Nausicaa & Telemachus – Kids will be kids!

    Nausicaa & Telemachus – Kids will be kids!

The expression teenage angst refers to that normal period of development that young adults in their late teens and early twenties experience as they make the transition to adulthood from childhood. It is a time when emotional turmoil, anger, frustration and confusion seem to reign supreme and episodes demonstrating these emotions are most often driven by hormonal changes, societal pressures and the formation of one’s singular identity. Bouts of anxiety, sadness and irritability are noticeable and parents often find themselves dealing with mood swings, acting out and lashing out, displays of independence, rebellion and sometimes withdrawal. In the Odyssey we witness Nausicaa and Telemachus in the full grip of teenage angst. Homerists think that Princess Nausicaa was likely about sixteen years old and Telemachus was probably twenty-one. Girls mature more quickly than boys and it is not surprising therefore, to see these two youths acting in very similar ways, despite there being about a five year difference in their ages. They are mentally and emotionally the same age.

Proposing that Nausicaa and Telemachus could be viewed as one and the same, David E. Belmont of Washington University, writing in The Classical Journal in October 1967, in his article Telemachus and Nausicaa: A Study of Youth says, “It is my contention that, although the two youngsters quite certainly were derived from a single character in some archetypal yarn about a wily hero, Homer’s use of both, far from betraying poverty of invention and material, is most artistic and carefully contrived.” Belmont continues with this observation: “Dramatically, of course, the presence of two similar figures enhances the over-all texture and complexity of the poem and, moreover, tends to reveal the belief that aristocratic children, in whatever society they may dwell, are (or at least should be) much the same. For this reason it seems clear not only that both Telemachus and Nausicaa are interesting and similar individuals within the story, but also, and more significant yet, that above the mere story level they represent a single universal human type: aristocratic youth ripening into maturity.”

Nausicaa is described as looking like an immortal goddess in her beauty and her form and Odysseus compared her to Artemis and said that he had never seen anyone like her before.

I think you must be Artemis the daughter of the great Zeus, for you are most like her in greatness and stature. But if you are mortal and dwell upon the earth, then three times blessed are your father and honourable mother and three times blessed are all your relatives for their hearts are warmed indeed when they gaze upon a child such as this going in to dance. But blessed above all others is the heart of that man who wins you with his bride price and leads you to his home as his wife. For never have my eyes gazed upon such a mortal as you, neither man nor woman and I look upon you with reverential awe.

            When Odysseus emerged naked from the underbrush, all her handmaidens fled in terror but Nausicaa stood her ground and faced the stranger. With great maturity she offered the stranded traveler the rewards associated with the custom of xenia (guest-friendship) and in doing so, demonstrated the sacred virtue of hospitality.

Stranger, you seem to be not an evil man or one with no sense, and it is Zeus himself the Olympian who gives good fortune to men, both good ones and bad ones, to each one as he determines. I believe that he has meted out your lot to you and now you must put up with it. But now that you have come to our city and land, you will not go without clothing or anything else that a beleaguered supplicant asks for when he comes our way.

            Nausicaa went beyond just offering basic hospitality to the stranger by taking on a motherly role towards Odysseus. She sensed that he needed more substantial help than just nourishment and new clothing and offered to lead him to her city and to introduce him to her parents who could help him on his journey home. But Nausicaa was also cognizant of the fact that introducing a stranger to the city could have some adverse consequences for the kingdom and to her own reputation, so she was very careful about how she proceeded and the instructions that she delivered to Odysseus. In order to get a true picture of the young woman’s personality, both her demeanor and her actions need to be viewed in direct contrast to the immoral scheming and actions of the nymph Calypso and the sorceress Circe. Like those two, Nausicaa was also a woman of great beauty, but she remained pure and unthreatening and demonstrated the importance of caring and compassion. The same could not be said for the two harlots with whom Odysseus spent eight of his last ten years.

            But there is another side to Nausicaa as well. She was still a girl at heart and spent her time dreaming endlessly about her future in a kind of fairy-tale world. She dreamed of love and wedding bells and walking down the aisle in her princess gown. Her character symbolized a kind of youthful innocence and a potential for new beginnings, as she yearned for love and a family of her own. She was smitten by the stranger who appeared naked before her and developed a schoolgirl crush for the beleaguered hero. She said that she could well imagine having a husband like Odysseus, and this hero-worship of hers even impacted her father, who did not hesitate to suggest the same idea to Odysseus. In her encounter with Odysseus, we watch as Nausicaa made the transition from girlhood to womanhood.

            The first four books of the Odyssey have been called the Telemachy as they recount the twofold journey of Telemachus. One the one hand, he journeyed in search of news of his long lost father, and on the other hand, he journeyed from boyhood to manhood. The Telemachy lays the groundwork for the Odyssey and it sets in motion the circumstances that allow for the later confrontation between the hero, his son and the arrogant suitors who sought to destroy their lives. Under the guidance of the goddess, the boy Telemachus came of age as he journeyed between boyhood and manhood. We watch him grow from being a self-centered and petulant youth into a confident and mature man.

            When we first met Telemachus in the Odyssey, he was passive, immature and unsure about his role or his future. Somber and grief-stricken, he pined for his missing father and it was obvious that he had never felt the influence of a man in his life. He was extremely worried that his livelihood was being destroyed by the suitors and that he would have to pay a heavy price financially if his mother agreed to remarry. Feeling that he was trapped and unable to control his own household, he tried throwing his weight around with the suitors but was only laughed at by his perceived enemies. He rebuked his mother and sent her to her room as he asserted that he was the boss of the household. One could just picture Penelope smiling at the ranting of her boy. He gave every indication of being a teenager trying to find his way and not doing a very good job at doing so. He presented himself as a young man filled with self-doubt, lacking confidence and even questioning if he truly was the son of Odysseus.

            Telemachus was encouraged by the goddess Athena to make the trip to Pylos and Sparta to find news of the missing Odysseus. The journey was symbolic of his growth from boyhood to manhood as he witnessed the value of xenia and gained invaluable experience through encountering other kings and heroes. He overcame the challenges of his journey and developed bravery to replace his previous bravado and learned to be more assertive and authoritative so that he could in future take over control of his household. His journey to find himself helped to prepare him to face confrontations in the future and gave birth to the man who would stand bravely beside his father to defeat the suitors. Telemachus’s growth showed him to be a worthy successor to the crown of Ithaca and no longer the passive weakling that he once was. He had become a grown man who was capable of taking his rightful place in society.

            In his commentary, David Belmont goes to great lengths to point out all the similarities between Nausicaa and Telemachus and how the two characters pre-figure Odysseus. He summarizes by saying, “But by the end of the poem, both Telemachus and Nausicaa, already so similar, have also attained the same new maturity, which reveals in them male-female aspects of the universally human nature displayed by Odysseus.” What he is saying in effect is, in order to understand the forces that created the Odysseus that we have come to know now, we simply have to look at Nausicaa and Telemachus, because together they represent the very youth who grew to become the man and the hero that Odysseus became. The kids have become the grown-up. 

