Greek Mythology, page 28
Odysseus drives the sharpened stake into the eye of the Cyclops, Polyphemus. (Black figure vase, c. 530–510 BC.)
Odysseus’ Wandering Continues
The voyage became a nightmare of increasingly surreal encounters. Visiting Aeolus, King of the Winds, Odysseus was given a leather bag in which were confined every wind except the benign westerly that would waft him safely home. But close to Ithaca – so close they could see the islanders tending their fires – his men (thinking that it contained riches) opened the bag while Odysseus slept, unleashing a squall which swept them back out to sea.
Bound to his ship’s mast, Odysseus alone hears the song of the Sirens and survives. (Attic red figure vase, c. 450 BC, from Vulci, Italy.)
They next came to the island of the Laestrygonians, a land of midnight sun and terrifying giants, who trapped Odysseus’ ships in a high-cliffed harbour, spearing his men like fish and carrying them off to their ‘bitter banqueting’. Only Odysseus and one ship escaped to reach Aeaea (its name linked to the Greek lament ‘AI AI’). Unaware that this was the island home of Helios’ daughter, the sorceress Circe, Medea’s aunt, Odysseus sent men to reconnoitre. Only one returned. Surrounded by tame lions and wolves, Circe had turned his comrades into pigs. As Odysseus ran to investigate, Hermes met him, giving him a magic herb called ‘moly’ as protection from Circe’s spells. Following Hermes’ advice, Odysseus made Circe promise not to harm him, and to restore his men. For some time they enjoyed her hospitality, but when they left she advised Odysseus to consult the soul of the Theban prophet Teiresias – in Hades.
Across the boundaries of Ocean they sailed to a land of mist, where they poured libations, made sacrifice and summoned the spirits of the dead. Materializing, Teiresias warned Odysseus that to kill any cattle on Thrinacia, an island sacred to Helios, would bring disaster. It was a prohibition waiting to be broken.
Returning briefly to Aeaea, Odysseus sailed on to face fresh challenges. The first was to survive the half-bird, half-women Sirens, who ‘sit in a meadow, while all around lie heaps of bones from rotting corpses, whose flesh has shrivelled in the sun’. The Sirens sang a song so irresistible that: ‘whoever in his ignorance approaches them and hears their voice will never return home to bring joy to his wife and little children as they crowd around him, but the Sirens bewitch him with their ethereal melody’. Following Circe’s advice, Odysseus bade his men lash him to the mast, while they plugged their ears with wax. So the ship passed safely by, and Odysseus, though tormented by desire to leap on to the rocks, became the only man still alive to have heard their heavenly voices.
Next they reached straits bounded on one side by Charybdis, a deadly whirlpool, and on the other by the monstrous Scylla, who crouched in a cliff-face cavern feeding on passing sharks, dolphins – and sailors. Trying to avoid Charybdis, the helmsman steered towards Scylla’s jaws. Suddenly six dogs’ heads arcing with unerring aim hauled six crewmen high into her bloody lair. But the rest rowed on until from distant Thrinacia they heard the bellowing of oxen.
The weary crew insisted on making landfall, but that night a storm blew up. It lasted a whole month. Supplies dwindled. In the end, as Odysseus slept, his men slaughtered Helios’ finest oxen, but even as they cooked them ‘the skins crawled and the spitted meat, both raw and roasted, thundered like the bellowing of cattle’. A week later, the storm abated, and they set sail once again. But in mid-ocean, as Zeus piled dark clouds above the ship, the tearing storm wind snapped the mast, and a thunderbolt exploded in the ship. Only Odysseus survived, clinging to the wreckage. Nine days later he was washed up on Ogygia, home to the nymph Calypso.
Odysseus in Limbo
The daughter of Atlas, Calypso (‘Concealer’) spent her days weaving at her loom, singing in her cave surrounded by:
alders and poplars and sweet-scented cypress, the nesting-place of long-winged birds – owls and hawks and chattering sea-crows, which work the ocean’s face. Around the hollow cave there trailed a garden vine, fecund and thick with grapes; and four springs bubbled with sparkling water, each beside the other, but flowing in different directions. And all around lush meadows blossomed, a riot of violets and parsley.
