A Guide to the Odyssey: A Commentary on the English Translation of Robert Fitzgerald (23 page)

130
Delos:
Homer calls Delos by another name, Ortýgia [123]. He seems to call more than one spot Ortýgia (see XV.492, below).

142
sang:
In other words, “promised.”

144
there’s no eluding Zeus’s will:
Kalypso accedes to the will of Zeus, having suppressed any mention of Odysseus’ reaction to the promise she has just detailed. Homer has already told us that Odysseus gazes out at the sea with longing (87–89), so we know what his answer was.

150
and nothing hidden:
A significant promise from Kalypso (on her name, see 16, above).

168ff
. Kalypso is most punctilious in her offer of help and advice. She knows that she cannot go against Zeus’ will, but is that the only reason she is suddenly so seemingly cheerful? I take it that her love for Odysseus is such that she can’t act otherwise with him; moreover, she knows that her only hope of keeping Odysseus is if it is his free choice to stay. Although it is subtle, this may be a slight attempt to seduce him, even as she offers to aid his flight.

179–80
Unspoken remains the fact that it is these Olympian gods who have forced Kalypso to let Odysseus go. Although this is conventional (see Hainsworth in HWH 1.269 [on V.160]), it is a
significant suppression. Kalypso has every reason not to share news of Hermes’ visit with Odysseus: she wants to take credit for a generous act, and, moreover, to say that she had just received a message from Zeus via Hermês would somewhat diminish the force of the risk of which her proviso (178–79) is meant to make Odysseus mindful. By a mixture of sweetness and admonition, she would persuade Odysseus to choose to remain with her.

183ff
.
After these years a helping hand
…: Odysseus is characteristically on his guard and in no way shy about confronting her with his doubts, even suspicions. It has often been pointed out that this tendency to imagine that others say one thing and mean another is founded in his own character: he knows very well how to do this himself and often does, to great effect.

195–98
This is a very strong oath.

206–11
As had been the case after Hermês’ arrival and initial welcome, here a formal serving of food and drink interrupts the interview. There’s a formal quality to the completion of the feast before discussion resumes. Whether it reflects customs of the time or is a by-product of Homer’s technique of presenting simultaneous events serially (see II.405, above), Homer makes it an undeniably elegant ceremony.

212
Kalypso begins grandly, trying one last time to persuade Odysseus to remain.

222
compare:
Homer’s Kalypso actually says “compete” [
erizein
, 213]. For a mortal to compete or contend for priority with an immortal is dangerous business, usually fatal for the mortal; Kalypso’s speech ends at a potentially precarious point for Odysseus.

224ff
. That Odysseus understands at once the goddess’ veiled threat is quite clear from his response, and he first asks her not to be angry (224) and assures her that Penélopê is no match for her (226). In a way, Odysseus gives away absolutely nothing of his own thoughts, because to cap his argument that Penélopê seems less than Kalypso, he simply gives back to the goddess her own
initial premise. In other words, Kalypso asks, “How can she be more beautiful? Aren’t mortals less beautiful than gods?” “Right you are,” says Odysseus, but, instead of proving her point, he just repeats it: “she must seem less beautiful, ‘because she is mortal, while you are immortal and unaging’” [218]. This logical error is called
petitio principii
. Not unappropriated does the epithet “strategist” (223 [
polymêtis
, 214]) appear to introduce Odysseus here.

At a deeper level, this is not just a clever parody on Odysseus’ part. It is the truth. Odysseus is a hero who recognizes and accepts his mortality, and realizes that mortal is mortal, immortal immortal, and while the two may occasionally meet—his career is an example of many such meetings—they may never mix.

233
This is the last conversation between Odysseus and Kalypso that Homer represents, although Odysseus remains on Ogýgia for four more days.

254
trimmed his puncheons true:
He used a chalk line to make things straight. There is no point in wondering why Kalypso had so marvelous a collection of tools. It is worth noting, however, Odysseus’ ability: he is infinitely resourceful and handy. Likewise, it has often been noted that the vessel Odysseus builds is more than a raft and much more than a single worker could assemble in four days. Its greatness reflects on the greatness of the hero, just as the craft’s details and complexities provide an opportunity for a great singer or poet (who, by the way, would have had much more experience singing of the building of sailing ships—such as the
Argo
or any of the thousand launched Troyward—than of rafts).

263
a mast pole, and a proper yard:
The yard is the pole perpendicular to the mast, onto which the sail is attached. The Homeric ship was a square-rigger, and the sail was hung from the yard.

269
halyards, braces:
These are parts of the rigging, or sheets, the sailor’s term for what landlubbers call ropes.

271
This was the fourth day:
It is interesting that while Homer has described the process step by step, it is only at this point that he tells us it took four days.

272
on the fifth day, she sent
…: Does Homer make it the fifth day because this phrase is a pun in Greek [
pemptôi pemp’
, 263]? It may seem undignified, but we must recall that punning as well as the more dignified forms of paronomasia, playing with words and etymological derivations, have their basis in a belief that language is “natural,” i.e., is a true reflection of reality.

Note the absence of any leave-taking: no farewell speeches, no tears. Kalypso outfits him and gives him a good wind, and he’s off.

272–73
Fitzgerald has “corrected” the original description of these two events, which put the bathing second, though of course it was first. The Greek [264] is thus an example of the figure
hysteron proteron
, “the latter first” (also called
prothysteron
, “first last”), which is likely an attractive feature of formal poetry simply because it’s counterintuitive, in other words, it calls attention to itself and to the craftsmanship of the poet.

