Loading summary
Transcript109 lines
- [00:00]
A
Today on the Stand the Rape Books podcast, We continue our 12 week study of the Odyssey by discussing books 6 through 8 with Dr. Frank Grabowski. These books are subtle. Homer is subtle in the lessons that he offers us, but in a lot of ways we'll see Odysseus who's being prepared for his return to Ithaca. We'll also see the buildup to Odysseus telling his own story in books 9 through 12, which contain some of the most famous stories of the entire Odyssey. And I just want to say thank you to all of you for joining us on this 12 week study. Thank you for joining us to read the Odyssey. I've actually greatly appreciated the opportunity to be able to read this text again and I'm learning so much alongside all of you and alongside our wonderful guests. And so to help us in our conversation today, I'm actually going to read from our guide. If you don't know, we actually have a question answer guide on the Odyssey that can help you or your small group. And each book of the Odyssey is actually summarized and then has follow up questions to help you track the main narratives. Whether they're architectonic or they're very granular. We have a lot of good questions to help guide you through this wonderful text. So what happens in book six? Athena inspires Nausicaa, the daughter of King Alcinous, to go with her handmaids to the river in wash clothes. Her father grants her permission and she takes a wagon of clothes to be washed. As she waits for the clothes to dry, she and her handmaids have a picnic out by the river. With a little influence from Athena, Odysseus awakes to the sound of the girls playing with a ball. Odysseus emerges naked, covering himself with a leafy branch, a terrible sight, all crusted and caked with brine. All the women scatter, save Nausicaa, in whom Athena has planted courage. Odysseus tells the princess of his plight and she welcomes him as a stranger from Zeus. To avoid scandal, Nausicaea instructs Odysseus on how to enter the city alone, find the queen and grasp her needs. The book ends with Nausicaa leaving Odysseus in the sacred grove and Odysseus praying to Athena. What happens in book 7? Athena hides Odysseus in a mist and leads him in the guise of a child toward the palace. She reiterates the advice of Nausicaea by telling Odysseus to go to Queen Arete. Odysseus enters a magnificent palace and throws his arms around the queen's knees. As Athena withdraws her mistake, Odysseus pleads for mercy and then falls into the ashes underneath the harp. All are silent until the old man cries out for his king to welcome the stranger. And King Alcinous, spurred by his subject, welcomes Odysseus with food and drink. Without asking Odysseus name or where he is from, the king convenes the evening and calls for an assembly in the morning to help the stranger return home. Queen Arete takes Odysseus to his lodgings and is the first to question him about his name and homeland and where he received his clothes. Odysseus gives a long answer that finally lands at stating that his clothes are from Nausicaea. King Alcinous reassures Odysseus that he'll provide a passage home, but also states he could stay and marry Nausicaea. Odysseus reiterates his desire to return home and the book ends with Odysseus finally finding rest in the house of King Alcinous. And what happens in book eight? Then King Alcinous and Odysseus go to the meeting grounds as Athena whips up the curiosity of the islanders to come and see the stranger who looks like a deathless God. King Alcinous, still not knowing the identity of his guest, calls for the Phaeacians to prepare a ship to take the stranger home, and he calls for a feast, a hero's welcome. As they feast, the bard sings the ballad of the strife between Odysseus and Achilles, a tale from Troy, and Odysseus quietly weeps, unnoticed by all save King Alcinous. King Alcinous then calls for games and the young men gather to race, wrestle, box and throw Odyscus. A man named Broadsea goads Odysseus into competing, and Odysseus in his anger throws a heavy discus farther than any of them. As a good host. King Alcinous de escalates the situation and calls for the Phaeacians to dance. The bard returns and sings of the story of Aphrodite's adultery against Hephaestus. King Alcinous calls for parting gifts for Odysseus, and Baradsea gives the king of Ithaca a bronze sword and amends for his disrespect. Another feast is held and Odysseus asks the bard to sing of the wooden horse at Troy. Odysseus again weeps quietly and King Alcinous again notices the book ends with the king finally asking Odysseus to reveal his name in his homeland. 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 as chancellor and general counsel for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tulsa. We're recording on a beautiful afternoon here at the Chancery. If you're new to Ascend, we're a weekly podcast that helps guide you through the great books so we can be a small group to you. We've read the Iliad. Right now we're reading through the Odyssey. Many of the Greek plays, many of Plato's dialogues, a lot of short stories. Trying to get some more short stories on the schedule. Dante's Inferno, Dante's Purgatorio, and much, much more. Check us out. We're going to be reading Plato's Republic this fall. So that's our next heavy lift after the Odyssey. So we can be a small group and you can read these texts with us and together with other good people. Check us out on X, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. We have an Instagram now. Everyone go sign up for Instagram account. You don't sign up for Instagram. Whatever you do, subscribe, click check something and Patreon. Appreciate all of our supporters who have access to our written guides and also to community chats where you can actually chit chat with other people who are reading great books. And visit thegreatbookspodcast.com for our schedule and more information. All right, we are continuing our 12 week study of the Odyssey prior to the new movie by Christopher Nolan. And again, we'll actually have an episode discussing the movie. And we're also going to have an episode with Dr. Patrick Deneen of Notre Dame, the author of why Liberalism Failed, who will join us at the end of our study to discuss his new book, American Odyssey. What an ancient story reveals about our divided souls, which is a reflection on the odyssey in the 250th anniversary of America. But today we are discussing books six through eight. An interesting passage. Many good things here to unearth and to guide us through this. We are once again joined by Dr. Frank Grabowski, who serves as the dean of faculty at Holy Family Classical School. Third order Franciscan diaconate candidate, just gentleman and a scholar all around. We're very happy to have you back on the podcast, Deacon.
- [06:52]
B
It's great to be back. Yeah, I mean, I'm actually hoping that you'll lead me through these, these three books. I Have to admit that these, some might say they pale in comparison to the previous and to the subsequent books. They're very pastoral. We meet the Phaeacians, they're very strange people in some respects. But this is going to offer Odysseus an opportunity to tell his story eventually starting in book nine. So we have three books that lead up to this. In the meantime, he's going to become acquainted with these people, will become acquainted with them and yeah, it's an interesting bunch.
- [07:36]
A
Yeah, I found them to be somewhat dull the first time I read them. Now the first time I read the Odyssey I was like, where is Odysseus? Why did it take him so long to show up? And then I was waiting for all the monsters, where's the Cyclops, where's Skill and Charybdis, et cetera, like all these island hopping stories that you hear about. So I'm actually really in debt to our mutual friend Eli Stone, who walked us through these books in 2024 and really kind of made me much more appreciative and sensitive to a lot of the rhetoric here. Really want to dig into Nausicaea, King Alcinous, who are the Phaeacians? This interesting scene we have between Odysseus and Nausicaea on the beach, which is somewhat of a famous scene, as you know. But before we get into all that, you have started a new project. So tell us about that.
- [08:18]
B
Yeah, I've decided to start a substack. It's just going to be an outlet for me to write shorter pieces when I'm not writing my longer scholarly pieces. It's called the Porch and the Altar and it focuses on, you know, my Franciscan affinities. Also I deal with the classics. So just today there was an article released, the Ulcer of Athamia, which is athumas to be athumotic. And so yeah, it's. Check it out and let me know what you think.
- [08:59]
A
Tell us about the name.
- [09:00]
B
Well, the Porch refers to the location where the Stoics would congregate and do philosophy. And the Altar is pretty self explanatory. So it's my opportunity to try to combine or at least to somehow try to reconcile the whole Athens Jerusalem dilemma.
- [09:22]
A
Yeah, wonderful. Okay, so you guys listeners, you've obviously greatly benefited, enjoyed a lot of the commentary from Dr. Frank Hrabowski as he's led us here through the Odyssey. Also many good episodes prior to this read through. So if you enjoy his comments here, go check him out on substack as well. I'll Try and remember to link it in the show notes as well. Okay, let's jump into the text. So we are looking at book six.
- [09:46]
B
So Odysseus is just washed up on the shore, right?
- [09:49]
A
Yeah. By the way, I really enjoyed our conversation last week on book five. That was excellent. I've still been thinking a lot about those things. One thing that never occurred to me that he said last week is that there's no record of Odysseus taking a slave woman in Homer. And I think that's interesting just because Odysseus relationship to Penelope is such a charged debate. We even actually. Well, we're going to discuss it a lot actually in six through eight today. And so I don't know, that was something that kind of haunted my conversation last week. I mean I enjoyed Calypso. I enjoyed, you know, her being the concealer, you know, what is the temptation that she's actually offering him? I guess one thesis that I'll throw out here at the beginning that I actually find these to be two very much parallel texts insofar as like a lot of people talk about Calypso being a temptation. He offered, you know, she offered him immortality. How could he say no to that? I think we did a good job parsing it out last week that that's. It's a very unnatural immortality for man. Right. It's very appetitive. It kind of truncates both the spirited and the intellectual side of the soul. And we saw that I think there's antecedents to Plato's understanding of the soul in Homer very clearly. So I enjoyed that conversation. But I think with Masakea, I think my thesis that I'd like to throw out that we can test is that she represents actually a much more natural temptation to Odysseus. She's going to be a more subtle, more natural temptation to that I think is more aligned with his natural appetites as man. And I think we have to feel see how he's going then to handle these, you know, temptations. And. Well, before we get into how Odysseus is introduced into this book, speaking of temptations, we get an introduction to Nausicaa, the King Alcinous and the Phaeacians. So maybe, like who. Let's start with the island, like who are the Phaeacians?
- [11:36]
B
Well, the Phaeacians are actually, we're introduced to them a little earlier in book five. This is if you're using the Fagles translation on 153, they just get a mention. But it's an interesting way that they're described by Zeus. So on line 39, Zeus tells us that he'll eventually land on this island, the land the, the Phaeacians, close kin to the gods themselves. So, right, right from the start, they're, they're strange people because they're somehow related to the gods, unlike the other Greeks that we've met, Odysseus. I mean, some of the Greeks are related to the gods. These heroes, like Aeneas, for instance, the Trojan, he's related to the goddess Aphrodite. Achilles has a goddess for a mother. And so certainly there are familial relations, but the whole people, so this collective, this nation is closely related to the gods. And so I think that's important to note because as we learn more about the Phaeacians, they're very technologically advanced. The way that Homer describes the orchard, Alcinous orchard, it's beautiful the way the fruit are described. And so I think you're right in that Naucica does provide a much bigger temptation, as we'll see. Not only because she does in a way resemble Penelope, and I'd like to hear your thoughts on that because I know you have some thoughts on that, but also because she would provide Odysseus with a community that's something that Calypso could not. It would just be those two.
