Homer’s Women

 

Homer’s Women

            There are those who contend that the Iliad is a true man’s story. It is filled with blood and guts and battles, rearing horses and racing chariots, blood-soaked sands with limbs and heads rolling in the dust. Nothing but testosterone and toxic masculinity! Open me another beer, light up a cigar and let’s get to it! Then there’s the Odyssey. Homer presents us with another story written for guys, this one about a battle-scarred warrior who spends ten years fighting and screwing his way back home, tossed and turned over a relentless sea. You could never make a “chick flick” out of these two stories! But were it not for Homer’s women, there would be no stories to tell. Without Helen there would be no Trojan War. Without Chryseis and Briseis there would be no wrath of Achilles. Without Andromache there would be no reason for the valiant Hector to return to battle. Without Penelope there would be no reason for Odysseus to struggle his way back home, nor would there be anything left of his home when he got there. The Iliad and the Odyssey are just flashpoints of entertaining male-focused action, if you exclude the drama and substance provided by Homer’s women.

            Samuel Butler went so far as to say that the Odyssey was so much a story about women, written for women, that the author must have been female. He shocked the classical world with his 1897 book entitled, The Authoress of the Odyssey, wherein he suggested that a spirited young Sicilian woman wrote the Odyssey and that the story was centered, not in Ithaca, but in Trapani on the west coast of Sicily. Academics of the time chose mainly to ignore him and what they deemed to be his ridiculous notion, and Butler used their disdain as ammunition to defend his thesis. He made the point that if they could have mounted any definitive arguments against his conclusions, they would have done so, but since they chose not to, this was further proof of the validity of his theory about female authorship. We do not need go as far as Butler did, but there is significant evidence to suggest that women played an absolutely critical role in Homer’s narratives, even if their author was not a woman.

            An interesting series of essays was published in 1999 under the title, What If ? The World’s Foremost Military Historians Imagine What Might Have Been. In twenty essays and fourteen sidebars, the historians tackled questions about how the world would have turned out differently, if for example, the Persians had won the Battle of Salamis, or if the Spanish Armada had been successful, or if the Americans had lost the Revolutionary War, or if Napoleon Bonaparte had done several things differently. What if we applied the concept of “what if?” to the Iliad and the Odyssey, and in particular, what if the women in both works did not figure as prominently or at all?

            What if there had been no Judgement of Paris and the goddess Aphrodite had never offered Helen of Sparta, the wife of Menelaus, to the Trojan prince? Instead of opting for the most beautiful woman in the world, what if instead Paris had chosen the great kingdoms offered by Hera or wisdom and skill in warfare offered by Athena? There would have been no need for Agamemnon to seek vengeance for his brother and to mount an invasion force of Achaeans to return Helen and the Spartan treasure from Troy. There would have been no Trojan War and no story for Homer to write about without Helen, the face that launched a thousand ships.

            In the story told in the Iliad, Helen is depicted as much more than just the immediate cause of the ten year war. We do not know if she was abducted by Paris or whether she went with him voluntarily, but we do see her change over the course of the narrative from a beautiful and shameless adulteress to a self-loathing and regretful woman, and finally to a loving and devoted wife who returns to her husband and his forgiveness, and who lives out the rest of her life as once more the dutiful Queen of Sparta. The story of Helen provides a backdrop for the entire Iliad, but she only makes an appearance six times in the narrative.

            We first meet Helen in Book III of the Iliad. The goddess Iris, in the guise of Helen’s sister-in-law Laodice, calls her away from her weaving, a truly domestic and feminine task, and perhaps an indication that she is more of a willing inhabitant in Troy rather than a captive. She is weaving a tapestry which depicts various battle scenes between the Trojans and the Danaans and is called to the walls of the citadel to witness a real battle, this one between her former husband Menelaus and her new husband Alexander. She is told that the winner of the duel will claim her as his own. We then witness the first indication of Helen’s regret for her actions:

Having spoken thus, the goddess placed in her mind tender thoughts about him who had been her husband, her city and her parents. Quickly she covered herself with a soft white linen shawl and hastened from her chamber, shedding great tears as she did so.

Then shortly afterwards, she addresses her father-in-law Priam, as he asks her about the Achaean warriors on the battlefield beneath the walls of his city. During her conversation with him she refers to herself as a “whore”.

But then Helen, who was like a goddess among women, answered him. “You are both friendly and fearful to me my father-in-law. I wish that a wretched death had been my destiny when I followed your son here, having left my marriage bed, my brothers, my blessed daughter and the lovely companions of my own age. But this did not come to pass and so I melt down in weeping.”

