I’m going to be up in northern Michigan for a few days, relaxing from work. I thought that I would bring along “Homerus Odyssea Martin L. West (ed.)”, and see how much I could get through without a dictionary or other aids. I haven’t read more than snatches of the Odyssey since I was a teenager reading it in translation.
If I run into lines that I don’t understand after a few passes, I will ask about them in this thread, rather than looking them up or searching through notes. I would appreciate it if people would reply in the same spirit. If you know the answer off the top of your head, then put in a note, otherwise leave the question for someone else to answer. LSJ-quoting (Barry!) or translation-quoting (Seneca!) will be moved out of the thread.
I read through the first couple hundred lines last night, and I’ll ask about lines 90-92 later this evening. What does ἀπειπέμεν mean in 91? Is it from πείθω, so “to disobey”?
LSJ glosses this line: “give them full notice”. Honestly, I’m not going to post an answer on the internet without checking to make sure I’m not utterly wrong.
I’ve been doing this myself lately, reading the Odyssey with no help but Stanford’s commentary, and the Aeneid straight out of the OCT. I don’t get absolutely everything, but I get most of it and it’s a lot more fun than laboring over a desk full of ancillaries!
Good. At its best this board makes it possible for a bunch of scattered people to be digitally in the same room together, and imagine if we were all resorting to the LSJ or Google in a conversation.
I had no idea you had never read the Odyssey.
I never really liked the Odyssey, except for the return. It doesn’t have the magic or pathos of the Iliad for me. Being a hobbiest only, I get to choose my own reading, and have avoided it. Your recent threads made me want to give it a chance.
I had much the same feeling about the Iliad, and can only hope that you are as pleasantly surprised reading the Odyssey as I have been reading the Iliad. But LSJ ἀπόρρητον? μὴ γένοιτο!
The Odyssey is mostly known for Odysseus’ wanderings in strange places among strange beings, but we must remember that the poem is only halfway when he lands on Ithaca. The Odyssey is not centered on the Big Questions of Life like the Iliad (Heroism, Honor, Death, etc.,) and it has a penchant for moralism that the Iliad doesn’t have, but it has a charm of it’s own. It gives prominence to the small things in life and many of the central characters are women or humble people like slaves, even if their depiction can be shown to be problematic in modern eyes.
ps I disagree with what you say about the “Big Questions of Life”. The Odyssey is very focussed on Heroism, Honour and Death - the Dead even make an appearance!
The point being that not all important “speaking” characters are elite men, unlike in the Iliad. (I haven’t forgotten about Thersites, Helen and Andromache, who do utter a few words).
Those themes are in the Odyssey as well, but it doesn’t invite to reflect upon them like the Iliad, they are omnipresent but in the background. It doesn’t present itself as a “grave” poem like the Iliad, or at least not in the same degree..
I think in both respects (“gravity” and focus on elite men) the Iliad is to the Odyssey what Thucydides is to Herodotus.
But Joel this is Textkit, not any old chat room, and I’d say it’s at its best when people come for help and receive it. If you can easily find for yourself the answer to a question you have, then why trouble the whole board with the question? I’m happy to help with difficulties, but I’m not about to humor someone who refuses to look anything up.
Well maybe Textkit has gotten a bit stale lately. And sometimes I feel like I’m as bad with the LSJ as any KJV-only backwoods fundamentalist. “If Liddell said it, I believe it”, etc. With luck I’ll survive a 4-day withdrawal period.
Meanwhile, I’m through α. I had to read every page about 4 times, on average, before it clicked. And the concentration required is draining. Hopefully that gets easier.
Paul, I like the more human setting of the Odyssey. But the characters just aren’t as psychologically true. The first book of the Iliad is big and melodramatic…but there is depth to everything when you push. And the poet of the Iliad sympathizes with all of his characters, for all that he takes a Spielberg sort of delight in having Jaws sneak up on them. The Odyssey is all good guys and bad guys.