- [13:26]
A
Right.
- [13:27]
B
It'd be their own little love nest. And I think that, that, that's easy for Odysseus to turn down because he's a human, he's an, he's a political animal. So I think Phaeacia would provide Odysseus with a potential home. A home that he had been searching for for 20 years, roughly. 20 years.
- [13:45]
A
Yeah. No, well said. Yeah. I view, I don't know if this is the right word, but I view the Phaeacians as is living in basically a utopia. So they have like the divine element, right? They're, they're the mortal descendants of Poseidon, which is kind of a charged thing anyway here, given Odysseus and that narrative. But yeah, they're also technological, which is interesting thing for us to think about. Right. An ancient technology, but they, yeah, they have ships that seem to be on autopilot. They have automatons, right. They basically have robots. They have these automaton metal creatures that Hephaestus can make. Hephaestus has these in his workshop, kind of an antecedent to the modern understanding of say like a robot, this metal creature that can be made and then Walks and can do tasks and things of this nature. So they have, you know, both a divine element to them, a technologically advanced element to them. They don't seem to have any need for soldiers, for war. Dancing is their number one deal now. Dancing for them is. It seems to be much more like gymnastics, athletics, like, because it's also a sign of athletic prowess when they dance. It's something that Odysseus is actually impressed by. So it's something that we could equivocate on pretty easily. So they're a very unique people. And so I think then Nausokea as the unwed princess in that context presents Odysseus with a very interesting temptation. So that's good, that's a good landscape. Let's see if we can dig into these characters. We're introduced to Nausicaea and King Alcinous here at the beginning. And what's interesting is that, you know, in short, so Nausicaa is influenced by Athena that she needs to go down and basically do the laundry, she needs to go down to the river, she needs to bring the clothes with her. We get a really interesting interaction between Nausicaa in King Alcinous where the princess then goes to him. This is around line 60 or so and it has this like very warm maternal or very warm and familial tone to it. Dear daddy, I wonder, won't you have them harness a wagon for me, the tall one with the good smooth wheels, so I can take our clothes to the river for a washing. Lovely things, but lying before me all soiled. And you yourself sitting among the princes, debating points at your council. You really should be wearing spotless linen then you have five sons full grown in the palace, two of them married, but three are lusty bachelors, always demanding crisp shirts, fresh from the wash when they go out to dance. Look at my duties, that all rests on me. So she coaxed, too shy to touch on her hopes for marriage. Young, warm hopes in her father's presence. But he saw through it all and answered quickly, I won't deny you the mules, my darling girl, I won't deny you anything. So one thing that's really interesting here is Nausokea is showing herself very quickly to also be a rhetorician, that her language. She knows how to ask for things indirectly in a hidden way. And the father's heart, hearing his daughter, knows some of these things that she's asking without her having to actually express them. So she's asking for a wagon to go wash clothes but there's this kind of percolating issue here of, hi, I'm the beautiful princess on the island of Utopia and I'm not married and I want to be married. And I have these. Homer has. What was that? It was a charming phrase in fagal's young, warm hopes. And he sees this. He sees this in this kind of mundane request. And that's his response. I won't deny you anything. And so I think just right off the bat, one of the things that then I would stress here is that we're going to see this without 6, 7 and 8, that Nausica is a rhetorician. She is very clever in her speech. And we're gonna see that her cleverness isn't just simply reduced to speech, but also she has a political cleverness to her. She's smart. And I think this goes into what you already alluded to, that not only is she a natural temptation, she's more natural of a temptation than Calypso was, because loving Nausicaea, maybe Odysseus could be the one to. To marry her and is not really going to truncate his spirited or his intellect. He's going to be offered this utopian island. He'll be ingratiated into the lineage of the gods. He has this technology. But most of all, Nausicaa seems to present as a young Penelope. She's smart, she's clever, she has a wit, she's beautiful. And that makes her far more dangerous because remember Odysseus's masterful rhetoric when Calypso said, you know, am I not better and build than, you know, your mortal wife? And he says, yes, but he calls her wise Penelope. That's. I think, one of the thesis that we can play out in the text is that's one of the main things that actually attracts Odysseus to Penelope is her cleverness. And that's where her virtue, her arete, is actually rooted.
- [18:46]
B
That's a very interesting reading. You know, I wonder if. If that's at all consistent with. With my initial take, which is that Nausicaa comes across, or at least appears to come across as being very innocent and pure. Now, I don't know if these two readings are in conflict. Can one be innocent and pure on the one hand, and then somewhat cunning and rhetorically gifted on the other? I don't know, but it's a very sweet exchange between daughter and father. I mean, one that might. Most fathers out there, I'm sure, have had with their daughters. But I think that you're right. I mean everything you said I agree with. I mean Nausicaa does present a real challenge. And I think that this is perhaps a reason that Homer includes this because as you're listening, because this is what people would have done, they would have listened to this, they would have wondered is this the moment that Odysseus gives up his journey or you know, what struggles must be going through Odysseus heart. So I think that this, at the very least, even though at first glance, I mean to me these may appear to be rather uneventful books, they are very dramatic in that it doesn't, as you said, Nausicaa doesn't present the same sort of carnal temptation that you know, the intense temptation for immortality that Calypso offered. But yet it's more of a domestic temptation where why go home to Penelope when I can have this instead?
- [20:27]
A
It also doesn't help that if this is going to be your natural temptation, something that's actually more tempting than simply Calypso, once you understand the natural unnatural qualities to these temptations that then you happen to be introduced to the young, beautiful, clever princess butt naked as you stand there on the beach. So let's look at this. They have a very interesting first encounter, one that's, that's often debated. So this is around 1:30. And so again he fell asleep under the olive trees which was a kind of a deep symbol in of itself. All right, one all, one wild, one domesticated. And so but this guy is covered in brine. He is, he's disgusting mess of a human and he is going to cover himself with a giant leafy branch because he is, I think Athena wakes him up. Right. Is it because of the ball? They're playing with a ball and I think the ball wakes him up. Correct? Yes, yes. And so what caught me. So let's just kind of slowly play through this. So what's really fascinating is Odysseus wakes up and he sat up with a start, puzzling, his heart pounding. Man of misery. Whose land have I lit on now? What are they here? Violent, savage, lawless or friendly to strangers and God fearing men. So one, one maybe standard I might throw out here that's not entirely apparent to us as moderns is that guest friendship is going to be a standard of civilization. So if these people can, you know, because he doesn't know where he is, he's on some island. And we'll learn here pretty quick that Odysseus just showing up on an island can lead to some very horrific Events occurring which are already in his past. So they're informing his decisions now. Guest, friendship. Will they welcome me as a guest under the divine protection of Zeus? Can there have this reciprocal relationship take place between host and guest? This is a sign that this island has civilization. And so, as we see Odysseus and Nausicaa come together, there's going to be, I think, a mutual testing to see, you know, are you a civilized person? Do you know, you know, do you catch references to the gods? Do you know how this ritual is done? So I think it's just a side note. That's one of the standards that I think is kind of haunting the text, if you will.
- [22:41]
B
Yeah, no, I agree. And as you say, as we continue to read, we'll encounter the Lystrygonians, we'll encounter the Cyclopses. These are cannibals. In a way. Odysseus, because of all of his journeys, has acquired a more robust ontology, if you will. Right. I mean, it's not just gods and men, but there are all these other creatures in between. And so he's having to sort all of this out. So when he asks, what are they here? Are they violent, are they savage, are they lawless, you say he has already encountered, and he will tell us of these encounters of the, of the cyclops, where, yes, they were lawless, they were not human, and they, the cyclops, cost the lives of many of his crew. So in a way, he's engaging in this kind of philosophical exercise which again, shows us the process that he's. He's been through where he will wrestle within his head, within his heart, within. Right. His mind and his heart tugging at each other. So, you know, as a character, he's certainly grown in a very philosophical and contemplative way, and experiences have proved, have. Has. Have shown them out.
- [24:03]
A
Yeah, no, I very much agree. What's interesting is too, is like what you mentioned earlier is like Homer's audience listening to this and wondering what's going to happen. Notice that when Odysseus is introduced there, it's all in predatory language. He is, you know, he's the lion, these are sheep. And so I think this is one of the things. It's like he. Here he is, and what are these young maidens doing? Nausicaea is kind of, you know, handmaids, all here playing in the river, doing these kind of things. How is he going to act? And keep in mind, like, obviously we have some very horrific acts with. Inside this overall Homeric tale. We Remember Cassandra being raped in the temple of Athena in Troy. And we get Agamemnon actually eventually taking Cassandra back. We get all of these narratives that you know what's going to happen when Odysseus comes on the shore looking like a wild man, and there's these princesses here. So what ends up happening, I think, is this really interesting back and forth where they test each other. You see this. He refers to her. He references the gods. He actually says, you're Artemis come to life. And that's really interesting because you can read that in a very deep way. Because, I mean, one of our theses that we have here with Homer, one that he's obviously, he's a teacher, he's a philosopher, he might also be a theologian, but he's deeply meaningful and intentional in his similes. In. When he references the gods, notice that Odysseus refers to her as Artemis, which if she's culture and cultured and civilized, she will realize that he's referring to her as the virgin goddess that you cannot touch. It's a sign. It's a very subtle rhetorical sign to her that I'm safe. I'm not going to hurt you. I'm not going to touch you. You're like Artemis. Because for those who don't know, I think we've mentioned on the podcast before, like, you know, even seeing Artemis naked is a great way to endure a horrific death. No one gets to do this. And so it's. It's a sign of safety.
- [25:59]
B
That's an excellent point, because this is all preceded by Homer telling us that he launched in, endearing, sly and suave, that he's crafty, that his words are intended to be profitable. And so there is this rather, as you put it, interesting exchange. It's not romantic in a neurotic sense, but it's romantic in a very intellectual sense where they are sort of dancing together linguistically.
