Literary Epistle: Odyssey 18-24

28 February 2017

Sophomore English
Room US028

 

Dear Students:

In books 18-24, the last part of “Odysseus on Ithaca,” both the patterns of the Odyssey and the arc of the story come full circle. In fact, we see Homer bring things to completion through the convergence of all the individual patterns into the complex tapestry, the Pattern of patterns, that we call "the story."

Coming of Age (Andra) We find several comments in these final books about Telemachus’ entry into manhood. One typical remark occurs in Book 19. As Odysseus in disguise finally speaks to Penelope face-to-face, he says, “’No women’s wildness here in the house / escapes the prince’s eye. He’s come of age at last’” (95-6). Telemachus’ actions in these books also reflect his maturity. Not the least of these would be the assistance he gives his father in the battle with the suitors. We also see him become nearly equal to Odysseus, his father’s true son, in Book 24, when Telemachus, Odysseus, and Laertes prepare to fight the suitors’ relatives.

Bards How is a man with a bow like a bard? The simile that Homer uses to describe Odysseus’s stringing of the great bow at the end of Book 21 evokes that question. The choice of this comparison suggests some intriguing connections between bards and archers, not the least of which is that they both deal out pain and hardship with their instruments. Hence, when the bard is at his best, his song causes us to weep, but to weep in such a way that it heals us. Apollo, the archer god, is also the god of song and the god of healing. Further, the final showdown with the suitors takes place on a feast day honoring Apollo and is executed mainly with Apollo's own weapon, as Odysseus's bow may literally once have been. It is also intriguing that it takes a bard, Phemius, to bring Odysseus to restrain himself and to show mercy, effectively bringing to an end the slaughter of the suitors, when he grabs Odysseus's knees and pleads to be spared.

Identity These books feature key recognition or discovery scenes: Eurycleia’s discovery of Odysseus’s scar in Book 19 and Odysseus’s announcement of his true identity to the suitors just after he slays Antinous in Book 22. The first, significantly, leads to the long digression that reveals the meaning of Odysseus’s name, given to him by his maternal grandfather Autolycus: “’so let his name be Odysseus. . . / the Son of Pain, a name he’ll earn in full’” (463-4). When he receives a wound from a boar on Parnassus (the mountain where the Muses live), he begins to earn his name. But the moment when he truly owns his name comes when he slaughters the suitors in his hall, just after he’s revealed that name to them. Notice the contrast between this moment of revelation and the one Odysseus reports in Book 9 when he calls out his name to the Cyclops. Whereas that moment results from a reckless impulse, Odysseus has carefully prepared for the revelation of his identity in Book 22 to take place at just the right moment. Finally, in Book 23, Odysseus dispels Penelope’s doubts about his identity by revealing the secret of their marriage bed: One post consists of an olive tree still rooted in the earth, a symbol of the vitality of their marriage. Sharing his pain, Penelope completes Odysseus’s identity as neither Circe nor Calypso could.

Nostos and Xenia  Again, the clearest moment of recognition for Odysseus is when he begins the battle for his home. When he reasserts mastery over his house and family, Odysseus can strip away all disguises. He reveals himself here because protecting his household involves protecting and preserving who he is and what he has become through his hardships and travels: the paragon of wisdom and self-command who has learned to control his belly. The suitors have violated the practice of hospitality by lawlessly disrupting the peace of Odysseus’s home and family. Since home, providing for the balanced satisfaction of the belly’s appetites, represents the place where human life can flourish, the suitors have outraged both the gods and men. In fact, by transgressing against xenia (hospitality), they’ve threatened the very order of the universe that Homer depicts in the tale. Zeus protects strangers and suppliants by consecrating the practice of hospitality because men who are away from home as they often are in Homer's world face the threat of losing their humanity and reverting to the level of beasts in the satisfaction of their appetites. Hospitality counters that danger by providing a substitute for home.  

Recklessness and Restraint Homer may be the first great sage of western culture to correlate self-control to wisdom. Since Odysseus’s return to Ithaca in Book 13, we have seen him exercising what we might call heroic self-restraint. In his own house, Odysseus suffers the abuses the suitors pour out on him when he’s disguised as a beggar. Odysseus must also resist revealing his identity to Penelope, especially when they talk face-to-face in Book 19. All of the effort that Odysseus puts into controlling his impulses is a sign of foresight, looking ahead to the possible consequences of making certain choices and performing certain actions. Significantly, when Eurycleia discovers the scar that identifies Odysseus, it happens in Penelope’s presence. One nuance about recklessness in the story might escape notice. Controlling recklessness does not mean endless restraint. There comes a time for release as well. In his epic, Homer dramatizes the importance of knowing when to maintain and when to relax tension as a safeguard against recklessness. As both Menelaus and Alcinous point out, “Balance is best in all things.” However, a question remains as to how thoroughly Odysseus masters himself or, indeed, whether anyone can ever achieve perfect self-control. In Book 24, when Odysseus violates Athena’s command and continues to attack the suitors’ relatives, Zeus has to intervene by dropping a thunderbolt at Athena’s feet to rein him in. It seems that Odysseus needs to make one more journey to polish his great, yet still imperfect, ability to practice self-restraint. And another journey is pending. Perhaps Odysseus’s relapse into recklessness here explains the unfinished business of his final journey to appease Poseidon. On his earlier journey home from Troy, he received an education that turned him from recklessness. But that education, it seems, won't be completed until he has restored complete harmony with the gods by spreading Poseidon's worship to a place in which the Sea God is unknown.

Since ancient times, some scholars have posited that Book 24 was not originally part of Homer’s poem but a later addition. They argue that Odysseus’s reunion with Penelope gives a fitting resolution to the story. Still, Book 24 does wrap up some other loose ends neatly. In it, Homer returns us to the Kingdom of the Dead for one final look at the suitors and at Achilles and Agamemnon fully reconciled to each other in death (thus bringing the story cycle begun in the Iliad to completion). He shows us Odysseus’s reunion with Laertes and disposes of the confrontation between Odysseus and the suitors’ relatives. With the intervention of Zeus and Athena, Book 24 echoes the opening sequence on Olympus in Book 1, with this difference: Zeus and Athena are now clearly allies in the cause of restoring peace and prosperity to Odysseus and to Ithaca.

I hope that’s helpful. What do you think?

Autonomously yours,

Dr. Carlson

P.S. I intentionally did not comment on one of the major patterns of the story: God-mortal interaction. In your responses to this epistle, I would like for you to offer your thoughts on how Homer brings this pattern full circle and weaves it into the other patterns at the conclusion of the story. Do this instead of the usual three takeaways and a question.