A Guide to the Odyssey: A Commentary on the English Translation of Robert Fitzgerald (39 page)

379
Dodona:
Oracle of Zeus, where the god was thought to speak through, or inhabit, a sacred oak.

383
openly, or on the quiet:
A hint that Odysseus might appear in disguise, as well as an invitation to Eumaios to comment on the advisability of secrecy.

391–402
The men of Thesprótia nearly accomplish what the Kretan shortly before had claimed the Phoinikian intended: to enslave him. This too is intended to appeal to Eumaios, for Odysseus must know the details of the enslavement of his sister’s playmate, which we will hear about only in the next book (XV.490–585; see also XV.464ff., below).

415–17
Odysseus’ penultimate remark (“and with me … of one who knows the world”) is decently complimentary of his host. His last sentence (“My destiny …”) emphasizes both his piety and the fact that he has divine protection. It’s plain to see why Homer’s Odysseus set the standard for eloquence.

421–50
That tale
/ …: Eumaios is a hard nut to crack and doesn’t believe his guest’s story about Odysseus. Indeed, as we soon learn (441
ff.)
, his skepticism has been hardened by deception and bitter disappointment: the Kretan is not the first to pretend to have news of Odysseus. We know that Eumaios is both right and wrong to disbelieve the Kretan.

464
Odysseus’ second and slightly less subtle attempt to make the swineherd understand that he’s in need of a cloak. (See 367–71, above, and 546–612, below.)

471–78
a great name
in line 472 is meant sarcastically. In other words, he says, the “compact” Odysseus proposes (460) is out of
the question. Again (as at 456) Homer emphasizes the piety of Eumaios.

490
the outsiders:
The suitors (see 49, above).

494–514
Stanford provides a good summary of the traditional “ritual of … preliminary sacrifice before a special feast,” whose protocol is followed here with precision and is described in detail: “Its principle was that the gods should have a first share of the meat and cereal food. The first ceremony was to cut off some of the hair of the animal as an offering—“who tossed the forehead bristles,” 496–97—to be burnt, with prayer; this formally dedicated the whole animal to the gods. Then when the victim had been killed and prepared for cooking, the thigh bones … were wrapped in fat…, covered with strips of raw flesh … from every limb as first offerings …, sprinkled with meal …, and burnt. The savour of the burning flesh was thought to rise up to the gods in heaven…. After the gods have received their share, the meat is prepared for the guests: they chop up the rest of the meat, spit it on skewers, roast it carefully, draw it off the skewers and heap it on dishes for serving; then the host divides it fairly among the guests” (2.232–33 [on XIV.422–32]).

494–99
The gods, / as ever …:
Here, in the prayer, we see not only Eumaios’ piety but also that his hope has not been utterly extinguished, whatever he says in his characteristically pessimistic vein (e.g., 425ff.). He puts his hopes quite rightly in the gods—and in no one on earth.

519
To those who fear that Odysseus might be giving away the game by addressing the swineherd by name it may be answered that by now he will have heard the others address Eumaios. However, it is more likely that neither Homer nor his oral audience gave this argument a second thought. When the poet wants us to focus on a piece of cleverness or stupidity, he generally points the way.

532–33
bought by the swineherd on his own:
This slave is a good steward of his master’s resources.

546–612
The great tale of the cloak, which achieves the end that Odysseus’ hints at lines 371 and 464 (see above) had not. This is a clever bit of narrative nesting. His opening remarks (esp. “wishful,” 547) and the carefully calculated claim that the wine has inspired him to tell a tale best left “untold” (551) will alert his listeners that the tale has some point to make beyond its entertainment value. For Eumaios and his crew, that point is clearly that Odysseus needs a cloak, but Homer’s audience can appreciate that fact and enjoy the even more deeply hidden secret: Odysseus is himself here, in all senses of that phrase. Of course, this irony has applied throughout the book, but it comes to a head at this point: the fictive Odysseus in the tale of Troy, created by the disguised Odysseus in Ithaka, tells a deceptive tale in order (so the story claims) to conjure up a cloak for the freezing Kretan (541ff.). The Kretan is now employing the identical ruse. It is left for anyone to conclude that the identities of the authors of both ruses are one: the Kretan and Odysseus converge on a point. In both cases the same man ends up with a cloak. Homer’s game is not over, however, because he has set up this equation through a nested series of out-and-out fictions. At what point do the fictions and fabrications of tale-tellers and liars become truth?

