A Guide to the Odyssey: A Commentary on the English Translation of Robert Fitzgerald (38 page)

148–60
Homer is playing, again, with our eager anticipation to hear the name “Odysseus,” the first step toward the revelations and recognition even more hotly desired by his audience. But instead of prompting the praise of Odysseus we might have
hoped for from Eumaios, Odysseus’ question unleashes “who hasn’t claimed to have known my master?” Eumaios suspects that this unknown traveler wants to learn the master’s name so that he can make up some story about having seen him, the purpose of which would be to ingratiate himself further with the family and receive gifts and extended hospitality (151–60). That the disguised Odysseus meets this rebuff is of course ironic. Perhaps more significant, Homer shows how suspicious Eumaios is, a quality which can only recommend itself to Odysseus, who, in this situation, needs allies who are cautious, truly loyal to him, and not likely to be misled and betrayed by that most insidious of enemies: hope. Odysseus would not do otherwise in the same situation.

153–60
Every time some traveller …:
Odysseus will play this kind of traveler when he finally appears before Penélopê. Eumaios’ words are the truest testimony Odysseus could have that his wife still remembers him, loves him, longs for him.

161
On Eumaios’ certainty that Odysseus is dead, see XIV. 108–10, above.

170–73
We learn more of Eumaios’ past at XV.490–585.

175
Odysseus:
The name is postponed to near the end of Eumaios’ answer [144] and closely follows Eumaios’ use of the verb connected with the root of the hero’s name,
oduromai
[142]: “I grieve” or “I lament” (technically represented by “I miss” at line 171 of the English, but the force seems to have been transferred by Fitzgerald to the more pathetic “I ache,” 174, placed even closer to the name). The two words, “distressed” and “Odysseus,” are placed in one line at 208 [174]. On the etymology of Odysseus, see I.84, above, and XIX.463ff., 478–81, and 480, below.

180–93
All this is true, yet it is not a revelation. Eumaios would take this as the wishful optimism that mirrors his own pessimism.

185, 191
As Fitzgerald notes (p. 463), he has omitted three lines from Odysseus’ speech which are suspected by many critics to be
interpolations. After “his own hall” (185), some manuscripts include a line which reads, “a cloak and a tunic, good clothes, to clothe me” [154; the uncertain and at best awkward syntax is one of the problems of fitting this fine in the passage]. And between 191 and 192 Fitzgerald has omitted two lines [161–62] that also appear in a similar passage in
Book XIX
: “Between this present dark and one day’s ebb, / after the wane, before the crescent moon, / Odysseus will come” (XIX.360–62 [306–7]). The issue is that lines 185 and 191 are the best conclusions to the lines that precede them. (It is interesting to consider the way such an error in the manuscript tradition might have occurred. An ancient scholar or scribe, having noticed the three-line overlap between the passages [XIV. 158–60 are very close to XIX.303–5 (in Fitzgerald XIV. 189–91 and XIX.356–59)], decided that the parallel could be extended, and imported the following two lines from
Book XIX
into
Book XIV
. Such occurrences seem endemic in canonical literature: many similar instances of “harmonizing” can be seen in manuscripts of the Greek New Testament.)

187–88
I hate as I hate Hell’s own gate
… [156–57]: See Akhilleus’ words to Odysseus (
Iliad
IX.312–13). While the formulaic poet and experienced audience would know that this is the “right” way for anyone to talk about lying, there is a richness for connoisseurs of epic poetry who think of the moment in
The Iliad
when similar words were addressed to Odysseus instead of uttered by him [
Odyssey
XIV. 156 is identical to
Iliad
IX.312].