- [26:29]
A
Yeah, no, there's a lot of rhetoric going back and forth because he also. He mentions Artemis. He compliments her. Right. I've never laid eyes on anyone like you, neither man nor woman. I look at you and a sense of wonder takes me. Wait, I once saw the like in Delos, besides Apollo's altar, the young slip of a palm tree springing into light. So why does he mention that? Okay, so that's another sign of culture, right? I know the gods. I know Apollo's altar. These are things that are important to me and that communicates that I have a certain culture and civilization to me. And he also Then, I mean, one of the big questions is what. What should Odysseus do here? Because typically, if you're going to. You're, you know, the supplicant and you are in need of a host, you're going to run and grab someone's knees and beg them. We saw maybe an image of this in the Iliad where people would grab the knees of Achilles. Now, that didn't turn out too well for them, but that's what the supplicant does. Well, here the question is, is this a wise move for Odysseus? Does he run as a naked man and grab the knees of the princess? So it's interesting that he mentions that he knows what the ritual is, but he's not doing it. I think there's a lot of reasons for that. I mean, we could really dig into, you know, what. Why is Odysseus playing this game right now? And maybe people are like, what game are you talking about? Well, it's really easy to read this back through a Christian lens of, like, you know, how we would react and stuff like this. But you have to read it in the Homeric one. I think there's several things here that are going on and what's going on in Odysseus's head. One is this mutual testing if they're cultured, I think two is because they offer to bathe him and he says no. And that's really interesting because. And that's not. For some moral reason, we see that women in the household are bathing guests all the time. I think Telemachus, I think when he went to Nestor's house, is bathed by Nestor's daughter. So what's going on here? I think there's several things. One, you could push into and say, is it really. Can Nautica really welcome him? Is she the right one to do that? Right, because it's usually then the patriarch, the head of the house, the king, that has to welcome in there and then offer the bathing, the feasting, etc. So is offering and accepting, or I should say is accepting Nausocha's offer to be bathed, skipping a step that then would put him in some type of faux pas with the island, right? They all show up and here's this guy being bathed, you know, by the princess. Another one is that I've heard, like commentaries is that, you know, you can tell that Phaeacia is a place of peace, because here's all these women just hanging out by the shore without any fear whatsoever. They're not worried about Raiders taking them away. They're not worried about being captured. They have no male escort whatsoever. And so here I think he sees this is something unique and is slowly trying to, you know, knead himself into the situation because he can tell something's maybe off. This place is different than what should currently be happening.
- [29:34]
B
I think that's. I think that's absolutely right. And I don't know if you were about to mention this other passage, this other line of his around 200. This sounds very Christian about man and wife being one. No finer, greater gift in the world than that when man and woman possess their home. Two minds, two hearts that work as one. I mean, he clearly senses that this is a peaceful, idyllic people. These are not. The Phaeacians were not made for war, they were made for celebration. And so, yeah, I think that because of his travels, he has this natural sense of. So although initially he asks this question, you know, who are these people? Are they lawless? Are they God fearing? I think it doesn't take much for him to arrive at the conclusion that these individuals are certainly not a threat to me.
- [30:34]
A
Right. I think too, just to make it more explicit, there's a huge theme of marriage in these texts. So as we mentioned, Nausocha wants to be married. And so there's going to be a marriage motif that through that. So we see this already and that's in the speech between them two again, which I think is them kind of testing each other out. Two, we see why Athena had her bring the clothes. So what was the intentionality of her bringing the clothes down to the river, et cetera. But it's interesting then, is that. And just to play this out as a somewhat of a raw thought, is that continues the motif of clothes from book five. So we had Calypso gave him clothes that about drowned him. And we can debate whether that was intentional or not. Then we had Aino, who gave him the scarf that brought him to the shore. And now we have Nausicaa bringing these fine clothes for him to wear. That will be what he allows him then to come into the palace of King Alcidos. Which though, however, there's gonna be a really hilarious line from Nausocha's mother because she's gonna realize where these clothes came from that this handsome stranger has shown up in. Yeah. So the guest friendships, he doesn't bathe. And then not only that, he says, this is line 240 or so, but I won't bathe in front of you. I would be embarrassed. Start naked before young girls with lovely braids. So again, no one actually thinks Odysseus is gonna be embarrassed to do this. He is very clever. You know, you and I recently both read St. Basil's letter. St. Basil has a letter to young Christian men on whether they should read Greek literature. It's an excellent letter. It's available online. We've actually done a whole podcast just on that letter because I think it's very good, particularly for Christians who don't understand why we should read the Greek texts. But Basil comments on this particularly and actually says this is a sign of Odysseus's virtue and how he handles himself here with, you know, modesty. There's another comment, and I can't remember who it's. Who said it, that Odysseus shows himself here to be the first gentleman of Europe. And so I, I think.
- [32:40]
B
Is that reading too much into it, Deacon?
- [32:42]
A
I, yeah, I'm not entirely sold on that. I, I mean, I want to be deferential to the great St. Basil, but I think that Odysseus is very clever. And I seriously doubt he's doing this for modesty or reasons like this. I think that what we see here is that for him to engage in these practices could put him in danger in certain ways. That maybe these offers to be bathed are out of order for guest friendship. He needs to see the head of the house. He has to do these things also. We'll see. The men of the island are not well taken to strangers. And so to show up and there's some strange dude being bathed by your princess and these women, like, there's a lot of ways this could actually go wrong. And so Odysseus, the man of twists and turns, who tends to be quite good at self preservation, I think he just sees that something is culturally off here. And so he is going very slow, right? He's not taking up offers, he's just moving very slow, trying to be a good guest, but at the same time kind of hedging his bets.
- [33:40]
B
But we wouldn't expect the same response from an Achilles or from an Agamemnon. So I would agree. I mean, he is very resourceful. He's polytropos and turns and all that. But. But I do think that Homer is providing us with, throughout this, with, with insights into Odysseus's soul, that he has matured, he has grown as a human being. And so I do think two things can be true at once. That on the one hand, he is being very deliberate in how he interacts with Nausicaa because he doesn't want to mess things up. While at the same time, I think that Homer does want to humanize Odysseus after all that he's been through.
- [34:24]
A
Yeah. And what's interesting too, again, there's gonna be this kind of thick, palpable understanding of marriage throughout all this, which then keeps leading into. Is there gonna be a temptation? So Odysseus has already said that she looks like Artemis. He's already given her this compliment and then she returns it. This is around 270 or so. So now he's bathed, et cetera. Does Athena, if memory serves, Athena makes him look even better.
- [34:49]
B
Yes. Lavish splendor. So grace, that's the word Charis. It's at the bottom of 175, at line 260. She lavished splendor over his head and shoulders.
- [35:02]
A
And then how does Nausicaea respond? Give the stranger food and drink, my girls. So this is another, again, parallels to Calypso. Will he stay on the island? Will he stay here and not complete the hero's journey? But I think this one's a little bit more difficult to figure out than Calypso.
- [35:18]
B
Well, I think dramatically, though, it does build greater tension because he's not trapped there in the same way that he was trapped on Calypso's island. So I think, at least from the point of view of a listener or a reader who encounters this passage for the first time, you wonder. And of course, if you're looking at the rest of the book, I mean, like, okay, well, there are eight, 17 more books to go or 16 more books to go. So obviously he's going to leave the island of the Phaeacians. But it will be interesting to see if he is at any point further tempted by Nausicaa and by the Phaeacian
- [35:58]
A
hospitality, maybe just to kind of push into some of the claims we've made, like, she's a young Penelope, et cetera. You really see this in the rest of this text. It's a very short book, but in like around 280, she starts describing then the town and how he has to approach the town. Right. So there's, there's going to be gossip. We can't walk together, we can't do these things. And so, you know, you might be thinking, like, why, why is Homer making such a big deal here? What we see is now that Nautica, not only does she have this cleverness, that kind of test, Odysseus, when he shows up on the shore, you know, are you a cultured man? Are you a danger to me? Oh, one thing we didn't mention is that she also has courage. When Odysseus comes stomping out of the, you know, olive branch like a predator, according to Homer, with his leafy branch covered in grime, all the other handmaids are scared and back off. Only Nausocha stands there with courage as well. So she's courageous, she's witty, she knows how to test him, according to guest friendship. And now she's giving her political wisdom.
- [36:56]
B
And she's not possessive. She's not possessive at all. Unlike.
- [37:00]
A
What do you mean by. What do you mean by that?
- [37:01]
B
Well, by possessive, I mean, if we go to, you know, a little bit later around line 315 on page 177 of the Fagles addressing him, she says, stranger, listen closely to what I say. The sooner to win your swift voyage home at my father's hands. Right. So she, on the, you know, one part of her is like, oh, this could be my future husband. But then there's another part of her is doing everything she possibly can to help Odysseus travel home.
- [37:31]
A
I see. Yeah. Which. Only which, I wonder. I mean, I wonder, too, to what degree that also could be read as a certain cleverness not to give herself too quickly. Right. I look like a God. You look like a God. Yeah. I'll help you back. Go back home. Right. There's nothing here for you. You just go back. So. So there's. Yeah. The rhetoric here is, I think, quite thick. And, you know, for those who've read all the way six through eight, I think it is. I think it is fair to give Nausicaea the benefit of the doubt, of the intentionality of her rhetoric. The other thing, too, here is that how this book ends. Two things. Around 3:40, she actually tells him, like, you have to go and grasp my mother's knee. So she's also giving him, here's how to be a supplicant for guest friendship correctly. This is what I would recommend that you do. And she gives him. Gives him this political wisdom. Then I would say down here at 3:50 how this ends. It says, the sun sank as they reached the hallowed grove sacred to Athena, where Odysseus stopped and sat and said a prayer at once to mighty Zeus's daughter. Hear me, daughter Zeus, whose shield is thunder. Tireless one, Athena, now hear my prayer at last, for you've never heard me. Then when I was shattered, when the famous God of earthquakes wrecked my craft. Grant that here among the Phaeacian people I may find some mercy and some love. Now, what was interesting to me that I don't think I, I mentioned it last week on book five, but I don't know if I really understood it until the first time I read this text. I got to this passage that everything Athena has done for Odysseus has been indirect. She has inspired his Thumas, she has interceded before the gods, but she really hasn't shown herself to him. And so from his perception, she has not answered his prayer. She has not been close to him since she has raged against the Achaians on their like, ill fated journey home. So that's been what, 10 years? So 10 years since the last time he felt close to Athena, even though she's been doing these things. So I think that as we also await, there's a few reunions I think we're waiting for. Obviously we're hoping there's reunion between Odysseus and Penelope, Odysseus and Telemachus. We also probably should be hoping for a reunion between Odysseus and Athena. And so this is kind of helping us to understand that Odysseus might have a very different perception of what Athena has been doing in the meantime than what Athena understands herself to be doing.
