Journal: The Odyssey

I had a literature class. We had to journal what we were reading:

Many themes circulate throughout Homer’s epic poems The Iliad and The Odyssey. We see gods and goddesses cast judgment upon mortals, while holding themselves unaccountable for similar transpirings. We see honor, bravery, vengeance, and grudges held for many years; heroes made from fair dealings and honorable ways of living. However, one of the main ideas threaded throughout both epics, The Iliad and The Odyssey, is the treatment of the traveler and the hospitality received from peoples formerly unknown to them.

In The Odyssey it is through our hero, Odysseus, and the treatment he receives while on his 20-year wander that we see some of the ways and manners of the people at that time. Starting with Odysseus’ stay with the immortal sea nymph Kalypso, who upon finding Odysseus on her shore proceeds to care for him as in the manner of a god; bathing him, feeding, him, caring for him, everything short of sending him home. Once it is decided that home is where Odysseus is bound, however, Kalypso provides Odysseus with all the tools, victuals, and clothing to make the journey in as much comfort as possible. Other incidents involve the goddess Athena, who never appears to mortals in her own countenance, but takes on different guises to travel into various towns. In each of these towns, the people treat her as a ‘friend,’ feed her, provide a fire to warm her, provide whatever she may require, and upon her departure offer a gift as well. That is how the customs were in those days; treat everyone as you would a friend for you may never tell when an immortal may be ‘testing’ you, and grave things befell those who spurned a god or goddess.

The incident that singularly stands out in The Odyssey is on Odysseus’ final leg home he is found upon an unknown shore, and ‘happens’ to meet the princess (with a little help from Goddess Athena) who feeds, bathes, and clothes Odysseus before helping him back to her mansion to consult with her father and mother, the king and queen. After the advice from Princess Nausikaa and Goddess Athena, Odysseus enters the banquet hall and sits down “amid the ashes” of the hearth. This action is explained by “the suppliant who sits there is, so to speak, on consecrated ground and cannot be forcibly removed.”[1] After hearing Odysseus’ plea, the king and queen invite Odysseus to join their feast that evening, have him spend the night in their home, have another feast in his honor in the morning, pentathlon games – all without ever knowing Odysseus’ name! This is a fine example of how strangers were treated in those times.

[1] Homer. "The Odyssey." The Norton Anthology Expanded Ed. Mack et al. New York: Norton, 1995. Footnote 3, p.289