Odysseus – A Character Analysis

 

  Odysseus – A Character Analysis

Odysseus certainly gets mixed reviews when it comes to an analysis of his character by Homeric commentators. There are those who regard him as an adulterous, whore-mongering, savage, lying, deceitful, swash-buckling pirate who cheats, lies, steals and screws his way back home and once there, continues to lie and deceive his family, friends and enemies and then wantonly murders 108 local and regional noblemen and strings up 12 downstairs handmaidens, whose only crime was that they had been seduced by these upstairs lotharios. Those on the other side of the argument paint a picture of Odysseus as being a loving family man and leader of men who is wrongly harassed by the gods, and must use his skills and uncanny abilities to overcome all the odds and to weather the storms and the hazards of the sea to be reunited with his family, and to reclaim his rightful place at home in Ithaca. As is typically the case with such arguments, somewhere in the middle lies the truth.

The opening line of the Odyssey reveals what Homer regards as the most important personal characteristic of his hero:

ἄνδρα μοι ἔννεπε, μοῦσα, πολύτροπον,

The word πολύτροπον has been rendered quite differently by many translators over time. Pope translated it as, the man for wisdom’s various arts renowned. Murray (1919) writes the man of many devices. For Wilson (2018) it was, a complicated man. Fitzgerald (1961) offered, that man skilled in all ways of contending. For Butler (1919) it read, the man of many devices. In my translation (2024) I use, that man of many ins and outs. Fagles (1996) says, the man of twists and turns and this is probably closest to the original meaning of the word, many turns or ways.

            No one is quite certain what the name Odysseus actually means and its etymology is uncertain. However we know from Book XIX of the Odyssey how he got his name. Odysseus was the son of Laertes and Anticlea. Soon after he was born, his grandfather Autolycus was visiting their home and the nurse Eurycleia pressed the grandfather to name the child.

Autolycus had come to the rich land of Ithaca when his daughter’s son was just a newborn baby and when he was finishing eating his evening meal, Eurycleia put the baby on his knees and spoke to him. “Autolycus, you must find a name for this child of your own dear child, for he has been much-desired.” Then Autolycus answered her and spoke. “My daughter and her husband gave him whatever name I spoke. Since I have come here angered (ὀδυσσάμενος) by so many, whether by men or women all over the fruitful earth, let Odysseus be given as his significant name. For my part, when he has grown up and comes to the great house of his mother’s people in Parnassus where all my wealth is, I will give it to him and send him off rejoicing.”

            We can gather something of a description of the physical looks of the hero from passages in both the Iliad and the Odyssey. In Book III of the Iliad, Priam and Helen met on the walls of Troy and the old king questioned Helen about the Achaeans on the battlefield before them.

Secondly, when he spotted Odysseus, the old man asked her another question. “Come now my dear child and let me ask who that man is? He is shorter than Agamemnon the son of Atreus by a head but is broader in the chest and shoulders. His weapons lie upon the rich earth but he goes about the ranks of his warriors like a ram. Yes, he is just like a thick-fleeced ram roaming through a large flock of white sheep.” Then Helen, born of Zeus, did answer him. “That is the prudent and crafty Odysseus, son of Laertes, nurtured among the people of Ithaca. He is a rugged one and is known for all sorts of wily strategies and deceits.”

            Later in the same book of the Iliad, Priam’s counsellor Antenor described Odysseus:

Menelaus with his broad shoulders was the tallest of all, but when seated, Odysseus was surely the most impressive. But when they started to weave the fabric of their words and plans, then Menelaus spoke fluently to the assembly, not with many words but clearly spoken, not wordy or rambling, even though he was the younger man. But when the wily Odysseus sprang up to speak, he cast his eyes towards the earth and held his sceptre firmly, neither waving it forward or backward but standing perfectly still like an unskilled man. You would have considered him a senseless man and a fool but when his great voice resonated from his chest and his words were like the snowflakes driven by a wintry storm, then no other mortal would consider wrangling with Odysseus and we no longer marveled at just his appearance.

            At various places in the Odyssey, we are told that Odysseus had bushy locks that hung down from his head and were as thick as the petals of a hyacinth in bloom, that he had a bronze tan and that he had massive thighs, broad shoulders and a brawny chest and thick arms. It is not surprising that we were told at the funeral games of Patroclus that he was a great wrestler. He sounds like a scruffy little barrel-chested guy with a short-man complex, who was well-built and muscular and the type that you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley. He likely made up for his lack of height by being a rough and tumble head-butting, left jabbing/right hooking balls-kicker who pulled no punches if he couldn’t sweet-talk or lie his way out of a fight. I don’t think he was a fighter by nature, because remember that this was the fellow who tried to avoid going to war in the first place by feigning madness back home. Having said that, he was also pictured as a formidable warrior who fought strongly and bravely in many battles, both on the field and in defending the ships.

            Homer often showed us Odysseus assuming a leadership position and not necessarily one that included combat. He was more of a talker than a fighter and others, especially Agamemnon, turned to him for his ability to sway people with his words and to lead them to desired outcomes. He was chosen by Agamemnon to lead the delegation that was charged with returning Chryseis to her father and to arrange for the sacrifices to Apollo to rid the Achaean camp of the plague that was destroying their army. It was the rousing speech of Odysseus that saved the day and reinvigorated the troops and brought order back into the camp when Agamemnon’s plan to inspire his soldiers went awry and they rushed to the ships to abandon the battle. He was also selected to head up the embassy to Achilles to try and convince the son of Peleus to rejoin the fighting. When Achilles was prepared to rage into battle immediately after the death of Patroclus, it was Odysseus the leader who convinced him to allow the Achaeans troops to eat first before fighting. In Book X we saw him leading a night raid with Diomedes into the Trojan camp, having been told by Diomedes that he would not consider making the foray with anyone else. In all these situations, Odysseus was featured in a leadership position where he inspired bravery and loyalty in others.

            The term πολύμητις describes someone who is crafty-minded, of much cunning or of many counsels, and is one of the main epithets Homer used for Odysseus in his epics to signify the hero’s wisdom, skill in contriving, cunning, resourcefulness and cleverness. Odysseus was able to use this aptitude to devise clever solutions to challenges which faced him, to outwit his enemies and to overcome obstacles through strategic thinking and deception. The ruse of the Trojan horse was a prime example of his cunning and deception, as was his ability to outwit the Cyclops Polyphemus by first getting him drunk, and then escaping the monster’s cave by clinging to the underside of his ram. Odysseus adapted well to changing circumstances by using his wits to survive and to protect his crew in dangerous and unfamiliar environments.

