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A
Today on Ascend, the Great Books podcast, We continue our 12 week study of the Odyssey with a fantastic conversation on books 2 through 4. The famous telemache or the story of Odysseus son Telemachus. His own journey, his own odyssey, his own maturation tale. He must become a threat to the suitors. He must become a man. These are some books that I very much appreciate. I kind of had to grow in my appreciation for them and I came to appreciate them more and more as I became a father, as I saw what it took for a young man to actually become a man. Most people know the Odyssey because of the great coming home story of Odysseus, but the coming of age story of Telemachus very much merits your time and attention as well. But before we jump to that, here is a summary of books 2 through 4. Telling of Telemachus Journey inspired by Athena Telemachus addresses the assembly of Ithaca and condemns the suitors and invokes the gods against them. In response, Antinous Assureder blames Telemachus mother Penelope, the matchless queen of cunning for refusing to return to her father's house and letting him choose for her a new husband. Thus, the suitors will devour Telemachus house until a new husband for Penelope is chosen. Telemachus refuses to tell his mother to return to her father's house and announces he is leaving for Sparta and Pylos to seek news of his father. Athena takes on the guise of Mentor, the man Odysseus left in charge of his affairs and reassures him in his mission. Telemachus has his nurse prepare provisions for his journey and swears her to secrecy. The book ends with Telemachus setting sail with his crew and pouring out libations to Athena, the goddess with the flashing sea gray eyes. Telemachus arrives in Pylos to find king Nestor sacrificing 81 bulls to Poseidon and hosting a feast for 4,500 people. Athena, under the guise of Mentor, encourages Telemachus to speak to Nestor. Telemachus and Athena are welcomed warmly by Nestor's son and after their meal Nestor asks them who they are. Telemachus asks Nestor for news of his father Odysseus, and Nestor recalls the living hell of Troy. Nestor tells Telemachus of the disaster that was the Achaean army returning home from Troy. Telemachus tells Nestor of the plight of the suitors and Nestor tells Telemachus of Athena's favor for his father Odysseus. As Athena sits there in the guise of Mentor, Telemachus asks Nestor to tell the story of how Agamemnon died and Nestor tells of how Agamemnon was betrayed by his wife and murdered. As the conversation turned to returning to Nestor's halls, Athena, disguised as Mentor, transformed into an eagle and flew away. Nestor explains to Telemachus what favor he must have with the goddess and prepares a splendid sacrifice to Athena in her honor. He has the heifer's horns sheathed in gold and Athena returns pleased with this sacrifice. The book ends with them obeying Athena's orders by preparing a chariot to take Telemachus to Menelaus in Sparta. Telemachus arrives in Sparta to find King Menelaus hosting a double wedding feast. As Menelaus daughter is marrying the son of Achilles and Menelaus son is marrying a girl from Sparta, Telemachus and Nestor's son are received warmly. Though a gracious host, Menelaus still mourns for his brother Agamemnon and for all the men lost in the Trojan War, especially Odysseus. Menelaus and Helen recognize Telemachus by his likeness to his father. The next day Menelaus tells Telemachus of his journey home from Troy. He and his men were stuck on the island of Pharos after wrestling Proteus, the old man of the sea. He is told he failed to offer sacrifices to the deathless gods before leaving Troy, and now for penance he must return to Egypt and make a splendid sacrifice. Menelaus asks about the fate of his comrades and Proteus tells him the stories of little Ajax, Agamemnon and Odysseus, the last of which is held captive by the sea nymph Calypso. Menelaus did as the old men of the sea said, and then he returned home to Sparta. The narrative shifts to Queen Penelope and Ithaca. The suitors, led by Antinous, discover Telemachus has taken a ship to Pylos and they elect send out their own ship to ambush him. Penelope is told Telemachus is gone and that the suitors plan to murder him. Eurycleia, the old nurse, tells Penelope she helped Telemachus prepare for his departure and advises the queen to pray to Athena. Penelope prays to Athena and Athena sends a phantom of Penelope's sister to reassure the queen Telemachus is safe. The book ends with the suitors setting sail to ambush and murder Telemachus. Foreign. Welcome to Ascend the Great Books Podcast My name is Deacon Harrison Garlick. I live in rural Oklahoma with my wife and five children serve as a deacon at Holy Family Cathedral. And I serve as a chancellor General Counsel for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tulsa. Recording on a beautiful afternoon here at the Chancery. If you're new to Ascend, we can be like a small group for you reading the great books together. So you actually have a group to read with. You can check us out on our podcasts, on our videos. We also have written guides to help you as well. We've covered the Iliad, obviously. We're going through the Odyssey right now. We've covered many of the Greek plays. Some of my favorite episodes are actually with me and Dr. Frank Grabowski covering the bacchae. We did two episodes on the Bacchae and I would love to revisit that someday because it's really excellent. And we have several of Plato's dialogues we've gone through as well. And we'll be picking up Plato's Republic after we finish the Odyssey. So we'll be reading that this fall. We've already recorded actually in the first four books. It's to be fantastic. I'm really looking forward to getting back into play. D'oh. Go check us out on X YouTube, at Facebook, Instagram. We have an Instagram now and Patreon. We appreciate all of our supporters. They have access to our library of written guides and also to community chats where you can chat with other people about the great books that we're reading and Visit the great bookspodcast.com all right, so today is the second episode of our 12 week study on the Odyssey and we are discussing books two through through four which really focus on Telemachus. And so we're really going to get his journey and we're going to ask ourselves, what's the purpose? Why is Athena serving as a mentor to him and what is she trying to lead him into in this kind of like coming of age story that we have of him. Welcoming back to the podcast to guide us through this, we have Dr. Frank Grabowski, who serves as the dean of faculty at Holy Family Classical School. He is also a third Order Franciscan. He's also a diaconate candidate and a member of our Sunday small group that reads three books together. Dr. Grabowski, how are you doing today?
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B
I'm doing great. It's a beautiful day outside. Unseasonably warm it is.
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A
Now it's Oklahoma, so it could snow next week or we could have a tornado or hail or it could be 80 degrees all week. We don't know. Here in Oklahoma it actually got down to 2 degrees not too long ago and then two days later was up to 90. But yes, it is a be resourceful,
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B
just like our friend Odysseus.
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That's right, Polytropos. Okay, now we are looking at the Odyssey and we're looking at books two through four. So this is kind of a, if I understand correct, this is like a special section of the Odyssey, the story of Telemachus. And I think this is like a, a little bit of a jarring thing for first time readers is like, okay, where is Odysseus? Lot of people know narratives from the Odyssey. There's like a Cyclops, there's some monsters, Sirens, Scylla and Charybdis. They know these stories. We don't have these yet. We have the story of Telemachus. This section of the Odyssey has a particular focus, doesn't it?
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Yeah. So yeah, these are the books which are known collectively as the Telemachi or the Growth of Telemachus. And I think, yeah, the question that is on everybody's mind reading the Odyssey is where's Odysseus? Now? He is mentioned in book four. We, we suspect that he's still alive. Otherwise, what are the other 20 books about? But no, I think Homer's doing something very interesting here. As we kind of work through two through four, we see different states of the polis, of the nation, of the state. So we're beginning to see Ithaca in its disorder and its disrepair. And I think that Homer is slowly painting a picture of a society that has lost its political moorings. And then as Telemachus then travels to Pylos to meet Nestor, we see how a state ought to work. And then later we see our friend Menelaus and Helen who are reunited. And there too the state is. Well, they're celebrating weddings, in fact, dual wedding. And so I think these are books for those who are interested in questions about justice or what makes for a healthy or an unhealthy polis. Yeah, these are books that are central to answering those questions.
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A
Yeah, I appreciate you kind of digging into that because I think a lot of the focus we have is on Telemachus, but there is like a political kind of substrata that works through these particular texts. So maybe that's a good segue into book two itself in the FAGL's edition. This is Telemachus Sets Sail. So one of the things that really struck me about this is what is Telemachus doing? He is calling an assembly and we get a few facts about the assembly that I think kind of lend into your commentary on the polis. Right. Political. First we get, I don't know, line 25 or so, that not once have we held an assembly, met in session since King Odysseus sailed away and in the hollow ships.
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B
That's 20 years ago, approximately.
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A
So for 20 years we have not had an assembly. And so to piggyback on your point, Ithaca, it's not just the suitors. The problem is not simply the suitors. There is a political instability to Ithaca as a whole. Right. It's politically not functioning. And what really caught my attention about this, now that we've read a lot of the Greek plays, is how this really becomes a motif. So when you read, like a lot of the other Greek plays, like the playwrights, you read Eschylusophicles, et cetera, a lot of times the chorus is the old men of the polis. They're like the assembly of the polis, and they are always almost comically inept. They cannot do anything. You think about the Oresteia. We're going to talk a lot about the story of Orestes and Clytemnestra and Aegistus today. You think about the Oresteia that tells their story several hundred years later under Aeschylus's, you know, vision. Again, the men of the city are the chorus, and they're simply inept. They cannot do anything. They can see sometimes what needs to be done. So sometimes they're not just simply imprudent, but they lack Thumas, they lack any kind of spirit to actually get done. And that was something that really stood out to me as I read through on this time, that that pattern seems to start here in the Odyssey with Ithaca.
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B
Yeah, and this was even touched on during our discussion regarding book one, where Pablo's pointed out that Ithaca is missing an entire generation of men. And of course, this also holds true for other city states. But in those city states, kings have been restored to the throne, and here Odysseus has been absent. And so an entire generation of men lost, dead, missing. And so there's this generational gap, a vacuum, and it's being filled by these vicious suitors. So, yeah, I do think that this Homer's really accentuating here the problems that arise when men who ought to rule, who ought to have a voice in political management, when they disappear, the political state begins to fall apart.
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A
I really like you tethering together the political instability with the fatherlessness and these two themes together, because I think in certain ways, to what degree is Telemachus an analog for Ithaca? Overall, it's lacked a Father, it's lacked a king. It has potential. Is there something there that can be recovered, it can be restored? There's a reconciliation that can occur. But right now it's kind of inept. And we get this again. I love how Homer presents Telemachus. Like, he pegs this kind of adolescent thematic frustration perfectly. So what do we see? This assembly is really bookended in a really fascinating way. First, it's Telemachus who calls the assembly. So he's trying to take ownership of this. Think about, I hold the reins of power in the house. So now he's trying to maybe hold the reins of power in the polis. He takes his father's seat. He takes the seat of the king, which I think is an important note. But then as they talk, there's this frustration, there's this ineptitude about them. It winds up happening. He just. How does it end? He throws the scepter down. They have the scepter that they have to hold.
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B
The herald scepter. Yeah. They have the floor at the moment, so. Yes. Right.
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A
Yeah. This is like the conch shell from Lord of the Flies.
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B
Right, right.
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And so what's he do? He just smashes it down into. In tears. And again, we get this juxtaposition reminding me of book one of I hold the reins of power in my house, and then my nursemaid tucks me into my bed. He is certainly a young man in transition.
