Odyssey Books 4-6
Mar. 23rd, 2025 05:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnOnwards!
Book 4: Telemachus visits Menelaus, which I found fascinating!
Menelaus... umm... let's say, he did not strike me as the most intellectual of the people we see in this book. Wants to be nice to his bros, though!
Menelaus on Odysseus:
I always thought
that I would greet that friend with warmth beyond
all other Argives, if Zeus let us sail
home with all speed across the sea. I would have
brought him from Ithaca, with all his wealth,
his son and people, and bestowed on him
a town in Argos, driving out the natives
from somewhere hereabouts under my rule.
We would have constantly spent time together.
Nothing would have divided us in love
and joy, till death's dark cloud surrounded us.
I really like this passage as a... somewhat horrifying ode to friendship? I mean, it's so heartfelt and I feel for the guy! But also "I loved this guy so much I'd want to take him from his actual home and also displace my own people and make them homeless so that we could hang out more!"
Odysseus: I think maybe I'll hang out with Calypso some more after all.
Meanwhile, Helen shows up. I was agog to know if the narrative would mention about how she had been the reason that there was this ten-year war and all, but it only glancingly did so, and Menelaus himself didn't mention it either. Anyway, Helen decides she will drug everyone so that they aren't sad. Okay, cool? Then she tells a story about how Odysseus visited Troy, and no one saw through his cunning disguise except for her. She ends the story like this:
--by then I wanted to go home.
I wished that Aphrodite had not made me
go crazy, when she took me from my country,
and made me leave my daughter and the bed
I shared with my fine, handsome, clever husband.
So Helen herself is openly bringing up thatshe Aphrodite cuckolded her husband! I was very curious to see what Menelaus would have to say to that:
And Menelaus said,
"Yes, wife, quite right.
I have been round the world, and I have met
many heroic men and known their minds.
I never saw a man so resolute
as that Odysseus."
So... I guess he's all cool with that. He goes on to talk about his bro Odysseus some more, and also about capturing the Sea God Proteus, who told him a bit about Odysseus but quite a lot about -- wait for it -- Aegisthus killing Agamemnon. (Major mention #3 so far!)
Anyway, of course Menelaus wants to keep Telemachus for eleven or twelve days (though at least he does not offer to empty out a village for him), but Telemachus very diplomatically says he needs to leave. Meanwhile, Penelope has noticed he's gone and the suitors are coming after him...
Book 5:
So I did not know that Homer was the origin of the phenomenon of how you get different chapters from different POVs but right before you switch, you make sure your protagonist of the old POV is in a cliffhanger so that you are eager to get back to it. That is to say, hey, FINALLY we get Odysseus POV (now that I'm invested in how Telemachus escapes from the suitors)!
Calypso to Hermes:
"Dear friend, Lord Hermes of the golden wand,
why have you come? You do not often visit.
What do you have in mind? My heart inclines
to help you if I can, if it is fated."
Hedging your bets there, I see, Calypso...
It's interesting to me that, in a culture where there's a lot of rape of captives by men, here's the one instance where it seems pretty clear that Calypso is basically raping Odysseus, who is her captive.
Calypso, being catty to Odysseus:
But if you understood
how glutted you will be with suffering
before you reach your home, you would stay here
with me and be immortal -- though you might
still wish to see that wife you always pine for.
And anyway, I know my body is
better than hers is. I am taller too.
Mortals can never rival the immortals
in beauty.
Odysseus's response:
So Odysseus, with tact,
said, "Do not be enraged at me, great goddess.
You are quite right. I know my modest wife
Penelope could never match your beauty.
She is a human; you are deathless, ageless.
But even so, I want to go back home,
and every day I hope that day will come.
If some god strikes me on the wine-dark sea,
I will endure it. By now I am used
to suffering -- I have gone through so much,
at sea and in the war. Let this come too."
Is it my imagination, or is Odysseus very subtly throwing shade while doing his best on the surface to flatter Calypso? I like this guy!
Anyway -- after a half chapter's worth of suffering, he gets to the Phaeacians, and we get to Book 6.