            We often think of Odysseus as having been the master of disguise and this theme plays a major role in the story of his journey back home to Ithaca in the Odyssey. This use of deception on his part often gave him the opportunity to gather useful intelligence about people, places and events before actually revealing his true identity. He was able to survey his surroundings and his hosts and be entertained by songs from the bard in the palace of King Alcinous, before bursting into tears and giving away his true identity to those gathered for the banquet. He disguised himself as a beggar on his return to Ithaca and this allowed him the opportunity to test out the loyalty of his followers and to plan the demise of those who were against him. His patron, the goddess Athena, often aided him in his attempts at disguise by transforming his appearance and altering his looks.

            Odysseus was not without his faults, the most serious of which was his hubris. We are told that in ancient Greece, hubris was seen as excessive pride, arrogance and an inflated sense of self-worth that defied the divine order, resulting in the punishment or the downfall of the individual. Hubris was a severe character flaw and this act of overstepping mortal boundaries was considered a cosmic offense, met with divine retribution from the gods, serving as a cautionary tale about human limitations. Odysseus’s hubris or excessive pride often led him to make rash decisions or to take unnecessary risks. For example, when he taunted Polyphemus and revealed his true identity to the monster, he infuriated Poseidon and incurred his wrath, which led to a delay of his journey home and utter destruction for his crew. By allowing his crew to eat the cattle of the sun god Helios, he demonstrated that he thought he could outwit the gods, and this led to disastrous consequences. Hubris was inevitably followed by Nemesis, the goddess of retribution, who punished the offenders. 

            Another flaw that Odysseus had was his unbridled curiosity and this too often got him into trouble. For example, he fell to the temptation of having to explore the Cyclops’s cave and to listen to the song of the Sirens, and both of these led to disastrous consequences for himself and his crew. His loyalty as a leader to his men was also open to suspicion when he decided to spend a year of pleasure in the company of the sorceress Circe, instead of making for home. One could also question his true motivation as a father and husband, when we witness him getting his priorities mixed up and deciding to spend seven years as a whore-monger with Calypso. The fact that he spent time each evening gazing longingly over the sea towards home bears little weight, when we remember how he spent the rest of his nights.

            There is one interesting story in later literary works about Odysseus that, if true, reveals much about his character, but is not part of the Iliad or the Odyssey. Odysseus attempted to avoid going to the Trojan War by feigning madness and acting erratically on his farm in Ithaca. He was caught out in this ruse by Palamedes, who is said to have placed the infant Telemachus in the way of Odysseus’s plow, and the loving father diverted the blade to avoid his son and was thereby uncovered in his deception. Odysseus is said to have never forgiven Palamedes. During the Trojan War, he is said to have framed him for treason with a sack of gold and a letter supposedly written by King Priam, both of which Odysseus ensured fell into the hands of the Greeks. King Agamemnon ordered that Palamedes be stoned to death for his crime. The absence of Palamedes and this event from Homer’s epics is notable, and has been interpreted as a deliberate choice by later story-tellers to paint Odysseus in a more favourable light. If taken at face value, it portrays Odysseus as harbouring deep-seated revenge and possessing a flawed morality.

            The commentator Bardly sums up the character of Odysseus nicely when he writes,

Homer paints a complex portrait of Odysseus as a man of many turns. His positive and negative qualities include: being a political and military leader, a strategist, a loving husband and father, a soldier and sailor with a traumatic past, a pirate, a fugitive, a home owner, a mass murderer and a war hero. In both the Iliad and the Odyssey, Odysseus is known for having a morally ambiguous, Machiavellian side as the end justifies the means type. He’s willing to betray alliances, support whichever side is advantageous at the moment, and win through cunning, without any concern for honour or humane victories on the battlefield. This makes him an ideal candidate for being viewed as a morally grey anti-hero.

The Telemachy & the Odyssey

 

   The Telemachy & the Odyssey

Homer’s Odyssey is the story of the ten year struggle that the Trojan War hero Odysseus endures while he makes his way back home from Troy to Ithaca. He is beset with delays, ravaged by storms, and attacked by monsters, all evils cast upon him by the wrath of the god Poseidon whom he has angered greatly. The Odyssey is comprised of twenty four books, but the first four aren’t even about Odysseus. They ostensibly tell the story of his son Telemachus and the journey that he takes to gather information about his long-lost father, but more importantly, they tell the tale of the journey of Telemachus from boyhood to manhood. These four introductory books to the Odyssey are commonly referred to by Homeric scholars as The Telemachy or Telemacheia.

So what do we know about Telemachus? First of all, his name in Greek means doing battle from afar, with the connotation of fighting from a distance like an archer, rather than one who stays aloof from or avoids the battle. Having a name that is connected to archery would make sense for the boy Telemachus, since his father Odysseus was well-known for his prowess with the bow and arrow. We see later in the epic that Odysseus proves his identity in an archery contest by shooting an arrow through the holes in twelve axe handles. Telemachus is the Prince of Ithaca and his mother is Penelope, queen and wife of Odysseus. He is the only child of the couple named in the Odyssey, but later Greek myths and legends refer to other children fathered by Odysseus with various women. We are told that Telemachus was just an infant when Odysseus left home to go and fight in the Trojan War and so when we combine the length of the war with the reported length of his journey home, we can safely say that Telemachus was in his very early twenties at the time of this story.

The story of the Telemachy is a simple one. Odysseus has been away from home for twenty years and during his absence, his house has been occupied by 108 suitors who are seeking the hand of his mother Penelope. In the meantime, this gang of interlopers are living in the lap of luxury at the expense of the host family, draining the family’s wealth, and paying little attention to the objections of the young prince. He wants to evict the suitors but is not strong enough to do so and is just laughed at. Telemachus decides to go off to visit the kings of Pylos and Sparta in an attempt to find out what has happened to his father and while he is away, the suitors plot his demise and plan an ambush for his return. The first four books of the Odyssey detail the boy’s struggles at home and what he learned about his father while he was away in Pylos and Sparta. While not part of the Telemachy itself, we find out later in the epic that Odysseus returned to Ithaca before his son got back, and that together they kill the suitors who had overtaken their home.

We tend to view Telemachus as just a boy who is trying, with little effect, to push his weight around and who is rebelling against the authority of his mother. In a footnote in his translation of Homer’s Odyssey, Alexander Pope mentions the description of Telemachus provided by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in his writings and commentaries on Homer:

Telemachus is very skilfully drawn, so as to be always subordinate to his father, and yet sufficiently full of promise and opening prowess to justify his heroic blood, and to give him a becoming eminence among the other characters of the poem: and when this is carried so far as to represent him a mere youth, on the point of bending a bow, which the suitors were unable to achieve, the real improbability is lost in sense of poetical propriety, whilst, at the same time, his instantaneous submission to his father’s nod replaces him in the relation of filial inferiority and obedience in which he is always meant permanently to be viewed. Yet Telemachus is not a pleasing character on the whole; his demeanor towards his mother, notwithstanding some occasional expressions of kindness, is generally unaffectionate, and there is sometimes what might be called an interested disposition manifested by him, which prevents us from fully sympathizing in his long-cherished wishes for his father’s return.

