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NEW! Extra video lectures for those whose equipment can handle longer videos.

The following lectures were taped during Greg Nagy's "The Concept of the Hero in Greek Civilization" course in Fall 1998. They touch on similar points as the video clips provided for this series, but also make use of parallels in modern media, such as film clips that have been incorporated into the lectures. Each lecture is about an hour long.

Bonus Video 1

Bonus Video 2

Bonus Video 3

Bonus Video 4

Bonus Video 5

 

Unit 2: Odyssey scrolls v-xii This week we finally meet Odysseus in scroll v, and hear about his travels in scrolls ix-xii. At the court of the Phaiacians, Odysseus has the unique opportunity of hearing his own kleos and singing his own renown. He also communes with heroes in the underworld. As you read these scrolls, think about the types of societies that Odysseus encounters in his travels, and the state of justice (or how justice is defined) in each. The lectures examine the programmatic first lines of the epic as they relate to the journey of Odysseus.

1. Read scrolls v-xii of the Odyssey.

2. View the video lectures (below). Lectures II and III of the series look at the thematic importance of nostos and noos (respectively) in the epic. Also below is a short segment from a section discussion about an important simile in scroll viii.

3. The discussion boards for this unit are no longer active, but you may read what others have written (scroll down for the discussion questions). 

 

Copyright 1999, President and Fellows of Harvard College

For viewing the video clips, you need the free software available from RealVideo. It's available as a download for PC, and Macintosh.

Real Videos for Unit 2: These lectures are exerpts from lectures in the Harvard Core course "The Concept of the Hero in Greek Civilization," and the many references to the "course" in them are to that course and not this on-line series. At the end of Lecture II Professor Nagy refers to close reading of a passage from Odyssey viii in "section." An excerpt from one of those sections is included below.

NOTE: Although Lecture II discusses the Odyssey as a revisting of the agenda of the Iliad, the Iliad is NOT required background for this series. If you like, however, you may read and download a translation of the Iliad here.

Lecture II: Odysseus As an Alternative Type of Hero

Lecture III: The Homeric Concepts of Heroic noos ('mind') and nostos ('return') in the Odyssey

Optional additional video (recommended especially for first-time readers):

The Third Song of Demodokos This segment was recorded during one of Mary's sections of the undergraduate course entitled "The Concept of the Hero in Greek Civilization" (Harvard University, Fall, 1999). In it the class discusses the image of the lamenting woman to which Odysseus is compared in Odyssey viii. On this passage see also professor Nagy's discussion in Best of the Achaeans.

The Lamenting Woman

In this segment the discussion centers on the simile of Odysseus weeping like a captive woman from scroll viii 521ff:

"All this he [Demodokos] told, but Odysseus was overcome as he heard him, and his cheeks were wet with tears. He wept as a woman weeps when she throws herself on the body of her husband who has fallen before his own city and people, fighting bravely in defense of his home and children. She wails aloud and flings her arms about him as he lies gasping for breath and dying, but her enemies beat her from behind about the back and shoulders, and carry her off into slavery, to a life of labor [ponos] and sorrow, and the beauty fades from her cheeks&emdash;even so piteously did Odysseus weep..."

We begin to grapple with why such a comparison is used, especially in conjunction with Odysseus' reaction to his triumph over Troy with the scheme of the wooden horse. The first thought is that the woman's sorrow is tempered by the thought of her dead husband's glory [kleos] after such a death, but this doesn't seem to fit exactly. Then we consider what woman might be pictured in this vivid image. One suggestion is Penelope, since she is weeping for her husband, since she is afraid he has died. The next suggestion is that it recalls the paradigmatic lamenting woman, Andromache, wife of Hektor, who did die in such a manner and who was carried off into slavery by the Greeks themselves.

We then review the connection between Andromache and Odysseus: in one version of the story of the fall of Troy, it is Odysseus who throws Astyanax, son of Hektor and Andromache, off the walls of Troy, thus killing him. This identification with his former enemy and victim shows a rehumanization of Odysseus. Hearing the story of the sack of Troy, he thinks not of the victory of the Greeks, but weeps for the destroyed. We compare this to the empathy that Achilles feels for Priam and by extension, Hektor, his own deadly enemy, in scroll XXIV of the Iliad.