280ff
. Odysseus sails day and night, steering at night by the constellations. The Greeks of the heroic age preferred to sail during the day and within sight of land, but they did risk night sailing. While night sailing is particularly featured in
The Odyssey
, the present passage is the “sole reference to stellar navigation” (Hainsworth in HWH 1.276, whose discussion on pp. 276–77 [on V.272–77] is a more helpful explanation of the precession of the equinoxes, etc., than any I have found in commentaries to date). The Greeks may have learned some of their astronomy from the more advanced peoples of the Near East and for navigating in particular from the Phoinikians, who were in general more daring longdistance sailors.

Other commentators have found much to discuss in the details of this passage, and, if we knew that such a description was based on observation from a fixed place at a fixed time, we might be
able to say that Homer was telling us that Odysseus was making his voyage in the final weeks of summer or the first weeks of autumn. The “if is of course a large one, and, considering the protocols of traditional epic diction (note that 282–85 [273–75] also appear in
Book XVIII
of
The Iliad
[487–89]), it seems much closer to the mark to say that by this passage Homer at once conveys a further example of Odysseus’ competence and provides himself a further opportunity to display another portion of his poetic repertory and talent. This is not to suggest that Homer and his audience disdained precise knowledge of the stars and their seasonal motions. On the contrary. Such knowledge was crucial for navigation and agriculture alike, and astronomical observations formed part of Hesiod’s didactic or perhaps better “wisdom” poem,
The Works and Days
, composed not long after
The Odyssey
and transmitting the values and lore of farmers.

My problem is only with those who go a further step and assume that Homer intends a precise mimesis of contemporary reality, the night sky included, and, further, that he would use such a detail as a hint for his audience to seize on and say, “Aha, it’s September.” Only after Homer gained a reputation for polymathy and “his” two great poems came to be regarded as encyclopedias did scholars start to worry about such questions. (On the question of time of year, note that Fitzgerald’s “autumn” at V.340 ought more strictly to be “late summer” but, more significant, is not conclusive because it occurs in a simile.)

283
before Orion:
Homer brings the traditional personifications of these constellations to life. In the Greek the Bear actually “watches out for” [
dokeuei
, 274] the hunter Orion, who pursues her through all eternity.

287
on his left hand:
Holding the constellations to his north, Odysseus sails east.

290
Skhería:
The precise location of the land of the Phaiákians is no more certain than that of Kalypso’s island, Ogýgia. Trying to map Homeric geography is a game that goes back to antiquity,
but we can only say that Skhería is seventeen days’ sailing east of Ogýgia. It is closer to Ithaka, but how close is hard to say, since the Phaiákians, who bring Odysseus home overnight (XIII. 100ff.), are magical sailors.

292
Homer had noted Poseidon’s absence (he was among the “Ethiopians”) early in
Book I
(I.36, above). Now he returns.

314
Zeus:
Odysseus seems here to be referring to the father of gods and men and not merely the heavens personified. Fortunately for him, Odysseus is wrong about which Olympian is after him.

316
How lucky:
Fitzgerald clearly wished to avoid a literal translation of what in Homer and then Vergil’s wake became a cliché. For the record, however, Homer’s Odysseus says, “Thrice-blessed the Danaans, and four times, who …” [306], using what was already a well-established and solemn formula. This became Vergil’s
ter quaterque beati
(at its first appearance in
The Aeneid, I
.94, the context is the same: a hero faces a terrible storm at sea).

321–23
The wish to have died at Troy is not just pious rhetoric: death on land, in the midst of one’s comrades, would net two things—formal burial and formal acclaim—of which death at sea would deprive him.

332
No detail is forgotten: this is the cloak Kalypso gave him as he set out (273).

342
East wind
…: The Greek names are Euros, Boreas, Notos, and Zephyros, although Homer presents them as opposing pairs, first South vs. North, then East vs. West (331–32). On the winds and directions, see XV.238, below.

350–52
Ino knows which god is behind this storm and reveals it to Odysseus. That she doesn’t know why Poseidon is angry is not terribly important to either her or Odysseus at this juncture—and he is in no shape to tell her why. However, her “I wonder” does serve to whet the appetite of Homer’s audience for a full account of Odysseus’ offense (Book IX). Homer had already revealed what it was (I.90–99).

357
Odysseus learns from Ino to what place he has come.

359–63
It is a common motif of folktales for the hero to have a supernatural being help him, most often through the agency of such a talisman. Ino’s command that Odysseus throw the veil back into the sea as soon as he reaches land underscores the importance of keeping mortal and immortal, or magical and normal, separate. The concluding injunction that Odysseus “turn away” is the more powerful for Homer’s not having Ino explain exactly what will happen, either to the sash or to Odysseus, if he beholds the awesome event (see also X.585–86). At 483–86, Odysseus releases the veil, and it is returned to Leukothea.

Although there are other Greek parallels, the story of Lot’s wife in Genesis 19:15–28, as Stanford has noted (1.304 [on line V.350]), makes an interesting comparison, particularly because here too those who have by divine means escaped one danger are still at risk if they look on aspects of the divine machinery helping them.

369–77
As with Kalypso, Odysseus’ first reaction is to be suspicious of offers of divine help. His intuition is rather to rely on his own wits, and eyes, and, following the advice given to all sailors, he prefers to stay with his ship, at least so long as it remains afloat.

384ff
. Forced sooner than he expected to take the less preferable course of action, Odysseus shows himself to be as always a master of improvisation, riding one plank as if it were a horse. At this point he has nothing to lose, so, following Ino’s advice, he discards his cloak and ties on her magic veil.