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B
Yeah. The other thing, too, that really stands out to me, Deacon, is how speech has lost its force, that logos has lost its force. And so that we typically think of logos as word or speech, but it's also intimately tied with reason. And so just as the polis has fallen to a kind of state of unreason, that persuasion. We typically think of speech and persuasion as being so vital to political order, that too, has began to disintegrate. And so Ithaca right now isn't governed by logos, but it's being governed by the lower. The lower parts. The lower portions of the soul.
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A
Yeah. That's a good insight. I liked last time we spoke about Antinous. Right. The anti. Noose, this kind of like anti. Intellect character. One of the suitors. It caught my attention that at least two of the suitors. Correct. Are actually here at the assembly as well. Right. So they're in both camps, both part of the assembly, and they're part of the suitors. And so Antinous is around like 90 or so. They redirect blame onto Penelope. And I think this is really fascinating because there's a Few things we have to discuss. So, first off, Antonis tells us this very famous passage from the Odyssey where she's like, guys, I will marry one of you. Don't worry about it. I just have to, you know, I just have to make a burial cloth for Laertes, right? He's old. This is Odysseus's father, who's actually still living. And that's something we have to talk about because that was surprising to me. He's here, but he's living out, like, in the country estate and seems to be somewhat divorced and exiled from the political struggle that is Odysseus's home. And so what'd she do? She's working on it at the loom all day, and then at night she's unraveling it. And so she's basically in this stagnant part, and they're waiting for her to finish. And she's always working on it, but somehow not finishing it until one of her female slaves kind of gives away the game, right? And they become very upset about this. But this was three years that she led them on in this manner. But I think this really raises an interesting question about, like, culturally, I don't mean that like in a. In a relativistic way, but, like, what's happening here? Because Penelope has been gone, or, excuse me, Odysseus has been gone for 20 years. He's not coming back. Everyone's like, he's dead, Penelope, you need to remarry. The suitors have come. And so sometimes when I read this text with people, this seems very reasonable to them. Like, of course, the problem here is what the suitors say. It's Penelope. She will not choose one of the suitors, and therefore they're stuck in this system in which they're just sitting here grinding away the house of Odysseus. And it's really Penelope's fault. That's whose fault it is. Well, I think that one of the things that really struck me about that is one of the things that we see in the suitors now is even if Odysseus comes back, they state that they will kill him. And I think this brings up an interesting point that we didn't discuss last week in book one, but something that is really going to haunt today's reading and all the readings of the Odyssey. And this is the theme of guest friendship, of Xinya. And this is. I mean, just like, in short, you'll see this. So this is a guest friendship. This is. It's a ritual. It's A cultural artifact that they have in which you welcome the guest, basically as Zeus. That Zeus oversees the relationship between host and guest, and that there's a spiritual bond there as well. And you see that there's then a deep hospitality that is extended to the stranger, welcoming him as Zeus. And so we're going to see this today where they welcome them, they don't ask them their names, they don't ask them why are they here. They greet them, they might bathe them, they might feast them. And then when they are taken care of, when the guest is actually taken care of, they then the host will say, who are you? Right? What is your mission? Why are you traveling? And then there's a reciprocity there where then the guest almost at certain times takes on the role of a bard telling a story. This is what I'm doing. This is why I'm here. And they tell this kind of adventure and there's this back and forth, and then usually there's some kind of giving of gifts as well as they part. It's this kind of beautiful fraternity, this beautiful hospitality that in a lot of ways is an antecedent and foreshadows what we'll see amongst the Benedictines, because we actually have this culture too in the Hebrew culture and then in the New Testament, where St. Paul tells us, right, that we, in entertaining guests and entertaining strangers, at times we have entertained angels. And so there's this very similar dynamic there. Now you go to, like a Benedictine monastery, they welcome the guest as Christ and they wash their hands, they might wash their feet, they, you know, feed them things of this nature. So hospitality, this, this guest friendship is a deep abiding principle without the Homer and within the Homeric texts. And we see this, this animates actually the entire ordeal because this is what Paris did. Paris absconded with his host's wife. He was the guest in the house of Menelaus, King of Sparta, when he absconded with Helen. And that makes it. We immediately focus on the whole stealing of the wife part, which is, you know, a negative. But also putting it in the context that you were a guest in his house makes this a deep betrayal. And if you remember, even in the Iliad, when Menelaus and Paris have their one on one duel, Menelaus asked Zeus to deliver Paris into his hands so that all the world could see what happens to a guest that violates and strikes out against his host.
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B
Now you bring up Xenia Horror, hospitality. I think that Xenia in particular just permeates these four Books, both the presence of or the absence of. And so something I think, just to add on to what you've said, which was brilliant, is that I think Xenia is really the barometer by which we can judge the health of Apollos. You know, later, when we encounter the Cyclops, he displays a lack of Xenia. And so you know instantly that this is not a human, that this is a monster, that this is someone who is not civilized. We've seen the suitors, their lack of hospitality again, aside from them being rude, eating the cattle, eating the sheep, drinking the wine of their hosts without repayment. But. But yes, they're plotting to kill Odysseus as well as Telemachus. But then we shift. As Telemachus travels in search of news of his father, he encounters Nestor and Pylos and Menelaus and Sparta, and those are two cities that greet him warmly. And do you see, you see Xenia in all of its glorious presence. And it shows us too, just how those three levels, something you've spoken extensively about in your podcast, Deacon, are the three levels of piety, right? Moving from the first God to the second, the city or the polis to the third family. And Xenia involves all three. And so Zenia isn't just about providing food in a warm bed, but it's a display of how one is related to the gods and how one is related to one's nation and one's family. So, yeah, I think in these three, as readers are moving their way through the Telemachy, to really pay attention to both how Xenia is present in the healthy polis, also absent in the unhealthy.
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A
Yeah, very well said. And I liked what you said, that this is a barometer, this is a test of the healthy polis. We actually saw this a little bit in book one, where Athena as mentes, comes to the house of Odysseus and, like, she's not welcomed, etc. And it's only Telemachus, then, that has, like, at least some sensibility of this guest friendship to go and welcome them and try and bring them in as well, and to talk with them, etc. So I really like tracking that because it's a theme that we have to really be cognizant of as moderns, because we. We are not hospitable today. We would not do this. We don't welcome people into our house without asking who they are. Right? We moved from the front porch to the back porch. Our houses now are actually designed not to greet people, not to have Random interactions. So this is something that I think that can really stretch us in our understanding. But as Odysseus is bouncing from island to island, this is going to be a huge thing. And as Telemachus is bouncing from island to island, it's going to be a big thing as well. Right. So he goes from house to house. Just a few things here that I thought were really interesting. So this is the standard by which then we judge or at least one of them, the suitors. And yet, yeah, they're not getting what they want from their host. So what do they say at like, oh, I don't know, 135 or so. So we will devour your worldly goods and wealth as long as she holds out holds to that course the gods have charted deep inside her heart. So they're going to sit here and just devour the goods of the home until they get what they want. So they're violating. They're not playing the role of the guest. They're not respecting the host and the wishes of the host. They have a demand upon the host and saying, we will devour your things unless you give in. I think it's really fascinating that down like 150 or so, basically, Tillamook, I will never issue that ultimatum to my mother. And if, and you, if you have any shame in your own hearts, you must leave my palace. And then he invokes Zeus a little bit after that. But I'll cry out to the everlasting gods in hopes that Zeus will pay you back with a vengeance all of you destroyed in my house while I go scot free myself. And this is very important because Zeus oversees guest friendship. And so for you to think that you have the right to kill your own guest, because this is a. That would be a huge violation of guest friendship. And like you said, it's a strikeout against all three levels of piety. Right. So this is a deeply impious act. It's a sacrilegious act, actually. To kill your host is a sacrilegious act. And that carries off into the medieval age too. Remember at the bottom of Dante's Inferno, in the frozen pit of the 9th Circle, one of the four sections of the treacherous, the traitors are those who betrayed their own guests, that they welcomed them into their home and then they betrayed them. Right. So this is deeply ingrained. So you have to ask Zeus basically for permission, that this has to be the will of the gods, that the gods have ferreted this out for you, that no one of these parties is Actually unjust. And I can actually kill you. I can strike out against my guest without any kind of repercussion from Zeus himself.
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B
Yeah, I mean, that's, that's, that's brilliant. You, you brought up the, the remark that Antinous makes where he threatens that the suitors will just simply go and devour all of, all of Penelope and Telemachus's food. And so it just, it brings to mind just how modernist, how modern that attitude is. They're effectively separating themselves from the polis. They, they, they, they claim to have no responsibility for any of the goods that they are coveting. And so it just brings to mind Aristotle's remark. But also, I think this runs deep throughout the Greek mind that man is a political animal, that man is by nature political. And so they have a complete nutter disregard for not just the state, it seems, but also the very natures. And so this is a breakdown. We'll see that there's a political breakdown within the soul of the suitors. There's a. More obviously a moral breakdown, but there's also an epistemological breakdown in the next scene.
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A
Well, by next scene, do you mean. Because I think it's interesting that you tethered this to piety, because.
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B
The omen.
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A
Yeah, the omen, Right. So you get this. What ends up happening is you get a bird sign. For those that don't know, bird signs are really important. Zeus sends them down and you have to have some kind of prophet seer that can say, oh, this is what this sign means. And that's what we get here. The response to it is really fascinating. So just a few things to point out. So that's around like, oh, Zeus sends it a little bit for 170, and
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B
it's two Eagles, right? There are two eagles are fighting. It's. It's unclear. Homer doesn't really. They're just flashing each other with their talons tearing cheeks and throats. In the fable's translation.
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A
Yeah, they kind of fly off. Yeah. And you've got to have like a seer who can read the bird signs to come in and tell us what these things are. We saw this on the Iliad as well, and we get it. We get the answer after 180. Clearly Odysseus won't be far from loved ones any longer. Now right now he's somewhere near, I tell you, breeding bloody death for all these suitors here. Pains aplenty too, for the rest of us who live in Ithaca's sunlit air. What's interesting, too Here is that then he goes on and says, oh, hey, by the way, do you guys remember that when Odysseus was leaving, I actually prophesied that he'd be gone for 20 years and that then he would come back unknown by everyone, by himself. And now look, it's coming to pass. This reminds me like in the Iliad where they're trying to get everyone to still have the spiritedness to take Troy and they're like, hey guys, remember that prophecy we had that we would take it in the 10th year? So what's interesting to me here is, is that these narratives have been told, these warnings have been given. And what we see then in the suitors is that they're not only again, that threefold piety, they're not only pushing out against the polis, their king, they're not only causing political instability, but now they're pushing out against the gods in a very explicit way. I mean, Eurymachus, eurymachus at round 200 or so basically just mocks the bird signs and just pushes past this and you're like, yeah, there's no way this is going to end well for you.
