A Guide to the Odyssey: A Commentary on the English Translation of Robert Fitzgerald (54 page)

25–36
My lord Atreidês …:
Akhilleus’ speech to Agamémnon is clearly devised to raise the important thematic issues in
The Odyssey
and once again point to the fate of Agamémnon as the counterexample par excellence to the career of Odysseus.

30
in the morning of your life:
This expression isn’t particularly apt, and it becomes less so when at lines 32–36 Akhilleus says it would have been better had Agamémnon died at Troy, at an even earlier point than he did. The Greek here is “early” [28], and insofar as death is almost always “early” relative to one’s hopes and expectations, we might think of it as meaning “untimely.” Alternatively, we could see this as just one of the illogical juxtapositions that oral composition often leads to. Drama rather than logic (if the beyond is subject to logic) has already led the poet to present at this point what appears to be the first encounter of the souls of Agamémnon and Akhilleus, although both have been dead for some ten years.

35
your son:
Orestês, once again Telémakhos’ opposite in the scheme of counterexamples (see Introduction, and I.45–46, above).

38–111
Fortunate hero …:
Almost all of Agamémnon’s response (38–107) refers to the death and burial of Akhilleus, which, it is important to remember, occurred after the end of the Homeric
Iliad
and was not recounted there. Such stories circulated in Homer’s time, even if the “cyclic epics” (which we know only from fragments and summaries) that recounted these episodes in full were written later. Only in the last four lines (108–11; three in Greek [95–97]) does Agamémnon refer to his fate at the hands of his wife and her usurping lover.

Taken together, Akhilleus’ and Agamémnon’s speeches describe
the deaths and burial honors (or lack thereof) of two of the “best of the Akhaians,” a category to which Odysseus belongs as well. Odysseus’ death can be foretold but not narrated in
The Odyssey
as Homer has shaped it, and indeed, near the end of the preceding book (XXIII.314–17), Odysseus told Penélopê about the death Teirêsias prophesied for him (XI. 148–51). In more ways than one, then,
Book XXIV
is about “ends,” ends of lives as well as the end of a story. Perhaps we can see the stories of the death and burial of Akhilleus (told in great detail) and Agamémnon as in some way standing in for the unnarrated death of Odysseus. Fitzgerald seems to have intuited something like this when he gave
Book XXIV
the tide “Warriors, Farewell.” (However “un-Homeric” the tides may be, they can be appreciated as part of the understanding of a fine Homeric scholar.) Odysseus’ death, readers of
The Odyssey
may surmise from indications in Books XI and XXIII, will be the best of all in Greek eyes: at home and in peace. (Later legend devised violent alternatives, a clear example of epic deflation: the greater the hero, the greater the fall. There have always been, and will always be, revisionists.)

52–104
The apparition of Thetis and the Nereids, the song of the Muses, the divine amphora and trophies—all this evokes, as does the entire underworld episode in
Book XXIV
, a number of aspects of the “fairy-tale” world in which Odysseus’ own travels took place. Indeed, steady intercourse with the gods is one of the characteristics that marks the age of the heroes, Odysseus included. This human-divine interaction becomes less frequent thereafter, and such latecomers as the suitors have no share in it. The communion of heroes and gods is no better evidenced than by their common grief and communal mourning (72; in the Greek, gods and mortals are even on equal grammatical footing [
athanatoi te theoi thnêtoi t’anthrôpoi
, 64]).

68
in nine immortal voices:
The Greek refers unambiguously to nine muses [60], which some critics take as a sign (in their eyes, a further sign) that the “second nekuia” did not belong to the
original, authentic
Odyssey
. Elsewhere in the poem the Muse is singular (I.1, VIII.68, 79, 513, and 521). Nine as the canonical number of Muses is next mentioned by Hesiod (
Theogony
, 60, 77–79, 916–17, “next,” that is, unless the
Theogony
predates this patch of
The Odyssey
). However, the Muses are frequently multiple already in
The Iliad
, which is certainly earlier.

