Welcome to the Odyssey Reading Group! Anyone is welcome to join in at any time, regardless of their Greek ability. If you’re itching to explore Homer’s epic tale of survival, adventure, love, lust, kinship, betrayal and spooky dead people, hop on in, you’ll be very welcome. People who have some Greek but have never tried reading Homer before are doubly welcome.
Please feel free to ask any question in this thread, no matter how basic you think it is, and we will try to help you with an answer.
Line 36 is a very beautiful image - there’s a tendency in English translations to render πτερὸν as bird by synecdoche rather than wing or feather which kills the magic of the image for me. But I would be interested to know if anyone thinks bird is the correct sense here for any reason.
νηυσὶ θοῇσιν is surely punning on Ναυσίθοος/Ναυσίθοον at the beginning of lines 56, 62 and 63 - or is it perhaps the other way round?
I’ve seen it written in quite a few places that the Phaeacians are ‘excellent hosts’ and that Odysseus gets a ‘warm welcome’ in Scheria. In contrast, the characterisation we get of the Phaeacians at lines 32-33 by Athena, Nausicaa’s description of what would happen if she were seen with Odysseus (6.276ff), and the implication later on that Alcinous has to be saved from being a bad host by Echeneus all paint a picture of reluctant hosts who are initially hostile to strangers. Euryalus is still rude to Odysseus even after he’s been accepted into the palace and feasted (8.159-164).
I find this jagged edge to the Phaeacians quite compelling, whether you explain it by their having lived ἑκὰς ἀνδρῶν ἀλφηστάων (6.8) since the previous generation or as a character trait or something else. It gives the story some jeopardy and spurs Odysseus into remembering his former self. I like that they seem rusty when it comes to entertaining strangers. I’m confused, though, by this tendency to portray them as uncomplicated ‘good hosts’ when their shortcomings are brought up on a few different occasions.