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B
Yeah, it's, you know, not to pick on anybody in particular, but this is the sort of response that we typically get from like the new atheist group where they'll say, you know, crying, weeping statues of the Virgin Mary or miraculous Eucharistic signs where he says flocks of birds go fluttering under the sun's rays. Not all are fraught with meaning. So he's accusing halitheresis, who made the correct divination, the correct interpretation. He's accusing him of reading too much into the bird's eye. These are just birds. There's nothing miraculous or mystical or divine about it. And so, I mean, what is this? Well, this is a rejection of authority, for one thing, the authoritative interpretation of this birdside. But it is, as you say, Deacon, a complete nutter mocking of the gods, a dismissal that the gods communicate with us. And so as I said, it's a collapse of morality, but it's also this epistemological collapse where I think the two are actually going hand in hand, where as their soul becomes more disordered morally, they're growing less and less reasonable, less their, their minds are, are less tethered to reason and to the gods.
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A
Yeah, that if you think of that three whole, that threefold hierarchy of piety, you know, first to your family or really your parents, then to the polis and then to the gods, they're completely interwoven and for us as moderns, that doesn't quite make sense to us because in a lot of ways we've atomized this and separated them and somewhat sanitized it. But for them, like, you can't engage in the polis and also not engage in the divine, and your family can't be pulled up into that as well. So once disorder enters into it, the whole cosmos, this kind of like threefold structure is going to start to collapse in a certain way. And that's what you see. And I think a big question here for us to ask as we move through this is what exactly is the agency now of the suitors? To what degree do they go past the point of no return? Because later in the text it seems very clear with Athena and the gods that they've basically cemented their fate. At some point they're not being able to move past this. Just like Aegistus, he's decides to do something, and after you do that, after a certain point, fate's gonna come crushing down on you. At what point are the suitors still able to have some type of metanoia or some turning around? And how, how many signs have they been given, how many warnings have they been given to leave before this bloody work of Odysseus comes back upon them?
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B
And I think the question for us as readers, Deacon, is, you know, to what extent is their fate already baked in by the gods and how much of it do they bring upon themselves? This is Zeus's whole point and his. His apology or defense in book one. His claim is that it is man who is the cause of his own sufferings. And so, yeah, I mean, as the story develops, I don't think it's reasonable to conclude that the gods have already predetermined their fate or their deaths, that it's through their own agency, as you put it, through their own choice, their own moral choices, that they arrive at a state of complete disorder where the only just result is. Is their execution.
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A
Yeah, it's an act of justice. I don't remember what dialogue it's in, but Socrates makes the comment that both the Iliad and the Odyssey are both primarily about justice. That's the subject that actually animates them. Let's look at Mentor. So this is fascinating. So this is 250 or so. So this is the actual mentor, right? Because we're, we're going to get.
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B
Not Athena in disguise, right?
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A
So we're going to get Mentor the person. And then there's Athena who takes on the guise of Mentor and why she does that, I think is really fascinating. So first we have to look at Mentor, the person. So here we see at 250, Mentor is actually who Odysseus committed his household to, ordering one and all to obey the old man. And he would keep things steadfast and secure. Okay, so on a scale of 1 to 10, how well do we think that Mentor has done in his mission? This is like finding out in the Iliad that it was Patroclus job to help mitigate the rage of Achilles. It's like, well, brother, I don't know if you're actually doing a great job here. And what's interesting and going back to your political instability commentary is that Mentor, who seems to have this charge, then actually pushes out against the assembly that they're not doing what they need to be doing. And I think this is very much in a lot of ways another text that Homer gives us, that's intention. Why has Ithaca fallen into this state? It doesn't have its king. But then there's the steward of the king. Right. If you will, the person who was charged. They seem completely inept, but they're pushing into assembly saying, well, you guys are supposed to help and you're not helping and everything has just fallen apart. And I really wonder how much of this critique, particularly like in the Greek mind, that these. And you kind of alluded to this earlier, that these groups, when they. When you have these groups that are supposed to rule, they seem to always collapse into failure. And so you have one just thematic person that can come in and reorder the entire polis. And that's what we're waiting for, right? We're waiting for the return of the king to come in and undo this injustice that is not only affecting his own household, but then the entire polis.
- [33:54]
B
Yeah, I think there are two ways of reading this one, and I think it's perfectly legitimate, as you suggest, Deacon, to see Mentor as a failure of sorts of. But I wonder too, if we could be more sympathetic to him and just simply say, well, look, nobody's listening to him. There's a complete disregard for Mentor because he's not Odysseus, he's not a member of the royal family. And so it's very. I mean, his remarks here, I think, are quite telling. At one point he says, never let any sceptered king be kind and gentleman, thou not with all his heart. Or set his mind on justice. No, let him be cruel and always practice outrage. And then he even goes on to say, I Don't grudge these arrogant suitors for a moment. Weaving their violent work with all their wicked hearts, they lay their lives on the line when they consume Odysseus's worldly goods. Blind in their violence, once again shifting the blame to them, right? Attributing to them the agency that will eventually cut their own throats. So I think Mentor at this point has thrown his hands up into the air and just said, look, there's nothing that I can do. There's nothing anyone can do about this because the suitors have completely taken charge, which I think from our point of view might seem strange because they are in the minority. There are only 108 of them, as we'll soon find out. And so the rest of the nation, whoever is left, the elderly or the young, really don't seem to have any way of preventing them from running roughshod.
- [35:38]
A
Well, the other thing, too, I agree with all that, is it's interesting that the assembly doesn't really have any ending. Like, there's, like, the leadership that Telemachus tries to take at the beginning kind of collapses. And then Mentor kind of steps up and says, well, this was my role. And then they all just kind of fragment and go away, right? There's still just not a cohesive political force that can come together amongst these men, right? They just still, we're going to have to wait for the king, or we're going to have to wait for Telemachus to go on his journey and have his certain maturation, and he has to return a threat to the suitors. He has to take up this mantle of bringing justice to his own home. What's interesting about Mentor is, I wonder, it's not terribly explicit, is that part of his household, he would have had a baby, little baby Telemachus. And to what degree was Mentor supposed to be a father figure to Telemachus? To what degree was he supposed to play this role of Telemachus, who's now suffering under a fatherlessness? And the reason I point that out is because then at the bottom line, 300, we see that Athena takes on the guise of Mentor. So if she. And this is really interesting, because when the gods take on this Persona, there's a reason for that, right? There's some tethering between the person they want to talk to and the Persona that they have taken on, that makes their rhetoric more palatable to them. And so here, Athena, who's going to guide Telemachus on his little odyssey, takes on the guise of Mentor. And that makes me think what was Mentor supposed to do? Is Athena going to be fulfilling the role that Mentor was supposed to be doing? And just as another side note, just for those who don't know, this is the etymological origin of being someone's mentor. To say someone was like a mentor to you was originally an analogy of you were like the guy, Mentor in the Odyssey to Telemachus. And now we've kind of just adopted that word into English and talk about mentors all the time without knowing where that word comes from. But that's actually the origin of the word mentor. You're just like Athena was to Telemachus on his journey and helping him to actually mature.
- [37:40]
B
Well, and I think it's important to keep all of that in mind because at the very end of the book, what happens? Well, Athena once again assumes this guise of Mentor, but we're told that she keeps Mentors build in his voice. And so although we might. We might not have answers to your questions at the moment, I do think it's important to keep all of this in mind because this. This presence, this divine presence in human guise or human garb is going to be the capstone of this. And so clearly Homer is trying to make some point, as he has been throughout books one through four, about the relationship between man and the gods and. And. And their. I don't know if we would call it their.
- [38:34]
A
Their.
- [38:35]
B
Their. Not Their equal status. But certainly at the beginning, I think, of book three, we get this wonderful line where the sun, right, climbs the bright sky to shower light on immortal gods and mortal men. So which. Which calls, for me, calls to mind Deacon, the Platonic analogy of the sun as this moral paradigm that stands above man, that stands above the gods, and that somehow we have a moral order that isn't determined by the gods, but rather is that the gods have, to themselves, conform to.
- [39:16]
A
Yeah, I love that. Yeah. There's a big question, I think, as we work through the Homeric text and then even into the playwrights, the Greek tribes, tragedians, is, you know, where does goodness actually come from? Are the gods adhering to it as an external standard? Or is their will what is good? And then, of course, we'll see later that Plato picks this up explicitly in his dialogue of the euthyphro and the Euthyphro dilemma kind of just pushing us forward a little bit. So obviously Telemachus says he's going on. He has to go on this trip. He's got to go find news of his father. What's interesting to me is around like 3, 40. You get Telemachus now interacting with the suitors. And one thing that really stood out to me, and this tethers to what we talked about last week, is everyone is in motion, everyone's shifting. So Telemachus now is trying to present himself as a threat. And what's really interesting is like he's surrounded by over 100 suitors and he's starting to say things like, I'm going to bring destruction down on your head. But they don't seem to like, this is just like the little boy that grew up in the house. You're not a threat. We know who you are. And so it's interesting to me that I think both parties then are reacting to change. Telemachus has to mature, he has to become that man. He has to take ownership of his own house and he has to become a threat. And it's interesting to watch the suitors then start to react where they really just kind of mock him. And then we're going to see that. Then they get into, oh, wait, no, this is a threat that it does actually have to be removed. We are going to have to actually do something about this.
- [40:41]
B
Oh, he is absolutely a threat. We've talked about epithets, and Plutarpos being perhaps the most famous epithet for Odysseus. But one of the epithets that Homer uses for Telemachus is pepnomai, which means, which can mean wise, or it could also mean to be in full control of one's faculties. And so there's a certain stability that the suitors do not see in Telemachus. Right. There's a certain drive that's invisible to them. And so they're underestimating him. But as you say, soon enough they'll realize, no, we've got to eliminate this guy because he poses a huge threat.
- [41:23]
A
And just as a working definition, like, remind us, like, what is an epithet?
- [41:27]
B
An epithet is a word or a phrase that Homer uses to capture the essence. So with Achilles, it was swift footed. That's a very common one. With Odysseus it's, you know, the man of twists and turns or much suffering with, with Penelope, as if you, as you said on previous podcasts, she's referred to as being circumspect or prudent. And so these, these epithets, epithets capture who a person is at, at their, at their core, essential level.
- [42:01]
A
Yeah, I think my favorite one actually is in book two, if I remember right. I think it's Antinous that actually refers to Penelope as the Matchless queen of cunning. That's something that we're gonna have to dig into is what is the actual relationship between Odysseus, Penelope? Why is it that in a certain way, I guess one, one reading of this, one charitable reading of it, is why is it that Odysseus loves Penelope? What is it about her that actually attracts him to her? And the fact that he's the man of twists and turns, the greatest strategist that we saw at Troy, and she's the matchless queen of cunning. These conversations are actually, I think, going to very much inform some of the Odysseus's most important decisions of the entire Odyssey take place in book five that we're going to discuss next week. And the role of Penelope and his relationship to her I actually think is incredibly important to unraveling why he makes the decisions that he does. The only thing I'd add about the epithets too is they're also the kind of the lattice work that shows us that these were all originally oral stories, that this was a poetry. So the nice thing about adding things these, these epithets, like, oh, it's Menelau, lord of the war cry, or it's White Armed Hera or whatever, this gives them a way to keep the meter. And also things that can be memorized that as you're thinking about the next line and you're introducing a character, you can say this epithet, which just becomes this, you know, kind of hackneyed part that is this show you, I think, an essential quality, but it allows the bard to be thinking about those next lines because the epithets are these rote parts that get sorted so it doesn't become like a lattice work when you're sitting there. I mean, imagine, right, reciting the entire Odyssey over what, a three day period. This becomes incredibly important.
