. Calypso attempts to persuade him to stay, but does not succeed.

“But if you knew in your heart beforehand all the woe that is fated for you before you come to your homeland, you would prefer to stay here with me and become immortal, despite your fervent wish every day to see your wife.”

            Throughout Homer’s Odyssey we see evidence of our hero uttering his firm desire to return home. Odysseus begs King Alcinous to help him along his way and then prays to Zeus to grant him immortal fame when he agrees to do so. As Odysseus leaves the land of the Phaeacians, Alcinous asks the gods to grant him a safe passage home to see his wife, for he has been so far away from his loved ones and has suffered so much. We discover, through his story-telling, that the wandering hero has indeed suffered greatly during his wanderings. The blinded Cyclops prayed for evil to befall him during his journey home and that if he should ever reach there, that he does so as a broken and lonely man. Despite all the hardships that assail him, Odysseus keeps on going and never gives up.

            Finally Odysseus reaches his homeland and Ithaca is in sight. “Now when the brightest star arose, that one which heralds the coming of the light of early Dawn, the seafaring ship approached the island, Ithaca at last.” When he is certain that he has actually made it home, Odysseus raises his hands in prayer and thanksgiving.

Immediately the much-enduring godlike Odysseus rejoiced and he kissed the earth, the giver of grain. Forthwith he raised his hands and prayed to the nymphs. “You Naiad Nymphs, daughters of Zeus, I never thought that I would see you again, but now I greet you with gentle prayers. I will give you gifts, as I have done before, if the daughter of Zeus, she who drives the spoils, allows me to live and permits my son to reach manhood.”

            Our hero is reunited with his dear wife and his son, and while his journey has come to an end, his trials and tribulations have not. There still remains the matter of dealing with the arrogant suitors and solidifying his realm. Odysseus and Penelope comfort each other and share their stories in their marriage bed, and Telemachus and his father and a handful of loyal supporters take care of the business of killing off their enemies. All turns out to be good for the returning hero as his Νόστος is achieved.

            The concept of the wandering hero in ancient literature, one who travels to the ends of the earth on his journey home or elsewhere and even visits the underworld, is one that is not found for the first time in the Odyssey. There are many similarities in Homer’s story to characters and events that are featured in the Sumerian poem The Epic of Gilgamesh, which predates the writing of the Odyssey by several hundreds of years. And Odysseus is not the last wanderer to be featured in Greek and Roman literature. There are many other famous travelers including Jason, Theseus, Heracles and Aeneas and there are also many female wanderers in Greek mythology, including Io, Europa, Ariadne, Medea and Atalanta. In addition to providing authors with the basis for telling an interesting tale, the wandering hero or heroine theme also gives the story-teller a foundation for exploring the topics of discovery, exile, alienation, cultural differences, identity and personal growth and transformation. The theme of Νόστος is an audience attention-grabber, and Homer uses it to his every advantage in both the Iliad and the Odyssey.