We first meet Telemachus when the goddess Athena went to Ithaca and the palace of Odysseus disguised as Mentes. The boy was just sitting there pining for his father and worried about the state of affairs in his own house. Though his house was overrun with suitors gobbling up his inheritance, he bowed to the principle of xenia and welcomed the newcomer.

The goddess first spotted godlike Telemachus for he was sitting among the suitors with a sad heart, thinking about his dear father coming from somewhere and scattering the suitors in the house and reclaiming the mastery of his own domain.

He came up to her and grasped her by the right hand and took the spear of bronze from her and spoke to her with winged words. “Welcome stranger for you are among friends. After you have eaten, you can tell us what you desire.”

Telemachus poured his heart out to the goddess about the loss of his father and we learned from the dialogue that, even though he sought to be reunited with his long-lost father, he was uncertain about his parentage.

I will tell you the entire truth stranger. My mother says that I am his son, but I do not know for sure, nor does any man truly know who his father is. Would that I were the son of some blessed man who grew old among his own possessions, but they say I am the son of the most ill-fated of mortal men, since you ask this of me.

This is an unusual confession for him to make and it makes us wonder whether his chief motivation was to be reunited with his father or to protect the integrity of his inheritance. He later told the goddess that he did not weep and mourn for just his father, but also because the gods had brought other woes upon him like the fact that the suitors were destroying all his wealth and would soon destroy him as well. The lost father seems to take second place to the lost wealth and he said so himself and he also bemoaned the fact that the marital status of his mother could ruin him. To Telemachus, it was all about the money.

First of all, my good and noble father has been utterly destroyed, he who once served you as your king, a most gentle father he was. But now an even bigger evil has arrived which will utterly destroy my household and ruin my livelihood forever.

Antinous, there is no way that I can banish her against her will from the house where she bore and raised me. As for my father, he is alive or dead in some other land. It would be a great price for me to pay back to Icarius if I were to send away my own mother. From her father’s hand I would endure great evil and the gods would send me more for on leaving the house, my mother would call down the terrible Avengers and I will be blamed by men as well. Therefore I will never utter such words.         

            We also saw another side to Telemachus as we watched his interaction with his mother. He was trying to play the big man and strut his stuff and came across as a belligerent teenager striking back at authority. He rebuked his mother soundly and told her that he was the boss around here and sent her to her room. It is interesting that Penelope complied. My Mom would have given me a swift clout to the side of the head and sent me to my room!

Mother dear, why do you bear ill-will towards the minstrel who wishes to sing in whatever way his spirit moves him? It is not the minstrel who is to blame but Zeus who is to blame, he who fetters men who are wage earners, to each one as he pleases. You cannot be angry with this man if he sings about the dreaded fate of the Danaans, for men praise to the highest those songs that are newest to their hearing. For yourself, submit your heart and your mind to what you hear, for not only Odysseus lost the day of his return home in Troy, but many other men were also destroyed there. So go to your room and busy yourself with your work at the loom and the distaff and bid your handmaidens to be busy at their tasks. Speaking shall be the realm of men only and especially for me, since I am the lord of this domain.

Athena then advised Telemachus to journey to Pylos and Sparta to seek news of his father and offered him the following advice which in turn, becomes the central rationale for the Telemachy:

If you hear that your father lives and is returning home, then you could stand it, even if it was for another year. But if you hear that he is dead and gone, then return to your dear fatherland and erect a funeral barrow for him, give him the funeral rites that are due to him and give your mother over to some man to marry. When all this has been done and fully accomplished, then come up with a plan in your mind how all you can slay all these suitors in your hall, either openly or by deception for you are no longer of an age where you can continue to cling to your childhood.

The goddess predicted that the journey that Telemachus would undertake to find out about his father, would become the boy`s own journey from boyhood to manhood and it is upon this theme that the Telemachy revolves.

Telemachus, from this point onwards you will be neither an inferior man nor lack understanding if you have any of your father’s spirit in you, he who did much in word and deed. Your journey shall be accomplished and not be in vain. But if you are not the child of that man and Penelope, then I have no hope that you will do what you desire eagerly. Few sons are truly like their fathers and most of them are worse and very few of them are better than their fathers. But since from now on you will not be inferior nor lack understanding and the wisdom of Odysseus has not abandoned you, then there is hope that your work will be accomplished.

            The first stop that Telemachus made was in Pylos where he visited with wise old King Nestor. The boy was able to hold his own with the aged and revered king. Telemachus behaved with reverence, respect, and growing confidence when with Nestor, showing piety and good sense by observing the religious rituals and displaying tact when addressing the elder statesman. Encouraged by the goddess Athena in her disguise, he overcame initial shyness to ask for news of his father, impressing Nestor with his eloquent speech and demonstrating a deep desire to learn about Odysseus. He participated fully in the traditional rituals of hospitality, and after hearing Nestor's story of Agamemnon's demise at the hands of his wife and her lover, he also requested more information about it, showing his own developing wisdom. 

            Telemachus was a boy at heart when he addressed Nestor, but the request that he made of Menelaus came from the mouth of a man. His words are filled with wisdom and understanding and it is obvious to the listener that he grew in maturity during the time of his journey.

Then the wise Telemachus answered him. “Menelaus, god-fostered son of Atreus and leader of the people, I came here happily in the hope that you might be able to give me some news about the fate of my father. My home is being ravaged, my rich lands are being ruined, and hostile men crowd my home and are forever killing off my flocks of sheep and my sleek cattle with their shambling gait, all these suitors of my mother who are overbearing in their insolence. For that reason I have come to clasp your knees to see if you might be willing to tell me about my father’s woeful death, whether you witnessed it with your own eyes or if you have heard some other story about his wanderings, for beyond all men did his mother bear him for sorrow. And do not out of concern or pity for me just speak soothing words, but tell me truthfully what you saw face-to-face with him. I beg of you, if ever my father, the noble Odysseus, promised you anything or did a good deed for you in the land of the Trojans where you Achaeans suffered such miseries, remember it now and speak to me only the truth.”

Telemachus behaved with decorum, discretion, and gratitude toward Menelaus, adhering to the principles of xenia (guest-host relationship) and demonstrating newfound maturity and confidence as he asked about his father. He showed respect by insisting on receiving the truth about Odysseus, even if it was harsh, and was deeply moved by Menelaus's stories, particularly when they highlighted Odysseus's past glory and current fate. He was a grateful guest, accepting gifts and hospitality while also taking the initiative to ask for information and make his own decisions, indicating his significant growth from the insecure youth who started his journey. In Book II, the suitors looked on Telemachus as a boy who could bring them no harm, but by the end of Book IV, they feared him becoming a man bent on revenge who would stand up to them and they made plans to ambush him and kill him on his return home.