            To give further evidence to Helen’s re-thinking of her actions, the part she has played in the war, her reputation and her regret for having taken up with Paris, we note that, following her meeting with Priam, she shows great reluctance about returning to the Trojan prince’s bedchamber.

“But I will never go there again and attend to his bedside for it would cause indignation             if I were to do so. The Trojan women would sprinkle blame on me forever, but I have constant grief in my soul.”

           Helen is very open about how she feels and tells Paris,

“You have returned from battle, but it would have been better for it to have been your fate to have died there, overcome by a brave man who was once my husband.”

Despite this proclamation, she stills follows him to the bedchamber to make love in their well-carved bed. But still later, she again returns to her deep regret and tells Hector,

“My brother-in-law, wretched and shameless bitch am I, and that day would have been more advantageous to me, when my mother first gave birth to me, had a stormy wind borne me into the mountains or into the waves of the loud-roaring sea, where the swollen waves would have swept me away before these deeds came to pass.”

Later in Book XXIV of the epic, at Hector’s funeral, she again declares that she wishes that she had died before Alexander had brought her to Troy. She is then reunited with Menelaus and unlike the other Trojan women who are taken into slavery by the victors, she returns to Sparta as a loving and devoted wife and queen, having sought and received redemption for her adultery. Did Helen change over the course of her absence from Sparta or did Homer just slowly reveal her true nature to us? Was she a kidnapped princess or just a shameless and beautiful trollop? Was Helen a symbol of moral failure or a tragic victim?

We do not have the answers to these questions, but we do know that the story of Helen plays an integral role in Homer’s Iliad. In fact, without the Helen story as a backdrop, there is no story for Homer to tell, no rationale for the war itself or for the choices which the main characters make. In many respects, Helen is the story and without her we would be reading twenty-four books filled, as I indicated before, with blood and guts and battles, rearing horses and racing chariots, blood-soaked sands with limbs and heads rolling in the dust. Without Helen, Homer is a newscaster. With her, he is a marvellous story-teller with a story to tell.

A similar argument can be made for the key roles played in the Iliad by the two war prizes, Chryseis and Briseis. Without them Homer would not have a story to tell, because his tale is not really about war and all its glory, horrors and trappings, it is about wrath.

Μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος οὐλομένην

Let wrath be your song O Goddess, the accursed rage of Achilles the son of Peleus.

A very logical argument can be made for the assertion that Chryseis and Briseis are keys to the narrative. The Achaeans were encamped on the shores and the plain of Troy for ten years and obviously their army had to be fed. Their main source of fresh supplies came from looting the neighbouring cities of Troy. It was also a chance for the Greeks to keep their army in good fighting trim. All the Danaans had to do was to attack a city, steal its provisions, kill off the men and while they were at it, capture a few women, some to act as camp slaves, and some for pleasure. Chryseis and Briseis were two of the latter and must have been extraordinary beauties because Chryseis was awarded to King Agamemnon as a sex-slave war prize and Briseis was given to Achilles, the most famous Greek warrior. Agamemnon boasted that she was much better than his wife Clytemnestra in all respects. But the problem was that Chryseis was the daughter of Chryses, a priest of Apollo. He attempted to ransom his daughter but was met with scorn and derision by Agamemnon. Smarting from this rebuke and outraged by his daughter’s abduction and violation, he called upon Apollo to strike the Greek forces with a vile pestilence. A plague swept through the Greek army and Agamemnon was forced to return Chryseis to her father, having been exhorted to do so by Achilles among others. To get back at Achilles and to make up for his loss, he demanded that Achilles hand over his own sex-slave Briseis to the king. Achilles reluctantly did so and thereafter refused to take part in the war. He sat in his tent, played his lyre and nursed his wrath. The wrath of Achilles had an enormous impact on events, including a prolongation of the war, intense suffering and death for warriors on both sides of the conflict, the death of Patroclus, the duel with Hector and the violation of his corpse, Priam’s entreaty for the return of his son’s body and the final destruction of Troy. Without Chryseis and Briseis, there would have been no wrath of Achilles. Without the wrath of Achilles, there would be no story for Homer to tell.

Hector’s wife Andromache plays a very different but crucial role in the Iliad. Neither ravishing adulteress nor comely sex-slave, she is instead the epitome of womanhood. She is the very definition of a woman immersed in war and like the mourner in the poem “In the Morning Mist”, we recognize her as a victim of war, but are uncertain whether she is mother, widow, sister or lover.