- [40:00]
B
No, that's, that's a good point. And just to return to that passage at Line 340, when Nausicaeia advises Odysseus to grasp his mother's knees. So at this, at this point, I don't believe we know the name of her mother. It turns out her name is Arete. And so there's, there's a literal way of reading this passage where she's giving him good, sound political advice. But there's more symbolic reading where Nausicaa is telling him to embrace virtue, that if you want to return home, you must embrace virtue. And I don't want to push this too far, but in that respect, Nausicaa emerges is almost a kind of Beatrice for those listeners who are following the Purgatory podcasts.
- [40:52]
A
Yeah. For those who've been listening to our episodes on Dante. That's really interesting. Yeah. Because the arete, my understanding then. Okay, so let's play that out a little bit for those who might not be familiar. So arete is the word that for us will become virtue, say, like in Plato. So it has a more thick sense of what we understand it to be. This is a human excellence, et cetera. But arete has its Roots here in Homer, which is kind of just a general human excellence. And a lot of times people think it was originally tied to war, like Arete. So Achilles would have the most Arete because he's the most skilled in warfare, so he's the most excellent man. But then we also get Hector, who pushes into that in the Iliad of maybe Arete has piety connected to it to your family, to the polis, to the gods. He kind of serves as a foil. Then in the Odyssey, we'll see that Homer actually uses the word arete to describe Penelope. And that kind of shatters. Not necessarily that that's not where the word started, but how the word is now being used even under Homer. Because what we'll get in Plato is, is that by the time Plato writes about Arete, everyone, everything has an excellence according to its purpose. So, for instance, you can have an excellent knife, and that excellent knife is going to be sharp because its purpose is to cut. You could have an excellent horse, an excellent slave, an excellent woman. And so here we're starting to see. I think this in a nascent way. It's growing. You could have arguments. How much does Homer already know that he's simply alluding to? But we see Arete used as a woman for Penelope. However, here now we have Queen Arete. And if I understand this, it's somewhat. It's somewhat. I don't know if it's a play on words, but Fagles has a note that Arete here is a cognate or derivative of the word to pray, that it doesn't directly mean arete as virtue, but obviously it sounds the same and it looks the same. So it elicits all those things from the listener as well, if that makes sense. Because there's this line in here, we'll get to her where she says, you know, Arete, and it mentions prayer, that she lives her name well. So there's this interesting thing of like, that also then brings in the divine into her role as well. So we have divine and we have virtue in this kind of queenly role that we're kind of seeing here right at the end of book six.
- [43:06]
B
I actually like that a lot, Deacon, because later in the Odyssey, I do think we begin to see Odysseus come to a better appreciation and understanding of his relationship to the gods. I think that's something that we really need to pay attention to, especially as we near the slaughter of the suitors. But that's very interesting.
- [43:31]
A
Well, let's use that as our segue into Book seven. Unless there's anything else on book six that you have.
- [43:37]
B
Nope, that's Sally Force.
- [43:38]
A
Okay, very good. Yeah. So I think that maybe the best place to start is just continuing that conversation on Arete. So we see Odysseus is coming into the city. It's Athena that's helping him. Right. So Athena, where she's going to like make a cloud or. Basically they can't see him, they don't see the stranger. So this kind of, this antagonistic mindset that the islanders are going to have about a stranger can't thwart him from coming to King Alcinous. Priority to him actually being able to ask for guest friendship before him throwing himself at the knees of Queen Arete. And so she's mentioned then in 60, the queen is first. The queen is the first you'll light on in the halls. Arete she is called and earns that name. She answers all of our prayers. So that's the line that I was alluding to earlier. So this is really interesting because it also says in a different place. Yeah, actually just a little bit lower than that. 80. Such is her pride of place and always will be so dear to her loving children, to Alcinous himself. In all our people, they gaze on her as a God, saluting her warmly on her walks through town. She lacks nothing in good sense and judgment. She can dissolve quarrels even among men, whoever wins her sympathies. I mean, what do you take of this character?
- [45:00]
B
Well, I mean, so I, I think that what this gives us a glimpse almost into the soul of the Phaeacian. They operate very differently. Now, of course, we've seen Nausicaa, she knows how to use rhetoric. So I mean, the Greeks, they have this, they draw this distinction between the frame, which is sometimes translated or rendered as like the heart. It's the midriff, but it's the more intellectual part, it's the reasoning part. And then there's the, the noose or the naas, which, which is more intuitive. Like so. So these people excel, I think, at this nous or naos. Like they just have this sort of penetrating intellect that because you notice, like they don't wrestle like Odysseus wrestles. So we've seen these passages where he's wrestling with his Thumas, his heart, his, his reason. He's, you know, indecisive. But then he makes a decision. I don't know, Deacon, what you think of that, but it just seems like these are people. Well, Arete in particular, she's like this personification or this ideal version of someone who all she has to do is speak and everyone is putty in her hands.
- [46:11]
A
Yeah. There's two things that come to mind with her. One is she's a queen intercessor, right. So she goes amongst the people, she intercedes on behalf of them to the king. We see. This is what Nausicaea has recommended, Right. To go for. Throw yourself at the knees, not at the king, but of the queen. She handles quarrels. So there's two things that come to mind here. One is that there's a very strong parallel then to another Bronze Age culture at the same time, which is the Hebrew culture. So Troy falls in, what, like the 1100s or so, depending on who you believe at that same time. You also have, say, the height of King David's reign is around 1000 BC. So you have these, the biblical, the Hebrew side and the Greek side running pretty parallel. What's so interesting here is that we also see the queen playing a intercessor role also on the Hebrew side, as we saw with Bathsheba, Solomon's mother had her throne next to King Solomon, and that she also would intercede on behalf of the people and that people would come to her and say, oh, yeah, if you want to take care of petition to the king, you've got to talk to the queen first and she'll help you. She'll intercede on your behalf. She'll talk to you before. So actually, we see a very similar scene in the Hebrew side, where someone comes before the king for, you know, a request, and he's already talked to the queen mother and the queen mother's there to intercede. And of course, then on the Catholic side, we see this as a foreshadowing, an antecedent to Mary as the queen mother, who then intercedes on behalf of her people. And if we're going to tether that to a New Testament example, we would tether it to the wedding at Cana, in which there's a need amongst the people. They have no wine. She says to her son, you know, they need help. What are you going to do? He says, my time has not yet come. And then she says, do whatever he tells you. And lo and behold, the king says, okay. And then he changes the water into wine. It's also the last thing that Mary ever says in the Gospels is do whatever he tells you. So just kind of a thick discipleship tone there. So I think that's one interesting. That thing that's really fascinating. Queen Arete is not the Queen mother as it was in like the ancient Near East. But those two parallels, I think are really fascinating, that these two queens play the intercessory role.
- [48:23]
B
Yeah, I don't know. I'm sorry to interrupt, but just to comment, I don't think that there's an antecedent or a precedent prior to this of a female character in Homeric epic poetry that possesses a mortal at least, or one of these sort of liminal creatures. I mean, they're akin to the God, but. But that possesses such good sense and judgment that is capable of entering and participating in these political matters. So I think that that's unique. But your second point, Deacon.
- [48:54]
A
So my second insight or just comment there is. I think there's a really interesting relationship. If you take Nausicaa and Queen Arete together, I actually think they form a parallel to the City of Peace on the Shield of Achilles. So if you remember, broadly speaking, a lot of people compare the City of Peace to the Odyssey and the City at war to the Iliad. And that makes sense, I think, from a 30,000 foot view. But what's interesting, what's really interesting is that the City of Peace also has conflict. It has to resolve that conflict. It's not that it's a utopia, but rather that there's a way to resolve this. And so what's really interesting is that in the City of Peace there's basically two images that were given. It's marriage and it is a judicial scene of resolving a conflict. And here, what do we see with Phaeacia, we have Nausicaa, who brings in this strong marital marriage theme. And then we also have now Queen Arete who is resolving these conflicts. And so I think, I actually think you can make a pretty strong parallel to the City of Peace in the Phaeacia, that it is a utopia, but it's not a utopia without conflict. They just have a way to resolve these things, even though they are somewhat isolated from the outside world. But I think there's some really interesting parallels that you can play off there.
- [50:09]
B
No, I think that's right, and. But it's utopia. It reaches a level of perfection that as Homer narrates, brings Odysseus to a standstill. So this is moving Forward to line 95 or so. So as he approaches the house, a rush of feeling stirs within his heart and brings him to a standstill. Then we get this rather lengthy, and I'm not sure if you have any specific thoughts on this, but this lengthy description of this Edenic city. I mean there are these automaton dogs or animatronic dogs that Hephaestus made. There's this orchard that is full of delicious fruit, sumptuous fruit. And so he's. So Odysseus is totally overwhelmed by this.
- [51:07]
A
Yeah, which it's not, you know, terribly easy to overwhelm Odysseus and particularly we don't. And for first time readers, you don't even know his whole story yet. But again, we're in media res again, what was the opening? Right. The muse can begin as she wills. And so this has a much more complicated chronology than the Iliad does. So. No, I think that's certainly something to take into account. And yeah, the automatons, those dogs are a little bit for line 110 because if you don't know that's what those are, a lot of people read past them pretty quickly. But again, it's a weird mix between these, these are people that have a divine lineage and they have this advanced technology. What occurs to me here is particularly the first time I read this is that this doesn't go then the way that I anticipated. I'm not sure it goes the way Nausica anticipates. I mean, we gotta ferret this out because the way that he comes in, right, so he comes in and what's he do? Well, he does what he was told. He comes in and all of a sudden he's revealed and he goes and he grabs the, he grabs the knees of the queen. It says this like line 170. And silence seized the feasters all along the hall. Seeing him right there before their eyes, Odysseus pleaded, queen Arete. And then he goes on and he talks about, you know, you know, everything that he has suffered, what ends up happening. It says pleading. So the man sank down in the ashes just at the hearth beside the blazing fire, while all the rest stayed hushed, stock still. So I don't, I mean, I'd love to know your thoughts on this. So she tells him to go to Queen Arete. I expected because of how the antecedents that we have, that then Queen Arete is going to be, then play the intercessory role here, that she's going to welcome him and then, you know, look to Queen Alcinous, or excuse me, look to King Alcinous and say, you know, we must welcome him as a guest. She's silent, she doesn't even do anything. King Alcinous is silent and this guy then goes off to just wallow in the Ashes by the hearth. And it's not until the old man stands up and breaks the spell. This is no way, Alcinous. How indecent. Look our guests on the ground, in ashes by the fire. Your people are holding back, waiting for your signal. Come, raise him up. Seat the stranger now in the silver studded chair and tell the heralds to mix more wine for all so we can pour out cups to Zeus, who loves the lightning. And keep in mind, right, Zeus is overt guest friendship, right, the champion of suppliants. Suppliants rites are sacred. And let the housekeeper give our guest his supper unstinting with her stores. And so then Alcinous, you know, gets around to it and says. And then actually, you know, calls for the wine and things like this. But what do you make of this scene? It's very jarring. It doesn't play out the way you think it's going to play out.