In this island paradise Calypso kept Odysseus for seven years, offering immortal youth in exchange for his exclusive love. But Odysseus still longed for Ithaca and Penelope. He sat for long hours brooding by the shore, until Hermes arrived with a message from Zeus. Calypso must let Odysseus go. His wanderings were almost at an end.
So Odysseus built a raft and made good headway until Poseidon returned from a festival in his honour in Ethiopia. Seeing Odysseus he unleashed a storm. Only Leucothea (the White Goddess, who had once been Ino, princess of Thebes) could save Odysseus. Disguised as a gannet, she wrapped him in a magic veil. Diving from the broken raft, Odysseus swam for two days and nights until he came ashore, crawled up the beach, sank into a bed of leaves and fell asleep.
Next morning a group of girls came to the beach to wash clothes and play ball. Awakened by their shrieking, Odysseus rose, naked, and approached them. Only one stood firm: Nausicaa, the daughter of Alcinous (‘Strong-Minded’), king of the seafaring Phaeaceans, whose peaceful island, Scherie, was sacred to Poseidon. Responding to Odysseus’ flattery (she reminded him, he said, of a young palm tree on Delos) she offered to help him. So at the palace, after supplicating Queen Arete (‘Virtue’), while still not identifying himself, Odysseus was given food and wine and invited to compete in games. When Odysseus wept as the blind court bard, Demodocus, sang of the sack of Troy, Alcinous, suspecting the truth, asked his identity – and Odysseus recounted his adventures.
Despite being offered Nausicaa as his bride, Odysseus yearned for home, so Alcinous put him on a ship, heaped him with gifts (including thirteen tripods) and sent him on the final stage of his long odyssey. Arriving at Ithaca, the sailors carried the sleeping Odysseus ashore and hid the gifts in a cave. Then they returned to Scherie, where, angered because they had helped Odysseus, Poseidon turned their ship to stone as it neared the harbour. Meanwhile, dressed as a vagabond, Odysseus reached Eumaeus’ hut to be reunited with Telemachus.
Odysseus on Ithaca
Still disguised, Odysseus entered the palace. Only his dog Argos – now old and frail – knew him. Laying back his ears and wagging his tail joyfully he died, content to have seen his master one last time. Inside, Odysseus asked the suitors for alms, but received only abuse and blows. But Penelope was curious about the newcomer and granted him an audience in her private quarters. Despite his longing, Odysseus did not reveal his true identity. Instead, as Penelope wept ‘for her husband, who was sitting beside her’, he claimed to be a Cretan prince, who knew Odysseus before the Trojan War, adding that Odysseus would soon be home.
Instructed by Penelope, Odysseus’ old nurse Eurycleia bathed him – and, as she did, she recognized the scar inflicted on the boar hunt on Parnassus. Warning her to keep silent, Odysseus rejoined Penelope, who related a dream in which an eagle killed her pet geese. Its interpretation was clear: the geese were the suitors, the eagle Odysseus.
Next day, Penelope, wearied by the suitors’ demands, promised to marry whoever strung Odysseus’ bow and fired an arrow through the eyes of a row of axes. Not one suitor could even string it. Then the beggar asked to try:
And as a singer, virtuosic on the lyre, effortlessly stretches a new string around a peg, fastening each end with twisted sheep-gut, even so without effort Odysseus strung the great bow. Then holding it in his right hand he tested the string, and it sang like the voice of a swallow.
With Telemachus and Eumaeus at his side, Odysseus shot down the defenceless suitors. Then he ordered the colluding maidservants to scrape and scrub the hall, before they too were hanged.
After an emotional reunion with Penelope, Odysseus hurried to Laertes’ farmstead, where he fought off an attack by the suitors’ relatives. The Odyssey ends with Athene’s intervention, forcing the warring sides to reach an agreement.
An Inland Odyssey
But Odysseus’ wanderings were not over. Teiresias’ prophecy and later sources tell that, as reparation for killing the suitors, Odysseus was exiled for another ten years, leaving Telemachus to rule Ithaca. As Teiresias instructed:
You must set out on a journey, taking a well-shaped oar, until you come to a land of men who know nothing of the sea, eat nothing seasoned with salt and know nothing of red-cheeked ships or well-shaped oars, which are to ships as wings are.… When another traveller approaches you, remarking on the winnowing fan that you are carrying on your shoulder, you must plant your well-shaped oar hard in the earth and make rich offerings to Lord Poseidon – a ram, a bull, a rutting boar. Then return home and offer a hundred victims to the deathless gods, who live in the broad heavens, making sacrifice to each in order. Death will come to you from the sea, a peaceful death, in glistening old age with your people rich around you.