            So ends the Telemachy but not the controversy surrounding it. Many Homeric scholars have long held that the first four books of the Odyssey were not part of the original epic but a later add-on. In the introduction to his translation of the Odyssey, Robert Fagles presents both sides of the argument about the Telemachy. There are some who hold that the entire epic, as we know it, was composed by a single author. Others contend that three separate epics were written by different authors and then combined by someone else to create the entire work. Fagles says that the main argument against this position is that the story of Telemachus by itself is no fit subject for heroic song, because there is nothing heroic about Telemachus until he stands beside his father to kill the suitors. It is hard to imagine the content of the first four books as a separate standalone heroic epic. Fagles says, “A song celebrating the travels of Telemachus is not easy to imagine in the context of a male audience accustomed to tales of adventure and feats of arms.” But a story about a young boy traveling to find his father and himself and listening to tales about his father does make sense, if it is seen as an introduction to a story about the father, who is the subject of those very tales, traveling to find his family and his home.

            The Telemachy lays the groundwork for the Odyssey and it sets in motion the circumstances that allow for the later confrontation between the hero, his son and the arrogant suitors who seek to destroy their lives. Under the guidance of the goddess, the boy Telemachus comes of age as he journeys between boyhood and manhood. We watch him grow from being a self-centered and petulant youth into a confident and mature man.

            James L. McDonald and Norman G. McKendrick of the University of Detroit wrote the following about the Telemachy in their study of Homer and James Joyce, and in doing so, further positioned the Telemachy as being an integral part of the Odyssey.

Homer's Telemacheia has been analyzed as a bildungsroman (coming of age story). It chronicles the education of a young man - Telemachus's growth to maturity and the assumption of his proper role in society, fulfilling his responsibilities in the aristocratic genealogical line of Laertes and Odysseus. The central focus of the poem is on Odysseus's divinely ordained return and his restoration of order in his household and homeland. This focus controls Telemachus's education—his quest for Odysseus. United in Ithaca, father and son reclaim their rights in the kingdom and re-establish justice by slaying the suitors. The saga centering on the Trojan War is brought to a fitting conclusion. Order, decreed by the gods, is restored.

Humour in Homer

 

    Humour in Homer

When you’re writing stories about rape and pillage, war and blood-soaked ground, swords, arrows and spears penetrating bodies at every angle, heads rolling in the dust, shipwrecks and drowning, mass murder and executions, as well as humans being devoured by monsters, it’s hard to find the humour in life or much to laugh about. But Homer does inject some semblance of humour into his stories and uses certain laughable people, gods or events to entertain his audience and to introduce a degree of levity to lighten the mood at times. His humour is certainly never raucous and at times even falls outside the limits of what modern readers might deem funny. But the author’s attempts at humour do provide comic relief from the rather serious themes of both the Iliad and the Odyssey.

The humour that we find in the Iliad tends to be more mocking and satirical and is usually the result of the flawed actions of mortals and especially immortals. As we noted, Homer injects a sense of levity in order to counteract the great and overwhelming tragedy that is at the very heart of his narrative. His is a story of wrath and revenge set on a stage of bloody and awful warfare and hence, even the tiniest hint of humour stands out as quite noticeable. The humour of the Odyssey is clever because Odysseus is clever and this humour is mostly character-driven. It generally comes as a result of the hero’s wit and his interactions with his fellow humans as well as immortals. Homer also uses a certain amount of irony, for example when the audience is aware of what is happening but the characters are not.

The humour in the Iliad typically revolves around the activities of the gods, with one noticeable exception, and that is the incident involving Thersites. Homer’s listeners would have been highly amused by his description of this rabble-rouser.

But Thersites alone, being unbridled of tongue, began to scold them and complain aloud. His mind was full of curses and he rallied at the leaders incessantly and inconsiderately without decorum, anything to get a laugh from the Argives. He was the ugliest man who had come to Ilium and was bandy-legged and lame in one foot. His shoulders were arched over and his chest was sunken and at the top of him he carried a pointed head covered with fuzzy wool-like hair.

The audience would have laughed aloud at how Odysseus spoke to him and how he laid a beating on him to punish him for his outrageous behaviour.

I will take you and strip you of your clothing, your cloak and tunic and the undergarments that hide your privates. I will send you away from the assembly to the swift ships, struck with terror and weeping, having first beaten you soundly. Thus he spoke and he struck his back and shoulders with his sceptre and Thersites shed great tears. A bloody bruise welled up on his back from the blows of the sceptre and being greatly frightened, he sat down. Being in intense pain and feeling rather useless, he wiped away his tears and though they were grieved, the soldiers all laughed at him.

            The other thing that they would have found funny was how King Agamemnon’s plan backfired on him. In an attempt to instil great pride and a renewed fighting spirit in his troops, he suggested that they should just give up trying to conquer Troy after ten years of struggle and make their way back home. His thinking was that the proud warriors would object strongly to this suggestion and rush to arm themselves for battle. Instead, they concluded that his idea was a good one and hurried to the ships in a frenzy so that they could leave. It took the intervention of Odysseus to save the day for the bewildered Agamemnon.

            But as stated, most of the humour in the first epic is centered on the actions of the divine. At a banquet on Mount Olympus, Hephaestus attempted to console his mother and told the story of how, when he was trying to help his mother once before, Zeus had grabbed him by the foot and had flung him from the royal threshold. The lame Hephaestus was always playing the buffoon and his actions usually resulted in laughter.

For at another time when I was trying to help you, he grabbed me by the foot and flung me forth from the royal threshold. I fell all day long and like the setting sun I landed in Lemnos, where with little life left in me the men of Sintia took me in and cared for me. Thus he spoke and the white-armed goddess Hera smiled and having done so, received into her hands the goblet from her child. He poured out sweet nectar from the bowl for all the other gods, starting from the right hand side. The blessed gods erupted in inextinguishable laughter when they saw Hephaestus bustling around the house serving them.

            Another humorous incident occurs in Book XIV of the Iliad when Hera seduces Zeus and makes him fall into a deep sleep so that he cannot interfere in the battle being waged below. She talked Aphrodite into giving up her magical girdle of love and affection and convinced Sleep to assist her in her task. She then sweet-talked Zeus and in his arousal, he followed her into a private bedchamber where they had sex. Fully satisfied by an afternoon of delight, the king of the gods fell asleep and missed the battle. Homer’s audience would not have been able to contain themselves at this story of the gods acting like humans.

            They would also have found humorous the two scenes where gods were wounded by a human in the war. Diomedes, with the help of Athena, wounded Aphrodite on the hand and she left the field of battle and went crying to her father. He also wounded Ares in the stomach with a spear and the god fled back to Olympus. Diomedes became the only warrior in the Iliad who wounded two gods in a single day and this would have struck Homer’s listeners as laughable.

            In Book XXI there is an argument and a fight between Hera and Artemis and no doubt the audience would have found it funny to hear about Hera laying a spanking on the archer goddess.