- [54:03]
B
Well, this may be a naive reading, Deacon, but I suspect what's happening here is that the Phaeacians are not a people accustomed to suffering themselves. They live in a paradise. They probably don't have many visitors. And here comes this man, washed up on shore, covered in brine. And he pleads to Arete and then shouts, how far away I've been from all my loved ones. How long I have suffered. And so I wonder if there's a certain kind of almost that they lack, a certain kind of emotional intelligence, that they simply can't understand what someone like him must have gone through because they've lived their entire lives picking fruit from this luscious orchard and celebrating and dancing and playing games. So in a way, they're a very. I would say they're a very childlike people, though they possess heightened intelligence, heightened technology. And so I guess this is what happens to you when you live a comfortable life, when you have devices that do all the work for you. I don't know. What are your thoughts on that?
- [55:17]
A
Yeah, too. No, I. I think I just want to kind of stack on top of that. Two things that occur to me. One is that when's the last. When do they ever get guests? So they might know guest friendship or they understand it as a ritual. They understand clearly, according to the old man. And that might be also, like, how much do we read into that? Remember, Nestor was old, and he was like a tethering to the golden age. He understands the old ways and how the world was supposed to be. And so maybe, you know, is this old man then a tethering as well, why is he the one that calls the king back to action? So one way this might be that they don't get guests. And so they understand this as a theory, but not really that well practiced. The other way too, that I think has a lot of textual evidence to it is simply that if you have a utopia, anything from the outside is a threat. And Athena and Nausocha have basically already acted insofar as like the men of the town will treat you as a threat. And so that might also be playing in here that here comes this man, he just shows up. And yeah, we're not well practiced in guest friendship. But also pretty much anything that's alien to a utopia is always going to be a threat. If you have a perfect society, you don't need anything added. So I don't know, maybe I'm running too much interference for them. But I guess one way to read this is once, then they decide to offer him guest friendship. They're incredibly generous and incredibly civilized. They don't ask his name. So we got to remember all these ways this play out. They don't ask his name. They're going to take care of him. We'll see in book 7 and 8. They do a lot of things for him before they ever come to know his name. They don't know his name until the very end of book eight is when King Alcinous actually asks for his name. He kind of has a hint now because Odysseus has some very telling weeping that happens, but he also offers to take him home, to sail home before he even even knows who he is. So I think once they engage that zinnia, that guest friendship, they do it well. But for some reason they stumble here out of the gate.
- [57:26]
B
Well, and it may be again, I think it may be just that they're playing by the rules again. They understand the basic guidelines for guest friendship. The question I have is whether, whether they truly understand what that means. And I would only point to just maybe to one passage that we could exchange some thoughts on. So on page 186, and we're not going too far ahead here, I believe this is Alcinous. He's speaking. And at the end he refers to his kinship to the gods. He says, we're too close kin for that. Close to the wild giant. Close as the wild giants are the Cyclops too. And then you notice how Odysseus, Odysseus says, you don't get it. I'm hungry. My belly is aching. He says, I'm nothing like the Immortal gods who rule the skies. And then there's this wonderful line where he says the belly is a shameless dog. There's nothing worse. Always insisting, pressing. It never lets us forget. So I don't know. There seems to be a sense in which Odysseus has met. He's met many different civilizations, many different creatures. And in some respect, you know, the Phaeacians are very close to the people that he, that he knows as human, but yet they, there's still this distance between him and the Phaeacians that, that make them almost unrelatable to him and, and perhaps even vice versa, that, that he remains unrelatable to them.
- [58:58]
A
Do you think that this is a negative on Nausicaa? So we just praised her for her cunning political insights and her advice does not work.
- [59:12]
B
I was thinking about that as you were speaking. And so she's at the beach with her girlfriends. Right. And are we told how, how her girlfriends react?
- [59:26]
A
Well, they're, they're afraid of him at first.
- [59:27]
B
Right. They run. Right. So she stays. But I guess the one thing that strikes me is that she doesn't really have an emotional reaction to any him. She doesn't weep, she doesn't, we're not told that she expresses any sort of fear. She's very calm, cool and collected. And we might say, well, well, that's a reasonable response. But as you've just noted, they don't receive strangers. And now they do receive a stranger and he's a complete and utter mess. And yet she has no emotional response at all. She's very stoic the whole time. And so I don't know if that's necessarily a negative as much as it's again, insight into her soul and into the souls of Alcinous, Arete and the rest of the Phaeacians.
- [60:19]
A
And also I'm not sure how much it changes things, but also it's Athena that helps her in that steadfastness. So going back to book six, like 150 or so, only Alcinous daughter held fast for Athena planted courage within her heart. Yes.
- [60:39]
B
You're asking the question how much of this is divine intervention or interference?
- [60:46]
A
Yeah, I mean, I just again trying to explain. I mean, I find Nauticaea an incredibly endearing character, but she's also young and in a lot of ways maybe we could see her as a parallel to Telemachus insofar as like she has to have her own maturation. So she might be quite clever here, but one of the questions is does she actually Give the right advice or her advice doesn't actually play out well for Odysseus. I mean, it plays out well to a certain degree, but not the way that she tended to anticipate. She didn't say, go to the old man. She seemed to think that her mother, as the intercessor, the one that's going around solving problems even for men, would do something. And she is struck silent in this context. So I don't know. I don't have a. You know, I'm not working toward a grand reveal here. It's just something that, as we praise Nausicaea. Is this a swing and a miss on her side? My inclination there is one. Homer presents almost all characters in tension. No one comes out, you know, completely black or white. They all have some kind of tension to them. I mean, even Alcinous and Queen Arete. Queen Arete, look how she was presented. Alcinous, it says that his people treat him as a God because he is so virtuous. And like how both of them act when Odysseus asked for guest friendship. So no one's black and white in this deal. Everyone has a certain tension to them. The tension, I think, in Nausicaa, in a certain. Outside of the, you know, marital tension that she has wanting to be married and whether that's going to be Odysseus. I think also you could say that she also has a maturation. She's young. She's like Telemachus. She has to grow. And so, yeah, she might have great political insights, but that doesn't mean they're always right. She's not necessarily a matchless queen of cunning yet.
- [62:24]
B
No. Maybe she and Telemachus ought to get together.
- [62:29]
A
They do. They do. In some. Some tellings. In some. I don't remember which one. But in one of the tellings, that's not surprising. Yeah. In one of the tellings, Telemachus ends up marrying Nausocha. I don't remember where that comes from, though.
- [62:40]
B
Well, they would make a good couple.
- [62:43]
A
Okay, well, speaking of that, let's look at the fact that then Nausicaa's father just offers her in marriage to this stranger who looks like a God. Yeah. So if you look, he offers marriage a little after 350. But before that, we get. I don't know, what is this? A little bit around 280, Odysseus tells his story. It's really funny because the last thing that is actually asked. So this is Queen Arete that takes him. This is around 270 or so Queen Arete takes him. And one of the things that she asks, she says, stranger, I'll be the first to question you myself. Who are you and where are you from? And who gave you the clothes that you're wearing now? I mean, just. You gotta laugh. So this is, this is the mom. The mom knows because remember, he didn't come in with Nausicaa. There's no understanding that Nausicaa and him have actually interacted already. But he comes in and the mom recognizes the clothing that she took down to the river. Just. It's a funny saint. It's very funny. So he read, he retells his story here. And again, it's very easy to check out on these, but Homer's always playing with something here. And again, as we talked about the poetic dialectic in Homer, when they retell stories, it allows for strata. One of the things here that I think is kind of interesting is that he tells his whole story and he does not mention the gods. He doesn't mention. Right. He does mention Calypso, but he doesn't mention the gods who helped him. He doesn't mention Aino and he doesn't mention the river God. Now, Athena helped him, but he doesn't know that yet. Right. So he had to have three divine figures help him to get to Phaeacia, and he doesn't mention any of them. Now it's interesting to me that he leaves out the divine in his retelling.
- [64:31]
B
Well, does he mention, though, the role that Zeus played in. Yes, in destroying his ship. So he certainly. He includes that part of it that the gods impeded his progress. But you're right, and I mean, do you have any thoughts as to why he omits the divine assistance?
- [64:54]
A
I don't. It's more just something I want to know. I mean, you wouldn't think that they. I mean, one thing I don't know, you might want to see, he does talk about the God of earthquakes. Correct. He mentions that around 3, 10 many pains, the God of earthquakes piled upon me, loosing the winds against me. It's interesting. You think that's the part he would leave out, that it's their ancestor, Right. It's their forefather that's actually angry with them. He's like, the divine origin of these. These people are descended from Poseidon. He's like, oh, yeah, by the way, that's the God that's mad at me. You kind of think that's the part that he would leave out. But he leaves out the beneficial assistance of the gods, which I find fascinating. And look how he ends, too. So, by the way, again, this whole thing is an answer. Getting back to our question of who gave you your clothes? And so down at the end there, he does mention that he met her daughter there on the beach. I begged her for help and not once did her sense of tact desert her. She behaved as you'd never hope to find in one so young, not in a random meeting. Time and again, the youngsters proved so flighty. Not she. She gave me food aplenty and shining wine. A bath in the river, too, and gave me all this clothing. That's my whole story. Wrenching to tell, but true. So it's kind of interesting there that after all that stuff about him not allowing her to bathe him and then also not even allowing her to be around when he bathes himself, he just mentions. And that she bathed in.
- [66:24]
B
But she. But he also stresses her discretion.
- [66:29]
A
Correct?
- [66:29]
B
So I.
- [66:30]
A
He praises her. Yeah, he praises her, which is important.
- [66:33]
B
Correct.