This sympathy for the victims of war leads one student to comment that the "life of labor [ponos] and sorrow" in the simile might also remind us of Odysseus' life since Troy, and that he could also be weeping for his comrades who died at Troy and on the return. The complexity of the simile shows the need to pay attention to the details of the text, something we will return to in the section video for the next unit.

Discussion Questions for Unit 2

1. In scroll viii, Odysseus is entertained in the court of the Phaeacians, where the singer Demodokos sings three songs. The subject of the third song--the story of the wooden horse and the fall of Troy--is requested by Odysseus himself (scroll viii 487-498): "Demodokos, there is no one in the world whom I praise with admiration more than I do you. You must have studied under the Muse, Zeus' daughter, and under Apollo, - with such a sense of order [kosmos] do you sing the return of the Achaeans with all their sufferings and adventures. If you were not there yourself, you must have heard it all from some one who was. Now, however, change your song and tell us of the construction [kosmos] of the wooden horse which Epeios made with the assistance of Athena, and which Odysseus got by stratagem into the fort of Troy after freighting it with the men who afterwards sacked the city. If you will sing this tale aright I will tell all the world how magnificently heaven has endowed you." His reaction to the story is one of lamentation. Why is this story entertainment for the Phaeacians but a source of grief for Odysseus?

Discussion forum for question 1

Discussion forum for question 1 for first-time readers of Homeric poetry

 

2. Odysseus tells the story of his journey in scrolls ix-xii. We heard in Professor Nagy's lecture the thematic importance of Odysseus' learning the noos of those he met. Considering the different places and peoples (the Laestrygonians, the Cyclops, the Lotus-Eaters, Scylla and Charybdis, Circe's island, and even the Phaeacians), what can we discern about the state of society and social justice in each one? How does learning the noos of each contribute to Odysseus' own conception of justice, or to ours?

Discussion forum for question 2

Discussion forum for question 2 for first-time readers of Homeric poetry

 

3. When Odysseus travels to the underworld in scroll xi, he has the chance to see and communicate with many heroes, male and female. How do these conversations connect with the ideas of hero cult we heard about in the introductory lecture? How are these ghosts [psukhai] able to communicate with him--that is, what must Odysseus do to awaken their consciousness? What can we make of Teiresias' prophecy about what Odysseus must do after he kills the suitors (see xi 121ff.)? How do the conversations with Achilles, Agamemnon, and Herakles help to define Odysseus' heroic status?

Discussion forum for question 3

Discussion forum for question 3 for first-time readers of Homeric poetry

LECTURE II NOTES

Key Passages for Lecture II:

A) from Odyssey i: [1] Tell me, O Muse, of that many-sided hero who traveled far and wide after he had sacked the famous town of Troy. Many cities did he visit, and many were the people with whose customs and thinking [noos] he was acquainted; many things he suffered at sea while seeking to save his own life [psukhê] and to achieve the safe homecoming [nostos] of his companions; but do what he might he could not save his men, for they perished through their own sheer recklessness in eating the cattle of the Sun-god Helios; so the god prevented them from ever reaching home. Tell me, as you have told those who came before me, about all these things, O daughter of Zeus, starting from whatsoever point you choose. [11] So now all who escaped death in battle or by shipwreck had got safely home except Odysseus, and he, though he was longing for his return [nostos] to his wife and country, was detained by the goddess Calypso, ...

B) from Odyssey i: In the meantime I will go to Ithaca, to put heart into Odysseus' son Telemakhos; I will embolden him to call the Achaeans in assembly, and speak out to the suitors of his mother Penelope, who persist in eating up any number of his sheep and oxen; I will also conduct him to Sparta and to Pylos, to see if he can hear anything about the return [nostos] of his dear father - for this will give him genuine fame [kleos] throughout humankind.