547
wishful:
The Greek can also have the sense of “boasting” (see 557, below).

557
and I ranked third:
A very daring comment for a Kretan of whom no one has heard. For an audience who knew every episode in the Trojan War, this is the Homeric equivalent of Woody Allen’s
Zelig
, which the hero inserts himself into well-known historic moments.

562–80
It has been pointed out that one very un-Iliadic feature of this story is that it turns on the hardships associated with cold weather. The heroes in
The Iliad
are never reported as being influenced by something so mundane as natural climatic conditions (see Hoekstra in HWH 2.226 [on XIV.473–7]).

594
Thoas …, the young son of Andraimon:
This hero
is
in
fact mentioned in
The Iliad
(II.638, IV.527–31). Here, as he runs off to the fleet, he acts out the root of his name—
thoos
, “swift,” from
theo
, “to run” [appearing in the Greek in the infinitive form,
theein
, 501].

602ff
.
That was a fine story:
Eumaios passes the test (“Odysseus / began to … test the swineherd,” 541–42) with flying colors: he understands the story as a “story” (
ainos
[508], in Greek a story with a point or moral), and the Kretan gets his cloak.

609–12
When our prince arrives:
The cloak, as it turns out, will only be on loan for the night. Here at the end of this crucial first day on Ithaka, also the end of
Book XIV
, Homer prepares a link to
Book XV
and the return of Telémakhos—thus to the long-awaited meeting of father and son, skillfully delayed to
Book XVI
. Homer’s skill in careful arrangement and prolongation is never more apparent than in the second half of
The Odyssey
, with its carefully graded crescendo of recognitions and revelations leading up to Odysseus’ terrible epiphany—one may almost speak thus—before the suitors (Book XXII). The volume diminishes but (to continue the musical analogy) the harmony becomes more complex for the final and full reunion with Penélopê (Book XXIII), while Odysseus’ meeting with his ancient father, Laërtês, provides a return of the recognition theme, with new variations (XXIV.333ff., below) in a minor key.

1–5
Homer must now bring Telémakhos back to Ithaka—a process that reveals the complex narrative structure of
The Odyssey
. We have not seen Telémakhos since
Book IV
. 663 (Telémakhos is not mentioned in the last tableau in Meneláos’ Lakedaimon, IV.663–67, before the quick scene change to Ithaka). To prepare us to see all the narrative threads come together, Homer had had Athena tell Odysseus (XIII.515–17) that she was going to go fetch Telémakhos from Lakedaimon. First, however, Homer devoted
Book XIV
to getting Odysseus settled at Eumaios’ cottage, where the long-awaited meeting of father and son is to take place, and where all three can hatch their plot against the suitors. Homer uses Athena as an elegant figure by means of which he can shift his own narrative from place to place.

4ff
. We left Telémakhos with Meneláos before he bedded down for the night, but these sleeping arrangements are the same as those described at the end of his first day in Sparta (see IV.325–26). Gods often appear to those deep in sleep—Athena appeared to
Nausikaa at the opening of
Book VI
—but it is a nice touch to have Telémakhos lying in bed wide awake thinking of his father while his friend Peisístratos, who has no comparable worries, sleeps soundly beside him.

13
what he had heard about his father:
Homer doesn’t make this strong a reference to the little news Meneláos had imparted about Odysseus. The Greek only mentions that “cares for his father kept him awake” [8]. Fitzgerald’s elaboration, harmless in itself, is instructive in bringing into relief Homer’s more consistent focus on the moment at hand. Homer is in no way concerned to suggest links with Telémakhos’ experiences in
Book IV
, which a modern translator, however sensitive to Homer’s style, may, perhaps unconsciously, tend to infer and introduce. Indeed, at the opening of this book Homer shows himself uninterested in patching what might seem to be a serious problem for those concerned with continuity. Stanford’s summary is excellent: “The chronology of the poem is uncertain here. Two nights intervene between Telemachus’ departure and his arrival in Ithaca. It seems simplest to assume that neither Homer nor his audience would vex themselves with considering the possibilities that Athena’s summons to Telemachus had occurred on the day before the end of the last book,
i.e.
, on the same day as Odysseus’ arrival in Ithaca, or else that a day and a half had passed unrecorded at the swineherd’s hut before the supper mentioned” at lines 373–75 (2.238 [on XV. 1ff.]).