In the Morning Mist

Morning mists swirl around marble headstones                                                                                         

Like the spirits of the dead who play among the tombs                                                                               

The call of a crow breaks the eerie silence

As a frail and bent figure approaches the grave                                                                                          

She places a single rose on the cold and weathered stone                                                                  

Softly she speaks the words “My Love”                                                                                                

And lingers a moment lost in silent prayer                                                                                             

As she leaves, the sun shines through the mist                                                                                 

And illuminates the words chiseled so long ago                                                                                        

“A Victim of the Great War”

            

            Andromache is the reason why Hector and the Trojans fight. They care little about Alexander’s beautiful slut whose face brought a thousand ships to their shore. They would prefer to throw her from the walls of the citadel, than to lose a single man in her defence and the coward Paris, who created the whole situation in the first place, could soon follow her, in the opinion of the people of Troy. No, Hector and the Trojans fight for their parents, wives, sisters and children and Andromache represents all of them in the Iliad.

            The meeting of Hector and Andromache at the Scaean Gates is the most poignant scene in the Iliad. Andromache begs Hector not to return to the battle but rather to direct its course from within the city walls. She begs him to think about the future and the possibility of her being left a widow and their son Astyanax fatherless. Hector removes his helmet that is frightening his son and holds the child in his arms. The scene shows the deep love for family, the perils of war and its human cost on both individuals and families. Despite the dangers and the possible negative outcomes for the future, Hector is committed to his duty to protect what is dear to him and is driven by the importance of achieving glory, even if death is to occur. Without Andromache and what she stands for, there would be no reason for the Trojans to do battle and Homer would have little to sing about.

            Turning now to Homer’s Odyssey, as stated at the beginning, without Penelope there would be no reason for Odysseus to struggle his way back home, nor would there be anything left for him when he got there. The desire for home and the struggle to return to it is a major theme in the Odyssey and the whole story revolves around this focal point. The faithful Penelope awaits the return of her husband and, in his absence, does her best to protect his home and their son and to save her virtue solely for her mate.

Penelope is most often referred to as faithful. She is besieged by 108 suitors from cities and islands in the surrounding regions, and despite the twenty year absence of her husband, she remains steadfast in her love for him. She is the epitome of the ideal wife and is portrayed as such by Homer. She shows strength and resilience in the face of adversity and places family above all else. She is a faithful wife to Odysseus, a devoted mother to Telemachus, skilled in handiwork and a more than competent housekeeper and protector of the realm. Homer places her on a high pedestal and much of his story is about her. Moreover, all of the various adventures of Odysseus are told from the perspective of his desire and attempts to return to her.

Penelope is also presented as cunning and resourceful. She skillfully manages the impact of the arrogant suitors on the household, cunningly tricks them into believing that she will eventually relent and marry one of them, and strategically protects her son from the evil intentions of those who wish to usurp his rightful place as the heir of Odysseus. Penelope is more than just a blindly devoted wife; she is a cunning strategist and one who has taken over a leadership position in her husband’s absence. Her importance to the story is highlighted by the fact that the story starts with her, not with Odysseus. In fact, we do not even meet the wandering hero of the tale until Book V. The first four books of the Odyssey deal exclusively with Penelope and Telemachus, the very objects of the hero’s journey and the rationale for his return home. Penelope, and all that she stands for, is the backdrop to the story that Homer so skillfully weaves for us.

The other female characters in the Odyssey are indeed vital parts of the Odysseus story, but they serve as well to contrast with or to emphasize further the importance of Penelope to the narrative. Whether divine, semi-divine or mortal, we can see in all of them some aspect of Penelope magnified, reflected or measured against. The goddess Athena, Circe, Calypso, and Nausicaa and her mother Arete are all presented to us by Homer as foils of Penelope.

The goddess Athena and the faithful wife Penelope are very much alike, though one is divine and the other is mortal. They both display wisdom and strategic thinking as they face obstacles and guide and support Odysseus in their separate ways. Penelope shows great support for Odysseus at home, and Athena supports him during his journey as he makes his way back home. Homer uses the persona and the actions of the goddess Athena to magnify the position and the doings of the mortal queen Penelope. He presents her to his listeners as almost reaching divine status. Her actions are deemed as worthy as those performed by a goddess. She is the perfect woman and deserves her place as a central figure in the story.

