Opening Passage:
Tell me the tale of a man, Muse, who had so amny roundabout ways
To wander, driven off course, after sacking Troy's hallowed keep;
Many the people whose cities he saw and whose ways of thinking he learned,
Many the toils he suffered at sea, anguish in his heart
As he struggled to safeguard his life and the homecoming of his companions.
But he did not save his companions even so, though he longed to,
For their heedlessness destroyed them, theirs and nobody else's--
Fools that they were, like children, who devoured the sun-god Hyperion's
Cattle, and so he took from them the day of their homecoming.
Goddess, start where you will; daughter of Zeus, share the tale with us too. (p. 73)
Summary: The obvious story of The Odyssey is that of Odysseus, but this is merely the dominant of three interwoven stories.
The first, and most encompassing, is a tale of Athena. We begin the poem with Athena authorized by Zeus to begin the process of allowing Odysseus to return home. We end the poem with Athena, again authorized by Zeus, bringing to an end the bloodshed that threatens to flood over everything after Odysseus's return. Odysseus is her favorite, but he is opposed by Poseidon, and thus we have the story of Athena threading the needle as she works to bring Odysseus successfully home while not directly opposing her uncle Poseidon. (It is somewhat tempting to see her as being especially careful because some of her actions in The Iliad got her into trouble with the major gods, including Zeus himself.) She plays an active role, constantly showing up in disguises to advise heroes at opportune times, putting thoughts into mortal hearts, pouring divine splendor on people when they need to impress, bringing Odysseus ever closer to home. She also, as he returns, intensifies his difficulties, hardening the hearts of the Suitors trying to take his wife and his home and repeatedly provoking them to more extreme action. This is certainly in order to make his homecoming more splendid and definitive, but may also be a sort of sop to her uncle, making sure that Odysseus endures trouble not merely as he comes home but precisely so that he can come home despite being under Poseidon's wrath. She is a goddess, so she has no character arc; rather, she forms the story successfully to her satisfaction.
The second tale is that of Telemakhos. Twenty-ish years ago his father had gone off to war, so long ago that he does not really remember his father. When his father did not return ten(-ish) years ago with the other heroes of the Trojan War, his nightmare began, as men from all over descended on his homestead, nominally to woo the lovely Penelope, his mother, and they have stayed as guests, devouring the substance of his father's household. Telemakhos, of course, was too young to do anything about it, and now that he has recently become of age where he might do something, he finds that his options have diminished almost to nothing. The Suitors outnumber any forces he can command, and he is inexperienced, having no inkling of how he might extricate himself and his mother from their intrusion. We learn that he is quite clever, being a true son of his shrewd father and prudent mother, but he lacks his father's self-confidence and boldness, because he has never had an opportunity to develop them. The first five books of the poem follow Telemakhos as Athena guides him through this maze. He mounts an expedition, with her help (although unbeknownst to him, because she is disguised as Mestor), to discover news of his father. They visit Pylos and Sparta, where the mission is successful, in that Telemakhos does learn something about what happened to his father, and then return home in Book Fifteen, avoiding, with Athena's guidance, a fleet sent by the Suitors to kill Telemakhos on the way. This part of the story teases what has happened with Odysseus, and gives Telemakhos the preparation he needs for when his father actually arrives. However, there is arguably a third function that it fulfills, namely, that it buys Penelope and Telemakhos more time. Part of the host of Suitors is away from Ithaca in the attempt to assassinate Telemakhos; those at home therefore have incentive to await the results of that mission; Telemakhos gets away from the Suitors for a while, which lets him get a clearer view of the situation; and what is gained is exactly what is needed to allow Odysseus the time to arrive. In Book Sixteen, his story begins intersecting with his father's, and we find Telemakhos well prepared to assist his father in restoring the rightful order of things.
And, of course, there is the tale of Odysseus. Mendelsohn notes that the poem starts out without telling us his name (we only get it in passing after twenty lines), and that this is not an accident, because Odysseus is repeatedly associated with namelessness and disguises. The most famous case is his interaction with Cyclops, to whom he says his name is Outis, No-one. But throughout the tale we find a constant blurring between Odysseus and Outis. Whenever he meets someone, Odysseus presents himself as someone else; plays on words involving ou tis and similar phrases keep recurring; his identity is often in question, his whereabouts often uncertain, his very existence repeatedly called into question. This is because Odysseus is wandering in the Anti-Home. All of the troubles he faces are in one aspect or another the opposite of what it is to be home: the inertness of the Lotos-eaters, the savagery of the Cyclopeans, the strange seductions of tempting goddesses, all of the forms of uncivilized madness. Lost in such things, can a man have a name? Can have that for which the name is a metonymy, a self? What is worse, this Anti-Home has laid siege to his own household, and he cannot stop being Outis, the Stranger, until he is in a position to restore Home. Then, and only then, can Odysseus fully be Odysseus. As he says when he finally stands forth to take his home back:
'Here at home I am, truly myself!' (p. 399)
Favorite Passage:
And so, when she saw the corpses and the endless rivers of blood,
She launched into the victory cry, so great was the deed she beheld,
But Odysseus kept her back and restrained her, though she was eager,
And addressed her then with words that flew toward her like arrows:
"Rejoice in your heart, old woman, but hold back--don't sound the cry.
It is an unholy thing to gloat over men who have been slain.
What vanquished these men was a god-sent fate and their own wicked deeds,
For they never showed respect to anyone on earth
Who happened to cross their path, whether wicked or good at heart.
And so, through their heedlessness, they have come to a shameful end...." (p. 419)
Recommendation: It's The Odyssey, and the translation is quite good, so obviously, Highly Recommended.
*****
Homer, The Odyssey , Daniel Mendelsohn, tr., The University of Chicago Press (Chicago: 2025).