C) from Odyssey i: Phemios was still singing, and his hearers sat rapt in silence as he told the baneful tale of the homecoming [nostos] from Troy, and the ills Athena had laid upon the Achaeans. Penelope, daughter of Ikarios, heard his song from her room upstairs, and came down by the great staircase, not alone, but attended by two of her handmaids. When she reached the suitors she stood by one of the bearing posts that supported the roof of the halls with a staid maiden on either side of her. She held a veil, moreover, before her face, and was weeping bitterly. [337] "Phemios," she cried, "you know many another feat of gods and heroes, such as poets love to celebrate. Sing the suitors some one of these, and let them drink their wine in silence, but cease this sad tale, for it breaks my sorrowful heart, and reminds me of my lost husband for whom I have grief [penthos] ever without ceasing, and whose name [kleos] was great over all Hellas and middle Argos.

D) from Odyssey iii: When however, we had sacked the city of Priam, and were setting sail in our ships as heaven had dispersed us, then Zeus saw fit to vex the Argives on their homeward voyage [nostos]; for they had not all been either wise or just [dikaios], and hence many came to a bad end through the anger [mênis] of Zeus' daughter Athena.

E) from Odyssey viii: The Muse inspired Demodokos to sing the glories [kleos] of heroes, and most especially a matter whose kleos at that time reached wide heaven, to wit, the quarrel [neikos] between Odysseus and Achilles, and the fierce words that they heaped on one another as they sat together at a banquet. But Agamemnon was glad in his mind [noos] that the best of the Achaeans were quarrelling with one another, for Apollo had foretold him this at Pytho [= Delphi] when he crossed the stone floor to consult the oracle. Here was the beginning of the evil that by the will of Zeus started rolling down toward both Danaans and Trojans.

F) from Odyssey viii: Tell us also why you are made unhappy on hearing about the return of the Argive Danaans from Troy. The gods arranged all this, and sent them their misfortunes in order that future generations might have something to sing about. Did you lose some brave kinsman of your wife's when you were before Troy? A son-in-law or father-in-law - which are the nearest relations a man has outside his own flesh and blood? Or was it some brave and kindly-natured comrade - for a good friend is as dear to a man as his own brother?

 

1) Key word for today: nostos 'return, homecoming; song about homecoming; return to light and life'

2) Also, there is the "hidden agenda" of returning from Hades. Hades is transitional while Elysium etc. are eschatological.

3) The process of nostos can be a mode of immortalization. This will play out in the Odyssey, but not directly. Only on the level of metaphor.

4) Definitions. Metaphor is literally a "borrowing" from one world into another.

Metaphor (SUBSTITUTION) works in the vertical axis of selection, while metonym (CONNECTION) works in the horizontal axis of combination.

5) Background on Troy narrative from the Iliou Persis ("Destruction of Troy" - one of the epic poems from what the Greeks called the "Cycle" of epic poetry. The poems of the Cycle do not survive except in a summary by an ancient scholar named Proclus. ); observe what Odysseus does and when.

and those in the wooden horse fall upon their enemies.

They kill many and take the city by force.

Neoptolemos kills Priam, who has taken refuge at the altar of Zeus Herkeios.

Menelaos murders Deiphobos,

he finds Helen and leads her down to the ships.

Aias [Ajax] son of Oileus takes Kassandra by force, dragging her away from the wooden statue [xoanon] of Athena.

The Achaeans, angry at this, want to stone Aias [Ajax] to death,

but he takes refuge at the altar of Athena,

and so is preserved from the immediate danger.

The Achaeans put the city to the torch.

They slaughter Polyxena on the tomb of Achilles.

Odysseus kills Astyanax,

and Neoptolemos takes Andromache as his prize.

The rest of the spoils are distributed.

Demophon and Akamas find their mother Aithra and take her with them.

Then the Achaeans sail off,

while Athena plots destruction for them on the seas.

6) Compare iii 132-135 (focus passage "D"): Zeus plots lugros [baneful] nostos (132), because the Argives had no noos nor justice [dikê] (133) and they were slated for doom because of the mênis of Athena (135)

7) Whereas Achilles has to choose between kleos and nostos in the Iliad, Odysseus gets both in the Odyssey.

8) Odyssey vs. Iliad: compare Will of Zeus in Iliad I 5 vs. Odyssey i 32ff.

8a) How have scholars explained such differences?