189–90
Zeus …, the table, … / and … hearth:
It is not strange to invoke Zeus to witness an oath, but why a table and a hearth? The ideas underlying this may be multiple: (1) Zeus is far away, the table is very much present and tangible: to invoke the table is to say, “My claim is as certain as this table is a real object;” (2) the table or hearth may be called on as a more active witness of truth—as fire, water, or any object could be—a belief which underlies the trial by ordeal, a type of trial in which the physical world, which could not be out of step with the Truth,
was believed to reveal the truth or falsehood of a particular statement; (3) “the table garnished / for strangers” and the hearth (add from the Greek, “to which I’ve come” [159]) are closely linked to the reception of guests, meaning that they may be being invoked as attributes of Zeus Xenios (see III.377, above), or as objects holy to him. Homer most likely wasn’t thinking about all these concepts behind what sounds like a traditional oath: oaths tend to be formulaic (and gain power from that character), and this one recurs in
The Odyssey
(at XVII. 194–95 [XIV. 158–59 = XVII. 155–56]).

How, for example, could we explain, “Sure as God made little green apples” or “Sure as shootin’”?

208
Distressed:
See 165, above.

213
god or man:
The audience—and now Odysseus—know that Athena is the tutelary spirit of Telémakhos’ expedition.

229–417
The second of Odysseus’ four Kretan narratives, of which this is by far the longest and most detailed. Note that during Odysseus’ standard preface, “I’ll tell you all … If we could sit here long enough” (229–35), Homer’s audience would have had no idea what story Odysseus will tell Eumaios: one comparable to the tales he told the Phaiákians, or the one Odysseus tried to palm off on Athena when he arrived? Homer resolves that question in line 236 (“Krete”). There are, however, plenty of surprises in store: new details, additions, and variants on the previous version, all brilliantly calculated to win the goodwill of Odysseus’ present listener, Eumaios (which is, of course, the aim of all rhetoric; see VI. 164, above).

There are indications that not only Odysseus but Homer himself is telling an untraditional story, or a traditional one in an untraditional way. We might make this inference from the
hapax legomena
behind Fitzgerald’s “life at home” (263 [
oikôpheliê
, 223]) and “shake to see” (266 [
katarigêk
, 226]), keeping in mind, of course, that these words may be unattested elsewhere in Homer only because Homer had reason to tell this particular story nowhere
else, even though they were traditional from some other source. (For more details on
oikôpheliê
, see 273, below.)

239
My mother was a slave:
A detail not in the first narrative, and one bound to engage the sympathies of Eumaios, who is likewise a slave.

244
Kêrês:
“Fates of death,” “ministers of death,” often symbolic of death itself (see
Iliad
IX.411).

252–53
The extreme compression of the Greek—literally, “but I think that looking at just the stalk [or husk] you can know me fully”—indicates that Homer is having Odysseus play off what must have been a well-known proverbial expression. The proverb itself refers to practiced agriculturalists, who can judge the quality of the grain harvested from the stubble that remains in the field.

252
Ear:
Of grain.

273
my house grew prosperous:
It is one of the oddities of Odysseus’ account that what he says happened [
oikos ophelleto
, 233 echoes the very thing that ten lines earlier he claimed to have no concern for [
oikôpheliê
, 223]. Fitzgerald there translated it “life at home” (263) but it might more literally be rendered “estate development.” (On this word as
hapax legomenon
, see 229–417, above.) It may be too daring to say that Homer is undermining Odysseus’ account with little inconsistencies of this sort in order to suggest that it is an improvisation, but then again it may not.

277
See 85. In Greek, the two lines, one belonging to Eumaios, the other to Odysseus [69 and 236], are identical for the concluding four and a half of their six metrical feet. While it is no surprise that identical thought generates identical formulaic expression, the poet of
The Odyssey
is, in my view and that of many others, in full control of his use of formulae. Thus it is part of Homer’s strategy to have Odysseus, who is improvising a speech for Eumaios, adopt an idea, however traditional, to which Eumaios had also given voice. For that reason Homer has him repeat the exact words Eumaios used shortly before.

284–85
Evil days … / Zeus:
The Greek is more punning and
etymological: we could translate
emoi… kaka mêdeto mêtieta Zeus
[243] as “Devising Zeus devised evils for me.”
299
delta: The Nile delta.