74–78
Though a small detail, it is significant for the career of Odysseus that contrary to standard practice (see XI.83, XII.14–15), Akhilleus’ battle gear was not burned with his body but made into a contest prize at his funeral games. In the contest for these arms Odysseus bested Aîas, earning him Aîas’ literally undying anger (see XI.646–74). Akhilleus’ arms were themselves “immortal,” made for him at his mother’s request by Hephaistos (see
Iliad
XVIII.369–617).

112
Wayfinder:
Hermês (see 1–230, above).

119–27
It is a nice touch that Agamémnon addresses questions to the suitors (123–27 [109–13]) that Odysseus had addressed to Agamémnon (when Odysseus encountered him, much to his surprise, among the shades), with only minor variations (XI.462–69, esp. 465–69 [399–403]). The irony of the same questions being asked here of Odysseus’ victims is telling. Certainty about Homer’s intent is clouded, as it so often is, by the nature of formulaic language. On the one hand, in both places the likely causes of death for a warrior are molded into a typical pattern of a triple question. On the other hand, the author of
The Odyssey
does seem to be in control of formulae and typical scenes more often than not, and it is likely that this is the case here.

144
ever bent on our defeat:
Homer’s Amphímedon forcefully claims that Penélopê plotted for the suitors’ death [127]. This may be an exaggeration, but Amphímedon, as victims often do after the fact, imagines and narrates a plot more organized and coherent than it really was. In what follows, note especially lines 188–90, where Amphímedon says that Odysseus “assigned his wife her part: next day / she brought his bow and iron axeheads
out / to make a contest.” This would be a natural inference, but we know very well that (at least in the text of
The Odyssey
that we have) this is not at all how it occurred (see XIX.660–73). Even more: Amphímedon’s narrative presumes either that Penélopê knew the identity of the beggar from the outset (a major, even paranoid misreading) or that she learned it considerably earlier than she actually did.

145–67
Here is one of her tricks …:
Different narrators’ differing perspectives and situations account for the differences among the three accounts of the ruse of the shroud: II.96–118 (Antínoös), XIX. 163–82 (Penélopê), and the present one (the ghost of Amphímedon). See also II.101ff., above.

170–80
Unless we invent an informant, this too must be pure inference. But the inferences are correct, with the possible exception of lines 176–77 [156–58] which suggest that Amphímedon believes that Eumaios too was already in on the secret of the beggar’s identity when he led him to town to beg in the hall (in
Book XVII
). Actually, Eumaios learned the beggar’s identity four books later (XXI.233–54).

183–90
That night
…: Note, in addition to his mistaken assumptions that Penélopê knew the identity of the beggar and arranged the contest of the bow on Odysseus’ command (see 144, above), Amphímedon’s other inaccuracies. One is minor: “Zeus” did not give Odysseus the idea of moving the arms “that night;” rather, in his wisdom—whether divinely inspired or not—Odysseus instructed Telémakhos to prepare for this when they were still in Eumaios’ hut (XVI.333–51). The second is of fairly major proportions: the storeroom was not locked (see XXII. 152–220). We can see Amphímedon’s self-serving purpose in spreading this untruth: it is hardly to his or any of his fellow suitors’ credit to admit that they were unable to exploit this potentially fatal oversight on Telémakhos’ part.

194
Only Telémakhos:
Not entirely true, since Penélopê also urged that the beggar be given the bow (XXI.349–86, esp. 379).
Given his eagerness above to make Penélopê part of the plot, it is somewhat odd that he obscures her role here. Perhaps while he can stomach giving a woman a role of co-conspirator who follows out her husband’s commands or who devises her own acts of deception (the trick of the shroud, described at 145–67, above), he would prefer not to memorialize a scene in which she boldly rebuffed the suitors in the hall.

202–7
Amphímedon’s summary of
Book XXII
is also self-serving. He describes a monumentally heroic Odysseus aided only by “some god” (204), who slaughtered suitors by the dozen. We know that although Athena was of great help in encouraging Odysseus, four fighters, managed skillfully by the master strategist Odysseus, step by step reduced the number of their opponents, who had some arms and acquired a few more during the course of the battle. Of course, Amphímedon suppresses this; he never reveals the great number of suitors who were present.

