The Odyssey of Homer Read online

  The Odyssey of Homer

  Translated with an introduction by

  Richmond Lattimore

  Dedication

  To Royal Nemiah

  Contents

  Dedication

  Introduction

  Book I

  Invocation and part summary—council of the gods—Athene visits Telemachos in Ithaka and urges him to go in search of his father—the suitors feast in the house of Telemachos.

  Book II

  Assembly on Ithaka—Telemachos publicly requests the suitors to go home—secret departure of Telemachos and Athene.

  Book III

  Athene and Telemachos arrive in Pylos—entertainment by Nestor and his family—Telemachos and Peisistratos leave for Sparta.

  Book IV

  Arrival at Sparta—entertainment by Menelaos and Helen—the wanderings of Menelaos—report that Odysseus is on Kalypso's island—at Ithaka the suitors learn of Telemachos' departure and lay an ambush for him.

  Book V

  Council of the gods—Hermes tells Kalypso to let Odysseus go—he sails on a raft but is wrecked by Poseidon—he swims ashore on Scheria.

  Book VI

  Odysseus encounters Nausikaa, the princess of the Phaiakians, and is accepted as a guest.

  Book VII

  Reception of Odysseus by Alkinoös and Arete.

  Book VIII

  Odysseus at the games of the Phaiakians—he is asked to tell his name and his story.

  Book IX

  The wanderings of Odysseus—the raid on the Kikonians—the Lotus-Eaters—the adventure with Polyphemos the Cyclops.

  Book X

  The wanderings of Odysseus—Aiolos and the bag of winds—Odysseus blown back to sea after sighting Ithaka—the adventure with the Laistrygones—Circe's island—the men transformed and restored.

  Book XI

  The wanderings of Odysseus—voyage to the land of the dead—interviews—Elpenor—Teiresias—Antikleia—the heroines—interlude in Scheria—interviews—the heroes—return to Circe.

  Book XII

  The wanderings of Odysseus—the Sirens—Skylla and Charybdis—the cattle of Helios—loss of the last ship and all the companions—Odysseus rescued by Kalypso—end of his story to the Phaiakians.

  Book XIII

  Return of Odysseus to Ithaka—he is landed, alone—strange return of the Phaiakian ship—Athene comes to Odysseus and advises him.

  Book XIV

  Odysseus received by Eumaios—he tells Eumaios the (false) story of his life.

  Book XV

  Telemachos, urged by Athene, leaves Sparta—from Pylos, he sails for home—Odysseus still with Eumaios—life story of Eumaios—Telemachos eludes the ambush and reaches Ithaka.

  Book XVI

  Telemachos visits Eumaios—Odysseus reveals himself to Telemachos—Penelope and the suitors learn that Telemachos has returned—night at the house of Eumaios.

  Book XVII

  Return of Telemachos to his house—Odysseus, disguised as a beggar, goes to the house with Eumaios—Odysseus begs from the suitors.

  Book XVIII

  Fight between Odysseus and Iros—Penelope appears briefly before the suitors—after disorderly incidents the suitors go home.

  Book XIX

  Interview by night between Odysseus and Penelope—Odysseus almost betrayed by his scar—the story of the scar—plan for the test of the bow.

  Book XX

  Next morning all the principals gather in the house.

  Book XXI

  The test of the bow—the suitors fail—Odysseus succeeds.

  Book XXII

  The killing of the suitors—punishment of the faithless maids and thrall.

  Book XXIII

  Recognition of Odysseus by Penelope—reunion—Odysseus goes to Laertes' farm.

  Book XXIV

  The heroes of Troy learn the story from the ghosts of the suitors—Odysseus reveals himself to Laertes—burial of the suitors by their relatives, who plan revenge—final combat between Odysseus and his party and the relatives of the suitors—peace imposed by Athene.