304
reckless greed:
It is clear from the Kretan’s way of life that he is not claiming that piracy itself is bad; what was “reckless” about his advance party’s “greed” was that it was imprudent. They ought first to have reconnoitered (as they had been commanded) and gathered intelligence, from which they could have calculated potential gain versus risk. Even in this “fictive” discourse we have again the motif of prudent commander (Odysseus in Kretan disguise) against reckless crew whom no prudence can save from folly—a motif familiar from Books IX-XII.

314
but some they took alive:
Those who were taken alive were enslaved, a common practice. Although the way Eumaios was enslaved was different, Odysseus may calculate that this is another moment at which he can arouse his listener’s sympathies.

320–23
All the elements of the tale so far sound quite plausible in the world of
The Odyssey:
trade with Egypt, piracy, the natives striking back. This detail, however, is quite a bit less plausible, much more the stuff of fairy stories. We note that it puts Odysseus in the same position—a foreigner thriving under an Egyptian king—in which Joseph finds himself (Genesis 41–50; Moses is a more distant parallel). It is not surprising that widely distant peoples had stories in which some of their heroes made good in Egypt; well into the first millennium
B.C.E
. Egypt would have been regarded as the “land of opportunity,” the America of the ancient eastern Mediterranean basin.

329
Seven years:
Seven is of course a special number, which often figures in narratives; note the repeated importance of “seven years” in the Biblical story of Joseph’s Egyptian sojourn.

333
Phoinikian adventurer:
The first Kretan narrative had involved a Phoinikian merchant sailor who was not evil (see XIII.349). In the present version the merchant plays a much more sinister role.

334
a plausible rat:
Both Greeks and later Romans regarded the Phoinikians as inveterate liars and deceivers. In Latin,
fides Punica
—“Punic faith”—was proverbial for bad faith. The word for deceiver or knave [
trôktês
] is used only twice in Homer, both times of Phoinikians (here [289] and Fitzgerald’s “sea-dogs,” XV.505 [416]).

345–46
I could guess the game / but had to follow him aboard:
By this means Odysseus covers over a narrative inconsistency that, if pressed, might reveal his story to be an invention: the Kretan could not have known the Phoinikian’s dastardly intentions since a storm prevented them from being realized.

349, 352, 361
Zeus
and
Kroníon:
“Son of Kronos,” in other words, Zeus. While in itself hardly unusual, the frequent mention of Zeus, to whom the guidance of events is attributed, has the function of conveying to Eumaios that his Kretan guest is a pious man and, furthermore, that Zeus is watching out for him, even punishing those who wish him ill. (“The gods,” at 403 and 414, has the same function.)

367–71
Odysseus presents Eumaios with another exemplum of generous hospitality, a model to which Odysseus hopes his host will conform. In line 371 he may already be dropping a hint: he needs some clothing even now. But Eumaios will require more prompting (see 464 and 546–612, below).

368–70
Odysseus’ “fictive” narrative again seems to offer a variant of Homer’s in the first half of
The Odyssey:
here, Pheidon’s son plays a part comparable to Nausikaa’s in
Book VI
. Further on (384–86) Pheidon and his Thesprótians play, or start to play, roles comparable to those of Alkínoös and the Phaiákians in transporting Odysseus to Ithaka.

372–86
Here for the first time the “Kretan” pretends to have news of Odysseus. His strategy is to test the waters, in particular Eumaios’ sympathy. Homer’s strategy is to create irony wherever he can. Although Eumaios cannot know it, Homer’s audience will realize that the treasure mentioned (375–76) is not entirely
bogus: Odysseus and the listeners will be thinking of the treasure stowed with Athena’s help in the cave of the nymphs (XIII.456–64).

376
Bronze, gold, and iron:
The Greek [324] too is a tricolon crescendo (see III. 117–20, above), with wrought iron, a more recent metallurgical discovery and more valuable in war, in the climactic final position.