A Guide to the Odyssey: A Commentary on the English Translation of Robert Fitzgerald (34 page)

308
and Megarê:
Her name is parallel with Alkmênê (305), not Heraklês (306).

315–16
This is clearly not the complete version of the aftermath of the revelation of Oidipous’ patricide and incest as told by the Athenian dramatists in the fifth century. For this, see Aeschylus’
Seven Against Thebes
and Sophokles’
Oidipous at Kolonos
. However, any disagreement between the versions is more muted in the Greek: “all through his evil days” (Fitzgerald’s line 316) is an inference based on the imperfect tense of the Greek verb [276].

321
endless agony from a mother’s Furies:
This is generally less prominent in the stories of Oidipous than in that of Orestês.

330
and Pêro, too:
This is another child of Khloris. It is Khloris whom Odysseus saw, not Pêro. Although chronology is one of the first things neglected when legends from different cycles are brought together, it is likely that Pêro, sister of Nestor, was still thought to be alive at the time of the telling. (Fitzgerald’s “turned” in the past tense, 330, is an unintended consequence of his expansion of the Greek [287].)

It is an interesting variant on the catalog structure that at this point the greater part of the segment is devoted to a story about the daughter of the woman Odysseus saw, not about the woman herself. The entry ultimately focuses on and concludes with the story of a would-be suitor of that daughter. Many of the entries conclude with and thereby emphasize stories of the women’s sons.

336
a diviner:
Not named here, but it is Melampous (as confirmed by XV.279–318). It is hard to piece together all the details of the story from the two Homeric passages, suggesting that the myth was well known to Homer’s audience. From later fragments and allusions it appears that Iphiklos rewarded Melampous with the herd for what seemed to be the seer’s prophetic powers. In fact, Melampous understood the speech of animals (a common folktale motif) and learned from them what was concealed from other humans.

360–61
If we take these dimensions literally, this would mean they were about fifty-four feet tall and thirteen and a half feet across at the shoulders. And this at only nine years of age! They were expected to get bigger (“As giants grown,” 367).

368–69
the bright son of Zeus / by Lêto:
Apollo.

372–86
As Odysseus and Homer conclude this section, the names form clusters and the entries become briefer. Also, these last six names are of women who betrayed either a husband or a father. The women mentioned previously were perfect only in beauty and heritage; this section provides legends of unambiguously bad women. Perhaps it is out of consideration of this as much as the passage of time that Odysseus, mindful of Arête in his audience, decides to cut his narrative short (381–82).

384–86
Odysseus concludes with a diplomatic reminder that what he really wants is the promised trip home.

394
He is my guest:
Odysseus is Arêtê’s guest in particular because he made his first appeal to her (VII. 151-64) and because he is a guest of the household of which she is the lady.

398–99
eldest / of all Phaiákians:
As eldest, Ekhenêos had also spoken first at VII. 171–79 (see VII. 166–68 and 204, above, on the value placed on age).

414–20
Odysseus’ response is in part simply the language of the court, and all who know the rules of such discourse understand that it is not meant literally—we can be quite sure Odysseus would not look on a year’s delay with equanimity, much less
pleasure—but is understood to mean “you are powerful and I appreciate your kind disposition toward me.” The consideration of the gifts and their value sounds calculating to us, but it would not have been deemed at all crass. A guest was expected to receive gifts graciously. To pretend unworthiness was not part of the code and would have insulted the offering host. Odysseus can even say (as he does in 417) that he “could wish” a large quantity of gifts, since it is understood that he is prepared to reciprocate on the same scale. Odysseus’ reasoning in lines 417–20 would have won agreement all around: wealth bespeaks power. But the tactic Odysseus will have to choose upon his return to Ithaka is very different from the return envisioned here—an irony to be appreciated at this point by Homer’s audience alone.

429
a man who knows the world:
Epistamenôs
[368] should rather be taken as “skillfully,” “knowing the ways of poetry.” The exact sequence of thought behind the part of Alkínoös’ speech leading up to this point (422–28) is hard to pin down. There seems to be some sort of frame-breaking humor in line 429: the poem’s real audience may well smile at this doddering character who’s saying to Odysseus, “Wow, you told that story just like a good poet,” since they can see that Odysseus is but a mask for Homer. (Likewise da Ponte’s Countess exclaims to Cherubino in Act II of Mozart’s
Marriage of Figaro
, after “he” has sung a song to her, “what a lovely voice;” of course: the singer portraying Cherubino is an opera star.) There may well be comparable humor behind the assertions of Odysseus’ credibility (422–27), given his own reputation for trickery, even lying. (Behind “many,” 424, is a poly-compound [365] another
hapax;
also consider the many poly-epithets for Odysseus, starting at I.2, above.)

436–37
We might imagine that the generations of bards from whom Homer descended would have wished for such listeners, such patrons who would want them to sing all night.

443–48
Other and sadder …:
Alkínoös had specifically asked to hear of those who “met their doom at Troy” (432). Akhilleus
and Aîas, of whom Odysseus will speak shortly, fall into that category. However, as is appropriate for the theme of
The Odyssey
and as a mark of Odysseus’ awareness of the perils still facing him, Homer has Odysseus widen the scope, reminding Alkínoös and all the Phaiákians of those “other and sadder / Tales” of those who returned safe from Troy “only to find a brutal death at home—/ and a bad wife behind it.”

467–69
or you were cattle-raiding …:
Note again the expectation that even great kings and commanders would engage in raids for goods and slaves, as Odysseus himself had done in the land of the Kikonês at the beginning of his voyage homeward (IX.46–73). Odysseus imagines as the most likely causes of Agamémnon’s death two things he has experienced on his travels so far: storms at sea and armed resistance of natives.