- [43:48]
B
And just one more comment too, and that is, as I'm listening to you describe how these epithets work again, setting the Odyssey beside the Iliad just shows you how much Homer has developed as an author in terms of just sheer character development. Now, when we read the Iliad and we encounter characters like Achilles or Agamemnon, they don't change all that much. I mean, yes, there's the divination arc of Achilles, but the Achilles that we meet at the beginning and the Achilles that we meet at the end. I mean, some might disagree with me, but I don't really see him as being altogether that different. Whereas in the Odyssey we're told that Penelope, for instance, is the matchless queen of cunning, but she's not yet described as virtuous. That comes a little bit later. So this is something that we catch a glimpse of in this episode of the Web, the weaving and the unweaving. But it's only going to be later that we really get to see the true inner machinations of Penelope's soul. And so Homer's just slowly teasing this out for us. And I think that really helps the readers just to stay engaged with the narrative.
- [45:02]
A
Maybe just like some final thoughts on book two. You know, it's interesting as we kind of track Telemixus maturation, Athena's having to help him as mentor, just to get the practicalities, like, hey, you need sailors on your ship. You have to go do these things. Telemachus relies on his nursemaid to get the provisions together. But don't tell my mom. Do not tell my mom that I am leaving. I think you really do see, like, he's trying to take the reins. He's trying to mature. I was actually curious the first time I read this of the fatherlessness. How much is that permeated into him? Like, what does he know to do and not do? So it's interesting to me that he does take the leadership of the boat, of the ship, that he knows how to sail, these types of things. But Athena's still kind of helping him and he's got his nurse made. And I think that, to reiterate a point we saw last time, I think you see Tilmachis having to step out of kind of like the feminine home that he's been in and try and mature and escape that. And I think this is something that's really interesting, maybe to shift into like a moral read of the need for young men to escape a certain amount of safety and leave the nest and then go become a man by having this journey, this odyssey, you know, this telemachy of yourself, and then hopefully having a mentor, a father like figure who can guide you through this shifting from an adolescent to a man. And the part. And honestly, being part of a man is also being able to be a threat.
- [46:30]
B
And to add, just to add just one pinch of salt to what you said, there's this wonderful line which is around line 445, where Homer writes, and Pallas Athena sped away in the lead and he followed in her footsteps, man and goddess. Right? So that's grace. This is the. I read that. And what instantly came to mind is, yes, you know, we need these human role models, but we also need to participate with the grace of God. And so this inspires him and he gives his first commands. So, you know, I think here we begin to see Telemachus maturing owing to Athena's the way that she's serving as a role model in the guise of Mentor. But again, they're. She remains a goddess still. And so he is participating with all of the various graces. And even in. At the beginning of book three, right. Athena is leading the way, but he is still following behind her in lockstep. So I think that too, is incredibly important when charting Telemachus development.
- [47:42]
A
Yeah, well said. No, I appreciate that. Okay, let's look at book three. King Nestor remembers, as Faggles entitles it. It's a shame that Adam Minahan can't be here as Nestor was his favorite character throughout the Iliad. Old man Nestor. This has to be Nestor. I mean, this is Nestor's heyday, by the way, because he's asked to tell stories. I mean, just know that this is a fantastic time for Nestor because he's asked to tell stories throughout this book. But let's look at the beginning. So one thing that really stands out to me is obviously they show up, they sail, right? They're going to, what, Pylos, and they're having this sacrifice. And this is not a small sacrifice. This is four. This is 81 bulls. And 4,500 people are here for a sacrifice to Poseidon. So there's two things that I would. I want to point out about this. One is that particularly in the Catholic religion, we also believe in natural religion, which means that man has a natural disposition to give God his due. Another way to say this is that go back to that hierarchy of piety, that the piety towards the divine is actually innate inside of man, that man naturally wants to give gratitude, to give thanks back to the divine. And then this takes, you know, various different forms, particularly for cultures, right, that don't have the benefit of divine revelation. What that means, though, is that there's echoes of true religion inside the natural religion itself. And one thing I've always appreciated about the Greek sacrifice is that it has both a vertical and horizontal element to it. And so on the vertical side, obviously, it's sacrifices offered to the gods, but then on the horizontal side, it's then shared as a feast. So the sacrifice that we come together is something also that we eat then as a community. And so what I think we see here too, which might be odd for some, is I think we see a pagan natural foreshadowing to what we have, say, like in the Blessed Sacrament, in the Eucharist at the Mass, that it's a vertical sacrifice of us offering the Son to the Father. But then also there's a horizontal element of us all coming to eat together as a community, really, as one body. So there's one. That's one element that I've always appreciated. Now, obviously there's elements that don't match. One of the things that's hilarious to me is that deception, lying is integrated into the sacrifice between man and gods. So for those who don't know, there's a story of Prometheus. And Prometheus, obviously, in a lot of narratives, is the creator of man. So he cares for man. And so it's Prometheus that oversaw the context of what parts of the animal they were going to give to Zeus. And Prometheus famously tricks Zeus into accepting the bad parts that you don't want to eat the bones all wrapped in the fat and sinews and etc. Leaving the best cuts, actually, for man to eat. And Zeus gives his nod, his ascent, right? We saw this in the Iliad that is irrevocable. And so Prometheus tricks Zeus, at least in some narratives. Hesiod's very pious towards Zeus. And so, you know, Zeus actually knows everything that's going on and allows this for the benefit of man. What that means then, right, is that then the best parts get shared with man. But it is interesting to me that deception and trickery is actually integrated into the religious sacrifice between God and man for the Greeks. And then the only other thing I would mention for those who are unfamiliar is there's a whole theory that as the Gospel writers were writing the gospels, they understood their hellenized audience had certain patterns, certain types of what it meant to be a hero, of what it meant to actually be a king. And so there's a lot of people that want to tether Christ's feeding of the 5,000 to Nestor's feeding of the 4,500. And of course, there's different ways to read this. So, like, the negative side is that the Gospel writers are copying this, right? That Christ never did any miracles, he never did anything. And they're just kind of borrowing these things in. There's another way to read it, particularly for those of us who think that God's providence worked through the Greeks, that then there are these ways in which Christ becomes the true myth. And so these kind of Homeric and heroic archetypes that we see that cultures were being habituated to all then are perfected in Jesus Christ probably The most famous one being the Katabasis. Right. That there's this descent into hell, this heroic descent into hell that we'll see in the Odyssey as well. Odysseus does it, Aeneas does it, Hercules does it. Several others, I think, do as well. But Christ then is the true myth who also goes down into hell, but then also defeats death itself, and then is the harrowing of hell and then raised as the hero, the victor. So there's one we'll see a scene later on in the Odyssey in which, you know, someone is known by their scars. And this parallels deeply St. Thomas knowing our Lord by the scars in his hands and his side. So this really interesting parallel, which you can take the Homeric texts and parallel them to the Gospels and see if there's some kind of interplay going on there.
- [52:56]
B
Oh, that's excellent. I mean, just to return to the text, I'm trying to imagine Telemachus as he arrives in Pylos. This is his first exposure to a healthy polish, how things ought to be working, where they're having these sacrifices. And so I think that for us as readers, Homer is clearly delineating Pylos as a good polis, as a good society, as a healthy society marked by its zinnia, its hospitality, as well as its proper orientation to the gods. But how surprised must Telemachus be because he's seen none of this. But I think that speaks. And that gets back to what you were saying, deacon, about sort of our natural propensity to worship, that there must be a part of Telemachus that just knows that this is right, even though he's never been taught, even though he's never been exposed to it. And so I'm drawn in particular to a line from. From Athena, when she is reciting this prayer to Poseidon, she says, all men need the gods. All men need the gods. And, and, and, and I think, you know, you could read that in several ways. You could read that as simply a transaction, like we just need the gods. We need the gods to give us gifts. But I think that at a more a deeper existential level, that there is this very natural and human relationship to the gods that we see present here in Pylos, which explains why things are going so well for Nestor and his people, whereas in Ithaca, things are a mess.
- [54:44]
A
Yeah, very well said. Just a few things to piggyback on that. It's such a Russian doll scenario. So we have Athena pretending to be Mentor praying to a God. So we have a goddess praying to a God. And Then not only do you have that, they're at odds with one another. Poseidon would be furious to know what Athena is doing right now. Recall book one, right? So Poseidon's not really paying attention right now. Athena's then off with her machinations, and so she's praying to a God that she's actually working against. I think there's a lot there that we could unpack. The two things, though, that I think are really fascinating. One, Telemachus going back to the fatherlessness. I love how you tie that into the polis. Very good. Again, as you make me think about these things, I think about how Telemachus maybe is an analog to the political instability, that just as the polis is struggling because it's not well ordered, so too is Telemachus. Athena has to teach him how to speak. And, you know, for most of us, that might be like, okay, fine, he's a young man. He has to learn how to speak from the goddess of wisdom, cleverness, strategy. That makes sense. But this is Odysseus, son, who doesn't know how to speak. And that's such a sign of fatherlessness for him. Odysseus is the master rhetorician, even though we see some very quick maturation of Telemachus in this text. He has some big wins, he has a few losses, I think, with his rhetoric, but he's a quick learner. The other thing is that she teaches him how to pray. It's not simply that she prays, but she teaches him how to pray for his piety as well. So how do you address a king? And how do you address a God? And again, think of that three. Structure, piety, the divine, the polis, and then your parents. And so that's at. She prays up aside around 60. He echoed her prayer back word for word. It's line 72 or so. Beautiful.
- [56:36]
B
Yeah. And a little bit earlier, this line also gets me where she is speaking Telemachus and says Telemachus, round line 30. Some of the words you'll find within yourself. The rest some power will inspire you to say. And I was curious, I was curious, what word is power? And I don't know if you know it, but it's daimon.
