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
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Unit
3: Odysseyscrolls xiii-xix
This week the hero returns
home, but in disguise. In order to reassume his former
identity he must reestablish connections with his
philoi in Ithaka. As you read pay close attention to
the ways in which Odysseus tests each one and the order in
which the connections take place. Consider as well once
again the image of Penelope as a righteous king in
connection with the return of Odysseus.
1. Read Odyssey
scrolls xiii-xix .
2. View the video
lectures (below). Lectures IV of the series examines the
political significance of Odysseus as helmsman of a ship.
Lecture V explores Penelope's dream in Odyssey xix and the
concept of ainoi (plural of ainos) as well
continuity with modern Greek traditions. Finally, A short
segment from a section discusses Odysseus' reconnection with
his dog Argos in scroll xvii.
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for this unit are no longer active, but you may read what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 3:
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.
Lecture
IV: The Ship of State: The Odyssey as a Metaphor for
Governing the Polis
Lecture
V: The ainos as Key to Heroic
Identity.
Optional additional video
(recommended especially for first-time
readers):
Close
reading: 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 passage where Odysseus 'reconnects' with
his faithful dog Argos (xvii 290-327)
Close
reading
In this
discussion, the group looks at this passage
carefully, or executes what we call a 'close
reading' of it. We examine the details of this
scene and discuss their significance. Two
important points emerge: one is that the dog
looks like Odysseus looks in his disguise, and
thus is like a metaphor for him. Metaphor is
meaning by substitution, and the dog could be
'substituted' for Odysseus in his rags. The
other is that the dog is representative of all
that has gone wrong in Odysseus' home in his
absence. The dog is therefore also a metonym for
the house. Metonymy is meaning by connection,
and we think of the house as a whole by
connection with the description of the dog. This
simple but touching passage thus conveys a good
deal of meaning through the details of the
description of the dog. We might also consider
the reconnection in this passage--how it is
immediate and direct, even though Odysseus is in
disguise, and how it compares to reconnections
with people like Penelope, with whom Odysseus
has a more complex relationship.
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Discussion
Questions for Unit 3
1. Once Odysseus arrives in Ithaka,
he makes a series of "reconnections" with his philoi,
those who are near and dear to him. How is the order in
which he makes these reconnections significant? How does
Odysseus "introduce" himself to various people? As one
example, consider the ainos that Odysseus tells
Eumaios at xiv 459ff. (note that Eumaios calls it an
ainos at xiv 508). Also, compare the reaction of the
dogs as Odysseus approaches Eumaios at xiv 29ff. with the
story of Argos at xvii 290ff.
Discussion
forum for question 1
Discussion
forum for question 1 for first-time readers of Homeric
poetry
2. Consider the metaphors used in
these scenes of reconnection. For example, an important
reconnection for Odysseus is, of course, with his son in
scroll xvi, and in considering this scene, we might
reconnect ourselves to our prevous discussion of Telemakhos
in Unit 1. After Odysseus reveals himself, the father and
son are compared in their crying to birds (xvi 213ff.): "As
he spoke he sat down, and Telemakhos threw his arms about
his father and wept. They were both so much moved that they
cried aloud like eagles or vultures with crooked talons that
have been robbed of their half fledged young by peasants.
Thus piteously did they weep..." What is the significance of
the metaphor? Can we find any common threads in the
metaphors used in these scrolls?
Discussion
forum for question 2
Discussion
forum for question 2 for first-time readers of Homeric
poetry
3. In Scroll xix of the
Odyssey, Penelope speaks with the guest in her home,
the disguised Odysseus. At one point in their conversation
(xix 535ff.), Penelope tells him about a dream she had--the
passage is included below. Examine the details of the dream,
including the "metaphor" that explains itself. Compare this
dream to the portent in scroll xv 160ff.--why is Penelope's
dream so like the omen that Helen, of all people,
interprets? Why is Penelope telling the dream to the
"stranger" and asking him to interpret it if the dream has,
in effect, interpreted itself? Why would Odysseus have a
vested interest in there being only one interpretation? Do
you think Penelope knows that she is speaking to her
husband? And why does she say that she thinks the dream is
one of the false variety? Be sure to look at the surrounding
context for clues in how to interpret the
passage.
"Listen, then, to a dream that I
have had and interpret it for me if you can. I have twenty
geese about the house that eat mash out of a trough, and of
which I am exceedingly fond. I dreamed that a great eagle
came swooping down from a mountain, and dug his curved beak
into the neck of each of them till he had killed them all.