Book 6:
This is a short book and I don't have much to say about it. Odysseus meets Princess Nausicaa (!) of the Phaeacians, and she gives him advice on meeting her family.
Book 4: Telemachus visits Menelaus, which I found fascinating!
Menelaus... umm... let's say, he did not strike me as the most intellectual of the people we see in this book. Wants to be nice to his bros, though!
Menelaus on Odysseus:
I always thought
that I would greet that friend with warmth beyond
all other Argives, if Zeus let us sail
home with all speed across the sea. I would have
brought him from Ithaca, with all his wealth,
his son and people, and bestowed on him
a town in Argos, driving out the natives
from somewhere hereabouts under my rule.
We would have constantly spent time together.
Nothing would have divided us in love
and joy, till death's dark cloud surrounded us.
I really like this passage as a... somewhat horrifying ode to friendship? I mean, it's so heartfelt and I feel for the guy! But also "I loved this guy so much I'd want to take him from his actual home and also displace my own people and make them homeless so that we could hang out more!"
Odysseus: I think maybe I'll hang out with Calypso some more after all.
Meanwhile, Helen shows up. I was agog to know if the narrative would mention about how she had been the reason that there was this ten-year war and all, but it only glancingly did so, and Menelaus himself didn't mention it either. Anyway, Helen decides she will drug everyone so that they aren't sad. Okay, cool? Then she tells a story about how Odysseus visited Troy, and no one saw through his cunning disguise except for her. She ends the story like this:
--by then I wanted to go home.
I wished that Aphrodite had not made me
go crazy, when she took me from my country,
and made me leave my daughter and the bed
I shared with my fine, handsome, clever husband.
So Helen herself is openly bringing up that
And Menelaus said,
"Yes, wife, quite right.
I have been round the world, and I have met
many heroic men and known their minds.
I never saw a man so resolute
as that Odysseus."
So... I guess he's all cool with that. He goes on to talk about his bro Odysseus some more, and also about capturing the Sea God Proteus, who told him a bit about Odysseus but quite a lot about -- wait for it -- Aegisthus killing Agamemnon. (Major mention #3 so far!)
Anyway, of course Menelaus wants to keep Telemachus for eleven or twelve days (though at least he does not offer to empty out a village for him), but Telemachus very diplomatically says he needs to leave. Meanwhile, Penelope has noticed he's gone and the suitors are coming after him...
Book 5:
So I did not know that Homer was the origin of the phenomenon of how you get different chapters from different POVs but right before you switch, you make sure your protagonist of the old POV is in a cliffhanger so that you are eager to get back to it. That is to say, hey, FINALLY we get Odysseus POV (now that I'm invested in how Telemachus escapes from the suitors)!
Calypso to Hermes:
"Dear friend, Lord Hermes of the golden wand,
why have you come? You do not often visit.
What do you have in mind? My heart inclines
to help you if I can, if it is fated."
Hedging your bets there, I see, Calypso...
It's interesting to me that, in a culture where there's a lot of rape of captives by men, here's the one instance where it seems pretty clear that Calypso is basically raping Odysseus, who is her captive.
Calypso, being catty to Odysseus:
But if you understood
how glutted you will be with suffering
before you reach your home, you would stay here
with me and be immortal -- though you might
still wish to see that wife you always pine for.
And anyway, I know my body is
better than hers is. I am taller too.
Mortals can never rival the immortals
in beauty.
Odysseus's response:
So Odysseus, with tact,
said, "Do not be enraged at me, great goddess.
You are quite right. I know my modest wife
Penelope could never match your beauty.
She is a human; you are deathless, ageless.
But even so, I want to go back home,
and every day I hope that day will come.
If some god strikes me on the wine-dark sea,
I will endure it. By now I am used
to suffering -- I have gone through so much,
at sea and in the war. Let this come too."
Is it my imagination, or is Odysseus very subtly throwing shade while doing his best on the surface to flatter Calypso? I like this guy!
Anyway -- after a half chapter's worth of suffering, he gets to the Phaeacians, and we get to Book 6.
Book 6:
This is a short book and I don't have much to say about it. Odysseus meets Princess Nausicaa (!) of the Phaeacians, and she gives him advice on meeting her family.