A prophecy proclaimed that Odysseus would die at his son’s hand, so before his return Telemachus was banished. Then unexpectedly Telegonus, whom Circe had borne to Odysseus, arrived at Ithaca searching for his father. In his ignorance Odysseus thought Telegonus was a pirate; Telegonus thought Ithaca was Corfu (and so fair game for plunder); blows were exchanged; Telegonus speared Odysseus with a sting-ray’s spine; and by the sea, as his muscles cramped, the hero’s life ebbed from him.
A fragment of the lost epic poem, the Telegony, completes the story. When he realized his error, Telegonus transported his father’s body along with Penelope and Telemachus (now recalled from exile) to Aeaea, where Circe made them all immortal. Telegonus married Penelope, while Telemachus married Circe. What happened next is lost even to mythology.
Ithaca in History & Today
There are two Ithacas – one the modern island of Ithaki, the other the Ithaca of the Odyssey. Many have tried to reconcile them, for, if Mycenae and Troy really existed, why not Odysseus’ palace at Ithaca?
Archaeological and topographical surveys show some similarities between Homer’s descriptions and Ithaki. Thus in the south of the island, the bay where the Phaeacians put Odysseus ashore corresponds to Dexia Bay (just west of Vathy Bay), while Eumaeus’ hut may be located on the Marathia Plateau above Raven’s Crag (Stephani tou Korakou). Two sites in the north of Ithaki claim to be Odysseus’ palace – Alalkomenai (Schliemann’s favoured location) and Platrithias. Both have Mycenaean remains, but nothing on the scale of mainland palaces.
At Polis Bay in northwest Ithaki in the 1930s the remains of twelve tripod-cauldrons from the ninth or eighth century BC were found in a collapsed cave. Decorated with Geometric motifs, their handles were topped by miniature dogs and horses. Sixty years earlier, another tripod-cauldron had been uncovered, making a total of thirteen – the number Alcinous gave Odysseus. Also found was a second- or first-century BC fragmentary terracotta mask inscribed, ‘A Prayer to Odysseus’. Probably the cave was associated with a hero cult to Odysseus from at least 800 BC. Some even suggest that Homer heard of (or saw) the dedicated tripods, and wove them into his narrative.
Unlike Homer’s Ithaca, however, Ithaki is not the ‘furthest out towards the sunset’ of the Ionian Islands (although some argue that from certain locations Ithaca appears to be further west than the others). A host of other candidates are suggested, including Lefkas (now a mainland promontory but once an island) – whose champions explain its location east of Ithaki by claiming that Homer meant it was ‘closest to the mainland’ – and Paliki (now a promontory of Cephalonia but also once an island), which is, indeed, the furthest west. In antiquity Ithaca’s identity worried Strabo, who was confused as to whether it was Ithaki or Lefkas.
The Odyssey’s wider geography was even more problematic. Herodotus attempted to anchor episodes in real locations – the Land of the Lotus Eaters in western Libya, for example – and Apollodorus states that ‘some interpret the Odyssey as an account of a voyage round Sicily’. Scylla and Charybdis are still commonly sited in the Strait of Messina, while Scherie has been identified with Corfu. In the 1980s, Tim Severin’s voyage in a reconstruction of a Bronze Age ship placed the first adventures in North Africa and Crete and many of the remainder in and around the Ionian Islands.
While the identification game is fun, it disregards the fact that the Odyssey is not history but a blend of mythology, sailors’ yarns and heroic epic. It can also be read as a ‘parable’, a journey from life to death and subsequent rebirth, an odyssey that is as much spiritual as geographical. The early twentieth-century poet Constantine Cavafy expressed it best in his poem ‘Ithaca’, concluding:
Keep Ithaca always in your mind. Your goal is to reach it. But do not hurry your voyage – better to let it last for many years, to drop anchor only when you are old, rich with experiences, not expecting that Ithaca will give you wealth. Ithaca has furnished the delightful voyage. Without her you would never have set out. But she has nothing else to give you. And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not deceived you. You have gained great wisdom. You have experienced so much. Surely by now you must know what Ithacas mean.
