The Odyssey has often been considered the lighter of the two Homeric epics, easier to read, more various and more entertaining than its counterpart, The Iliad. The splendor of the narrative is indisputable, and great writers from Dante and Shakespeare to Tennyson, Joyce, and Kafka have mined The Odyssey for their own ends.
Odysseus, who plays an important supporting role in The Iliad, is the main attraction of The Odyssey. Following the end of the Trojan War, he embarks for his home, Ithaca, but has to overcome perilous obstacles and to resist seductive blandishments before getting there. It takes him ten years.
But this epic tale is not just about Odysseus, MIA war hero, voyager, strategist, adventurer. It’s also a coming of age story about his son, Telemachus, who is trying to set things right. And Penelope, Odysseus’s long-suffering wife, is a scene-stealer. As wily as her husband, she has gamely and creatively fended off the advances of the many importunate suitors, vainglorious freeloaders all, who have violated the Greek values of hospitality and decorum. It is thanks to the unstinting help of the goddess Athena that Odysseus reaches Ithaka, vanquishes the suitors, and reunites with Penelope and their son, Telemachus.
For readers of English, embarking on this journey, which translation? There's the crucial question.
I'll start with my old favorite, Robert Fitzgerald's translation (Anchor Books, 1961, 1963), which I read enthusiastically in high school and college, and even gave a pale blue copy to my mother, also a poet, inscribed “with love to Florence - of journeys.” Written in very readable, American “plain style” language -- even more so than the prose-like verse translation produced a few years later by Richmond Lattimore (1965) -- Fitzgerald’s Odyssey was my bridge to the world of true epic, replete with richly physical depictions and closely linked to the language of Homeric Greek. Himself a poet, Fitzgerald offered a refreshing alternative to the roundabout, prose-style translations by Rouse (1937) or Rieu (1945) that spoiled the fun for high-school students obliged to encounter Homer through their eyes.
Let me dwell on a passage that occurs well before Odysseus enters the story. In Book II “A Hero's Son Awakens” (l. 230 ff), Telemachus' guide, Mentor, a wise old warrior and friend of Odysseus, scolds the assembly both for short memories and for their long standing indifference toward the pack of ravaging suitors. For seven years they have usurped Odysseus’ home and kingdom, slaughtering his local herds and flocks and partying pretty much non-stop. Telemachus, who has just turned eighteen, finally calls the townspeople together for the first time since Odysseus’ absence to seek their help in banishing the suitors.
After Telemachus has his say, the aged Mentor stands up and gives the Ithacans a tongue-lashing. His opening words, fraught with irony and sarcasm, intend to waken their sense of social responsibility. Mentor’s words also resonate with a well-known axiom from ancient history: when it comes to leaders, people remember kindness over cruelty. In the historic concept of body politic, leadership that demonstrates fairness and caring for the balanced wellbeing of the entire community, large or small, is always cherished.
Odysseus, for all his survival tricks, had long been celebrated for the parenting skills he employed as king. Mentor knows this and suggests its inverse:
"Let no man holding scepter as a king / be thoughtful, mild, kindly or virtuous, / let him be cruel, and practice evil ways,/ it is so clear that no one here remembers / how like a gentle father Odysseus ruled you."
They are important positives, these Greek adjectives – thoughtful (prophron), mild (aganos); most notably, used twice in this passage, in the phrase ‘as a gentle father’ – kindly or virtuous, well-disposed (epios). These same words recur in later passages in the poem.
Homer also knew that posterity will remember, honor and cherish a good leader but will relegate a bad leader to oblivion. Mentor’s sarcasm builds on this general knowledge. Next, using an approach that is more direct, he tries to stir the Ithacans from their silent indifference.
"What sickens me is to see the whole community/ sitting still, and never a hand raised/ against them [the suitors] - a mere handful compared with you."
Reminding the townsmen that they are many (polloi) and the suitors are few (paurous), Mentor tries to draw the community away from its apathy, its silence; the Greek word used to describe them as ‘still’ is actually ‘silent’ (aneo).
After reading and focusing on these passages, I discovered an amazing additional text, The Odyssey: A Graphic Novel (Candlewick Press, 2010). The artist, Gareth Hinds, chose to illustrate the same passages from the speeches to the assembly of Ithacans. In his notes at the end of the 248-page graphic novel, Hinds acknowledges that his favorite translators of The Odyssey are Fitzgerald (1963) and Fagles (1996) – my favorites as well. I can also recommend Emily Wilson’s recently published version (WW Norton, 2018).
The theme of ‘nostos’ – homecoming and the longing for home that compels Odysseus forward – is crucial. Near the beginning of Book 13, when Odysseus learns from the generous Alkinoos, king of the Phaiakians, that he will be receiving a crew the next day to continue his journey home, Fitzgerald uses a beautiful Homeric simile to convey Odysseus’s emotion:
Just as the farmer’s hunger grows, behind
the bolted plow and share, all day afield,
drawn by his team of winedark oxen: sundown
is benison for him, sending him homeward
stiff in the knees from weariness, to dine,
just so, the light on the sea rim gladdened Odysseus…
Born in Ithaca, New York, Carolyn Clark studied Classics at Cornell, Brown and Johns Hopkins (diss. Tibullus Illustrated: Lares, Genius and Sacred Landscapes, 1998). Her recent poetry publications include Poet Duet: A Mother and Daughter (Aldrich Press, 2019), New Found Land (Cayuga Lake Books, 2017), a pair of Finishing Line Press chapbooks – Choose Lethe: Remember to Forget (2017) and Mnemosyne: the Long Traverse (2013) – and winter poems in The Avocet (2017, 2018, 2019), all published after Carolyn moved back to the Finger Lakes.
