The Odyssey of Homer: Returning Home (Lecture on Books IX-XVI)

'Don’t try to sell me on death, Odysseus. I’d rather be a hired hand back up on earth, slaving away for some poor dirt farmer, than lord it over all these withered dead.'

Welcome back to the world of Ancient Greece. Our singer of tales for this next portion of the epic is our hero himself. It's time to hear about everything Odysseus endured as he struggled to return home.

Today, as we continue our journey through Homer's Odyssey, we're discussing identity, hero as both no-man and everyman, the meaning of home, revealing character by concealing oneself, the web of fate, descending into the underworld, how to rise again, finding wisdom in pain, and much more.

Please do feel free to enjoy the discussion even if you haven't read these parts of Homer's Odyssey yet. You can enjoy our talk before, during, or after your reading in the way that best suits you.

Timestamps:

0:00 our hero becomes a singer of tales

2:00 where does your story begin?

4:00 Odysseus reveals his identity

6:00 the marauding of the Ciconians

8:00 how many ships are returning home?

10:00 Iliadic vs Odyssean death count

11:00 rebirth symbolism/numerology

12:00 the land of the Lotus-Eaters

14:00 on not forgetting who you are

15:00 utopian travelogue literature

16:00 what makes a land your home?

18:00 what is canon with these stories? 

19:00 who were the Cyclopses?

21:00 who are really the savages here?

22:00 pride is the tragic hero’s fatal flaw

23:00 why Dante put Ulysses in hell

24:00 ironic & dramatic parallelism

25:00 Odysseus vs cyclops Polyphemus

27:00 defining recklessness vs courage

28:00 our hero’s favourite kind of trick

29:00 Odysseus: Noman & Everyman

30:00 deceiving & attacking Polyphemus

31:00 ‘noman is killing me by some trick’

33:00 ‘tell them that Odysseus did it’

34:00 inevitability of fate’s great web

35:00 Poseidon takes revenge for his son

36:00 why I love stories that are slow-burn

37:00 the episode with Aeolus & the wind

38:00 ‘alas, our own folly undid us…’

40:00 Odysseus contemplates ending it

41:00 blown off course when so close to home

42:00 reaching the land of the Lestrygonians 

44:00 meeting the dread goddess Circe

46:00 Homer’s great women characters

47:00 who is telling the story of your life?

48:00 the men are transformed into pigs

50:00 male anxiety of losing masculinity

51:00 relationship of Odysseus & Circe

52:00 our hero as Don Juan precursor

53:00 crew wailing like farmyard calves

54:00 you need to descend in order to rise

56:00 Odysseus down in the underworld

57:00 meeting the ghosts of the departed

58:00 the ancient mythology of Hades

59:00 discourse with the ghost of Elpenor

1:00:00 why we must remember the dead

1:02:00 tragic sacrifice of great journeys

1:03:00 the symbolism of drinking blood

1:04:00 finding wisdom in great pain

1:05:00 consulting the prophet Tiresias

1:07:00 Odysseus talks with his mother

1:09:00 meeting the great heroines of old

1:10:00 ‘the night is young and magical’

1:11:00 meeting Achilles in the underworld

1:13:00 feeling regret when meeting Ajax

1:14:00 ‘most men die once, but you twice’

1:16:00 Circe gives Odysseus guidance

1:17:00 from Sirens to Scylla & Charybdis

1:18:00 do ancient heroes have free will?

1:19:00 choosing the lesser of two evils

1:20:00 the same story we keep telling

1:22:00 devouring the cattle of Helios

1:24:00 Odysseus returns home to Ithaca

1:26:00 no good deed goes unpunished

1:27:00 not recognising one’s native land

1:28:00 why we lose friends along the way

1:29:00 ‘what land have I come to now?’

1:31:00 Athena & Odysseus plot together

1:32:00 royal reversal/beggar king trope

1:33:00 on being judged by your looks

1:34:00 concealing self reveals character

1:35:00 meeting the swineherd Eumaeus

1:37:00 fiction is a lie that tells the truth

1:39:00 the return home of Telemachus

1:41:00 ‘past sorrow can comfort a man’

1:43:00 beggar & king are the same man

1:44:00 father & son are finally reunited 

1:46:00 the moment a boy becomes a man

1:48:00 Odysseus finally reveals himself

1:49:00 how many suitors are they against?