- [56:56]
A
Yes, yes, yes, I have. Let's see here. I love this word, the daemon. Like, it's such a rich word. Tremendously so. I'm looking at our guide that we have for the Odyssey. I just want to look at this real fast. So, yeah, you said. You're exactly right. He doesn't know how to speak. And she says that a word, power, right, will come upon him. It's daemon, which etymologically means the allotter or the giver of a share, which I think is really fascinating with some of the concepts in fate. Fate also allots certain shares. So what's this daemon? So the poet Hesiod held that the daemons were men of the golden age who Zeus had transformed into spirits that could grant prosperity to mankind. So they're actually the heroes of that have been reborn as like spirits in the classical age. Socrates will speak in his apology of the daemon that had guided him since he was a child. So again, for those who don't know, Socrates says that the daemon was attached to him and never told him what to do, but checked him if he was ever going to do anything wrong. We also saw him play a symposium that Socrates describes the love of Eros as a daemon that aids the soul and its ascent to the divine. So in sum, the daemons, again reading from our guide, were metaphysical guardians of man and spiritual beings intermediate between the gods and men. And so it's actually not surprising that our Neoplatonic forefathers, right in the, in the medieval tradition, the Neoplatonic Catholics often argued that the daemons were a pagan antecedent to angels, that the, that the pagans had started to understand that there was some creature between God and man that was an intermediary that could help them in their journey. And so I love that you pointed that out because a power will come upon him. We'll actually see this in the next book too, that there's a dark power that comes upon Helen. So a lot of this in book three we have, there's a lot of examples of guest friendship, lots of great examples of zinnia. So I guess maybe to push into what you're making me think about, like, notice that the well ordered polis has a well ordered guest friendship. They know how to welcome the guest. They don't ask the name, they bathe them, they feast them and then they ask them their name and then what they can do for them. There's this deep hospitality of then helping the guest in whatever their mission may be. Nestor starts to tell. I think one of the things that are important here is that Nestor starts to tell the story. He says the living hell that we endured in Troy. This is like, I don't know, 115 or so. And what's interesting here is that then he starts naming off names. So for those who haven't read the Odyssey before, Some of these are a big punch in the gut because these aren't people, for the most part. These are not people that died in the Iliad. But again, the Iliad doesn't tell the entire Trojan War. It stops with the death of Hector. We don't get the Trojan horse. We don't get. There's like three or four intermediate events during that time period between the Iliad and the Odyssey. We don't get any of that. So all of a sudden we're being told here, by the way, here are the people that died. I mean, great Ajax died. This is by far my least favorite death in all of Homer. The fact that great Ajax died the way that he did. I don't know. Do you want to tell that story? I can tell that story if you want. So with Great Ajax, Nestor mentions that he dies at Troy. That's around 121 or so. And so after the death of Achilles, the Achaeans at Troy had to decide whether Odysseus or Ajax should have the armor of Achilles. Remember this, this is a big. It's a. It's a theme of honor, that they would always take it and they had all this glory and they had all these things. So who's going to get the armor of Achilles? So after a confidential ballot amongst the Achaians, Odysseus was selected as the one who should be honored with the armor. Big Ajax. Great Ajax went into a rage due to the dishonor of not being selected. Athena, however, so there's Athena, caused great Ajax to go mad. The giant warrior began to slaughter sheep and goats, believing that he. That they were actually his fellow Achaians. He actually was killing his fellow countrymen. He then dragged to his tent a huge ramp, which to his distracted mind was Odysseus, bound him to the tent pole and beat him savagely. When he awoke from his madness, the dishonor of not receiving Achilles armor was now coupled with a public humiliation that he had endured and also the dishonor that he saw of himself in the eyes of the gods. And so great Ajax kills himself. He's a suicide. Such a terribly ignoble death for great Ajax, who I really loved and was a stalwart defender of the Achaians throughout the entire Iliad. And what's interesting there, culturally, is that then he's a suicide. They bury him. They don't give him the funeral pyre. And that must change at some point because we just, you know, in the Antigone and stuff like this later on. But at this Point in Homer, apparently, like you got fear, suicide, you don't get the big funeral pyre, you get buried in the earth. So we have the great Ajax dies, as I just alluded to, Achilles also dies, which most people know that he mentions Patroclus. We already knew that Patroclus had died. In the Iliad, Nestor's son dies. So this is one of the narratives that we get. Antilochus, Antilochist, that's, I don't know, 125 or so. So what's interesting is some of the stories there. So he dies. There's this interesting part in between the Iliad and the Odyssey where I think it's the Ethiopians come to support Troy. And so there's this whole other army that shows up. Antilochus actually dies in that battle. And some of the narratives say that he actually dies defending Nestor, that he like takes a spear. That would have been for his father because he's a very virtuous character or I guess Arete in the elite as well. I think famously he's the one that's given the job of going back and telling Achilles that Patroclus is dead, which is, you know, if you read that carefully, he holds Achilles hands. Part of that is. So hopefully Achilles doesn't slaughter him in his own rage.
- [62:53]
B
Yeah, I think that, you know, in listening to Nestor recount the deaths of all of these heroes, I'm just reminded of, of Aeschylus's Oresteia, where even in the Agamemnon, the chorus bemoan the tragedy of war and how, how awful was. So we read the Iliad and we think of it as this great eulogy for war. This, this great praise. So exciting. People are dying. You know, the Greeks are, are, are, you know, are triumphing over the, over the Trojans. But, but here listening to Nestor, I mean, we do get the sense that war is hell. We see the impact, we've already seen the impact of war on Ithaca. But Nestor's lost all of his friends, all of his war buddies. And so one can only imagine that he's recounting this with sadness. And of course, eventually he will tell the story of Agamemnon, which is perhaps the most tragic of the deaths.
- [63:58]
A
Yeah. And let's look at. So one of the stories that we don't have in the Iliad is that this is like really surprising me. The first time I read it is that it's Athena who is raging against the Achaeans on their way home. So they go and sack Troy and now they. They're still in the beaches of Troy, and now they want to sail home. But Athena is raging at them. And what's interesting in this text is Nestor doesn't really tell you why. And what's even more interesting is, is that Athena's sitting right there. And so is his Nestor going to give a fair and just pious retelling of what actually happened. And so first off, why is she mad? And then what actually happens as they try and depart Troy. So the general story is that one of the reasons that she's upset is actually little Ajax, that Cassandra, the princess of Troy, one of the princesses of Troy, we saw her in Aesculosis, Oresteia, right? She ends up being one of the Treasuries, right, one of the slave girls that's brought back with Agamemnon and then also killed by Clytemnestra and Aegistus, at least in Orestes, or, excuse me, Aeschylus retelling. What ends up happening is that Cassandra, when Troy is falling and being sacked, is that she actually runs to the temple of Athena and holds on to her statue for basically clemency. And long story short, little Ajax basically rapes her in Athena's temple. And this is really indicative, I think, of larger problems where generally it's understood that even though it was just that Troy fell because of its basically actually because of its violation of guest friendship, because of its violation of zinnia, the sacking of Troy was done in an unjust manner. And you can do this, right? You can do something, can be just but done in an unjust manner. So the Achaians went too far in the sacking of Troy, and there's various other stories about what they did, but little Ajax in Athena's temple tends to be the one that solicits Athena's rage, so she can't be placated. Athena is raging at the Achaeans now. And basically Nestor tells us that Menelaus and Agamemnon are debating the two brothers, and they actually, like get the whole assembly together in the middle of night and half of them are drunk and everything else. Hey, what do we do? There's basically two options. One is Menelaus is, if I understand correctly, and please push back, is we got to get out of here. So we're going to leave, we're going to sail away and then we'll stop and then we'll make sacrifices to the gods, but we need to get out of here. Agamemnon is like, no, we need to stay and we're going to make sacrifices to the gods and then we will leave. And so the Achaean army, under this pressure which Nestor actually says nothing would have placated Athena. Right? That's the narrative that we get at the moment, is that so half of them leave and half of them stay. Agabinmon and a certain group stay and then Menelaus and notably Odysseus leave, go make sacrifices and then Odysseus kind of almost tries to do both, where then he goes back to Troy after leaving with Menelaus. He goes back to Agamemnon.
- [66:57]
B
No, that's, that's entirely correct. I, I think that this is all laid out. Is it around line 320?
- [67:05]
A
Well, he starts to tell the story, I know around 170 because then, oh yeah, he says that Diomedes had fled too and that Nestor had gone with Menelaus. So what's interesting here, like the first time I read it, I think that I just kept asking myself, okay, well who was right? Like who who? So which one should you have done? So which group got punished? And what's interesting is like when you read through the group, so you have Odysseus, Menelaus, Diomedes, Nestor, and then on the other side you have say Agamemnon, the Myrmidons, Philoctetes, these guys. What you end up finding out when you look into it is that people from both sides made it home fine. And it really pushes. I mean there's a lot of commentaries on this. What is the point? Like, what's the point? Like Nesser just goes straight home. But Odysseus is going to have terrible problems and then we're gonna see Menelaus has his own eight year journey trying to make it home. So what is the point? And I think that one of the working theses that we can have right now is that what's actually being orchestrated in all of this is they have to orchestrate the timing for Agamemnon getting home and also Menelaus getting home. Those are actually the two big characters that the gods have to structure because obviously Agamemnon is fated now to be killed by Aegistus and Clytemnestra and Menelaus can't make it there early because the gods have decided that it's Orestes that's going to have the glory of setting his home in order and then he's going to become a parallel in inspiration to Telemachus. So I think one of the best Theories that. That I've heard, as you're trying to figure out, like, what is happening here, like what both people on both sides make it home. Fine, which one was the right choice? It's. That's not the right way to look at it. What their gods are actually doing is just trying to orchestrate the coming home, mainly of Menelaus and of Agamemnon. And Odysseus runs into. Odysseus actually runs into a whole separate problem that we kind of was alluded to a little bit in book one with the Cyclops. We don't actually have the full story yet because we actually don't know fully. Right. Why Poseidon is angry, particularly at Odysseus, because right now this is just the rage of Athena at the Achaians overall.
- [69:17]
B
Yeah. That does call into question, though, the thesis that I was operating on, which is that the gods are actually washing their hands of any of the things that happen to the humans. So I think you put forward, I mean, a really, really provocative and compelling interpretation because it does, again, raise this question about the extent to which the gods have involved themselves in human affairs. And perhaps that's deliberately ambiguous on the part of Homer.
- [69:50]
A
Yeah, I think it's another tension point of how. How do you read this? But I think. Because also when we get to Menelaus, he's told explicitly why he's being punished. And I'm not even sure you can take that God statement on face value. I'm not sure he's not even being lied to because I don't think that's true. Because if Menelaus is really at fault because he left and sacrificed later and didn't stay and sacrifice in Troy like Agamemnon did, well, what does that matter? Agamemnon did that and then was slaughtered in his own home. And other people like Nestor, who didn't wait, made it home prime. So both. Both. There's no black and white between whether you stay or leave with Athena's rage. But what I think a compelling read is that they're orchestrating the death of Agamemon, but also the. The blood avenger. Right. Of Orestes. And I think maybe you could even push deeper and say that all of this then is going into Odysseus, where Telemachus has a parallel to become this. And this becomes the side story. This becomes the template to the Odysseus, Penelope, Telemachus story. Okay, so again, a lot of this is rhetoric. A lot of this is Telemachus growing up. I love that. Nestor's trying to praise Athena and Athena's relationship to their father. And Telemachus is like, well, Athena would never do that for me. While she's sitting right next to him and helping him through everything. That's around 250. And so 260, Athena breaks in sharply and says. She says, what is this nonsense slipping through your teeth? It's a light work for a willing God to save a mortal even half the world away. And then we get another mentioning of Aegistus. And then I think it's interesting that Homer then calls Telemachus wise. Telemachus. That epithet. Sometimes I just. Homer has to be ironic at times.