1. Two authors.

2. One author in different phases of life.

8b) Questions of authorship tie into three basic theories about Homeric poetry:

1) Homer wrote it down

2) Homer dictated it

3) Homer is the culmination of an evolving oral epic tradition

8c) With explanation #3, the differences between Iliad and Odyssey are a matter of distinct but complementary traditions that have evolved alongside each other.

See and hear Avdo Mejedovic, a Yugoslav epic singer, compose in performance in a 30 second "kino" recorded in the 1930's by Harvard professors Milman Parry and Albert Lord. Avdo was part of a vibrant heroic song tradition that is now extinct.

8d) On thematic complementarity between the two epics: anger/baneful/caused suffering for Achaeans and implicitly Trojans (Iliad) vs. man/polytropic/veered many times (Odyssey)

8e) Odysseus as off-course = off-balance. Yet another way of saying "out of synchrony."

9) Primary heroic identity of Odysseus has to do with nostos:

1) returning king who reclaims his kingdom

Excursus: king = body politic

starts from zero; from zero to hero

2) sailor/pilot who came home from the sea

link between #1 and #2: kubernêtês/gubernator/governor-government (the ship of state metaphor)

3) returning warrior who reclaims his wife: wanderer/adventurer; a really good word is soldier of fortune

4) seer returning from vision quest = shaman.

5) trickster who retraces steps (cf. the anthropological work Paul Radin [reading his work is not required for the series but is recommended for later life])

10) Heroes often have an antagonist relationship with the god that is most like them. God/hero antagonism for Odysseus: Poseidon (#2), Athena (##1-2), Hermes (##4-5). Because Odysseus is so multifaceted he can have many divine antagonists.

11) To explain the antagonism with Poseidon is the easiest.

12) To explain the antagonism with Athena is much harder. It is best to start with "Our Lady of Pilots" theme; key is v (end) and xiii (beginning).

13) A related theme: Athena installs kings, e.g. Erekhtheus in Iliad [II 547].

14) To explain the antagonism with Hermes... best to start with polytropism (x 330); Odysseus polu-tropos (i 1)

There is a built-in reference to Hermes in the name of Poly-phemos, son of Poseidon.

15) "Dress-rehearsal" for Athena's help: Telemakhos narrative, genre of Mirror of Princes.

16) Telemakhos formulates his quest in two ways:

ii 360 I am going after the nostos of my father

iii 83 I am going after the kleos of my father

17) Athena in the role of Mentes says:

i 89 I will put menos in him [= Telemakhos]; see focus passage "B" below.

i 320ff She put menos in him, and reminded [mnê-] him

18) Mentês in i, Mentôr in ii.

18a) Remember the opposite concept of Lethe!!!

18b) Achilles preempts Odysseus for the narrative of Troy, Ilias=Iliad.

18c) Achilles is Best of the Achaeans because of Troy

18d) Odysseus is Best of the Achaeans because he remarried Penelope.

19) i 4: he suffered many algea; same word as in Iliad I 2. Is there a difference between the pains of the Iliad and Odyssey?

20) Odysseus has his cake and eats it too, nostos and kleos

21) He was the one who destroyed Troy, not Achilles.

22) But he also gets to suffer on account of both:

23) The key is to be found in Scroll viii, but the lead-up is in Scroll i.

24) "A la recherche du temps perdu" (compare Marcel Proust):

i 326 nostos of the Achaeans; see focus passage "C" below.

i 342 penthos alaston 'grief that is unforgettable [lêth-]'

i 344 kleos of Odysseus

i 351 kleos of the "latest" happenings

iv 220 nêpenthes = drug that counteracts penthos

25) Song of the Sirens xii 184-191 (love song?): Iliadic agenda

26) Important passages: viii, first and third songs of Demodokos (see optional video for this unit)

27) Homeric humanism, to recognize the self in the other. So also in Iliad XXIV; compare war-and-peace issues of today.

28) Further thoughts on the Song of the Sirens, on the Iliad as a substitute love song...

Compare Sappho 16 stanza 1

Some say an army of horsemen.

some of footsoldiers, some of ships,

is the fairest thing on earth,

but I say it is what one loves.