1:50:00 father-son team prepare for blood

1:52:00 assignment for our next discussion

1:53:00 leaving you with a profound question

1:54:00 my thoughts on returning home

1:55:00 the odyssey of becoming a parent

1:56:00 how is your journey going now?

Resources to Explore:

• Poetry: Here's a curation of poems inspired by the episodes we have just lived through. If you enjoyed Alfred, Lord Tennyson's 'Ulysses', I would highly recommend giving his poem 'The Lotus-Eaters' a read too. The wonderful Margaret Atwood has an excellent poem called 'Siren Song'. Joseph Brodsky's poem 'Odysseus to Telemachus' is incredibly touching, whilst Louise Glück's 'Penelope's Song' is profound. Glück also has several poems in the voice of Telemachus in her 1996 volume Meadowlands, which is a poetic retelling of the Odyssey. There's also Alice Oswald's sublime Nobody: A Hymn to the Sea, which is a collage of water poems drawn from the Odyssey. Another powerful one is 'The Sail of Ulysses' by the great Wallace Stevens. One of my favourites is from Hilda Doolittle, who has a superb poem called 'Circe': 'It was easy enough to bend them to my wish, it was easy enough to alter them with a touch, but you adrift on the great sea, how shall I call you back?'

• Fiction: Homer's Odyssey has inspired a great outpouring of artistic gifts across the different mediums, from operas to paintings and poems. But there is also a glorious profusions of retellings and works of imaginative literature that are overtly indebted to this great epic. Of course, the most famous example of a work inspired by this epic comes in the form of Joyce's sprawling Ulysses. If you're in the mood for a short story, then Franz Kafka (whose works we have discussed) has a very short story called 'The Silence of the Sirens'. For a longer work, if you were a fan of Madeleine Miller's The Song of Achilles, then her bestselling Circe is sure to delight you too. You may also enjoy Margaret Atwood's reimagining in her novella The Penelopiad.

• Music: It definitely feels very fitting that there are so many great songs and musical pieces inspired by this tale. For something hauntingly beautiful, treat yourself to Suzanne Vega's 'Calypso': My name is Calypso and I have lived alone. I live on an island and I waken to the dawn. A long time ago, I watched him struggle with the sea. I knew that he was drowning and I brought him into me. Now today, come morning light, he sails away after one last night. I let him go.' For another modern song, throw on 'Night of the Lotus-Eaters' by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds. You can also rock out to Cream's 'Tales of Brave Ulysses'. Jack Garton's 'Ulysses' is a fun one too. If you're in more of an opera mood, then you may like to explore Circé by Henri Desmerets, Pénélope by Gabriel Fauré, or Max Bruch's sublime Odysseus. There is also this tremendous one-man modern folk opera performed beautifully in Athens by Joe Goodkin. This performance astonishingly captures and renders what the original experience. And, for fun, there's this awesome rock opera, the perfect soundtrack if you want Homer's story to accompany you whilst working out.

• Action Exercise: Last time I challenged you to begin committing one of your favourite passages of the Odyssey to memory. Let's expand the challenge and identify another favourite passage. Rather than focus on learning your next chosen passage by heart, reread the same lines many times over the course of several days. Try to recall them, or paraphrase them, intermittently throughout the day. Can you apply the wisdom of those lines to your current heroic journey? Whenever I do this, I find that memorisation comes inevitably and naturally as a by-product. Homer has certainly been helping guide me through a significant new stage of life, so I'm positive you can discover something special in this epic to apply to your life too.

Reading Assignment:

Our next discussion will cover books seventeen to twenty-four of this sublime epic masterpiece. And we will be discussing the climax of the journey this coming weekend.

Now that father and son, Odysseus and Telemachus, are reunited, we're going to discover what fate has in store for those arrogant suitors. So continue bringing yourself to Homer's epic, making notes on any themes or ideas that capture your attention and imagination.

Questions to Consider:

1) Which of the epics do you prefer so far? Homer's Iliad or Odyssey?

2) What does the term homeric mean to you?

3) What ultimately makes a land home?

4) Who is your favourite character from the Odyssey? And which episode from our hero's wanderings resonates the most with you?

5) What words of wisdom do you need to hear on the journey you are on right now? 

And please do share with us your impressions, favourite passages, and striking ideas from the middle of Homer's Odyssey. If this is your first reading, does the epic meet your expectations? If this is a reread, is the experience any different this time around?

Happy reading, everybody!