- [71:44]
B
Yeah. That Pepnomi. Yeah. You think that that's somewhat insincere that he's.
- [71:50]
A
That it's ironic. He just had a big faux pas. Right. He can't see Athena next to him.
- [71:56]
B
True.
- [71:56]
A
He basically said, athena will never do that for me. And then he's chastised by Mentor. I will say Telemachus is a quick learner because his rhetoric and his relationship with Mentor actually becomes quite good. Even by the end of this own book. We see around 280, Telemachus asks King Agamemnon, or asks Nestor, how did King Agamemnon meet his death? And so we have the story again, as told by Nestor. I think that's what's really interesting here, is the end of it. So he goes through the whole story and tells about Aegistus, tells about Clytemnestra. The first time I read this, I just thought it was funny that the bard was supposed to be the person that was protecting Clytemnestra. And that poor guy gets left on, you know, marooned on an island and basically starves, death and eaten by animals. Now, kind of looking at the bard really, as theologians, a thick word. That's a Neoplatonic thing. But the bard really as like an agent of the divine, as something that's inspired by the Muses. Well, that then makes the bard an agent of this fate of the divine that's sitting there. And so you can actually couple that with the warning of the gods in book one against Aegistus. Aegistus, don't do this. And the person who has care of Clytemnestra to make sure this doesn't happen is the bard. And we can't just reduce him to, you know, a musician, even though etymologically, that's an interesting word there, but rather that he actually is an agent of the divine causing what should happen to happen. And he has to be removed. So I. I have a much thicker understanding, or at least appreciation for the role that the bard can play with inside the polis. It's not just reducible to entertainment or even ancestral tales or even the political, but there's a deep element of the divine there as well, in them channeling the divine kind of pattern. Plan providence into the polis.
- [73:50]
B
Oh, absolutely. And we even touched on this in the first episode discussing book one, where Phemius the bard, he is one of the men who Odysseus spares. And so I think this is Homer drawing attention to the power of the word, the power of logos, because this is, you know, what is missing from Ithaca. Well, what's missing from Ithaca is compelling political rhetoric. The assembly can't seem to get the job done here. If a justice is going to succeed, what does he have to do? Well, he has to get rid of the logos, the word. So, again, I think Homer is very sensitive here to the power of language, power of reason, and that if you. I mean, if you want to see a city in disrepair, look no further than whether the bard is present or absent or whether the assembly is functioning as it ought.
- [74:48]
A
That'd be interesting. So not only is guest friendship somewhat of a barometer for the political health, but also, how do you treat your bards? How are your bards doing? That's fascinating. Two other thoughts maybe on book three that I thought were somewhat interesting. One, that whole story of him retelling Aegistus story and Clytemnestra and Orestes, it ends with a really fascinating line around 355 or so he says. So you, dear boy, take care. Don't row from the home too long, too far, leaving your own holdings unprotected. And I really, again, I'm wondering how thick that is and like, what's the strata there? Because Aegistus didn't steal Agamemnon's stuff, he seduced his wife. And that's what we're seeing. Penelope.
- [75:40]
B
Right?
- [75:40]
A
Penelope is having the fight off the suitors, but Clytemnestra, actually, according to Homeric tale, pushed back originally, and it was only after time was her will eroded and she gave in to Aegistus's, you know, seduction, particularly after the bard is gone. So it's interesting too here that again, what we're hoping is will Penelope endure? And Telemachus in this is almost like the bard character of, like, you need to be in your house and making sure that what needs to happen, what's just and Ordered and according to divine happens. I just, I think it's a really fascinating parallel. And then the only other thing that I would mention is, you know, obviously Athena reveals herself, Nestor again, deeply pious. And so they're going to sheath the horns of this bull in gold and then offer this bull to Athena, and she actually comes back and attends the sacrifice. It's a deeply pious, deeply religious moment. And I really wonder what Homer's showing us there, because this is a book that begins and ends in sacrifice. It begins and ends with the sacrifice to the divine moving, though, from Poseidon to Athena. And I was kind of thinking about how much you could make of that or what we should be making of that from Homer the teacher.
- [76:57]
B
Well, the one thing that caught my eye, Deacon, is how this bull is described as unbroken, never yoked by men. And so the parallel that I always try to draw in class, and I'm not sure if this is exactly appropriate, is that when, when the slaughter does occur, when Odysseus does finally reign victorious over the suitors, it isn't just a slaughter, but it's a sacrifice. Sacrifice of these soft, unyoked men. And so I think that Homer, what he does is he provides us with materials early on to connect with the. The ultimate climax later. So I do think, yeah, I mean, just this sacrifice of the soft unyoked bull. I mean, the suitors themselves, they're not workers, they don't have calluses. What do they do? They just sit around gobbling up the food of Penelope and Telemachus and so they're the perfect sacrifice. Right.
- [78:04]
A
That's interesting. No, that parallel. I haven't connected those two previously. I think there are other sections of the Odyssey that very much are going to parallel the destruction of the suitors. But I really like that idea that we're already getting kind of soft echoes of this with inside the text. And actually, I think the whole return, like, we already, you know, we're trying not to give too much away, but we already have all these prophecies and all these things. We're being told that Odysseus is coming back and there will be bloody work that is done, I think in a lot of ways. How do we contextualize that there's just going to be a slaughter, but then like, yeah, is there a moral read to that? Is there a religious read to that? Can you read that in the context of guest friendship? Can you read it in the context of a religious sacrifice? It's amazing to me how many layers that has. And the foreshadowing of that and kind of habituating our eyes to see those layers really begins in these books, which to me, the first time I read it, I did a very poor job of. Because I was like, where's Odysseus? I'm trying to skip all these things like, Telemachus, great, you're having your journey. Fantastic. Really proud of you. I want to get to Odysseus and the mythological monsters and things like that. I've really come to appreciate this section of the young man maturing. And I really like how you've tethered it to the political as well. The health of Telemachus and the health of the political. And can we see Homer having lessons here? That's very good. Okay, Anything else, or can we move on to book four?
- [79:27]
B
Yeah, we can move on to book four. We become reacquainted with the lovely couple, the happy couple.
- [79:34]
A
So we open. Yeah, so we open up this. This double wedding feast, which I think we have to give attention to. We get inspired bard around 21 in the midst of this feast. Then this is when Telemachus and Nestor's son, who's now escorting him, show up to Menelaus house. And I really think that this is fascinating because when they show up, the individual who meets them from Menelaus house tells Menelaus. He says, hey, we have two strangers that have shown up. Should we welcome them or we're really in the middle of this double wedding feast. Should we send them to someone else? It says send them to someone free to host them as well. Like 35 or so. Menelaus response is really fascinating to me. He says that this person is babbling like a child. Just think of all the hospitality we enjoyed at the hands of other men before we made it home. And God save us from such hard treks in years to come, quick unhitch their team and bring them in, strangers, guests to share our flowing feast. So I think one thing, if we can push into the piety is one of the things about piety is, is that it ingratiates in you a certain type of gratitude. So when you have piety, you end up also having gratitude as well. Because dare I say here that Menelaus has something that almost foreshadows what we would call humility, where he's saying, look, I went on this journey and we'll see in this book that he was gone for eight years. It took him eight years to get home from Troy back to Sparta. He was gone for eight years. And during that time Period. He was the guest. All these other hosts had to welcome him through guest friendship. So he has this great debt, right? This part of piety is that you understand your debts, you understand what's been given to you, and so then you have that gratitude to try and pay those debts back. And this is why the piety has that three fold structure, because those are the three debts that you can't ever pay back. You're never going to be able to pay your parents back for what they did for you. You can't ever pay the polis back because you participate in a common good way before you can actually contribute to it. And you'll never be able to give back to the divine of what the divine has given you. So that threefold one is part of a gratitude that you have of giving back to a debt that you can't ever actually satisfy. And so here I just think that Menelaus mindset is something that I think at times it's somewhat surprising or jarring to us from what we kind of, particularly coming off the Iliad of what we even see the Hellenistic mind to be.
- [82:08]
B
I wonder how much of this, though, Deacon, is a result of his travels. Because when reading the Iliad, so much is tied to chaos and war prizes. And what is mine is mine. And you can't take it away from me because in doing so you'll deprive me of glory. But yeah, the shift here is, I think, very much to you. You know, you speak of gratitude and humility. And we would also refer to this as a kind of thanksgiving where. Where. Yeah, I mean, sure, there are these, these, these sacrifices, these, these rituals that they perform on behalf of the gods. But this is something that is strikingly Christian in a way where he's recognizing that, yeah, the gods have really blessed him and that it wouldn't just be a sign of being inhospitable to not welcome them, but it would be in a sense to, it would be shameful to the gods. It would be in a sense to desecrate that, to be sacrilegious.
- [83:15]
A
Yeah, look at what the gods have done for me. How could I not give to another? That's fascinating in the Hellenistic mindset and whatever, however grammar we want to use to try and articulate that type of logic, I think probably it's best to see it as an outgrowth of guest friendship, which is, you know, governed then by the gods. But he also goes right into another very pious statement. So they welcome Telemachus. They're coming in. They don't know it's Telemachus yet. Even though that's an interesting question in and of itself. And then Telemachus kind of whispers like, hey, by the way, like, man, this. This is what the house of Zeus must be like. Like, look at all these treasures. Look at these riches. And Menelaus overhears this, and this is a little bit for line 90. He says, no man alive can rival Zeus, dear boys, with his everlasting palace and possessions. But among men, I must say, few, if any, could rival me in riches. But then he goes into that. He's been gone for eight years, and the hardships that he endured. And then that a stranger killed my brother. Blind to danger, duped blind, thanks to the cunning of his cursed, murderous queen. So I rule all this wealth with no great joy. Clearly, Menelaus being the brother of Agamemnon. And I noticed, too, that he emphasizes the queen more than the other narratives that we've seen. He puts the blame on the woman, which I think is a little bit fascinating, particularly since he just got off a war for his own wife who has left. So as far as wives go, in this tale, we've got Penelope, we've got Clytemnestra, and we have Helen. And so the track record's not great at the moment. But notice then that he says he rules us with no great joy. And then says, well, well, would to God I'd stay right here in my own house with a third of all that wealth. And they were still alive, all who died on the wide plain of Troy those years ago, far from the stallion land of Argos. And still, much as I weep for all my men grieving sorely time and again, sitting here in the royal halls, I thought one thing that. I mean, there's many things here that I that are fascinating, but one thing is that it's not simply for Agamemnon that he weeps, but also just for all his men. It's interesting here because he's sitting in his house with all his wealth. He finally made it back. He also has Helen, who we'll see here in a minute. And he's basically saying, if I could do it all over again, I would actually just sit here in my house with a third of what I have now. But have my relations, you know, have my men, have my brother.