Presently he soared off into the sky, and left them lying
dead about the yard; whereon I wept in my room till all my
maids gathered round me, so piteously was I grieving because
the eagle had killed my geese. Then he came back again, and
perching on a projecting rafter spoke to me with human
voice, and told me to leave off crying. "Be of good
courage," he said, "daughter of Ikarios; this is no dream,
but a vision of good omen that shall surely come to pass.
The geese are the suitors, and I am no longer an eagle, but
your own husband, who am come back to you, and who will
bring these suitors to a disgraceful end." On this I woke,
and when I looked out I saw my geese at the trough eating
their mash as usual."
[554] "This dream, lady,"
replied Odysseus, "can admit but of one interpretation, for
had not Odysseus himself told you how it shall be fulfilled?
The death of the suitors is portended, and not one single
one of them will escape."
[559] And Penelope
answered, "Stranger, dreams are very curious and
unaccountable things, and they do not by any means
invariably come true. There are two gates through which
these unsubstantial fancies proceed; the one is of horn, and
the other ivory. Those that come through the gate of ivory
are fatuous, but those from the gate of horn mean something
to those that see them. I do not think, however, that my own
dream came through the gate of horn, though I and my son
should be most thankful if it proves to have done so.
Furthermore I say - and lay my saying to your heart - the
coming dawn will usher in the ill-omened day that is to
sever me from the house of Odysseus, for I am about to hold
a tournament [athlos] of axes."
Discussion
forum for question 3
Discussion
forum for question 3 for first-time readers of Homeric
poetry
Euryklea washes the feet of
Odysseus
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Lecture
IV
This brief segment
explores the Odyssey and its "captain"
Odysseus as a metaphor for governing the Greek city
state. On the surface the Odyssey is a story about
a voyage and homecoming, but the subtext has to do
with the agenda of the city state. The Greek word
for captain, kubernêtes, becomes the
Latin word gubernator and our word
"gubernatorial."
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Lecture V
The ainos as Key to
Heroic Identity
1. Key word for today:
krisis 'judgment, crisis', abstract noun
derived from krinô 'judge,
distinguish, make distinctions'.
1a.
kritêrion = criterion for judging,
distinguishing, making distinctions
1b. kritikos
'critical' (in both senses: 'crisis-related'
or 'criticism-related')
This lecture aims at an
overview of the macro-narrative of the
Odyssey in terms of the numerous
micro-narratives that we may describe as examples
of ainos.
Review definition of
ainos : 'authoritative utterance for and by
a social group; praise; fable'; ainigma
'riddle'
1a. 'praise' as
in the victory-songs of Pindar
1b. 'fable' as in the
Fables of Aesop
1c. 'riddle' as in the
Riddle of the Sphinx, a key symbol in the
Oedipus Tyrannos of Sophocles, which we
will read later on.
The prerequisites of
ainos: The hearer must be
1. sophos
(plural sophoi) 'skilled, skilled in
understanding special language'
2. agathos
(plural agathoi) 'good, noble'
3. philos
(plural philoi) 'friend' (noun); 'dear,
near-and-dear, belonging to self'
(adjective)
= 3 qualifications (1
intellectual, 2 moral, 3
emotional) required for understanding
ainos
Reminder: ainos is
to audio as sêma is to video.
As a code, the ainos (or sêma)
can have hidden agenda. It can be a
secret password for initiation into
mysteries, for example. The "secret
password" can take the form of a song.
2. Aristotle
Poetics 1452a29ff, discussing "recognition
scenes" in e.g. tragedy (his criteria apply to epic
as well): "Recognition
[ana-gnô-risis] is ... a
change from ignorance to knowledge
[gnô-sis], tending either to
affection [philia] or to enmity; it
determines in the direction of good or ill fortune
the fates of the people involved" (tr. Margaret
Hubbard).
With the help of this most
useful definition, let us consider the potential
for "recognition" in focus passage "A":
A) from Odyssey
xix: "Listen, then, to a dream that I have had and
interpret it for me if you can. I have twenty geese
about the house that eat mash out of a trough, and
of which I am exceedingly fond. I dreamed that a
great eagle came swooping down from a mountain, and
dug his curved beak into the neck of each of them
till he had killed them all. Presently he soared
off into the sky, and left them lying dead about
the yard; whereon I wept in my room till all my
maids gathered round me, so piteously was I
grieving because the eagle had killed my geese.