LECTURE III NOTES

Key Passages for Lecture III:

A) "revisit" of Odyssey i: [1] Tell me, O Muse, of that many-sided hero who traveled far and wide after he had sacked the famous town of Troy. Many cities did he visit, and many were the people with whose customs and thinking [noos] he was acquainted; many pains [algea] he suffered at sea while seeking to save his own life [psukhê] and to achieve the safe homecoming [nostos] of his companions; but do what he might he could not save his men, for they perished through their own sheer recklessness in eating the cattle of the Sun-god Helios; so the god prevented them from ever reaching home. Tell me, as you have told those who came before me, about all these things, O daughter of Zeus, starting from whatsoever point you choose. [11] So now all who escaped death in battle or by shipwreck had got safely home except Odysseus, and he, though he was longing for his return [nostos] to his wife and country, was detained by the goddess Calypso, ...

B) from Odyssey x (190-202): 'My friends, we are in very great difficulties; listen therefore to me. We have no idea where the sun either sets or rises, so that we do not even know East from West. I see no way out of it; nevertheless, we must try and find one. We are certainly on an island, for I went as high as I could this morning, and saw the sea reaching all round it to the horizon; it lies low, but towards the middle I saw smoke rising from out of a thick forest of trees.' [198] Their hearts sank as they heard me, for they remembered how they had been treated by the Laestrygonian Antiphates, and by the savage ogre Polyphemus. They wept bitterly in their dismay, but there was nothing to be got by crying

C) from Odyssey xii (1ff): After we left behind the stream of Okeanos, and had got out into the open sea, we went on till we reached the island of Aeaea, where the Dawn has her dwelling and her place to dance, and where the risings of the sun happen. 

D) from Odyssey xiii (79-95): Thereon, when they began rowing out to sea, Odysseus fell into a deep, sweet, and almost deathlike slumber. [81] The ship bounded forward on her way as a four-in-hand chariot flies over the course when the horses feel the whip. Her prow curved as it were the neck of a stallion, and a great wave of dark seething water boiled in her wake. She held steadily on her course, and even a falcon, swiftest of all birds, could not have kept pace with her. Thus, then, she cut her way through the water, carrying one who was as cunning as the gods, but who was now sleeping peacefully, forgetful of all that he had suffered both on the field of battle and by the waves of the weary sea. [93] When the bright star that heralds the approach of dawn began to show, the ship drew near to land.

"Revisit" from last lecture:

E) from Odyssey viii: The Muse inspired Demodokos to sing the glories [kleos] of heroes, and most especially a matter whose kleos at that time reached wide heaven, to wit, the quarrel [neikos] between Odysseus and Achilles, and the fierce words that they heaped on one another as they sat together at a banquet. But Agamemnon was glad in his mind [noos] that the best of the Achaeans were quarrelling with one another, for Apollo had foretold him this at Pytho [= Delphi] when he crossed the stone floor to consult the oracle. Here was the beginning of the evil that by the will of Zeus started rolling down toward both Danaans and Trojans.

"Revisit" from last lecture:

F) from Odyssey viii: Tell us also why you are made unhappy on hearing about the return of the Argive Danaans from Troy. The gods arranged all this, and sent them their misfortunes in order that future generations might have something to sing about. Did you lose some brave kinsman of your wife's when you were before Troy? A son-in-law or father-in-law - which are the nearest relations a man has outside his own flesh and blood? Or was it some brave and kindly-natured comrade - for a good friend is as dear to a man as his own brother?

1a) key word for today's lecture: noos: designates realm of consciousness, of rational functions; 'intuition, perception'; principle that reintegrates thumos (or menos) and psukhê after death.

1b) key word for last lecture: nostos 'return, homecoming; song about homecoming; return to light and life'. Now we may add: 'coming to' in the sense of 'return to consciousness' after either fainting or death. Combination of algea 'pains' and nostos: nostalgia.

2) i 3 Odysseus saw the cities of many and came to know their/his noos

3) i 5 Odysseus seeking to win as a prize his psukhê and the nostos of his companions

4) i 4 sandwiched in between: Odysseus suffered many algea 'pains'; same word as in Iliad I 2; cf. the modernizing word "analgesic" (e.g. aspirin).