Thus she spoke and she then grabbed both the other one’s hands by the wrist with her left hand and with her right hand she took the bow and its gear from her shoulders and with these same weapons she turned around and beat her about the ears, smiling all the while as she turned this way and that and the swift arrows fell out of her quiver. Then tearfully the goddess flew from her just like a dove that flies into the cleft of a rock fleeing from a falcon, not destined to be captured. So did the tearful goddess flee and she left her bow behind.

            With the following notable exception, the humour in the Odyssey tended to centre on the actions of men rather than of gods. Demodocus the bard treated his audience to one of the most laughable happenings in either epic. He told the story of how Hephaestus laid a trap for his unfaithful wife Aphrodite and how he caught and entangled her and her lover Ares in their love nest. The gods gathered and made fun of the couple and mere mortals would have found the event quite amusing.

Thus he spoke and all the gods gathered at the house with the bronze floor and Poseidon the earth-mover came and the luck-bringer Hermes and the lord Apollo, the archer. The goddesses stayed in their own homes, all ashamed, but the gods who are the granters of all things, stood in the doorway. Unquenchable laughter arose among the gods when they saw the workings of the wise Hephaestus and spoke as follows when they looked at one another. “Bad deeds do not thrive and the slow will catch the fast, even as now the slow Hephaestus has caught Ares who is the swiftest of all the gods who hold Olympus. Lame though he might be, he has caught him and now Ares owes the fine imposed on one who is caught in adultery.”

            Trickery and deceit were viewed as humorous and of course the Odyssey is filled with both. Penelope’s wit is seen as a source of amusement and the audience would have reveled in her ability to outwit the suitors. Her trick with weaving and unraveling the burial shroud demonstrated the playful side of her character. This naughty side of her was also shown when she faked a growing interest in remarrying and managed in doing so, to elicit a mass of bride gifts from the suitors. It was her way of replenishing her husband’s treasury to compensate for what her admirers were consuming.

            The beggar’s disguise that Odysseus assumed would have been seen as humorous and the audience would have appreciated the irony in many of the events that happened and the words that were spoken while he was so concealed. His treatment by the suitors, even to the extent of having someone throw a footstool at him, his fight with his fellow beggar Irus, and the whole incident with the bow and arrow would have delighted the listeners, especially when Odysseus laughed at Zeus thundering when he strung the bow. They would also have deemed funny the irony in having the suitor Ctesippus, he who threw the footstool, killed by an arrow to the neck shot by the lowly cowherd Philoetius, who caps off the event by musing that the weak are indeed most powerful.

            In his beggar disguise, Odysseus told a story about himself to Eumaeus and in a humorous way, revealed that he was not inspired by the Muse, but by some other source. The listeners would have seen the irony in his comments, because they knew his true identity. Muse inspired stories had to be true because they were divine in origin, but wine inspired ones could be concocted and false.

Listen to me now Eumaeus and all you other comrades for I want to tell you a story. The crazy wine encourages me to speak, wine that causes you to sing and laugh and get up and dance and to say things that were better left unspoken. But now I want to speak out and to hide nothing.

            The suitors did a tremendous amount of laughing while they helped themselves to the belongings of their host and hostess. All of this laughter would have been seen as ironic by Homer’s listeners because they were fully aware of the fate that was in store for the suitors.

Thus spoke Telemachus but Pallas Athena sent uncontrollable laughter onto all the suitors and made them crazy in their minds. Their jaws wagged with mirth-provoking laughter and they were besprinkled with blood as they ate the meat and their eyes were full of tears and their spirits predicted wailing.

So he spoke and they all laughed greatly at him.

But all the suitors glanced at one another and looked to rouse up Telemachus by laughing at his guests.

In the middle of all their laughter, they had prepared their meal which was suitable to all their desires for they had slain many animals.

            In his essay The Humour of Homer, the famed author Samuel Butler (1835-1902) gives us several examples of the witty and funny things that the gods say and do in the Iliad and then he goes on to say,

“The above extracts must suffice as examples of the kind of divine comedy in which Homer brings the gods and goddesses upon the scene.  Among mortals the humour, what there is of it, is confined mainly to the grim taunts which the heroes fling at one another when they are fighting, and more especially to crowing over a fallen foe.”

As far as the Odyssey is concerned, Butler says this,

“And now let us turn to the Odyssey, a work which I myself think of as the Iliad’s better half or wife.  Here we have a poem of more varied interest, instinct with not less genius, and on the whole I should say, if less robust, nevertheless of still greater fascination—one, moreover, the irony of which is pointed neither at gods nor woman, but with one single and perhaps intercalated exception, at man.  Gods and women may sometimes do wrong things, but, except as regards the intrigue between Mars and Venus just referred to, they are never laughed at.”

Later Butler notes that there are several errors in the Odyssey. The most humorous thing about his essay is that he uses the presence of these supposed errors as proof that the Odyssey was written by a woman and not by Homer. In fact, he suggests that the author writes herself into the narrative in the person of the Phaeacian Princess Nausicaa.

“Another very material point of difference between the Iliad and the Odyssey lies in the fact that the Homer of the Iliad always knows what he is talking about, while the supposed Homer of the Odyssey often makes mistakes that betray an almost incredible ignorance of detail.”

            Samuel Butler and his theory about authorship notwithstanding, there is indeed humour to be found in the Iliad and the Odyssey. Much of the humour can be found in the gods being caught in the act of being more mortal than immortal, and this would have amused Homer’s listeners. Some of the humour is centered on the actions of people, but the laughs do not come as a result of slapstick or pratfalls. Usually the laughter comes about from the irony involved in the event itself or in the speech associated with the event. An audience in the know is an audience aglow. The fact remains that the essential subject matter of the two epics is dark in nature and they are both stories of dreadful events, sorrowful anguish and powerful emotions. They dig deep for a strong psychological effect on their listeners and in contrast, the author provides a glimpse of humour for comedic relief for his audience.

The Bards in Homer

    The Bards in Homer

Homer has often been referred to as the blind bard, though despite many historical literary references to the point, there is no concrete evidence to show that there ever was a Homer, or that he might have been blind, if he indeed did exist at all. For my own self-indulgent and sentimental purposes, I like to think that the man was real, although I seriously doubt that he was blind, based on his tremendous and far-reaching knowledge and insight into so many topics. I believe Homer to have been one of the world’s first polymaths. Homer was a wandering bard who entertained folks around the campfire, singing songs and tales about gods and heroes, love affairs and ancient wars, decapitated heads rolling in the dust of the Trojan plain, and unfortunate sailors drowning in the tempest of the wine-dark sea. His stories were so alive and entertaining, that some enterprising young fellow thought that this stuff was pretty good and that it should be preserved for posterity. He must have taken a look at those old Linear B scratching and figured out that he should invent a new alphabet and a system of writing, so that he could get all these stories down on whatever it was he was writing on. Homer’s oral poetry was then committed to writing and years later someone codified it and proclaimed that this was the official version. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. I take the same approach that Samuel Butler did when he penned The Authoress of the Odyssey. Like Butler, I say that if no one puts up an objection to my theory, then it must be correct. End of story!