Then he came back again, and perching on a
projecting rafter spoke to me with human voice, and
told me to leave off crying. 'Be of good courage,'
he said, 'daughter of Ikarios; this is no dream,
but a vision of good omen that shall surely come to
pass. The geese are the suitors, and I am no longer
an eagle, but your own husband, who am come back to
you, and who will bring these suitors to a
disgraceful end.' On this I woke, and when I looked
out I saw my geese at the trough eating their mash
as usual." [554] "This dream, lady,"
replied Odysseus, "can admit but of one
interpretation, for had not Odysseus himself told
you how it shall be fulfilled? The death of the
suitors is portended, and not one single one of
them will escape." [559] And Penelope
answered, "Stranger, dreams are very curious and
unaccountable things, and they do not by any means
invariably come true. There are two gates through
which these unsubstantial fancies proceed; the one
is of horn, and the other ivory. Those that come
through the gate of ivory are fatuous, but those
from the gate of horn mean something to those that
see them. I do not think, however, that my own
dream came through the gate of horn, though I and
my son should be most thankful if it proves to have
done so.
On the surface this dream
seems to be very straightforward and even explains
itself. Below the surface, however, there is a lot
of hidden agenda between Odysseus and Penelope who
are constantly testing each other. This dream is an
ainos that only Odysseus should be able to
"get."
The "love story" of
Odysseus and Penelope, which preoccupies the second
half of the Odyssey, can only be understood
in terms of the process of their mutual
recognition.
After Odysseus achieves a
physical nostos by literally coming home to
Ithaca, he still needs to achieve a mental / moral
/ emotional nostos, For this to happen, the
characters in the second half of the Odyssey
have to connect with him on various levels. The key
to this "connection" is the hero's ascending
scale of affection.
The characters involved in
the hero's ascending scale of affection include:
his dog; his loyal servants, like Eumaios and
Eurykleia; his son; his wife; his father. All these
characters have to "read" the disguised
Odysseus in order to recognize him.
Correlated with recognition is
philia.
A primary form of
philia: the relationship between
lovers.
The challenge of "reading"
Odysseus is the challenge of "reading" the ulterior
motives of his ainoi. The ainoi that
Odysseus intends for Penelope are a kind of "love
song."
3. Review with the help of
focus passage "D": "[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."
4a. Emphasis now on
Odyssey i 3 Odysseus saw the cities of
many and came to know their/his
noos
4b. Emphasis now on
Odyssey i 5 Odysseus seeking to win as a prize
his psukhê, plus [his
nostos and] the nostos of his
companions
5. Now consider focus
passage "B" from Odyssey xi:
B) from Odyssey xi:
Then came also the ghost
[psukhê] of Theban Teiresias,
with his golden scepter in his hand. He knew me and
said, 'Odysseus, noble son of Laertes, why, poor
man, have you left the light of day and come down
to visit the dead in this sad place? Stand back
from the trench and withdraw your sword that I may
drink of the blood and answer your questions
truly.' [97] So I drew back, and sheathed
my sword, whereon when he had drank of the blood he
began with his prophecy [= words of a
mantis]. [100] 'You want to
know,' said he, 'about your return home
[nostos], but
heaven will make this hard for you. I do not think
that you will escape the eye of Poseidon, who still
nurses his bitter grudge against you for having
blinded his son. Still, after much suffering you
may get home if you can restrain yourself and your
companions when your ship reaches the Thrinacian
island, where you will find the sheep and cattle
belonging to the sun, who sees and gives ear to
everything. If you leave these flocks unharmed and
think of nothing but of getting home
[nostos], you may yet after much
hardship reach Ithaca; but if you harm them, then I
forewarn you of the destruction both of your ship
and of your men. Even though you may yourself
escape, you will return in bad plight after losing
all your men, in another man's ship, and you will
find trouble in your house, which will be overrun
by high-handed people, who are devouring your
substance under the pretext of paying court and
making presents to your wife. [118] When
you get home you will take your revenge on these
suitors; and after you have killed them by force
[biê] or fraud in your own
house, you must take a well-made oar and carry it
on and on, till you come to a country where the
people have never heard of the sea and do not even
mix salt with their food, nor do they know anything
about ships, and oars that are as the wings of a
ship. I will give you this certain token
[sêma] which
cannot escape your notice. A wayfarer will meet
you and will say it must be a winnowing shovel that
you have got upon your shoulder; on this you must
fix the oar in the ground and sacrifice a ram, a
bull, and a boar to Poseidon. Then go home and
offer hecatombs to the gods in heaven one after the
other. As for yourself, death shall come to you
from the sea, and your life shall ebb away very
gently when you are full of years and peace of
mind, and your people shall be prosperous
[olbioi]. All that I have said will
come true.'