- [66:33]
A
But then the king replies, ah, but in one regard, my friend, the king replied, her good sense missed the mark. This daughter of mine, she never escorted you to our house with all her maids, but she was the first you asked for care and shelter. So one of the things here we're noticing is how much interference Odysseus is trying to run for the pr. Run for the princess that he just met. And so again, what is their relationship? Right. I think they have a certain intimacy between them as two clever, very rhetorically skilled individuals. He says, you, Majesty, diplomatic, Odysseus answered, do not find fault with a flawless daughter. Now, not for my sake, please. She urged me herself to follow with her maids. I chose not to, fearing embarrassment. In fact, what if you took offense, seeing us both together, Suspicious we are we men who walk the earth. So he lies. This is one of Odysseus lies. Right. He says that she did say to come in, she wanted to do the guest friendship, but I said no because of my suspicions, which isn't actually what happened. It's also intriguing to me, which I think just simply occurs to me that both in his statement to King Alcinous or Alcinous, and to Nausicaa, his excuse is being embarrassed, which I'm assuming then is like a culture, right? It's a cultural embarrassment. Right. Not. Not that he's, you know, timid or something like this. Right. He's quite spirited, but rather that there would be some kind of cultural shame to this. And so he blames that that's Twice that he's done that already.
- [68:06]
B
Again, which is showing Odysseus's maturity because I don't think, think that we encounter anything like this elsewhere in Homer's epics.
- [68:14]
A
Yeah, it's, it's an interesting. It's certainly like when you come off the Iliad, you kind to know what they think virtue is this Arete. Right. Virtue is kind of a thick word
- [68:23]
B
there because shame, shame reveals vulnerability or at least it involves a sense of self awareness, which I think we both agree Achilles doesn't have. Right. And so, yeah, I think that this is just revealing Odysseus in a more human light. It's a humanization of a man who again, he opted out of immortality. He wants to embrace his humanity. And so I think we're getting these subtle glimpses into his human side.
- [68:59]
A
Yeah, it actually, it reminds me a lot of when they say Telemachus is being modest. You don't hear of anyone being modest in the Iliad, in the Book of War. So again, you don't want to jump to read these through a Christian lens, but there seems to be at times a benefit, even under self preservation, to at least adapt a perception of embarrassment or modesty, et cetera, because it seems to benefit you in some way.
- [69:28]
B
Yeah, perhaps. I think maybe the way to,
- [69:32]
A
to
- [69:32]
B
express this would be to say that Homer is expanding on his understanding of virtue. That virtue isn't just simply the virtue display on the battlefield, but it's the virtues that you display in civilization. That these are good qualities that men and women need to have. If, if the various threads, if, if the fibers of society are to hold together.
- [69:56]
A
There's also, I think, somewhat of a thick reading here that again, beauty is causing political instability. So for instance, like there, apparently Nausicaa is unwed. She's gorgeous, she's very clever, she's the princess. And if the men of the island see her walking with someone they don't know, it's gonna cause unrest. And that's really fascinating to me because then that creates certain tetherings to Penelope's situation of the suitors, of them pursuing her and Ithaca. It also creates a certain parallel between her and Helen and what Helen's beauty did really to the known world. And then they all create an oath and then she gets stolen. And then that precipitates the Trojan War. So it's interesting here too that I think with Nautica that we're seeing this beauty has a certain political instability to it. Because what I'm trying to ferret out Here is King Alcinous response which is, hey, by the way, would you like to marry my daughter? So what he must see in Odysseus, 1, he looks like a God, he's blessed, things like this. But he also must recognize in him a tremendous cleverness. Remember this is the King Alcinous that immediately could intuit what his daughter was actually asking. So even though he seems a bit flat here, he's shown us that he can understand rhetoric on a deep level. And again Odysseus is wearing their clothing. He understands this. And so this transitions into a marriage proposal.
- [71:23]
B
Yeah, I mean his name Alcinous means something like mighty mind. And so I mean it's clear that he values insight and that he can sense the insight that Odysseus possesses.
- [71:35]
A
Yeah, he says they think as one, father Zeus, Athena and Lord Apollo, if only seeing the man you are seeing, we think as one. You could wed my daughter and be my son in law and stay right here with us. I'd give you a house and great wealth if you chose to stay, that is. Or then he says, you know, we also can send you home. Keep in mind he still doesn't know who this is. So what's interesting is this how this book ends at 380. Notice that Odysseus doesn't actually respond to the marriage problem. He just simply gives thanks for this promise. Right. That he could be returned home. Father Zeus on high, may the king fulfill his promise one and all. Then his fame would ring through the fertile earth and never die. That I should reach my native land at last. He doesn't actually respond to the marriage proposal. It's still kind of hanging out there, which is fascinating. Any other thoughts on book seven?
- [72:32]
B
No, not no. I'm looking forward to moving on to eight where we have these wonderful contests that Odysseus takes part.
- [72:42]
A
Yeah, I was just checking our guide real fast and seeing if there was anything there that we happen to miss. Talk about. Queen Arete talked about Phacia, City of peace. Why did King Alcinous hesitate to offer guest friendship? If you haven't checked out the guide yet, I would encourage people to do so. It's question, answer and it really helps you as you kind of read through this text, particularly if you're reading it with other people. Yeah, I think one thing that captured my attention this read through was Nausicaa's beauty as a source of political instability. That's something because if it is akin to Penelope and Helen, then this is like a Homeric theme. And at Some point. I'd really like to maybe spend more time thinking about that and what that actually entails. But let's jump to book eight, the day for songs and contests, as Fayol entitles it. Okay, so what do you like about this book?
- [73:35]
B
Well, I think again, I think it gives us a more intimate look at the people that constitute this nation. So again, things that are very familiar to us, they enjoy engaging in contests. And I don't want to jump too far ahead, but there is this one passage that really stuck out to me. And we can go ahead and we can back up a bit if necessary. But around line 280, this is King Assinous speaking, where he says, you know, we're hardly world class boxers or wrestlers, I admit, but we can race like the wind. We're champion sailors too. And always dear to our hearts, the feast, the lyre and dance and changes of fresh clothes, our warm baths and beds. Right, so what do they do with their time? Right, well, they like to run and dance and take baths and sleep in beds. And it's a very, again, it's a very comfortable existence. You know, I keep coming back around to. It's a very identic way of living. Right. They're not very good fighters, they're not very good wrestlers. So again, it's very surprising that they haven't been conquered yet. It may have something to do with their location or may have something to do with gods protecting them, but in a way, I mean, they seem rather soft. I don't know what your thoughts are on that, Deacon, but while they do participate in these athletic contests, they seem to be rather athumotic.
- [75:20]
A
Yeah, they're not. Either that or it plays out in different ways that aren't really apparent to us. Like I mentioned earlier, this dance that they do seems to be a demonstration of athleticism, almost like gymnastics of some sort, because Odysseus is really impressed by this. There's also like a ball they throw and do all these other things. So it seems to be almost like a war game in certain ways. Like all of the games are, but yeah, they're not. But they, they play the games. Maybe one way to look at it is they play the games, which are supposed to be an antecedent for war, but there is no war. So you just get the games. And what does that do to a people? I think one thing too, I had a question here is because you see guest friendship very thickly here. So he's welcomed, he's feasted, let's get the boat Ready. But notice King Alcinous could have sent him home a lot earlier, and he's not. So I want to remember that marriage proposal is still hanging out there. And so that's one thing about King Alcinous, how you want to pronounce his name is that I think he's more clever than he lets on. So he's dragging this out. So Odysseus still hasn't said the name, but I also think this feasting, keeping him here, et cetera, has maybe an old chariot of motive as well as, hey, let me show you my people. Let's show you our technology, let's show you our culture. Maybe this is a place that you would like to stay. There's also a really funny scene on jumping back a little bit around 70, where we're introduced to the faithful bard. So in came the herald, now leading along the faithful bard. The muse adored above all others, true, but her gifts were mixed with good and evil both. She stripped him of his sight, but gave the man the power of stirring. Rapturous song. So this is funny for a few reasons. One is that this sounds like Homer, that this bard sounds a lot like Homer himself, who obviously, according to legend, was also blind. And so how much of this bard is an echo of Homer himself? Two, as we'll see in this book, and people might not know this, is that typically the Odyssey would have been presented over three days. And so basically you have eight books each day that would have been recited over these feasts and etc. So as we come to the end of the eighth book, this is the end of the first night of this reciting of the Odyssey. And so it's interesting to me here that in that there's a very strong presence of the bard. And not only is he spoken of highly, but then he also gets a tip from Odysseus, right, that Odysseus comes and gives him a choice cut of the meat. And so you can almost imagine that this bard that's reciting it has been saying the first eight books of the Odyssey all day. And then towards the end in the story, people are giving nice tips to the bard.
- [78:03]
B
Yeah. And what the bard sings of is the strife between Odysseus and Achilles, which we don't really know anything about. This. This causes Odysseus to weep. And once the bard finishes, Alcinous says, hear me, my lords and captains, by now we've had our fill of food well shared in the lyre too, so let's go out and play games. Everything I don't know. Seems very performative to me. So we've done this, now we move on to this. Act one is done. Now we move on to act two and then act three, and then we go to bed and then we wake up and then we do it all over again, you know, so. And I, I wonder just how much of their existence is really tied to anything that we would call, you know, love or passion. They strike me as, again, as a very dispassionate people.
- [78:54]
A
People.
- [78:54]
B
They didn't know what to do with Odysseus when he showed up. They didn't know how to respond to him. They want him to stay. Yeah, it's a very peculiar people. And then, you know, we'll, we'll eventually get to the song that the bard sings of Ares and Aphrodite.
- [79:15]
A
Yeah, I like the idea that it's very performative. You can ask then again, going back to how much of this is just good guest friendship and how much of this is him putting his culture on for Odysseus. Because they want Odysseus to stay. Right. So no, I like the idea of looking at this as a very performative act. You know what I also like are the names of the people here. This is awesome.
- [79:35]
B
Oh yes.
- [79:36]
A
This is like 130 or so. So there's a Rohard and seamen and Sturmin and Surf at the beach, Stroke or breaker, Bow Spirit, Bowsprit, Racing the wind, Swing aboard Sea Girt the son of great fleet shipwright son Broadsea. Like I like all these names. I like these kind of nautical names a lot. So then what ends up happening? They're playing games here. Odysseus is sitting out and Broadsea decides to start to kind of prick their guest and see if he can't get the guest to play along. And I love some of these insults. This is where he says that he looks like a merchant. He says, you're no athlete. Right. You look like a merchant. I think what's really interesting here is Odysseus's response. So this is a little after 190. He says, you, you're a reckless fool. I see that. So the gods don't hand out all their gifts at once, not build in brains and flowing speech at all. Skip down some. Just like you, my fine handsome friend. Not even a God can improve those lovely looks of yours. But mind, the inside is worthless. And then you skip down further, your insults cut to the quick. You rouse my fighting blood. So one of the things I had here is maybe to couple with your insight is that okay, they're having this performative. I mean, they're really rolling out the red carpet here. Here's the feasts, we're going to play games, etc. Odysseus gets pricked by this young buck and has a very thematic, if not just angry response to it. And I was kind of curious to what degree or the question I had that I asked is, is Odysseus being a good guest? So the guest role is also reciprocal to the host. And we'll see that, that one of the things is the guest, you know, will tell his story. He kind of serves as the bard character. There's, there's, it's a reciprocal nature. And so here. And I think that maybe Alcinous kind of plays into this as well again in a very kind of soft rhetorical way where, you know, they go back and forth and we not well hear this too. Not only does he speak angrily, he loses, you could argue that he loses his witness. So one of the things that Odysseus has been doing here is not to give hints who he is. And if you look at line 250, he slips. And so he speaks of. What is that? Philoctetes. Philoctetes alone outshot me there at Troy when the ranks of Achaean archers bent their bows.
