seanjonesbw wrote: ↑Sun Jul 21, 2019 8:20 pm
Answer there came none.
Some questions I have from this week's passage:
Is Odysseus' dilemma at lines 141-144 just because he's naked and salty or, as a stranger in Scheria, would he ask himself the same question fully clothed? What might the consequences be of avoiding proper supplication etiquette?
Does his opting for a μειλίχιον καὶ κερδαλέον μῦθον (148) show that he's certain he's not dealing with a god (who would presumably be immune to his charms)?
Is the tone of his speech meant to sound comically obsequious to the audience?
To answer your first question: I think it’s just natural to assume that anyone, let alone a young girl, would rather avoid physical contact with a naked, filthy stranger, whatever the usual etiquette for supplication dictates. So this just shows that Odysseus is being tactful.
As for your last question, I don’t think it’s intended to be comical. But I’d like to jump ahead to Odysseus’ and Nausicaa’s parting scene in book 8, lines 464 ff. Odysseus’ farewell words to her:
Ναυσικάα θύγατερ μεγαλήτορος Ἀλκινόοιο,
οὕτω νῦν Ζεὺς θείη, ἐρίγδουπος πόσις Ἥρης,
οἴκαδέ τ᾽ ἐλθέμεναι καὶ νόστιμον ἦμαρ ἰδέσθαι:
τῷ κέν τοι καὶ κεῖθι θεῷ ὣς εὐχετοῴμην
αἰεὶ ἤματα πάντα: σὺ γάρ μ᾽ ἐβιώσαο, κούρη.
To my knowledge, no commentator has pointed this out, but in my opinion these last words obviously refer to their first encounter and Odysseus’ supplication to her: ”then, even at home, for all my days, I would pray to you as if to a god; for you saved my life”. Praying to someone mortal ”as if to a god” is definitely not traditional, nor is it part of the the etiquette, and I don’t think it’s even supposed to particularly obsequious. Rather, Odysseus is pointing with gentle humour to the circumstances of their first encounter: it’s thanks to her that he is no longer the naked bum on the beach that he once was, and he will never forget it. He well remembers the obsequious speech he had to deliver and doesn’t pretend to have forgotten it.