5a. Compare xi
121-137 with the different version in xxiii
267-8: there it is made explicit that Odysseus
is to travel through the cities of
humankind. The "journey of a soul" through many
different cultures, with different values, is
key to noos.
5b. Compare
Odyssey i 3: Odysseus, by virtue of
traveling throughout the cities of humankind,
comes to "know" noos. The question
remains: whose noos?
5c. xi 126 'I will give
you this certain token
[sêma], and you cannot have
lêthê about it'.
6.
'winnowing-shovel' at xi 128; it is a
mistake to translate as 'winnowing-fan'; a
winnowing shovel looks just like an oar, but a
winnowing-fan does not.
7. Focus passage "C"...
Three variant tales, collected by folklorists in
early-20th-century Greece and analyzed by W. F.
Hansen, about St. Elias [known as the Prophet
Elijah in the Hebrew bible]:
C) Two variant tales,
collected by folklorists in early-20th-century
Greece and analyzed by William F. Hansen, about St.
Elias [known as the Prophet Elijah in the
Hebrew bible]:
Variant 1[A]:
Saint Elias was a seaman who lived a dissolute
life, but he repented of what he had done and
thereby detested the sea. {Variant 1B: because he
had suffered much at sea and had often nearly
drowned, he became disgusted with voyaging.} He
resolved to go to a place where people know neither
what the sea was nor what ships were. Putting his
oar on his shoulder he set out on land, asking
everyone he met what he was carrying. So long as
they answered that it was an oar, he proceeded to
higher and higher ground. Finally, at the top of a
mountain he asked his question, and the people
answered, 'a stick'. Understanding then that they
had never seen an oar, he remained there with
them.
Variant 2: The Prophet
Elias was a fisherman who, because of terrible
weather and terrific storms, became afraid of the
sea. So he put an oar on his shoulder and took to
the hills. When he met a man, he asked him what it
was he was carrying; the man answered that it was
an oar, and Elias went on. The same happened when
he met a second man. But at the top of a mountain,
he asked a third man, who replied, 'why, that's a
stick'. Saint Elias resolved to stay there. He
planted his oar in the ground, and that is why his
chapels are all built on hilltops.
Variant 3: In some
versions, the natives' decisive answer is not 'a
stick' but 'a baker's peel' [phtyari tou
phournou = "winnowing-shovel of the
oven"].
8. Feast Day of St. Elias:
July 20. This date coincides, roughly, with
harvesting season. It is around this time when
wheat is gathered and winnowed.
9. There is a hero cult of
Odysseus in Arcadia, where he is worshipped
together with Athena as goddess of pilots and
Poseidon as god of the sea (Pausanias 8.44.4); note
that Arcadia is mountainous and landlocked. Of all
locales in mainland Greece, it is farthest away
from the sea.
10. Planting of
winnowing-shovel on top of a mound of winnowed
grain (Theocritus 7.155ff): a symbolic gesture,
meaning "the harvest is accomplished =
finished."
11. Tomb of Elpenor: xi
75-78, xii 13-15. This sêma 'tomb' is
also a 'sign, signal, symbol' meaning "the sailor
is dead."
12. olbioi
'prosperous; blessed' at xi 137 (see again last
line of focus passage "B" as quoted at #5);
singular olbios. This word means
'prosperous' on the surface and 'blessed' (applying
to the dead hero) under the surface (in the
language of ainos).
13. When Teiresias says at
xi 134 (again #5 above), 'death from the sea', the
wording is ambiguous: it can also mean 'death away
from the sea'.
14. "The message of
[the sêma of Teiresias] is
twofold neither for the seafarers nor for the
inlanders since the former can surely distinguish
oars from winnowing shovels while the latter are
presented as knowing only about winnowing shovels.
Rather the message is twofold only for Odysseus as
the traveler since he sees that the same signal has
two distinct messages in two distinct places: what
is an oar for the seafarers is a winnowing shovel
for the inlanders." - Nagy, Pindar's
Homer at ch. 8, p.232.
For further discussion, see Pindar's
Homer at ch. 8, p.231,
"Let us begin by considering the prooemium of the
Odyssey."
15. In order to understand
the sêma, Odysseus must have
noos. In order to have the noos to
see more than one side of reality, Odysseus
must travel: he must have a "journey
of a soul."
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