  Glossary

  About the Author

  Praise

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  INTRODUCTION

  THE OUTLINE OF THE ODYSSEY

  The Odyssey as we have it is an epic of over twelve thousand lines. It has been divided, like the Iliad and probably at the same time, into twenty-four books. Book number and line number are the standard terms of reference.

  The contents can be, very broadly, divided as follows:

  The Telemachy or Adventures of Telemachos, i-iv

  The Homecoming of Odysseus, v-viii and xiii.1-187

  The Great Wanderings, ix-xii

  Odysseus on Ithaka, xiii.187-xxiv.548.

  We can also distinguish a Proem, Book i.1-10, and an End of the Odyssey, all of Book xxiv. This division is for convenience; it is arbitrary and not water-tight, but gives us terms to work with.1

  I begin by summarizing the bare facts of the story. Odysseus spent ten years fighting at Troy, and another ten years getting home. During this time, none of his family knew what had happened to him, and he lost all his ships, all his men, and the spoils from Troy. After ten years, or in the tenth year, he was set down in his own country, alone and secretly, though with a new set of possessions, by the Phaiakians of Scheria, who were the last people he visited on his wanderings.

  When he took ship for Troy, Odysseus left behind his wife, Penelope, and his infant son, Telemachos. A few years before his return, the young bachelors of Odysseus’ kingdom, Ithaka and the surrounding islands, began paying court to Penelope (ii.89-90). She was accomplished and clever, still beautiful, an heiress and presumably a widow; but she clung to the hope that Odysseus might come back, and held them off, without ever saying positively that she would never marry again.

  The suitors made themselves at home as uninvited guests in the palace of Odysseus. Shortly before the return of Odysseus, Telemachos visited the mainland in search of news about his father. He heard from Menelaos that Odysseus was alive but detained without means of return on the island of Kalypso (iv.555-560). Telemachos returned to Ithaka. The suitors set an ambush, meaning to murder him, but he eluded them and reached Ithaka just after his father arrived.

  The voyage of Telemachos, the arrival of Odysseus, and the recognition and reunion of father and son, were all supervised by Athene.

  Father and son plotted the destruction of the suitors. Odysseus entered his own house unrecognized, mingled with the suitors and talked with Penelope. He and Telemachos contrived to catch them unarmed and with the help of two loyal serving men (and of course Athene) they slaughtered all 108 suitors. Penelope knew nothing of the plot; Odysseus revealed himself to her after the fighting was over. The relatives of the dead suitors attacked the heroes on the farm of Laertes, father of Odysseus, and a battle began, but it was ended by Zeus and Athene, who patched up a hasty reconciliation.

  THE TELEMACHY

  The Odyssey, like the Iliad, begins in the tenth year of the story's chief action, with events nearing their climax and final solution. We begin with a very rapid location of Odysseus in place, time, and stage in his career, but then (via the councils of the gods concerning his immediate fate) pass to Telemachos, with Athene's visit which sends him off on his journey. It is only after Telemachos has begun his visit in Sparta, and heard from Menelaos that his father is alive, and after the suitors have set their trap, that we return directly to Odysseus himself. We then follow Odysseus for the rest of the Odyssey. The poet now tells us of Odysseus' journey to Scheria and his sojourn there; and he makes Odysseus himself recount to the Phaiaki
ans his previous wanderings (The Great Wanderings). They then convey him to Ithaka, and with his homecoming the tale of the wanderings of Odysseus joins on to the tale of Odysseus on Ithaka.

  Thus in two respects the narrative order of the poem disagrees with the chronological order of the story. The early and chief wanderings of Odysseus are told by throwback narrative toward the middle of the poem; and the wanderings of Telemachos come first.