Questions for book α: What exactly is the idea about this conclave of the Achaeans in Ithaca? Who would be there? (Is Ithaca that big a place?, I probably naively, thought of it as Odysseus’ private island.) Also, what are Telemachus’ rights to his father’s possessions and positions? I didn’t fully understand the back and forth with Eurymachus.
Penelope doesn’t come across as very strong in 360-366.
On the language, the μνηστηρες are obviously suitors, but I don’t recognize the root.
Maybe I’m being prurient, but what does 433 χολον δ αλεεινε γυναικος mean? I don’t recognize αλεεινε.
The beginning of β answered some of my questions on the conclave.
Re-reading the very start of α – for my daughter’s bedtime story; she doesn’t complain as long as I give an English paraphrase translation as I go, though I censor a bit) – I saw 36 γῆμ᾽ ἄλοχον μνηστήν, and 39 μήτε μνάασθαι ἄκοιτιν, which answered my question about μνηστῆρες. And I suppose the original meaning from which this derives is in 29 μνήσατο γὰρ κατὰ θυμὸν ἀμύμονος Αἰγίσθοιο, and 31 τοῦ ὅ γ᾽ ἐπιμνησθεὶς ἔπε᾽ ἀθανάτοισι μετηύδα.
The only issue has been that my daughter asked me where Ithaca was, and when I told her Greece, and that we could fly there in about 16 hours, she informed me that she would like us to “go there tomorrow.”
I thought the point being made here is that if the suitors are serious about marriage they should offer Icarius bride-gifts rather than consume Telemachus’ patrimony.
Having now consulted (pace Joel) S. West I see it’s not as straightforward as this. "ἐεδνώσαιτο " only occurs here in Homer and its interpretation depends on how we take ἔεδνα. Is it a a dowry given to the suitor or a gift from the suitor? West suggests the non-committal “betroth”.
An example of where we can be led into error without commentaries.
It’s great that you use Homer as a bedtime story for your daughter.
You might read her this and see if it curbs her impatience. Often the journey is more important than the destination.
When you set out for Ithaka
ask that your way be long,
full of adventure, full of instruction.
The Laistrygonians and the Cyclops,
angry Poseidon - do not fear them:
such as these you will never find
as long as your thought is lofty, as long as a rare
emotion touch your spirit and your body.
The Laistrygonians and the Cyclops,
angry Poseidon - you will not meet them
unless you carry them in your soul,
unless your soul raise them up before you.
Ask that your way be long.
At many a Summer dawn to enter
with what gratitude, what joy -
ports seen for the first time;
to stop at Phoenician trading centres,
and to buy good merchandise,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
and sensuous perfumes of every kind,
sensuous perfumes as lavishly as you can;
to visit many Egyptian cities,
to gather stores of knowledge from the learned.
Have Ithaka always in your mind.
Your arrival there is what you are destined for.
But don’t in the least hurry the journey.
Better it last for years,
so that when you reach the island you are old,
rich with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to give you wealth.
Ithaka gave you a splendid journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She hasn’t anything else to give you.
And if you find her poor, Ithaka hasn’t deceived you.
So wise you have become, of such experience,
that already you’ll have understood what these Ithakas mean.
It’s interesting how often in Homer whenever there is question of how people treat each other, the focus is on outward reactions rather than emotions. Here Laertes (not Odysseus!) avoided the anger of his wife by not sleeping with Eurycleia, while we would say that he didn’t want to hurt her feelings.
In the Iliad, there is never question that Agamemnon should show that he’s “really sorry” for insulting Achilles, but it rather always revolves around the question of what would constitute an adequate compensation (even if Achilles thinks that no gift is valuable enough).
When you look at a word like φιλέω, I’d argue that it has almost always also a nuance of “treating kindly”, which doesn’t quite exactly correspond to our “love”, which is primarily a mental process.