24
press him to send you back:
It would be an unthinkable breach of etiquette for Telémakhos to depart without his host’s permission.

26–36
It seems … / Eurýmakhos …:
There is no reason to believe that this is anything other than a clever invention on Athena’s part. Like a good rhetorician (or poet, for that matter), she knows that a vivid picture of one suitor in the lead will be much more alarming and likely to galvanize Telémakhos into action than a more accurate description of the whole gaggle of
suitors still jockeying for pride of place. Note that even in this tale Penélopê is presented as still holding out. The goddess cannot and will not blacken her character. In lines 32–36 Athena evokes the image of any woman, not Penélopê specifically. The argument is a rhetorical one, an enthymeme (see II. 179–86, above): since “you know” women act this way, your mother, being a woman, will too. And you will be cast in the role of stepson in your own house. It may seem that the goddess Athena is slandering women in general here, but she is often on the side of men and is trying to persuade one here.

29
in gifts to her and made his pledges double:
The gifts are to the bride, the pledges to her father.

42ff
. If what Athena has said about Eurýmakhos were true, it seems unlikely that the suitors as a group would be involved in a plot against Telémakhos, but he least of all is likely to be troubled by this trifling inconsistency. Homer’s audience knows this part is true.

148
Fitzgerald omits roughly five lines of the Greek, which also appear in
Book IV
. 656–62 (an omission not noted on his list on p. 463). [In the Greek, lines XV. 113–19 are identical with IV.613–19.] A few manuscripts omit them in
Book XV
, and scholars who do not understand Homeric repetition urge their excision. In
Book IV
, Fitzgerald translates the whole run. (Here, lines 147–48 in the English represent lines 113–14 in the Greek.)

197–225
Omens—natural signs interpreted as messages from the gods—are a consistent feature of ancient epic. Eagles, birds of Zeus, figure prominently in literary omens. Often a professional seer or priest interprets the omen; Kalkhas is one in
The Iliad
. Here it is Helen who is inspired to interpret the sign, which she takes not merely as a positive response to Telémakhos’ last word but quite specifically as a prophecy of Odysseus’ vengeance on the suitors. For the particular features of this omen and Helen’s interpretation, see Penélopê’s dream (XIX.620ff.), in which the eagle speaks after slaughtering multiple geese (634ff.), identifying
itself as Odysseus. In some regards, both omens and dreams function like epic similes, in that they permit the poet to introduce another perspective, drawn from a field distant from the narrative proper.

198
off to the right:
The Greeks considered the right side the lucky side for omens. (See 637 and 642 for another good omen on the right, and XX.266 for an evil omen on the left side.)

212–13
In the Greek, Helen is even more explicit that it is the immortal gods who have inspired her with this understanding [172–73].

238
westward:
There is nothing in the Greek [191] corresponding to a cardinal direction. Likewise “easterner” (276) and “western” (281) are interpolated into the Greek [223–24 and 226, respectively]. All are correct inferences on the basis of the geographical indications given or implied in the Greek (although “western” in line 281 seems to depend on wider geographical knowledge). It is instructive, however, to note that they are modern additions. We recall that Homer’s contemporaries, living and navigating before the advent of maps (much less compasses), would not have conceived of movement in terms of the compass points. The rising and setting of the sun were points to steer by, as were the directions of prevailing or notable winds: Boreas, “that wind / out of the north” (XIX.235–36); its opposite number, Notos—the two are opposed as “north” and “south” at XIII. 135–37 [110–11, which has the winds’ names only] as well as at V.342 [clearly opposed in the Greek, 5.331], where e meet also the East and West winds, Euros and Zephypos [V.332], although it seems that these two were closer to southeast and northwest in orientation.