- [82:24]
B
That's a great catch.
- [82:26]
A
He gives away that he was in the battle at Troy. And so, so the thing there is like if you take that. So there's different ways to take this. So if you take it that Odysseus is trying to be very clever and not give away who he is during this, he's still, they haven't, they've asked him kind of who he is. He's, he's decided to reserve this to him in his anger here at getting pricked by this young buck Broadssi. He gives a pretty substantial hint of who he is. And I think that King Alcinous then again gives a pretty interesting response. At 270, he says he finished. All stood quiet, hushed. Only Alcinous or Alcinous found a way to answer. Stranger friend, nothing you say amongst us seems ungracious. You simply want to display your gifts you're born with. Okay, so that's a nice kind of like placating him. But then he says, stung by a youngster marched up to you in the games. So I saw, I took his, I took Alcinous response to be kind of on both sides. So he says something to somewhat placate Odysseus like, oh, you know, what you've said isn't ungracious. We like that. But by the way, you just got pricked by the youngster. And also, it just seems very out of character for Odysseus. Now, I think that you could make a. You could defend him and say he's agitated, he wants to go home. I think a lot of the implications here is that Odysseus does not want to be doing this. He does not want to stay, he does not want to play games, he does not want the feast. He wants to be put on the boat and sent home. And so he is agitated, and then the youngster comes up and he loses his wit. I mean, it's one read I'm happy to push back.
- [84:07]
B
No, I. So again, the idea that comes to mind, Deacon, is that everything, everywhere, everyone that he encounters, is in preparation for his return home. Right? And so you see where I'm going with this, right? He's pricked by this young buck. Well, guess what? He's going to be pricked by a lot of young bucks when he finally gets back home to Ithaca. And so how. Huh?
- [84:40]
A
I like that a lot.
- [84:41]
B
Yeah. So I think that this is just another way that Odysseus is preparing, because even there's a moment when, later, as we'll see, where, where he'll be contemplating killing the maids. The. The unfaithful maids. And he, he holds himself back and he says in, in his mind, he goes back to the Cyclops. And so this is all for your readers, all for your listeners and your viewers. This is all in the future of the text. But, but, but, but all of this is going to lead up to the great challenge. So he's, in other words, piecing together a character. He's bolstering himself so that when the time is right, he will not succumb to the temptation to lower his guard, to reveal himself. So, so he's just becoming a more patient man.
- [85:35]
A
I like that a lot. I had not thought of that parallel, that this is a preliminary test on his side. Now, Justus is clever, so he learns from things. And so did he just let the young buck prick him into letting his mask slip, which then, if he gets to Ithaca, means probably certain death if he does that. No, I like that a lot. I'd like to think about that more. Okay, let's talk about the story that the bard says. So, one, we got a reference to the antagonisms between Odysseus and Achilles, which you already pointed out is not in the Iliad, that's an interim story between Iliad and Odyssey, where really, you know, if people don't know, one of the things that is kind of a comparison in that interim period is they can't take Troy. And there's just challenge after challenge. They have to have this, you know, sacred relic of Athena. They have to have the bow of Philoctetes. They have to have all these things. Achilles can't take Troy. He can't do it. The raw, primal, thematic character cannot take down Troy. Who can take down Troy? Odysseus, he solves all these problems. He comes up with the Trojan horse. He is the one that does that even so much. So then when Achilles dies, right, this is the famous story that they. We talked about, I think, when Ajax dies via suicide, is that they gave Achilles armor over to Odysseus because he's the one who conquered Troy. So that tension there, I think, in a certain way is. Is that tension between a thematic. And then also, you know what, you can. You have the thematic, but tempered by the intellect as well, right? Is being arete more than just simply primal strength. It also has to have a certain cleverness to it. But that was just a line. All we got was a line there. And we kind of. If you know the story, you can kind of play it out. Here, though, the bard is going to sing of the adultery of Aphrodite with Aries. And Homer devotes over a hundred lines to this, which immediately to any reader should be like, wait, what? Why? Again, think of the strata, think of the political, the. Excuse me, think of the poetic dialectic. We are adding layers to this. And what should we think about that? So let me maybe just wade into this. And I'm looking at our guide, you know, to make sure I get the story correctly. So this is the love of Aries and Aphrodite crowned with flowers. That's line like 301. So first we have to note there's a shift in the mythology. So if you remember, in the Iliad, Hephaestus is actually married to one of the graces here now already by the Odyssey, he's actually married to Aphrodite. And so this myth about adultery and in the Odyssey, I think the reason, if I just throw out a thesis, is that it then serves as a contrast to many of the other narratives that are currently going on. So, I mean, we can play these out. So one, is Penelope, Is Penelope going to commit adultery? Is Penelope going to. You know, you could play out where Penelope's like, Aphrodite, Ares is like the suitors. Is Odysseus going to be like Hephaestus and find his wife in adultery? I actually think too. Let's see if I can tether it to the text that Homer explicitly compares Hephaestus and Odysseus. And it actually goes to the lines that you were talking about where the Phaeacians are the fast runners, the racers legs. That's at like 352. Homer describes Hephaestus overcoming Ares as the slow outstrips the swift. But Odysseus says that he cannot race because he has poor legs. So there's a comparison there between the legs of Hephaestus and of Odysseus, which then means that if Odysseus is a parallel to Ephesus in the story, then who is Aphrodite? And you could read it as Penelope. You could also maybe read it as Nausicaa. That there's, the suitors are like Aries, right? They're trying to get in here, they're trying to take this relationship. So yeah, I think this is, I mean this is a quick sketch, but I think that there's. Oh, and then the other one, two of course, is Clytemnestra also committing adultery with Aegistus and then murdering her own husband? So we have these like narratives. We've been thinking about Penelope and the suitors. We, we understand that Clytemnestra and Aegistus is a parallel really to this entire text. Now we get this kind of, I think it's a little bit more nebulous relationship between Nausicaa and maybe the suitors on her island and what's the role of Odysseus. But there's got to be a deep reason why Homer decides to devote over a hundred lines to the story of Aphrodite being adulterous against Hephaestus.
- [90:09]
B
Yeah, I don't know why, why it's so protracted. I think all three of your, your explanations are quite insightful. I mean, we're told that Odysseus relished every note as the islanders rejoiced. And so you wonder, you know, in what sense did he relish it? I mean, is this, is again is this spurring him to continue his journey? Is he now worried about who Penelope might be sharing her bed with? So again, I think that these are all ways to motivate Odysseus. But yet we still have to hear his story, don't we?
- [90:46]
A
Yeah, I think that. Okay, so I Want to tether. Just kind of thinking here on the cuff, I want to tether your comment about Baradsea being able to prick him. Where, how, in what way is this narrative of Hephaestus and Aphrodite a warning to Odysseus that he's going to return home and find himself in danger? Because I think one of the lines that's really fascinating is this line where it says this is a little bit after 370. In Fayul's the Top of Page 202, he says the slow outstrips the swift. Look how limping Hephaestus conquers war. And quickest of all the gods who rule Olympus, the cripple wins by craft. So basically we have a narrative in which the wife is being an adulterer, adulteress with this, you know, swift warrior young buck, Ares in a face to still wins not by power, but by, not by Thumas, but by craft. And so I think then you could say to your point too, is this also not a warning to Odysseus? This is how you have to conquer when you go back home. It's not by power, it's not by overtaking them like Ares. It's like Hephaestus. You're like the one with the crippled legs. You are going to have to win this by craft. And by the way, if you allow yourself to be pricked like you did by broad sea, you'll die.
- [92:19]
B
Yeah. And as we'll see, he has to come up with a plan. He can't just go in guns a blazing. He's not Achilles, he's not Ajax or some of these other warriors. He's an elderly man who has spent 20 years away from home and his legs just owing to everything he's been through. And I know exactly what Odysseus is talking about. My legs, I have 53 year old legs. So. No, I mean you, you have to use your brains and yeah, I think that, I think that these are all subtle pieces of advice, subtle warnings that Odysseus is simply. He's filing away in his filing cabinet that he's going to put to good use later.
- [93:03]
A
Yeah, I really like this. I really like this a lot because I think it's, it's showing Homer's intent on these things. And that's why I'm always trying to figure out Homer's never giving us anything without reason. What's the pedagogical purpose here in tethering to the text? I really like all of this being instructive. To Odysseus and how he has to come home and how he has to return to Ithaca.
- [93:24]
B
And it shows you that he's paying attention too. Like this is the other. Despite all, I mean, all of his other good qualities. He is a man who takes in. He's a tape recorder. He's someone who does not let anything slide by. So much like us as we have to be perceptive readers. He too is incredible, incredibly perceptive.
- [93:42]
A
What do you take of this? I mean, there's some narratives of gifts here and things like this, but what do you take of this quick meeting between Odysseus and Nausicaa? This is around 5, 20 or so. And there stood Nausicaa. As he passed behind a column that propped the sturdy roof, she paused, endowed by the gods with all her beauty, gazing at Odysseus right before her eyes, wonder struck. She hailed her guests with a winning flight of words. So this is incredibly cinematic, right? She's behind the pillar, she calls to him. Right. I mean, this is a very intimate scene. Farewell, my friend. And when you are at home, home in your land, remember me. At times, mainly to me, you owe the gift of life. It's a big claim, right? I'm the one who brought you here. I'm the one who told you how to come into Phaeacia. You would have stumbled around and been killed by all the suitors on the island. Which again is indicative of his returning to Ithaca. And look at his response. Odysseus rose to the moment, deftly, gently. Nausicaa, daughter of generous king Alcinous. May Zeus the Thunderer, Hera's husband, grant it. So, okay, so first I just want to point out that he's made a marriage reference, right? Zeus and Hera, they're a married couple. So our marriage theme is continuing. And you could read that different ways. He's clearly not accepting the offer. So is he just talking about marriage? He's reminding her that he is married. That's why he has to return home. But that marriage theme is still percolating in their rhetoric to each other. That I travel home and see the dawn of my return. Even at home, I'll pray to you as a deathless goddess all the days to come. You saved my life, dear girl. So, two things there. One, he agrees, at least in this rhetorical passage. And two, he says, I'll pray to you as a deathless goddess all my days to come.
