Notes based of Homer’s “The Odyssey” - translated by A. S. Kline
The reading for part B of The Odyssey is very different than from part A. In part A, we go to see some of the challenges faced by Odysseus’ men as they made their way back to Ithaca. In part B, the story begins with the crews departure from Circe’s island after Odysseus was told that he must go to some island where to rivers meet and perform a ritual in order to speak to the ghost of a sort of prophet? The prophet tells Odysseus what to do in order to return home and tells him of the troubles plaguing Odysseus’ wife and throne. After this part is when the story sort of changes. After Odysseus spoke with the prophet, he goes on to continue talking to several other ghost. The most notable of the ghost being his own mother who seemed to have passed away after waiting for Odysseus’ arrival. The other ghost belonged to several famous individuals including Ajax, Achilles & sons, Agamemnon, and several others. I do not understand why this was included in the story? My only idea is that Odysseus was not a famous character like the other ghost so maybe Homer tried to make Odysseus greater by making it seem as if he personally knew these men? I’m not sure though, I don’t recall reading this part of the story in the book I had read in middle school. This part was very boring he just kinda talks to these ghost and updates them on things that have happened to him or things have happened to the families of the ghost. One thing that I thought was interesting was that while speaking to these ghost, Odysseus who I had described as vainful in the last reading notes, seems to humble himself when he speaks to the ghost. There’s this thing with titles throughout the whole story that I don’t understand. How everyone refers to Odysseus as “Odysseus of many resources, Scion of Zeus, son of Laertes.” This is how Odysseus refers to the ghost, for example, Agamemnon “Agamemnon, king of men, glorious son of Atreus.” The last thing I want to note is the death of Elpenor. He died by falling off the roof of Circe’s house and breaking his neck, he had consumed to much wine - in the story they said he was “heavy with wine” and I thought that it was an interesting way of saying drunk - and climbed to the roof to get some cool air. In the morning, Odysseus woke his men to prepare for their departure. Elpenor woke up at the sound of Odysseus voice and when he tried to get down from the roof is when he fell and died. In the last reading notes I mentioned how I thought all the deaths in the story were a result of Odysseus’ recklessness and I found it humorous that in the story Odysseus feels the same way. When Odysseus learned of Elpenor’s death he said “Those were my words, and their proud hearts yielded. But even now I could not get my men away unscathed.” Which I understood as “even when I talked, my men still got hurt.” However Odysseus isn’t fully to blame, he did say Elpenor was kinda dumb and it wasn’t Odysseus that got Elpenor drunk nor put him on the roof. They did, however, leave his dead body behind Circe’s house without any sort of burial. Which is pretty messed up. When Elpenor’s ghost speaks to Odysseus he begs him to return and bury his body and to make a sort of monument in his memory so that he may live on. After Odysseus is done talking to dead people they set sail again and go through the sirens and are about to start fighting some sea monsters when the reading ends. This reading was pretty boring but Homer has very consistently used the same descriptive language which I really like. The way he describes certain things are pretty.
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