The naked and shipwrecked hero Odysseus washed up on the shore of the island of Scheria, home of the kingdom of the Phaeacians. He was discovered by the virgin maiden Nausicaa, daughter of King Alcinous and Queen Arete. Her name actually means “ship-burner” which is ironic, because she becomes a great help to Odysseus. The young princess and her handmaidens were surprised to discover the castaway at the shoreline and in their modesty provided him with a robe with which to cover his nakedness. They led him to the castle where, with true stranger hospitality or ‘xenia’, Odysseus was bathed, clothed and fed.

The hero’s principal caregivers were Nausicaa and her mother Arete. Together the mother and the daughter provide a reflection of Penelope and all her virtues. Nausicaa develops a pure love or school-girl crush for Odysseus. She is enthralled by the beleaguered traveller and has thoughts of marrying the handsome stranger. Her girlish instant love for him is the directly opposite mirror image of the long-lasting and faithful love that Penelope maintains for her missing husband. One can envision the type of love which Nausicaa bears for him growing into the kind of love which Penelope carries within her, an acorn of love which has grown into a mighty oak of devotion.

Queen Arete as a hostess cares for Odysseus in much the same way as Penelope does as a wife and offers him advice on how to return to his beloved safely. Odysseus becomes so connected to the Queen, who is a reflection of his own Queen, that he even reveals his identity to her. The man whom he uncovers is not the ‘No-Man’ revealed to the Cyclops Polyphemus. He is the man and as such is treated by Nausicaa and Arete in the same manner that he would be at home. The hospitality afforded him goes far beyond the expected ‘xenia’ of the Greeks. With the focus of the mother and daughter on providing for every need that Odysseus has, in many respects the combination of Nausicaa and Arete creates an alter-Penelope.

 The actions of Circe, on the other hand, portray her as the exact opposite of Penelope. The only similarity between them is the fact that both are wise, cunning and tricky. However, Penelope uses her talents to do good whereas Circe uses hers to do evil. She captures and turns the hero’s crew into swine and it is only because he discovers an antidote to her potion that Odysseus escapes the same fate. But despite the dangers involved and a faithful wife waiting for him at home, Odysseus dallies for a year and spends the time engaged in an illicit love affair with Circe. His flagrant adultery and Circe’s promiscuity contrast sharply with Penelope’s fidelity. Ultimately Circe gives way and provides Odysseus sound advice on how to resume his journey and to accomplish his goal of returning to Ithaca, his family and his kingdom.

Like Circe, the nymph Calypso is the embodiment of all that can be wrong with a woman and hence assumes her role in the story as the antithesis of Penelope. Odysseus is smitten by her charms and spends a total of seven years as her sex-slave. He takes on the role somewhat unwillingly at times, but most often we see him as quite eager to stay. In addition to her beauty and her obvious skill in the bed-chamber, Calypso has a special hold on Odysseus. She has promised him immortality if he stays with her and marries her. The ancient Greeks were driven by the desire for ‘kleos’ or enduring fame, because it was the next best thing to immortality and immortality itself was out of reach for mere mortals. To be offered it was motivation indeed. Odysseus may sit on the shore looking over the wine-dark sea and pine for home, but for seven years he goes back to Calypso’s house each night for more of the same. He displays great weakness, lack of focus and infidelity and we cannot help but compare these failings to Penelope’s strength, faithfulness and steadfastness.

Just as Circe did, Calypso eventually relents, releases her captive sex-slave and helps the hero along his way. Both women are finally overcome by the basic motivation that Odysseus constantly displays to resume his journey and to return home. The story of the Odyssey is most often seen as the story of that journey, but it is as much a story of the destination, the prize at the end that is Penelope. Penelope is very much an equal partner in the story and without her, Homer would have little to sing about, except the hero’s exploits. A journey with no purpose is just an aimless ramble.

On the surface, the Iliad and the Odyssey appear to us to be exciting adventures filled with entertaining stories about fighting men and gods, the gruesome nature of war and the perils of setting sail on the cruel sea. It is like ‘Saturday Night at the Movies’ in a smoke-filled theatre with an open bar. This is real man stuff! But take away Homer’s women and the stories fall flat. There are no stories to tell without Helen, Chryseis, Briseis, Andromache, Nausicaa, Arete, Circe, Calypso and most importantly, Penelope. Was Homer a woman as Samuel Butler suggested? I think not. Was Homer a feminist who presented women in an important role and advocated for their rights and position based on equality of the sexes? He most definitely was, but he did so in a most subtle way. Homer’s women are not overtly thrust to the forefront of the action, but are used discreetly to support the story. Without the firm foundation that they provide, the story would collapse.