In the world of ancient Greece, bards were wandering singers called aoidoi, who travelled around from town to town entertaining audiences for days on end, sometimes noble listeners and sometimes just common folk. Bards, or we might today call them minstrels, often accompanied themselves by playing a lyre as they sang. The subject matter of their tales was familiar to their audiences and consisted of well-known stories of historical events or legends from the past. Bards were oral performers who recited their stories from memory and were considered by many to have been divinely inspired. Each bard used his own techniques for committing the stories to memory and often used stock phrases, repeated lines and standardized descriptions of certain events to fill out the narrative. To this core body of memorized familiar material, the bard was able to add his own improvisations to fill out the story or to alter it to some extent to serve the needs of a particular audience, enchanting them as they attended a feast or a religious gathering.

When we consider that Homer’s Iliad consisted of almost 16,000 lines of poetry and the Odyssey another 12,000 lines, the task of memorizing such a body of work seems super-human. The eminent classicist Milman Parry (1902-1935) was able to give us some insight into how a bard could accomplish such a task. Parry suggested that the Homeric style is characterized by the extensive use of fixed expressions or what he called formulas. These formulas were used by the bard as memory aids and allowed for easier improvisation. As part of his work as an assistant professor at Harvard, Parry travelled twice to Yugoslavia where he discovered remote villages of illiterate farmers who were able to recite oral poems of incredible lengths in a modern rendition of the ancient oral tradition. One such song was 13,000 lines long and was performed over the course of five days and there were others that were reported as being longer. Parry discovered that these modern bards used the same formula technique that was employed by aoidoi in ancient Greece. Parry had just scratched the surface of the subject and the classical world was looking for much more from him, but regrettably he died at a young age from an accidental gunshot wound in California in 1935. Tragedy seemed to be part of the Milman family. His son Adam became Chairman of the Yale University Classics Department and sadly, at his young age of 43, he and his wife were killed in a motorcycle accident in France in 1971.

When we look at the bards in Homer, of course we have to start with the man himself. We know nothing about Homer at all from his epics, other than the fact that he sought inspiration from the Muse. To do so was not unusual for bards because such inspiration provided a divine connection that gave their songs power, weight, authority and a link to something greater than just mortal existence. Homer sought that divine inspiration at the beginning of both the Iliad and the Odyssey.

Let wrath be your song O Goddess! Sing of the accursed rage of Achilles, son of Peleus, which brought untold woes to the Achaeans and banished to Hades many stalwart souls of heroes, turning them into carrion for dogs and birds of prey, thereby bringing to final fulfillment the plan of Zeus. Begin your song O Muse at that first sign of strife between the son of Atreus, lord of men, and the divine Achilles.

Speak to me Muse of that man of many ins and outs who traveled far and wide after he had sacked the lofty citadel of Troy. He came to know many cities and the thoughts of many men and many were the evils he suffered at sea while trying to save himself and secure the safe return home of his comrades. But do what he might, he was not able to save his men, for their own recklessness made an end of them, fools that they were, for they ate the cattle of the Hyperion Helios and the god took away from them the day that they would ever return home. Tell me all about this O goddess, daughter of Zeus, and start your story wherever you like.

            Invoking the Muse, who was presumably Calliope the goddess of poetry, established both works as products of divine inspiration and informed the listeners that the bard was not just telling his own story, but rather he was recounting to them what the Muse inspired in him. The bard became a conduit from the divine and as such, his message bore an increased level of importance and full attention needed to be paid to it as a consequence. When Homer was about to present the famous Catalogue of the Ships, he again invoked the divine. He did so for two reasons. The first was to be able to establish the veracity of the information presented in the minds of the listeners because it was a product of divine inspiration, and the second was to be able link those present with what happened historically, an important feature because many times the bard would have found himself presenting his story in places actually featured in the catalogue.

Speak to me now O ye Muses who dwell on Olympus, you who hear and know all things, for we only hear distant news and know little. Who were the leaders and lords of the Danaans? For I could never describe the extent of the throng gathered, not even if I had ten tongues and ten mouths, a voice that was never unbroken and a heart made of bronze. Remind me then o Olympian Muses, daughters of aegis-bearing Zeus, of all those who were gathered under Ilium. Now then I can recite who were the leaders and the numbers of their ships.

            While there are no bards as such mentioned in the Iliad, we know that Homer was the narrator of the story. Some scholars also suggest that Helen acted as a bard, insofar as she was presented as weaving the story of the events of the Trojan War on a tapestry.

She found her in a large hall where she was toiling away weaving a great double-folded tapestry which featured the battles of the horse-taming Trojans and the bonze-clad Achaeans that on her behalf they had endured at the hands of Ares.

            There was one other character in the Iliad who somewhat assumed the role of a bard, and that was Achilles. After he had been humiliated by Agamemnon in the Briseis affair, he retired to his tent and refused to play any further part in the fighting. A delegation sent to convince him otherwise found him singing and playing like a true bard.

They then came to the encampment and the ships of the Myrmidons and there they found Achilles playing on a lyre that was beautifully wrought and had a bridge of silver. It was part of the spoils that he had taken when he sacked the city of Eetion and he was now gladdening his heart with it singing about the exploits of men. Patroclus sat in silence and alone across from him waiting for the son of Aiakos to finish his song.

            But we have to turn to the Odyssey in order to find the two real bards that Homer featured in his story, Phemius and Demodocus. Phemius was the bard who sang and played in the palace at Ithaca and Demodocus was the blind bard in the palace of Phaeacian King Alcinous and Queen Arete in the land of Scheria. The presence of both bards helps Homer emphasize the value of the oral tradition and the power that narrative has to form and shape the reputation of the hero.

            The first bard that we meet in the Odyssey is Phemius, who was forced to play for the ‘enemy’, as it were. He was devoted to Odysseus and his family and the suitors would not have been his chosen audience, but nevertheless he performed well for them.

After the suitors had had their fill of food and drink, their desires turned in other directions, to dancing and to singing which are the highlights of any feast. A herald placed a very beautiful lyre into the hands of Phemius who was compelled to sing among the suitors and he played lovely music for them.

            Homer tells us that Phemius was singing about the terrible time that the Achaeans had in returning from the Trojan War and that Penelope heard the song when she came down from her chamber and she was so distressed by it that she was reduced to tears. She told Phemius, whom Homer describes as the godlike minstrel, to sing a different tune.

Phemius, you know many things that are charming to mortals, the deeds of men and gods that you make famous in song. Sing about one of these as you sit here and let them drink their wine in silence. Cease this baneful song for it distresses my dear heart and above all other women it brings me sorrows that cannot be forgotten. It reminds me so much of that dear head, my husband, whose fame is so well known in Hellas and throughout the middle of Argos.

            Her son Telemachus rebuked her and reminded his mother of the importance of the bard to society. We can interpret what he said as being Homer’s own opinion of the high place that minstrels occupied.