In Classical times Ithaki was poor and insignificant. The island was taken by Sicilian Normans in 1185, then ravaged by Turks in 1479 and resettled by Venetians in 1504. Together with the other Ionian islands it became part of Greece only in 1864 (thirty-three years after the foundation of the modern state), when it was ceded by the British, who had ruled it for fifty years.
Ithaca (Ithaki)
SOME IMPORTANT DATES & REMAINS
C13th BC
Mycenaean buildings in the north of Ithaki.
c. 1200 BC
Possible destruction of Mycenaean sites.
C9th/8th BC
Hero-shrine to Odysseus in Polis Cave?
C2nd/1st BC
Votive ‘Prayer to Odysseus’ inscribed on terracotta mask at Polis Cave.
AD 1185
Sicilian Normans capture Ithaki.
AD 1479
Turks capture Ithaki.
AD 1504
Venetians capture Ithaki and build settlement above Vathy.
AD 1814
Ithaki part of British protectorate.
AD 1864
Ithaki part of Greek state.
There is little convincing archaeology to enjoy on Ithaki, and many will prefer to imagine what Homeric parallels they can at the evocatively renamed sites.
From Vathy a road leads south to the Marathia Plateau, perhaps the site of Eumaeus’ hut. Another leads north, past Dexia Bay (perhaps where Odysseus was set down by the Phaeacians) to the spectacularly sited Alalkomenai (which Schliemann identified as Odysseus’ palace) before reaching the pretty village of Stavros, with fine views across the sea to Cephalonia/Kephallonia. Further north is Mycenaean Platrithias, currently promoted as the genuine location of Odysseus’ palace. Southeast of Stavros is Polis Bay with its (collapsed) Cave of the Tripods.
22
Hades: Ephyra & the Gateway to the Underworld
Install your mast, hoist the white sail and take your seat! The breath of the North Wind will guide your ship. Across the boundaries of Ocean, you will find a fertile headland and groves sacred to Persephone with tall black poplars and willows which yield fruit. Here you must beach your ship by the shores of deep-eddying Ocean, and go on foot to the dank house of Haides. Here the Periphlegethon and the Cocytus flow into the River Acheron, which is itself an offshoot of the waters of the Styx; and here, where the two raging rivers meet, there is a craggy rock …
Homer, Odyssey, 10.508f.
Across fertile plough-land the early sunlight pours obliquely through the lush green mountains of Thesprotia. Crows caw lazily from distant clumps of trees, their conversations interspersed by the atonic clack of sheep’s bells in the pastureland below and the bark of dogs nearby in sleepy gardens. To the north, the mound whose tumbled masonry was Cichyrus, the region’s ancient capital, is thrown into sharp focus by the slanting light, while to the west, beyond the cliffs, the limpid sea melts to the far horizon. Just inland are lagoons, the home of languid turtles and iridescent dragonflies, which skim coquettishly above the glassy water. It is all so peaceful.
But hunters’ gunshots startle suddenly. All is not always as it seems. Even the rivers gliding through the reeds have a darkly haunting past. The Acheron is still the Acheron, but the Mavros was once called Periphlegethon and the Vouvos was Cocytus. In antiquity they were the rivers of Hades. And here, on the crag beneath the Church of St John the Baptist, a slippery iron ladder leads deep into the gloom to a vaulted chamber, its atmosphere fetid with the hot breath of decay. It is an earthy place, a stifling place. To climb back to the sunlight feels like a rebirth. In antiquity this may have been the Necromanteion, ‘Oracle of the Dead’; some say Odysseus communed with spirits here. For at Ephyra, in northwest Greece, may be a gateway to Hades.
Haides & Persephone
Haides, Zeus and Poseidon, the mighty triad, ruled creation. In the Iliad, Poseidon outlines the arrangement:
We are three brothers, born of Cronus and Rhea – Zeus, myself, and Haides, who rules beneath the earth. So all [creation] is divided into three, and each of us has been apportioned his own area. When the lots were shaken, I won dominion over the grey sea, Haides the misty subterranean gloom, and Zeus the broad heavens in the upper air and clouds. But the earth and high Olympus are shared between us all.