476–504
Agamémnon’s narrative of his murder at the hands of Aigísthos and the treachery of Klytaimnéstra is obviously the climactic moment of the Agamémnon-Orestês theme in
The Odyssey
.

492–94
On the difficulties of interpretation involved in these lines, see Fitzgerald’s notes (pp. 472–74 of
The Odyssey
).

500–501
my children and my slaves / at least:
It seems Agamémnon had imagined that his wife might have had some cause to be angry when he returned, considering that he was bringing Kassandra home from Troy as his concubine and—
if
the story was as old as
The Odyssey
—that he had sacrificed their own daughter Iphianassa (Iphigenia) before going to war. He had in any event not anticipated a murder plot.

501–4
But that woman … defiled herself / and all her sex:
We note that Aigísthos’ vile act does not in Agamémnon’s perspective defile all men, for Agamémnon is himself a man—a typical gender bias.

506–12
Odysseus’ response is diplomatic; he is of course moved by the horror of Agamémnon’s fate, but he doesn’t concur with Agamémnon’s wholesale condemnation of women. Of course he
does take precautions when he arrives home. This is hardly the time for a debate, but in lines 507–8, with overt piety, he suggests that Agamémnon’s house carried this curse for some time. Indeed, the family had a penchant for both adultery and foul murder.

515–17
Agamémnon describes a relationship that is very far from the
homophrosunê
—“like-mindedness”—which Odysseus and Penélopê share (see VI. 194–99, above). Indeed, Agamémnon seems to except Penélopê from his condemnation of women (533–35). The lies and half truths that Odysseus and Penélopê tell each other in Books XVIII-XXIII are not of the type Agamémnon advises here, for they are only temporary expedients used until the danger represented by the suitors can be removed and their full partnership reestablished. In a sense, that they both engage in cunning and calculation shows how deeply their like-mindedness runs.

530, 536–40
my own son:
Orestês’ name is postponed so that it can be the very last word Agamémnon speaks (540 [461]), although everyone would have known exactly who is meant already in 530. The audience of
The Odyssey
and indeed some of the epic’s characters (e.g., Telémakhos) know of Orestês’ vengeance, but neither Agamémnon nor Odysseus could have any inkling of this at the moment represented here, since at that time it had not yet occurred.

553
Unless we are to imagine a breakdown of the “rules of the game” (see XI. 101ff., above), we must assume that Homer simply chose to omit describing the moment at which Akhilleus and shortly Aîas are permitted to drink the blood.

569–81
This is the central interchange and the climax of the encounter between the hero of
The Iliad
and the hero of
The Odyssey
. By his remarks and questions (569–74) Odysseus becomes spokesman of the world of
The Iliad
and of Akhilleus’ famous choice in that poem (
Iliad
IX.410–16): glory [
kleos
] even at the cost of one’s life. In response, Akhilleus, who now has another perspective, is
made spokesman for the worldview of
The Odyssey:
what counts is life, surviving at any cost, and even becoming a different man in the process (577–81). This is of course what Odysseus excels at, so that here, the poet has arranged to have Akhilleus, “best of the Akhaians” and hero of
The Iliad
, implicitly take second place to Odysseus.

582ff
. Akhilleus’ concerns are for his son Neoptólemos and his father, Peleus.

620
the lad:
Eurýpulos (also “him” in 621). Line 619 refers to the tale in which Eurýpulos’ mother refused to let her son fight but was eventually persuaded otherwise by the gifts of her father, Priam.

651
Trojan children:
Trojan captives. Aristarchus disputed the authenticity of the fine. It is odd.

671
The proud silence of Aîas was already famous in antiquity. The author of the first-century
C.E
. treatise
On the Sublime
writes, “Ajax’s silence in the Vision of the Dead is grand and indeed more sublime than any words could have been” (pseudo-Longinus,
On the Sublime
IX.2, D. A. Russell, trans., in D. A. Russell and M. Winterbottom,
Ancient Literary Criticism
[Oxford, 1972], 468).

673–747a
This passage, while ancient (Plato refers to it as Homeric,
Gorgias
525E), is almost certainly an interpolation or later addition to
The Odyssey
. Clearly it is part of
The Odyssey
we have inherited, and we might do well to ask in what sense the word “interpolation” is used in the context of a poem that is the product of an ongoing process of accretion and development. The problem is that this segment simply does not jive with the underworld as Homer has consistently presented it so far. Until this moment and from line 747b on, Odysseus stands at the edge of the world of the Dead. The souls come to the trough he has dug and speak to him from that point. Suddenly, in the section in question, Odysseus is within the landscape of the underworld,
viewing heroes and giants in tableaux, with significant objects in their hands, sometimes performing some action. These are not only souls. Particularly jarring is the fact that Odysseus here sees the dead undergoing punishment, which was not the case up to this point.

For all these reasons, most scholars agree that this section is a later patch with a clearly different “take” on the underworld. It is also a classic case of the “purple patch,” a term that goes back to Horace
’s Ars poetica
, 15–16. While the diction is not impossibly un-Odysseyan, the section is just too densely packed and precious to be fit comfortably into
The Odyssey
. Each of the tableaux presented here is a little set piece and an opportunity to show off, which the poet cannot resist doing. Note in particular the description of Tántalos’ fruit tree at 704–8—in the Greek of 705–6 [589–90] there are two consecutive and parallel tricolon crescendos—and above all the
ekphrasis
(description of an object) of Heraklês’ belt at 726–31. (On the insertion of the passage into the preexistent text, see XI. 747, below. For a defense of the passage’s integrity, see Heubeck, HWH 2.110–11 and 114 [on XI.565–67, 568–627, and 601–27].)

699
weasand:
Throat.