5) Note the modernizing word built from nostos and algea: nostalgia.

5a) Is there a difference between the pains of the Iliad and Odyssey?

5b) Review "A la recherche du temps perdu" (compare Marcel Proust):

i 326 nostos of the Achaeans

i 342 penthos alaston 'grief that is unforgettable [lêth-]'

i 344 kleos of Odysseus

i 351 kleos of the "latest" happenings

iv 220 nêpenthes = drug that counteracts penthos

5c) Virgil Aeneid I 462: sunt lacrimae rerum (note too the title of the composition by Franz Liszt)

6) Compare the ethos of love songs in traditional societies: most of them are "sad."

7) An example: this aria from Gianni Schicchi, by Giacomo Puccini:

O mio babbino, caro,

mi piace, è bello bello,

vo'andare in Porta Rossa

a comperar l'anello!

Si, si, ci voglio andare!

E se l'amassi indarno,

andrei sul Ponte Vecchio

ma per buttarmi in Arno!

Mi struggo e mi tormento,

O Dio! vorrei morir!

 

Oh, my Daddy, dear,

I like him, he's beautiful, beautiful.

I'm on my way, going to Porta Rossa

to buy the wedding ring!

Yes, yes, I want to go there,

And if I loved him in vain,

I will go to the Old Bridge

but only to throw myself into the Arno.

I struggle and I am tormented

Oh, God! I want to die!

 

8) noos of Teiresias x 493-495

9) nostos is first word of Teiresias xi 100

10) *nes- 'return to light and life'; from Indo-European languages other than Greek, we see that this root occurs in myths having to do with Morning Star / Evening Star

11) x 190-202, Island Nightmare. Dis-Orientation. The metaphor of orientation recapitulates noos/nostos. Remember Polyphemus.

12) Antinoos and Alkinoos: their names mean, respectively: 'he who is opposed to bringing back to light and life' and 'he who has the power to bring back to light and life'

13) Celestial dynamics, returning to Island Nightmare: sunset (VIII 485) / sunrise (xix 433-434); psukhê sets (xx 63ff)

14) Where it all comes together is xiii 79-95 the nostos:

Thereon, when they began rowing out to sea, Odysseus fell into a deep, sweet, and almost deathlike slumber. [81] The ship bounded forward on her way as a four-in-hand chariot flies over the course when the horses feel the whip. Her prow curved as it were the neck of a stallion, and a great wave of dark seething water boiled in her wake. She held steadily on her course, and even a falcon, swiftest of all birds, could not have kept pace with her. Thus, then, she cut her way through the water, carrying one who was as cunning as the gods, but who was now sleeping peacefully, forgetful of all that he had suffered both on the field of battle and by the waves of the weary sea. [93] When the bright star that heralds the approach of dawn began to show. the ship drew near to land. 

15) Odyssey as the journey of a soul (cf. i 5); nostos is a return journey

16) Surface meaning of Odyssey: safe return from war, safe return from the sea

17) underlying meaning of Odyssey: safe return from death; explicit in Theognis 1123-1124.

18) Compare again the noos of Teiresias x 493-495

19) Note again that nostos is first word of Teiresias xi 100

20) Most easily perceived connection of the two words noos and nostos: ix 82-104, about the Land of the Lotus-Eaters: if you lose the "implant" of homecoming in your mind, you cannot go home because you no longer know what home is.

21) Compare Odyssey xiii 79-95, the ultimate moment of nostos, with the following:

Col. Robert Gould Shaw, Harvard graduate who died in 1863 along with soldiers of the all-black regiment that he led. Their story is retold in the film Glory. St. Gaudens the sculptor created a relief that memorializes the doomed regiment. It is directly in front of the Statehouse on Beacon Hill in Boston, with its back to the Boston Common. When the sun sets over Beacon Hill at summer solstice, its last rays shine on the faces on the relief. That is the way St. Gaudens designed the relief. Charles Ives composed a poem and set it to music:

"You, Images of God carved in Ebony..." "...a shadow of a sad heart, never light abandon, moving, marching faces of souls."