Mother dear, why do you bear ill-will towards the minstrel who wishes to sing in whatever way his spirit moves him? It is not the minstrel who is to blame but Zeus who is to blame, he who fetters men who are wage earners, to each one as he pleases. You cannot be angry with this man if he sings about the dreaded fate of the Danaans, for men praise to the highest those songs that are newest to their hearing.

            Phemius appeared again later in the story while the slaughter of the suitors was taking place. He was trying to plan his escape and decided to plead directly with Odysseus for his life. In the end, Telemachus interceded on his behalf and asked his father to spare blameless Phemius and the herald Medon.

Now Phemius the son of Terpes, who was the minstrel who sang among the noble suitors, was trying to escape from a black fate. He stood with his clear-sounding lyre in his hands near the back door that was high in the wall… it came to him that it would be more profitable for him to grasp the knees of Odysseus, the son of Laertes.

By your knees I beseech you Odysseus, show me respect and have pity on me please. Great sorrow will come to you later if you strike a minstrel like me who sings to the gods and men. I am self-taught and the gods have placed all types of songs in my heart and I am as worthy as a god to sing to you, so you should not be eager to cut my throat.

            On a recent trip to London to attend a summer school course in Homer, I was fortunate enough to pick up a used copy of Lindsay Clarke’s The War at Troy, published in 2004. It is supposed to be the story of the Trojan War and the return of Odysseus, written by the then sixty year old Phemius, forty years after the return of Odysseus to Ithaca. It is a wonderfully detailed account of the events, filled with pages of interesting back stories. At the end of his introduction, Phemius says, “One day perhaps some other bard will do for Odysseus what I, Phemius of Ithaca, have failed to do and make a great song out of these stories, a song that men will sing forever.” The author has signed this copy and it is dedicated, “For Ted, from his myth-taken friend, Lindsay.”

            The second bard of the Odyssey is Demodocus, the blind Phaeacian minstrel who performs in the palace of King Alcinous and Queen Arete in Scheria. Because of his blindness and the long-held position that Homer was also blind, many commentators see Demodocus as a representation of Homer himself. Demodocus represents the tradition of the bard and because he is blind, he underscores the popular notion that bards were divinely inspired. Despite being sightless, he had the gift of song that had been granted to him by the Muse and he served as a conduit from the divine.

            King Alcinous was happy to prepare a feast for his new guest and called for the bard Demodocus to be brought into the palace so that he could provide entertainment for those assembled. From his comments, you can tell that the bard was held in high regard as well as being divinely inspired.

Also summon here the godlike minstrel Demodocus for to him above all others has the god given the gift of song and he gives delight no matter what he chooses to sing. Thus he spoke and led the way and the sceptre-bearers followed him and the herald went in search of the godlike minstrel.

Then the herald came along, leading the trusty minstrel who was regarded with great affection by the muse who had given him both good and evil, for she had taken away his sight but had given him the gift of music.

The song that the minstrel sung affected Odysseus greatly and he wiped away his tears every time the bard paused his song.

The muse urged the minstrel to sing of the glorious deeds of warriors and their fame that had reached into the broad heavens.

The renowned minstrel sang this song but Odysseus grasped his swirling cloak with his hands and draped it over his head in order to hide his handsome face for he was ashamed that the Phaeacians might see him shedding great tears.

            Later the bard sang about the love affair between Ares and Aphrodite and this was more to the hero’s liking because the attention of the audience was placed on a subject that was not so dear to his heart. Odysseus then heaped praise on the bard and offered him a choice piece of meat. After he had done so, he encouraged the bard to tell the story of the Trojan horse.

This was the song that the renowned minstrel sung and Odysseus rejoiced in his heart as he listened to it, as did the Phaeacians, men famous for their long oars and for their ships.

Among all the men who live upon the earth, minstrels are held in the highest regard for the Muse has taught them how to sing and she fondly loves the tribe of minstrels.

Demodocus, above all other mortal men do I praise you, whether the Muse instructed you, the daughter of Zeus or Apollo himself, for exceedingly well do you sing of the fate of the Achaeans and all that they endured and all that the Achaeans suffered, just as if you had been there yourself or had heard it all from someone who had been there.

If you are able to recount the tale correctly, I will declare to all mankind that the god with the forward-thinking mind has indeed granted you the gift of song. So he spoke and the minstrel was cheered on by the god and his song was heard.

            But Odysseus was moved to tears again by the recounting of the events of the war and King Alcinous put an end to the singing.

Listen to me, leaders and counsellors of the Phaeacians, and let Demodocus cease playing his clear-toned lyre, for the song that he is singing is not pleasing to everyone. Ever since we began to eat and the goodly minstrel was moved to sing, the stranger has not stopped weeping and lamenting and I think that grief has overcome his heart. So let the minstrel stop so that we can all make merry, guests and stranger alike, since that would be much better.

The hero’s reaction to the song led to his revelation of his true identity to the Phaeacians and prompted him to tell his story in his own words. In effect, the singing of the tale by the bard Demodocus actually served the purpose of introducing Odysseus as the new bard who took over where Demodocus left off. Odysseus started his story with the following comments about listening to bards, comments which he no doubt thought might be applied to his own story-telling as well.

Lord Alcinous, glorious among all the people, surely it is a good thing to listen to a minstrel such as this man is for he has a voice like the gods. For I think that there is no greater joy that happens than when merriment fills all the people and they sit feasting in a great hall and listening to a minstrel and nearby are tables filled with food and drink and the cup-bearer draws wine from a mixing vessel and carries it forth to be served into goblets. In my mind, this is the finest thing of all.

Odysseus then proceeded to tell his story to those gathered in the palace. He told of the monsters and the women he had met, the tragedies that he and his crew had suffered and the wrath that Poseidon had visited upon them. Demodocus had started the story-telling and then Odysseus picked up the thread. When Odysseus finished, Demodocus took over again and this action firmly plants in our minds the fact that Odysseus had taken on the role of the bard.

After they had burned the thigh pieces as a sacrifice, they feasted greatly and merrily and the goodly minstrel Demodocus sang with his lyre, he who was held in such high regard by all the people.

Based on Homer’s comments, we can conclude that all bards are held in the same high regard by all the people. He sees them as divinely inspired artists who can enchant and entertain. Since Homer was the chief bard of the narrative and others like Phemius and Demodocus played supporting roles in telling the story, we can assume that the high praise for bards was directed at Homer as well. That leads us to one of two conclusions, depending on our position relative to the epic authorship question. If we assume a single authorship for the Iliad and the Odyssey, then we must conclude that Homer was heaping great praise on himself for his talents as a bard and was putting himself in the spotlight as he took a bow. If we assume dual authorship, then our conclusion is that the author of the Odyssey was delivering great accolades to the one who had preceded him, the author of the Iliad, namely Homer. As Phemius, the Odyssey’s author attempted to follow in Homer’s footsteps. As Demodocus, he paid tribute in a very demonstrative way to the blind bard himself.