The Odyssey: “In the hushed hall it smote the suitors and all their faces changed”

Odysseus and Polyphemus, a Cyclops (painting by Arnold Böcklin) 

1/ It is not hard to understand the enduring power and popularity of the Odyssey—even before we talk about themes and technique, it is first of all an exciting story. The poem has a great structure: the first half is about Odysseus’s journey home after 10 years in the Trojan War and another 10 years in the sea; the second half is about Odysseus in Ithake (or Ithaca) figuring out what’s going on in his household in his absence, and taking revenge on the presumptuous and disrespectful suitors of his wife Penelope.

The first half is Odysseus (with some help from Athena) against nymphs and monsters and the wrath of Poseidon. The second half is Odysseus (with some help from Athena) against the suitors who have been courting Penelope, taking advantage of their culture of hospitality, eating away his property, and even plotting the murder of his son Telemakhos (also known as Telemachus or Telemachos). 

The entire poem is about homecoming, but in some sense, the first half is an adventure story; the second half is a revenge story. And in the centre is ingenious, sharp-witted Odysseus. 

2/ In the previous blog post, I wrote that “I can’t help feeling uneasy—perhaps even slightly cheated—that the protagonist doesn’t come up with everything himself…” Well, I have changed my view—or rather, it was great to see Odysseus and Telemakhos do the planning and fighting themselves. The scene about the test of the bow is especially satisfying! 

The quote in the headline comes from Book 21, translated by Robert Fitzgerald. 

I have been switching between the translations by Peter Green (my own copy) and Robert Fitzgerald (from the library); picking the latter for the last 8 books. Green provides better notes and he is clearer—more accurate, according to some classicists I know—but Fitzgerald sounds better. 

3/ I haven’t written about the writing—style, metaphor, imagery—of the Odyssey, have I? There are some striking passages. 

“At this,

Pallas Athena touched off in the suitors

a fit of laughter, uncontrollable.

She drove them into nightmare, till they wheezed

and neighed as though with jaws no longer theirs,

while blood defiled their meat, and blurring tears

flooded their eyes, heart-sore with woe to come.

Then said the visionary, Theoklymenos:

“O lost sad men, what terror is this you suffer?

Night shrouds you to the knees, your heads, your faces;

dry retch of death runs round like fire in sticks;

your cheeks are streaming; these fair walls and pedestals

are dripping crimson blood. And thick with shades

is the entry way, the courtyard thick with shades

passing athirst toward Erebos, into the dark,

the sun is quenched in heaven, foul mist hems us in …”” 

(Book 20) 

Look at this vivid, striking image, after Odysseus has killed the suitors: 

“Think of a catch that fishermen haul in to a halfmoon bay

in a fine-meshed net from the white-caps of the sea:

how all are poured out on the sand, in throes for the salt sea,

twitching their cold lives away in Hêlios’ fiery air:

so lay the suitors heaped on one another.

[…] Telémakhos

led her forward. In the shadowy hall

full of dead men she found his father

spattered and caked with blood like a mountain lion

when he has gorged upon an ox, his kill—

with hot blood glistening over his whole chest,

smeared on his jaws, baleful and terrifying—

even so encrimsoned was Odysseus

up to his thighs and armpits…” 

(Book 22) 

Too violent? Here’s a tender moment, when Penelope listens to Odysseus—in disguise as a beggar—speaking about her husband: 

“… she wept as she sat listening. The skin

of her pale face grew moist the way pure snow

softens and glistens on the mountains, thawed

by Southwind after powdering from the West,

and, as the snow melts, mountain streams run full:

so her white cheeks were wetted by these tears

shed for her lord…” 

(Book 21) 

The Odyssey is full of such interesting images and similes. 

At some point, I should perhaps write about the characters.