- [85:46]
B
Yeah. This once again brings to mind just how the value system has shifted from the Iliad to the Odyssey. We have to wait several books, but in. In book 11, when Odysseus descends into hell, he meets Achilles and here again is a man who pursued honor and glory, death and war, right? He was given the choice to live a long and unspectacular life being some farmer or to. To die out in a blaze of glory. And he chose that. But yet here he is in hell, king of the dead, and he says, I don't want any of it. Right? So, yeah, I mean, it's quite a reversal for Homer. But again, you're wondering just how much of what is established in the Iliad is a kind of foil for his ultimate message, which is that war is hell, that all these treasures, all these war prizes don't amount to a hill of beans when all of your friends have died, right? When you've not just suffered casualties in war, but when the very structure of the polis, like the very structure of civil society has been placed at risk. So war seems really, maybe really exciting and really good when you're reading about it in the book, but when you actually have to live through it, you tend to have some regrets.
- [87:15]
A
Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, that's one fascinating aspect of the Odyssey, is how the characters then reflect upon their experience in Troy. And who finds it to be worth it? We'll have Nestor, we have Menelaus. We'll have, like you mentioned earlier, we'll have Achilles give a commentary. Again, it's Achilles commentary, though, through the mouth of Odysseus, we have Odysseus's own perceptions of this as well. And so again, there's just this kind of strata, these layers, that gives a commentary on the Iliad. One thing I. One thing that was really fascinating to me in this passage is that it mentions at 131 or so, that Menelaus has already recognized Telemachus as Odysseus son. Because right before that, he says, oh, you know who I weep for the most? Odysseus. Mom. My best friend. And I thought that was really fascinating because I didn't know how to read that, because at first you're like, oh, that's really providential. But then you're told that Menelaus already recognizes Telemachus as must being the son of Odysseus because of what he looks like. So I wonder how much of that was, like, authentic or how much of that is rhetoric. The pull Telemachus out of saying, okay, I'm going to test this, right? We're seeing some very subtle rhetorical tests in this. And if you think, well, we'll say this later on in the text, particularly when Odysseus Kicks in the gear. There are very, very subtle rhetorical tests that go on. And so having a slight foreshadow it, shadowing of it here with Menelaus and Telemachus, I think is probably a fair. A fair read, because then even Helen comes out. And Helen, I guess just to tether those two together immediately is just like. To the life, he's like the son of great Odysseus. Surely he's Telemachus, the boy that the hero left a babe in arms at home when all you Achaeans fought at Troy, launching her headlong battles just for my sake. Shameless whore that I was. So, two, three things here that I think are fascinating. One, that she can spot Telemachus immediately, and so did Menelaus. The second one is how she speaks of herself. Because if you go back to that theory of the poetic dialectic that basically Homer is giving us things in tension to, in almost a contrast, a juxtaposition, to try and then elicit from us certain philosophical inquiries. Helen, I think, has to be one of the most intentioned characters that we have. Is she culpable for what happened? Because at certain times, in her own mouth, she will criticize herself and what she did, and then at other times she will talk about the madness that Aphrodite placed upon her to do these things. And so at some point it's. She's culpable for an act of free will of what she did with Paris and absconding with him, you know, back to Troy. At other times, it makes it sound very much like, oh, these were the gods. There wasn't much I could do about it. We saw this in the Iliad, too, where Helen was actually intention of not wanting to go to Paris, and Aphrodite would come in and basically threaten her or force her to do that or et cetera. Her. I think her whole character is a character intention of. Is where is the line between free will and providence or fate?
- [90:18]
B
Yeah, yeah. Deacon, you know, you mentioned, like, these tensions, how this is so vital to the narrative and to these. The character developments. And as we'll see a little bit later, too, there's this inconsistency where Helen, when she's telling her story to Telemachus, will make it seem as though she definitely wanted to leave Troy. But then when Menelaus speaks of her involvement with the Trojan horse, he kind of calls into question her sincerity. So I often wonder, Menelaus, he wins in a sense, that he gets Helen back. But what exactly did he win? I mean, was Helen worth fighting over after all? I'm not sure.
- [91:11]
A
Yeah, that's a great question. I think one of the other things, too, that. The third thing that I was going to focus on is the fact that one of the things that Homer plays with, and we'll see it, particularly in the Odyssey, we get these epithets, and the epithets mean something. They're not just reducible to just a rhetorical device. They actually have some kind of essential quality. The other thing, though, is that when people are compared to gods, it tends to be very intentional. And I thought it was really fascinating that Helen here is like, as striking as Artemis because Artemis is one of the virgin goddesses who defends her virginity ferociously. Right. If you accidentally. One of the worst things that can happen to you is you are out hunting and accidentally see Artemis, you know, bathing because she's the huntress, you get turned into a deer and devoured by your own dogs. So I thought it was really interesting here because we'll see later. With Penelope, Homer will very much play off comparing her to the gods. Sometimes she's like Artemis, sometimes she's like Aphrodite, but she's usually Artemis to the suitors and Aphrodite to Odysseus. That makes sense to me. Why Helen in this passage is compared to Artemis was a question I had as I read through the text.
- [92:23]
B
Well, that might just be an inside joke. What do you mean, a virgin goddess? And the audience says, yeah, right.
- [92:30]
A
Yeah, it's a Juxta. It's a. Yeah, because. Well, it could be their inside joke. Is funny the way to phrase it, because obviously the beginning of that passage talks about her as Artemis, which is a virgin goddess, and that it ends with her calling herself a whore.
- [92:43]
B
Right. Oh, very good.
- [92:44]
A
So we could. We could go back to Homer likes irony and has a thick sense of humor. That could be a little bit dry. What did you take of Telemachus at 175 or so being referred to as modest again, kind of pointing out traits that oftentimes we don't associate with the Hellenistic mindset. I'm slow to try and read these in a Christian mindset because I think we always have to take the texts as they are first because I don't think we want to simply baptize them. We also don't want to simply kind of reduce them, just. Just, you know, basic signs and symbols of looking for things that we think are like Christianity. So the modest aspect was really fascinating because that's not chaos, that's not glory. But I thought of it almost in a way of parallel to Odysseus, like as he's going to show up later as like a beggar, or he shows up in disguise. Or you could even argue that is Athena not being modest by showing herself as mentor. Is there a way then that the modesty is a term that's thick for us in a Christian setting, but here is almost tied to like a cleverness, like how you present yourself at first.
- [93:57]
B
I think. I think that that's kind of where my mind was going, Deacon. That. That modesty isn't in the sense of like, propriety, but rather is. It has. Has more of an intellectual bent to it that. That he's not willing to reveal his true self. Not to say he's sneaky necessarily, but this may be the circumspect quality that he inherits from his mom.
- [94:23]
A
Yeah, no, very good. Okay. So Helen, you know, like any party you go to, Helen gives them drugged wine. Yeah. She spikes the punch and decides to tell some stories. So we get two stories here that are really fascinating. One is that Odysseus had actually infiltrated Troy. He had dressed as a beggar and actually infiltrated Troy and actually talked to Helen and told Helen what the plan was, which I thought was kind of a fascinating story in and of itself. The second one is the one that you alluded to earlier, which is that then when all the men are in the Trojan horse. So the Trojan horse has been accepted, it's been brought into Troy and it's filled with the soldiers. We get a story of Helen walking out and she has a dark power on her. Right again, a daemon has possessed her. And she's walking around the Trojan horse, calling out to the soldiers that are inside. And each soldier inside hears her in the voice of their wife. And there's a few things about this I find fascinating. One is we get two stories back to back. One is Helen's super excited for the Achaeans and to come and save her from Troy. And then the second one is she is about to ruin the entire plan.
- [95:36]
B
She's going to blow their cover.
- [95:37]
A
Exactly. So there's an interesting juxtaposition there. And I think you could maybe make the argument of who is Helen qua Helen? And then who is Helen when the powers come upon her, when the daemons come upon her? I think that's an interesting juxtaposition there. The other thing I find fascinating about this passage is that all these men inside the Trojan Horse were chosen because of their bravery. Their fortitude Right. Who, who has the thematic spirit to get in this horse? We might all get burned alive. They might do something terrible, but this also might work. And then they find themselves in a temptation of temperance. Not do you have enough fortitude? But do you have enough temperance to not give yourself away when you hear the voice of your wife? And by the way, you know, they've been here for 10 years.
- [96:25]
B
Which I think again it draws my mind back to all of the issues, all the questions that Homer raises about the polis and about the family and about the need to be home. I mean sure, 10 years away from your family, I mean that's a long time. But these men have suffered not just physical wounds and the loss of dear friends lives, but they've become disconnected with their homeland. Right. They, they, they don't just want to win the war and claim all the various war prizes, but they want to be made complete once again by being reunited with their, with their wives and with their people.
- [97:05]
A
Yeah. And two of the things that occurred to me on this passage, one is that Odysseus seemed immune from the temptation. And we could ask why? And I think that's a big question. Why is it, is he, he just has the mental capacities, the fortitude, the cleverness to not get sucked into the temptation. Is there a reason why maybe Penelope's voice for him is not that great of a temptation? What is it about Odysseus that makes it where this is not as much of a temptation for him as it is for the others. To the degree that he's actually able to thwart the one soul in there who's probably going to give it all away, who can't actually, you know, hold the line in this, in this temptation. 2 Then if Odysseus is able to be immune because of his intellect, because of his cleverness, that this, this trap, this trick won't work on here, won't work on him, then it's really fascinating that it's actually Athena that swoops in and ends the temptation.
- [98:03]
B
Right.
- [98:03]
A
That actually moves away Helen in the, in the dark power, right. It says 3, 22 or so holding on Grimset till Pallas Athena lured you off at last. So it's wisdom that comes in to move this temptation along.
- [98:19]
B
And as you were talking, I love the word that you use, temptation that he had temperance too, that because this reminds me, of course the temptation he will later have to listen to the songs of the Sirens. So I think there's a, there's a real self knowledge here that Odysseus possesses that others don't. That in other words, he knows himself so well. He knows the challenges that he can meet and he knows the challenges that he will fall prey to. And so he later will instruct his crew to lash him to the, to the mast because he knows that he will not be able to overcome the temptation of the siren, that his moral character wouldn't be strong enough. So, yeah, I think that this is getting. It reveals. And so we've learned so much about Odysseus without even having met him yet.
- [99:07]
A
Well, let's look at. Let's look at Menelaus own story. So it took him eight years to get home. And I thought this was really fascinating. So, you know, long story short, Menelaus has basically told, hey, you have to go wrestle the old man of the sea. Who is this? Proteus, Right, the old, this is, I believe, the older. Not Poseidon, but the older God.
- [99:28]
B
The old man of the sea.
- [99:30]
A
Yeah, the old man of the sea.
- [99:31]
B
The shapeshifter.
