In Homer’s Odyssey, we are in the same world as we were in the Iliad, the subject of my last review. We have one foot in the late bronze age (c. 1200 BC), and the other in the foothills of the Greek classical era (c. 750 BC). As the two texts have come down to us, it is natural to read the Odyssey as the sequel to the Iliad. Odysseus, for whom the epic poem is named, was a major character in the Iliad, though not the main one. The Odyssey is the warrior’s homeward journey, after the defeat of Troy (Ilium), back to his wife and son, Penelope and Telemachus, in Ithaca.
At the outset, after we note this continuity of the Iliad and the Odyssey, we should also note the contrast, and perhaps begin to read Homer’s second poem wondering what the poet is suggesting through comparison. This is what I mean: the Iliad was about the warrior Achilles, the power of his emotions, and what they wrought outside the walls of Troy: “Rage–Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus’ son Achilles, murderous, doomed…”; but the Odyssey begins by describing its hero like this: “Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns driven time and again off course…” So Odysseus is not driven by primal aggression toward martial glory, but rather struggles to keep a straight course toward home. And whereas Achilles was a man of rage, Odysseus is “a man of twists and turns,” a phrase which describes his itinerary, but also his character. He’s not so straightforward in conflict as an Achilles or a Goliath; he’s rather, like his patron Athena, tactical, strategic, cunning.
So, whether or not Homer will give us an answer, we might at least begin to read by asking: Which is the better way of life for the bronze age warrior, or for anyone–to achieve a blaze of renown through strength and high-octane desire, or to find our way home by our wits and patient determination? In Book 11, Odysseus meets the ghost of Achilles in the underworld. Let the reader bring this question to the warrior’s shade and hear what he says of glory and of home.
But we are already ahead of ourselves. Let’s have the whole story, in summary.
It begins ten years after the fall of Troy. Odysseus, a warrior for the Greek side in this Trojan war, has still not returned home to his kingdom of Ithaca. This Ithacan home has fallen into a bad way in his absence. The house and lands are being eaten up by a mob of men, each vying to wed Penelope, Odysseus’ wife, now assumed to be his widow. Odysseus’ only son, Telemachus, has grown to young manhood and still hopes his father lives and will return.
The drama of Penelope and Telemachus, their angst and hope for Odysseus’ return, her faithfulness to him and guile toward the gang of suitors, and Telemachus’ own journey to find answers and help his missing father, these form an important ancillary thread of the main narrative. Standing alone, they would make a good story of themselves. As a parallel story to that of Odysseus, they enhance the tension and depth of the whole.
The missing Odysseus has been imprisoned by the nymph Calypso on her island. She’s smitten with him and won’t let him leave. Zeus intervenes, and she allows him to depart, only for him to fall into the hands of Poseiden, who is nursing a personal grudge. Odysseus survives a shipwreck, and is taken in by the hospitable Phaeacians in the land of Scheria. In the home of the Phaeacian king, stories are shared of the Trojan War and its aftermath, and Odysseus himself tells the story of how he came to be alone on Calypso’s island.
I want to point this out specifically for those who might know some of the familiar stories about Odysseus but who are coming to Homer’s text for the first time. You will not find a straightforward telling of one man’s adventures. Instead, you’ll work your way through interwoven layers of storytelling from many different storytellers. You’ll hear from gods, from Telemachus and Penelope, from other kings and warriors, from the Phaeacian king, from prophets and bards, from the living and from the dead, from Homer himself, and from Odysseus himself. From these, you’ll piece together the end of the Iliad, which had yet to be told. You’ll learn about the fortunes of other warriors and kings after the war, about Odysseus’ family history, about other stories with no connection to Odysseus but dear to the Greeks, about the loves and hates and exploits of the gods, and finally about the mediterranean adventures of Odysseus himself. These well-known stories come to us as flashbacks, as the hero’s story as told by the hero himself. Here come the tales of the Land of the Lotus Eaters, the Cyclops, Circe, the Sirens, the journey to Hades, interviews with famous and infamous dead, Scylla, Charybdis, and others. My best advice to the reader is to try to enjoy the waves of story and song, to take breaks so as not to drown, and to expect nothing but “twists and turns.” By the end, we and the Phaeacians are completely up to date concerning Troy, concerning the rest of the Greek world, and concerning this cagey stranger, Odysseus. It remains for us to send him on his way home and see what happens.
He arrives in his decayed kingdom, his own ruined house in Ithaca, disguised by Athena as a beggar. Here takes place a touching drama of humility and faithfulness, as the glory of Odysseus is hidden from the eyes of those who want him dead, but is revealed to servants and family, who have long pined for the advent of the true king. The faithless suitors of Penelope cannot be dealt with directly, but must be led by subterfuge to the slaughter. Odysseus wins back his home by both the strength of his arm and the sharpness of his mind. If you know the end, you’ll enjoy reading it again; if not, I won’t spoil it.
From the beginning of the Odyssey, homecoming is threatened by temptation. Impulsive action, lack of self-control, the whole array of the lower passions, and the desire for renown constantly work against Odysseus. But, higher, more sophisticated, and seemingly nobler possibilities also present themselves as alternatives to Ithaca. More than once, Odysseus could have given up the journey and settled down elsewhere to a pleasant life. At the end of his maritime adventures, he could have married the Phaeacian princess and ruled a prosperous country, but instead he chose the final step toward his devastated house, preferring to set his own home in order than to claim the abundance of a reward for which he never labored.
The Iliad highlighted what the Greeks called kleos, or the undying fame and glory achieved in life. By contrast, the Odyssey endorses nostos, that is, homecoming. As Christians, we have common ground with nostos, and that in a manifold sense. Obviously, Scripture is replete with teaching that describes Christian life as a journey. “The way is narrow,” Jesus is “the way,” and so is Christianity itself (Matt. 7:13-14, John 14:6, Acts 9:2 and others). We are “sojourners” who “here have no lasting city” but for whom “God has prepared a city” (1 Peter 2:11, Hebrews 11:13-16, 13:14). “In my Father’s house are many rooms, and I go to prepare a place for you” (John 14:2-3). Likewise, we can easily connect the blessings of the domestic and ecclesial estates with the image of the longed-for Ithaca. The life of the congregation and of the family are both appropriate destinations for the Christian nostos, even if only as the tents in which we dwell on the way to the life of the world to come.
Odysseus is the “man of twists and turns.” He rarely shows up on the scene wearing the truth of who he is or what he wants. He is, by turns, “Nobody,” a stranger wearing your daughter’s clothes, or a beggar competing out of his league. Then again, this is only true if you happen to be a cyclops, a curious Phaeacian, or a greedy suitor. But if you are Penelope, Telemachus, or Argos his dog, then every one his side-quests, haphazard misadventures, and delays quickly resolve into a single-minded pursuit whose single goal was always perfectly straightforward. The final test against all subterfuge and disguise is that he alone, among all men, knows the secret of his marriage bed, that it is immovably fixed to the earth. By twists and turns, he has been constant in his pursuit of constancy itself. That’s quite clever.