- [95:41]
B
I don't know what to make of that last remark, but based upon what we said earlier, about how in some traditions Nausicaa eventually marries Telemachus. This might be. And again this is kind of maybe a silly, a silly read. But she is letting him know to remember her just in case he happens to have a son that he might be willing to introduce her to.
- [96:11]
A
Yeah, I don't know. I mean there's a, there's a, there's a flirtation here that I think is pretty prominent. Pray to you as a deathless goddess. That phrase has been used before even though it seems to be somewhat blasphemous. But it is again a reference to her being godlike and remember her earlier, you know, Artemis reference which I think is obviously very loaded. So what do we take then? I mean, kind of pushing on. So we're back into feasting, we're back into the bard and we get Odysseus weeping. So around like 3, like not 385 AD saying how Odysseus marched right up like a God of war on attack and die hard Menelaus there he's saying Odysseus fought the grimmest fight he had ever braved. But he won through at last thanks to Athena's superhuman power. That was the song the famous harper sang. But Odysseus melted into tears. And because he's singing, if I remember correctly, if I scoot back here, he's singing of the wooden horse at 5:50 something. It talks about this. He sings of the wooden horse Epius built with Athena's help. The cunning trap that good Odysseus brought one day to the heights of Troy. Again he's the one that did this through his cleverness also Epius by the way, is the guy who also won the boxing match at Patroclus funeral games. It actually says he was a phenomenal boxer and a terrible fighter. So not very good with a spear, but he could box. He often. He also happened to be their carpenter, so he makes the horse. So what's really interesting here is that Odysseus melts into tears, running down from his eyes to wet cheeks. But it's the simile that's really fascinating. As a woman weeps, her arms flung around her darling husband, a man who fell in battle fighting for town and townsmen trying to beat the day of doom from home and children seeing the man go down dying, gasping for breath, she clings to dear life, screams and shrills. But the victors just behind her digging spear butts into her back and shoulders drag her off in bondage, yoked to hard labor pains and the most heartbreaking torment wastes her cheeks. What is that? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. That. That is a nine line simile. Now what I find really fascinating here is, and I can't remember if we mentioned it last week on book five, but some people make an argument that there's a parallel between Odysseus and the female slaves taken at Troy, that Calypso now is keeping him as this sex slave, just like Agamemnon, you know, is going to keep Cassandra. And that's an interesting parallel. But here Homer makes it incredibly explicit. So he's weeping just like the women at Troy who watched their husbands be killed and then they're dragged off as slaves. Here the simile is very explicit that Homer. That Odysseus is crying like one of these women. And I. That is a really fascinating comparison that Homer makes.
- [99:14]
B
Well, it is because whenever we, whenever we see or read about these male heroes, Hector, as far as I remember, didn't weep. Achilles wept, but he wept because he was dishonored. He wasn't weeping in the way that Odysseus is being described here as weeping. And so, I don't know, it takes me back to the first line of the Odyssey. And when Homer describes Odysseus as being this pollutraposis man of twists and turns, I mean, there so many different facets of his character are being unlocked to us. And so this is a very complicated individual, to put it mildly. And so he does have, again, very masculine qualities. But I think too, he's very vulnerable and he shows it. But Homer more intimately reveals it to us through the narrative and by using the simile.
- [100:17]
A
Yeah, and I wonder too, I mean, a lot of times when we see Hector as a foil to the Achaeans, which is really fascinating. One of the things that people comment all the time on, it's like you have this epic of an ancient people and the enemy is presented in a positive light, which is a really fascinating tale, particularly for, you know, this text from the 700s. So here too, you don't have to push too deep or speculate too much, but like, how much of this is again, a nod that the Achaeans went too far in Troy, that here are you, quote, unquote, war hero. You came up with the Trojan horse and now you weep and have been treated just like these female slaves from Troy. It's really fast. I mean, I don't think, again, Homer's a teacher. I don't think he gives us these things without reason. But as Far as the plot goes, what ends up happening? This is the second time then that Alcinous has watched Odysseus cry. And so he's understanding who he is and he's putting two and two together. And so we kind of finally get the final ask right? Don't be crafty now, my friend. Don't hide the truth. I'm after fair is fair. Speak out. Come, tell us a name. They call you there at home. Your mother, your father, townsmen, neighbors, roundabout, that's a little bit. 4, 6, 20. And tell me, your land, your people and your city too. So he asks him so, and this is fair, right? This is guest friendship. So we, you know, we have bathed you, we've clothed you, we feasted you, we've played games. There's a lot of feasting here. Compared to say, like Telemachus and other things like this. He's also going to be sent home with a whole ship of treasure, more treasure than he would have brought home from Troy, is what Zeus tells us. I can't remember if the text tells us that too, but Zeus tells us that. So he's finally. So then again, the guest is reciprocal. He needs to tell his name and he needs to tell his story. And so next book, which is a fantastic book, book nine is one of my favorites. It's the book that when I first read the Odyssey, I fell in love with it. It took me a while, but I, you know, finally got there. Is that. Then Odysseus becomes the bard and he is going to retell his story. And that guest friendship is reciprocal. But what do you take about this prophecy that kind of gets stuck in here at 6:30? And so Alcinous says, true, it's an old tale I heard my father telling once, right? There's this prophet that Lord Poseidon was vexed with us because we escorted all mankind and never came to grief. He said that one day as a well built ship of ours sailed home on the misty sea from such a convoy, the God would crush it. Yes, and pile a huge mountain round our port. So the old king foretold. And as for the God, well, he could do the worst or leave it quite undone. Whatever warms his heart. Okay, so this is fascinating. And this might play into earlier conversations we've had. So what this means is, is that the Phaeacians used to, because they've got these autopilot ships and whatever people wash up on the shore, they take them home. This is a thing. It's guest friendship. For some reason this makes Poseidon upset. So there's this prophecy that, by the way, when you guys do this one time, then you're going to get crushed, the ship gets crushed, and they're going to take a giant mountain and they're just going to pile it on your harbor, and you're done doing this. So I think that what's fascinating is, is that you could then read this back into why they are all stunned when Odysseus shows up, because all of a sudden this is a stranger. And if we. If we give him Zinnia, if we give him guest friendship and do what we're supposed to do under the cult of Zeus, it's going to open us up to, you know, you're playing Russian roulette here, right? So we're going to pull the trigger and see if this is the one that Poseidon punishes us for. Maybe he goes home. It's fine. It doesn't say Odysseus. It just says, one time we're going to do this and it's the last time. So we're going to pray Russian roulette again and take this guy home, and it might be the last time we do it.
- [104:04]
B
Well, and of course, he knew this prophecy from the very start, and yet they treated him well with. With great courtesy. But this is, of course, foreshadowing because as we'll soon find out, yes, Poseidon will get his revenge against the Phaeacians, right?
- [104:24]
A
As it's unfortunate that the guy that swept up on your shore happens to also be the guy that Poseidon is very upset with. But that whole scene, though, we're really gonna have to dig into that. So any other comments, questions, concerns, anything on book eight?
- [104:40]
B
Not for me. So, I mean, as. As we transition to nine, the reader is going to have to reorient his or her whole chronology, because what we're going to now learn is everything that happened before he landed on Calypso's island. So. So Homer, I think, narratively does something really interesting and maybe even unprecedented in literature up to this point, which is he does. I mean, some of your listeners of yours might know, like a Quentin Tarantino from Pulp Fiction, where the whole organization, the whole chronology of the story is jumbled up where we start at the end and we kind of work our way backwards and then work our way forwards. So, you know, everything that we learned up to this point from what happened in real time has already happened. And now Odysseus is going to fill in all the gaps. But, yes, he's also going to become the bard, he's also going to become the storyteller. And so much like Augustine in his Confessions, he's going to have to reconstruct his history, which I think too really helps him to reconstruct his person as he is preparing for his journey home.
- [105:58]
A
Yeah, no, very good. And the only thing I would add to that too, not to give it like too many layers, is that then there's also the question of whether Odysseus is telling the truth. He is the only survivor from this voyage out to Troy and then this voyage trying to get back home. So as we hear his story, all rhetoric is tailored to the souls that receive it. And so I think that's one question is to what degree do we believe his story? And is there any evidence in the text otherwise, outside of Odysseus retelling his story, that might convince us maybe otherwise or hold us in suspicion? It's not helpful when we know when he tells his story in other texts that we know he's lying. So I think a lot of people read this big story that we have no other context for and just assume that's the story. But then when we see him retelling his story in other places, we know he's lying. So this again, so Homer creates these layers, he creates these tensions for us then to kind of extract these perennial questions of the human condition of then what is it about the story of Odysseus and maybe his lying or the way he skews a story that teaches us something as well. You can get hung up on the lying part, but again, all these characters are in tension. And so I think it's more for me, I'm focused on what does the tension create, what's the pedagogical purpose and what can I learn from it. And if you haven't read book nine before, it is fantastic. So next week we're actually reading book nine and ten. We're going to read those together. So half of his story that he tells, his story goes over the next four books. And so it's probably the scene, by the way, if you haven't read it yet, it's the, these four books are basically, when anyone mentions the Odyssey, all the stories are typically out of these four books. Cyclops, Skill and Charybdis, the monsters, the island hopping lotus eaters, you know, some cannibal giants, some really terrible scenes, et cetera, some real questionable leadership decisions. All of them come from these four books. So if you kind of think the Odyssey has been a bit slow, don't worry, it gears up. It's wonderful to guide us through this. Next week, we're actually going to have Dr. Gregory McBrayer of the New Thinkry. He's been on the podcast several times. He led us through the Gorgias as well. Fantastic thinker. I'm really excited to discuss that text with him and with you, Dr. Grabowski. And again, thank you for being on today. And remind us again, the new substack that you started.
- [108:15]
B
Yeah. It's entitled the Porch and the Altar. Hopefully, I'll put up some new content in the coming days and weeks, and everyone is welcome to visit and offer their feedback. Thanks.
- [108:27]
A
Yeah. Wonderful. All right, everyone, go check us out on X, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Patreon, and we will see you next week. Thank you.