  The joins or transitions from theme to theme are noteworthy. After the poet has located Odysseus in time and space, the gods consider the question. Athene urges the homecoming of Odysseus. Zeus proclaims that Athene shall have her way; Odysseus may now start for home. Athene answers (i.81-95)

  Son of Kronos, our father, O lordliest of the mighty,

  if in truth this is pleasing to the blessed immortals,

  that Odysseus of the many designs shall return home, then

  let us dispatch Hermes, the guide, the slayer of Argos,

  to the island of Ogygia, so that with all speed

  he may announce to the lovely-haired nymph our absolute purpose,

  the homecoming of enduring Odysseus, that he shall come back.

  But I shall make my way to Ithaka, so that I may stir up

  his son a little, and put some confidence in him

  to summon into assembly the flowing-haired Achaians,

  and make a statement to all the suitors, who now forever

  slaughter his crowding sheep and lumbering horn-curved cattle;

  and I will convey him into Sparta and to sandy Pylos

  to ask after his dear father's homecoming, if he can hear something,

  and so that among people he may win a good reputation.

  This excellently motivates the Telemachy but it does perforce leave Odysseus stranded, and after the major part of the Telemachy, at the opening of Book v, the return to Odysseus shows more strain than the departure from him did. Athene has been to Ithaka, and to Pylos with Telemachos. She left the court of Nestor, presumably for Olympos (iii.371). Now she has to start all over again, almost as if the case of Odysseus had never come up, to complain of his sorrows; but ends with the perils of Telemachos; and Zeus seems to have to remind her that she herself planned everything that has just been happening (v.23). Hermes, who has been waiting for this for four books and five days, can at last get off (i.84; v.28) and the wanderings of Odysseus may be resumed.

  The obviousness of the joins and the bulk of material not specifically related to Odysseus in Books iii-iv, his absence from Books i-ii, have suggested that the Telemachy was an independent poem which was, at some stage, incorporated more or less whole in the Odyssey.2 This may be true, and there is no way to prove that it is not true. But it is also possible that the poet (or poets)3 of the Odyssey, in the form in which we have it, deliberately developed this diversion, never meaning to take up Odysseus until he had first established Telemachos; that he so much desired to do this that he was willing to accept the necessary awkwardnesses of narrative joining in which it would involve him.

  Why so? Let us consider the effects gained for the total poem from having the Telemachy with its present contents in its present place.

  Odysseus in the Iliad was a great man, but his magnitude is increased by the flattering mentions of him by Nestor (iii.120-123), Menelaos (iv.333-346), and Athene herself (i.255-256 with 265-266). It is increased still more by the evident need for him felt by his family and friends, concisely stated by Athene (i.253-254): “How great your need is now of the absent Odysseus,” and everywhere apparent.

  Through Nestor and Menelaos, also, the Odyssey is secured in its place among the Nostoi,4 the homecomings of the Achaians. The general character of the Nostoi is succinctly stated by Nestor (iii.130-135)

  But after we had sacked the sheer citadel of Priam,

  and were going away in our ships, and the god scattered the Achaians,

  then Zeus in his mind devised a sorry homecoming

  for the Argives, since not all were considerate and righteous;

  therefore many of them found a bad way home, because of

  the ruinous anger of the Gray-eyed One, whose father is mighty.

  The sufferings of two great heroes, by long wandering away from home (Menelaos) and by treachery and disaster on arrival (Agamemnon), both well point up the case of Odysseus in two of its different aspects. For an audience well versed in the tale of Troy, or the Iliad, interest is added in a second viewing of some old favorites: Nestor, Helen, Menelaos, all very like themselves in the Iliad. Without planning some such excursus as the Telemachy, the poet could not have worked them in without a great deal more awkwardness than it has, in fact, cost him.

  Another point gained through the Telemachy is the instigation to murder.

  For Odysseus must end by murdering Penelope's suitors. So, it appears, the story demanded. Further, the story demanded, or the poet firmly intended, that Telemachos should assist his father in this business. The suitors are a bad lot and they have put themselves in the wrong, but we cannot assume that Homer's audience was so inured to bloodshed that they could take this altogether lightly (modern readers mostly cannot). In any case, there are numerous passages in the Telemachy which look as if they might be designed, which do in any case serve, to shore up the consciences of the avenging heroes and of their sympathizers in the story or in the audience.