- [99:33]
A
Yeah, so he's a shapeshifter. It's really great. Right. So they have this whole scheme they go through to be able to wrestle him and then, yeah, this is down at 5, 10. I mean, he turns into a lion, a serpent, a panther, a wild boar, as Menelaus is trying to wrestle him. As a side note, one thing I thought really fascinating, particularly the first time I read this, is like, there is nothing like this in the Iliad. There's this nothing like, hey, you want to know the will of the gods? Why don't you just go wrestle one of them? Can you imagine someone trying to do that in the Iliad? The closest that we get is Diomedes got to spear Aphrodite, but only because Athena told him that it was okay for him to do so. But also it's Aphrodite, like, she just whines about it. Correct. So I thought this was really interesting. And I wonder if you could tether it to the opening to man that this is. This is man wrestling the divine to wrestle out his fate from him. What is it that you have for me? I'm going to wrestle you and you must tell me these secrets. I think there's interesting parallels between this story and Jacob wrestling the angel of God and trying to find out, like, who he is. What do you have for me? I think there's two really interesting parallels in those two stories. I think this story has another interesting parallel in Achilles and the river God that we have. Achilles and his as you mentioned earlier his deification arc of becoming, you know, the divine rage that he's becoming more godlike. And what starts to actually bring him back down, well, he actually runs into an actual God, the river God, and he can't defeat it. And so if I remember correctly, Hephaestus and Hera have to intervene and the fire comes down and burns the river God back and et cetera. So they save Achilles. Oh, yeah, because he's like, I'm going to die as a, you know, a pig stable boy here in this river if you don't come and save me. So Achilles, in a certain way, fails in his trial against a God here. Menelaus succeeds and has victory in wrestling a God and finding out his fate and the fate of his friends. And, yeah, I do wonder if you can tether that to the opening word of man.
- [101:42]
B
Yeah, Proteus is an interesting analog to Odysseus as well. Just as Odysseus is this man of twists and turns.
- [101:49]
A
He's resourceful.
- [101:50]
B
He's, you know, he is. He's evolving. And Proteus is somebody, some God who just changes shapes. So again, this concept of being plutar posse, or being a person who. Or, you know, person who changes along the way, it seems to be coming up quite often.
- [102:09]
A
So what do we learn? Right, what do we learn? So he wrestles him, he's successful. We learn. He asks certain questions of the captains, et cetera, what's happened to them. So we get more stories. So we get little Ajax. So little Ajax, who maybe we could argue, caused the rage of Athena and things of this nature. He's actually shipwrecked. And then he actually makes it to the shore and he's like, ha, gods, you cannot get me. And then the rock breaks that he's holding onto and he dies. So that's the end of little Ajax, which is also an ignoble death, but one I'm not as sympathetic to. That's at like 560 or so. Then. This is where Menelaus finds out about his brother. This is where he finds out about Agamemnon. And it talks then about how much he, Menelaus sat down in the sand and wept when he found out that his brother, right, was basically butchered upon coming home by Aegistus and Clytemnestra. And in this story, in the Homeric one, it's a banquet. So they host a banquet for Agabinmon when he comes back. So it's just treachery upon treachery. And also Think about that now, tethered to our other conversations, this is also a violation of guest friendship in a certain way. So even though it's his house, he's being welcomed back home as the victorious one, as the one who conquered Troy, he's technically, I guess you could argue, a guest. Or they're welcoming back the host and then they kill him at the banquet table. And there's this wonderful line, he feasted him well and then cut him down as a man cuts down some ox at the trough. The Menelaus weeps. And then. What's interesting here though, is that at 6:15 or so, Proteus still presents this as a malleable fate. Either you'll find the murderer still alive or Orestes will have beaten you to the kill and you'll be in time to share the funeral feast. And I thought that was really interesting because I'm not sure at this point how malleable that actually is. And then he asks about Odysseus and this is where then Menelaus can tell Telemachus something that he probably doesn't know, which is that Odysseus is alive at this point and he is a captive on Calypso's island, which we were told in book one. And as a side note, Menelaus finds out that unlike everyone else, which we'll find out later, who goes to the underworld, which is not a terribly pleasant place, Menelaus will actually go to the Elysian Fields because he is actually the son in law to Zeus. And so a beautiful afterlife awaits him. And I wonder how much you can hold that in juxtaposition, that Menelaus knows that he's actually going to have this very paradise esque afterlife, which is not afforded to many men, it's not even afforded to Achilles. And yet he is sad and laments the death of his brother and his home. It's an interesting juxtaposition that's created in Menelaus. Anything else? I mean, just on book four in general, I mean, obviously it shifts back to Ithaca. The narrative overall shifts back. And so then we see the suitors have started to understand that Telemachus is now a threat. And so they're planning. Then this book actually ends with them planning to ambush him on his way home and to kill him. And then we see that Penelope is told this by the herald, that this is going to happen. And she's lamenting this. And Athena comes. Well, Athena gives her comfort, right, in the form of sister, yes, that everything will be okay. And one of the things, there's a few things here I thought were fascinating. One is it's never really occurred to me whether or not the women of the house can offer sacrifices. Because in the Iliad, when. Who was that? Hecuba, the queen of Troy, is told to offer sacrifices. It's unbloody. It's her. Her best dresses, if I remember right, it's an unbloody sacrifice. Here when Penelope has to cry out for Athena, when the men do this, it's always followed by. And then they offered sacrifice or they promise sacrifice, like, when I get home, I'll kill, you know, a hundred bulls or whatever it is here. I thought it was really interesting that Athena has to rely then on if her king, if her husband. Right. Remember all the sacrifices that he has offered you. And so it's interesting because I think there's that natural. Again, that natural religion of the husband being the priest. So even in the Old Testament, before the institution of the priesthood amongst the Levite class at Mount Sinai and following before that, it was always the patriarch who was the priest of the family, the one who offered the sacrifice. And it's curious to me how much of a parallel that is to the Hellenistic mind as well.
- [106:51]
B
Yeah, and as book four draws to a close, too, I'm just amazed by how cinematic Homer's narrative is. The scene shifting, how book two opens with us in Ithaca, then we follow Telemachus in his travels. But then near the end, Homer shifts our attention back to Ithaca while Telemachus is still in Sparta, to be reunited with this with the suitors and to see just how deeply they've descended into depravity. Now they're actually planning to murder Telemachus. And so then we get the ending of book four with Penelope being put to sleep. Right. And then what happens in book five? As we'll see. Well, when we, as the readers awaken, we awaken no longer in Ithaca, but we awaken on an island where for the very first time, we encounter our hero, Odysseus.
- [107:50]
A
I think, too, one thing that caught my attention is how Athena treats Penelope at the end of book four versus how she talked about Penelope as Mentes in book one. In book one, it was very much, yeah, she can go marry someone else. Send her away. And by the way, I think it's implied, by the way, if she gets in the way, remember how Orestes had to handle the situation here? It's curious to me that Athena comes to comfort Penelope, and I'm not really sure to what degree that benefits Odysseus or Telemachus. Is it indirect or is she serving Penelope directly? But one of the things that she solicits from Penelope that I don't think I gave a lot of attention to in prior reads is down by 9, 20 or so. This is Penelope speaking, she says. Just a youngster still untrained for war or stiff debate. This is Telemachus. So he's not a man yet. Him I mourn even more than I do my husband and I. I don't know if I've given that sufficient thought that when Telemachus leaves and he might die, she mourns for him more than she does for her own husband. It's something I'd like to think about further.
- [108:59]
B
The other thing, too, is. The other thing to note is Athena's request of this vision, this shadowy apparition. She wants information about Odysseus. She wants to know whether he is in fact alive or not. And Athena's response is about that man. I can't tell you the story, start to finish, whether he's alive, whether he's dead or alive. It's wrong to lead you on with idle words. So this is a mystery, right? So, you know, here we are, we're living in this world of space and time, and we want answers to all of our questions about life and death and the afterworld. And we're just simply not ready. I mean, God deliberately leaves us in the dark, leaves certain things a mystery because either we're not ready or we're just simply not emotionally and morally prepared for the answers.
- [109:53]
A
And I don't disagree with any of that. But what's fascinating to me is that it's like literally the first thing that she told Telemachus was, hey, by the way, your father is still alive. So one of the things. I'm really glad you brought that up because that's one of the things that I marked in my text is why. Why does she deprive Penelope of confirmation that Odysseus is alive? I think maybe a negative. Negative is the wrong word, but maybe a negative read here is that it's what she said in book one. Like, listen, if you want to go back to your father and have him marry you off to someone else, it doesn't seem to be Athena's main purpose, to reunite Penelope and Odysseus. She seems much more interested in the maturation of Telemachus and that Odysseus actually makes it home, that he has the full hero's arc to go off on the journey to Troy, but to also make it home. And now we're getting all these other comparisons of other characters and how they had to make it home. But Odysseus is the last one to do it. And then, as you've pointed in the Return of the King, we have a polis that is in political disarray. We have old men, the assembly, the kind of democratic aspect of this that is completely, completely inept. And we need the thematic and also clever character to come in and enact justice, to enact the bloody work that's already been prophesied. So, no, it's just. It's wonderful. I mean, Homer offers us so many juxtapositions, so many tensions, so many things that I think we have to take seriously to kind of pull out the philosophical depth of this text. Very good. Any other thoughts on this book or any of the others?
- [111:32]
B
No. Again, whenever I expose my students and I always invite them, I say, well, look, we can read excerpts. They insist on reading the whole thing. It's just so engaging of a narrative. Yeah. It's impossible just to just read a part of it. You have to get through it all.
- [111:56]
A
No. Yeah. It's one big masterwork. You can't chop it up. That's a disservice, I think, to Homer. And the first time I read it, actually, I had not even read the Iliad first. The Great Books program I was in at that point only had us read the Odyssey. It's one reason I have a bad taste in my mouth of this section, because I didn't have any. I didn't have any bearing. Like when he's telling me who's alive and who's dead, I didn't have any context. And sometimes I still see this debate online that you really don't have to read the Iliad first. Between before reading the Odyssey, I'm like, oh, no, do not do that. Right. Go read the Iliad. And if right now you're listening to podcast, you're like, oh, shoot, I haven't read the Iliad. It's okay. We have literally six months of podcasts and up already videos, et cetera, to help you read the Iliad and have a deep appreciation for that text. And then the juxtaposition that is the Odyssey. Okay, Dr. Gabrowski, I always appreciate you, as always, you are our mentor as we work through the Homeric texts, and I deeply appreciate it and appreciate all of your comments today.
- [112:50]
B
Well, Deacon, as always, a pleasure. I hope to join you on some future episodes.
- [112:54]
A
Oh, yeah, no, you will. You have to. It's mandatory. So next week, we're actually discussing just book five. So everyone, you can just go read book five. If you can read it twice. It's amazing. Odysseus shows up. It's introduction. It's probably actually one of the most important books in the entire Odyssey. It's the one that really started to unlock for me the wisdom of Homer, because it showed me how subtle he can actually be in the text. And Odysseus makes some pretty decisive decisions in this book that I think are probably some of the thickest philosophical conversations. And to guide from that, Dr. Kabowski will be back, and we'll also have a friend rejoining us from Wyoming Catholic. And so go check us out in the meantime on X, Facebook, YouTube and Patreon and Instagram. And we will see you guys next week. Thank you.