Megaron and view from Mycenae (source: Flickr) Very suddenly, we whoosh down from the sky and land in the world of mortals. We find ourselves in front of the palace in Ithaka. Athene (disguised as Mentes, a guest friend of Odysseus') is spotted by Telemachos, and is invited to join the feast of the suitors, strangely. They seem to be the ones that organise things in this house, and they do like parties. However, their (table) manners leave a lot to be desired and we will soon learn and see how they abuse the sacred institution of hospitality. Telemachos has to apologise to Mentes about the situation. I really liked the way Telemachos is portrayed - just what it's like to be a teenager and not being able to change anything. The most you can do is moan to someone who will listen about how unfair everything is. On the other hand, I feel there is some jealousy in Telemchos' attitude to the suitors: they play games, have free dinners, and there is song and dancing every night. They are having fun while he isn't.
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What I remember vividly about reading Book 1 is that it was a shock after the Iliad, and I found its vision of an idillyc society nauseating. But l will be a bit more positive this time. The poet, inspired by the goddess, is going to sing about Odysseus, the man of many ways. His epithet, polytropos ('much-turned'), is ambiguous: it can literally mean 'much-turned, i.e. much-travelled'; or, metaphorically speaking, 'turning many ways, i.e. shifty, versatile, wily'. Now comes the statement of the theme: the word homecoming is mentioned frequently, but I also noticed that other words are repeated often: longing and desire. In l. 13, Odysseus is 'longing (kekhrēmenon) for his wife and his homecoming' (Lattimore swaps the original order in the Greek, where homecoming comes first, wife afterwards - why did he choose to do so one wonders), while Kalypso is 'desiring (lilaiomenē) that he should be her husband' (l. 15). Later, according to Athene, Odysseus 'longs (himeiretai - yet another synonym) to die' (l. 59). There are many kinds of desires, it seems.
I first read the Odyssey roughly ten years ago, almost entirely on trains and buses. I like to think that was a rather clever approach given the subject matter. I can't remember now why I decided to read it along with the Iliad (I started with the Iliad because I somehow got the idea that that was Volume 1 and the Odyssey the sequel). I had been made to read some excerpts at school, but wasn't very impressed so no memories. I must also confess that being Hungarian, I read those excerpts in Hungarian translation, and was further alienated by the impeccably (or so I was led to believe) reproduced rhythm of the original poem. The rhythm of the Hungarian translation is so powerful that I had a classmate whose father used to recite passages from the Odyssey to get her to sleep when she was a baby. And now that I'm doing this course I'm going to read it again, this time in English. I have my Hungarian copy at hand, so it will be interesting to compare the two as well as to consult the original courtesy of Perseus Digital Library (link on the right in "Resources") and thanks to the little Ancient Greek I managed to pick up doing A275 last year. I would like to emphasize, however, that I have relied heavily on the dictionaries included on Perseus, and all my knowledge comes from them! I have made some effort to transliterate Greek words accurately and consistently but can't promise 100% reliability. If you spot a mistake, please let me know. (I didn't try to transliterate proper names though.)
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AuthorHave studied A219 Exploring the Classical World and A275 Reading Classical Greek at the Open University. Currently studying for a Psychology degree. ImagesPlease click on any image to be taken to its source.
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