209–13
Now in Odysseus’ hall …:
Reference to the unburied bodies and the suitors’ uninformed kin is a reminder in the midst of this episode of the danger and difficulty Odysseus has to resolve before the epic can be concluded.

216–28
O fortunate Odysseus …:
Amphímedon’s narrative had been calculated to win sympathy, never more so than at its conclusion, and he certainly won’t have expected a response like Agamémnon’s. To call it unsympathetic would be an understatement. Of course it is a nice touch that the ghost of Agamémnon not only gives the final version of the frequent comparison between Klytaimnéstra and Penélopê but in so doing also pronounces the final commendation of Penélopê.

218–20
The girl you brought home …:
Fitzgerald’s blended translation [of 193–96a] ascribes Penélopê’s virtue both to her and to Odysseus’ credit (to him for bringing home so “valiant” a wife). This is true to the spirit of the Greek, even if scholars still argue whether the “virtue” of the first line [
aretê
, 193] belongs to
Penélopê or Odysseus, or even both. Fitzgerald’s translation is a diplomatic solution of the controversy.

219
Homer has Agamémnon give Odysseus the epithet
kouridios [kouridiou
, 196], which may be translated “wedded.” He uses the word again at line 226, which, if the Greek were translated literally, would involve the seemingly redundant “her wedded husband” [200].
Kouridios
suggests all the aspects of one’s life which are consequences of being mated to a partner. The state of being in a good partnership with his wife is as essential to Odysseus’ character as it is to the triumphant story of
The Odyssey
. And it is essential to the tragic story of Agamémnon that he is the kind of man who would have a Klytaimnéstra as his wife (which I’ve phrased in this way to suggest that he’s as responsible as she).

221–22
The very gods themselves will sing her story …:
Might Homer expect his listeners to think of his own poem, sung by the Muse to him (I.1)? Though oblique—because
The Odyssey
is about much more than Penélopê—it seems very possible, if not inevitable.

226–28
Without the least inkling of the insights of modern feminist theory, Homer captures with unblinking clarity the illogic of the misogynistic perspective: even though Agamémnon has said that Penélopê and Klytaimnéstra will both be the subjects of songs (in other words, they are the archetypes for “good” and “bad” women), for him it is the bad woman who represents the true essence of womanhood, the essence of “even the best.”

Does Homer him- or herself undermine this position by (1) presenting it so blatantly in the mouth of one of the heroes who falls far short of the Odyssean ideal and (2) even more subtly, having Agamémnon, in defiance of his own logic, attribute the song about Penélopê to the gods while making no such claim for the song about Klytaimnéstra? (In this context it is worth noting that “forever” (227) is an interpolation on the translator’s part of which the Greek is innocent [201]). Not without cause have some
wanted to argue that the poet of
The Odyssey
was a woman, as Samuel Butler did in
The Authoress of the Odyssey
(1897). While his book has long been considered a quaint curiosity by most Homerists, some of the best recent work is finding new ways to talk about female perspectives on and in
The Odyssey
.

236
Sikel:
See note XX.427, above, and 338, below.

246
Penélopê had sent her “orchard keeper” Dólios to inform Laërtês of the suitors’ plot to assassinate Telémakhos (IV.786–89; see lines 430–54, below, for further details about Dólios).

250–56
The picture of Laërtês is another powerful example of what Homer can achieve through the quiet accumulation of detail: he is alone, concentrating on performing a simple task, wearing shabby and patched clothes. His distance from the heroic is marked by the word “leggings” (253): Homer uses no term specific to the farm but the very word employed frequently in
The Iliad
for warriors’ “greaves” or “shin guards” [
knêmidas
, 229], an element of their armor. These leather leggings are Laërtês’ armor now in the old man’s battle for survival and dignity. Without launching into an epic simile, which could only end in bathos here, Homer sets up an entire metaphoric field with one old word in a new context.