THE ODYSSEY, part 2In this lecture, we discuss the most familiar parts of the Odyssey, the journey itself from Troy to Ithaca, most of it narrated by Odysseus in Books 9-12. He tells his hosts the story of his travels and adventures

during the nine years since he left Troy, a story famously full of monsters, witches, magic, and intrigue,

We consider all of the adventures here but discuss in more detail two of them. Odysseus’s encounter with the Cyclops Polyphemus and his trip to the Underworld The adventures take Odysseus and his men all through the Mediterranean but also tell us much about

the distance Odysseus has traveled psychically and emotionally from Troy as he prepares to return to a life of peace at home.

In return for their considerable hospitality, Odysseus tells the Phaeacians of his travels and adventures. We soon see that Odysseus

has come far from Troy, not only geographically but also psychologically.

• His storytelling begins with a simile that takes him back to Troy and reveals his new attitude toward the war with the Trojans.

• When he hears a song about the fall of Troy, he cries, as the poet says, like a woman who city has fallen and sees her husband dying, even as she feels the enemy spears prodding her toward slavery.

• The suggestion is that Odysseus, taken back to the memory of the fall of Troy, now recognizes the suffering that he and the Greeks caused.

• The first adventure Odysseus relates, the encounter with the Trojan allies, the Cicones, just after he leaves Troy, serves as a final real-world experience before he is, so to speak, blown off the map.

• The brief episode with the Lotus Eaters introduces the subtle nature of some of the threats to Odysseus’s return: not all are necessarily dangerous.

• Odysseus’s adventures with the Cyclops Polyphemus reveal much about the character of Odysseus and the complexities facing a hero leaving the Trojan War for home.

• On the one hand, Odysseus’s cleverness and forethought in outsmarting the Cyclops save himself and most of his men.

• On the other hand, unable to distance himself completely from the values dear to Iliadic heroes, he finally identifies himself to the Cyclops and pays a price for that.

• Odysseus and his men arrive on the island of Aeolus, master of the winds, who ties up all adverse winds in a bag, allowing Odysseus to sail within sight of Ithaca, but his men then let the winds escape.

• By the time Odysseus encounters the Laestrygonians, similar in some ways to the Cyclopes, his strategic approach shows that he has already begun to learn from his experiences.

• Odysseus then saves himself from Circe in un-Iliadic fashion, but his lengthy stay with her works against his ultimate goal of returning home.

• Circe tells Odysseus that a visit to the prophet Teiresias in the Underworld is a necessary step on his journey home.

• There is a certain expectation that heroes will visit the Underworld; after all, if death is the defining human characteristic, then survival of death is a mark of someone truly exceptional.

• Odysseus’s trip to the Underworld serves as a watershed event in his return home, marking a break with his recent past at Troy and a new focus on his future.

• Teiresias warns Odysseus of dangers that lie ahead.

Tiresias appears to Odysseus during the nekyia of Odyssey xi, in this watercolor with tempera by the Anglo-Swiss Johann Heinrich Füssli, c. 1780-85

• Odysseus sees his mother, Anticleia, who has died of grief at her son’s absence. From her, he hears news of home.

• Among the dead, he meets the shades of some of his former comrades at Troy.

• Agamemnon, killed by his wife, Clytemnestra, as soon as he returned home, warns Odysseus about faithless wives.

• Achilles laments his own death, no matter how glorious, wishing instead for even the most ignoble of lives.

• Back from the Underworld, Odysseus uses Teiresias’s advice to survive his remaining trials.

• He is able not only to survive the song of the Sirens but actually to experience it, as well.

• When sailing the narrow strait between Scylla and Charybdis, Odysseus loses even more men.

• Finally, on the island of Thrinakia, Odysseus follows Teiresias’s advice not to kill the cattle of the Sun god, Helios, but his men disobey and soon pay the price. All are killed at sea except for Odysseus.

• Odysseus arrives alone on Calypso’s island, bringing us to the point in the story where we first met him. Now, though, we know what he has experienced, how he has lost all his men, and how far he has come from the war itself.

Ulysses and the Sirens John William Waterhouse, 1891