  Aigisthos seduced Agamemnon's wife while he was gone at Troy and murdered him on his return. Orestes murdered his father's murderer. The case may not seem quite parallel to the situation of the Odyssey, but Agamemnon's ghost used his story as a warning against the wife's-suitor danger (xi.441-446; 454-456); and when Athene tells Odysseus about Penelope and her suitors he immediately thinks of Agamemnon (xiii.383-385). Orestes' act seems to be taken as a precedent justifying murder when it means putting one's house in order. It is mentioned with approval by Zeus (i.35-43), and Athene specifically holds up Orestes as an example to Telemachos (i.298-300). Nestor tells Telemachos of Orestes' revenge, and immediately warns Telemachos not to stay too long away from home—once again, as if there were a specific connection (iii.306-316).

  It is not only through her praise of Orestes that Athene shows, at the very outset of the Odyssey, that she favors, one might even say insists on, the slaughter of the suitors. She definitely tells Telemachos to do it (i.294-296). And in order that they may be the more guilty, she has apparently put the plot of ambushing Telemachos into their minds, while at the same time making sure that it must fail (v.23-24). The whole later action of the Odyssey is approved, authorized, encouraged by Athene.

  She is carefully established in this role at the outset of the epic as we have it. This, I believe, is the chief reason why we start with the Telemachy. Here she can be cast as the fairy godmother, or guardian spirit. If the poet had begun at the beginning of the wanderings of Odysseus, he could not have cast her in this role, because the tradition was that at this time Athene was angry with all the Achaians, including even Odysseus. So, for instance, Phemios sang of (i.326-327)

  the Achaians' bitter homecoming

  from Troy, which Pallas Athene had inflicted upon them.

  Nestor agrees, adding the wrath of Zeus (iii.130-135 quoted above).

  The wrath of Athene deserves special consideration, and I shall return to it when I discuss the wanderings of Odysseus. Here it may be sufficient to say that the poet has established the position of Athene, as guardian spirit of the family, by beginning with the Telemachy.

  Last of all, and most obvious of all, the Telemachy gives us Telemachos. Once Odysseus is on the scene, our attention is mainly fixed on him, but his young helper quietly maintains the character that has been built up for him, without strain or hurry, in the first four books.

  I think, then, that it can be said, as objectively as is possible in such cases, that the Odyssey gains much from its Telemachy. The cost is the delay in bringing us, first-hand, to Odysseus and his wanderings. But did Homer count such delay as cost? r />
  In the Odyssey, the poet gives us a few indications of his views about storytelling. One should not be repetitive, xii.450-453:

  Why tell the rest of

  this story again, since yesterday in your house I told it

  to you and your majestic wife? It is hateful to me

  to tell a story over again, when it has been well told.

  And well has Odysseus (Homer, that is) told his story. Thus Alkinoös, xi.366-368:

  You have

  a grace upon your words, and there is sound sense within them,

  and expertly, as a singer would do, you have told the story.

  It is storytelling they like, and they are not impatient, xi.372-376:

  Here is

  a night that is very long, it is endless. It is not time yet

  to sleep in the palace. But go on telling your wonderful story.

  I myself could hold out until the bright dawn, if only

  you could bear to tell me, here in the palace, of your sufferings.

  “If you could only hear him,” says Eumaios to Penelope. “I had him for three nights, and he enchanted me” (xvii.512-521).

  Delay, excursus, elaboration—whether by creative expansion or incorporation of by-material—is part of the technique of the epic, as opposed to chronicle. In the Iliad, the wrath of Achilleus is not hastened to its fulfillment; nor, in the Odyssey, the vengeance of Odysseus. Consider the daydream of Telemachos, how he visualizes his father's homecoming, i.115-116:

  imagining in his mind his great father, how he might come back