A Guide to the Odyssey: A Commentary on the English Translation of Robert Fitzgerald (24 page)

Ancient scholiasts had noted that while Homer refers to horseback riding and racing, he never shows his heroes doing either one; rather, horses pull them in chariots (see III.517–42, above). It has been suggested that Homer describes contemporary activities in similes but that the nature of the epic tradition (rather than any aversion to anachronism) preserves older forms of behavior in the narrative and militates against the retrojection of later customs.

394
that race the gods have nurtured:
The Phaiákians, to
whom this phrase here applies, were particularly close to the gods, but the phrase (an epithet in Greek) is used elsewhere of both kings and heroes and at least once of a minor god.

399ff
. Without warning, Homer has Athena reappear. She helps Odysseus to the end of the book, and beyond. It would not be wrong to imagine, or at least suspect, that she has been watching all along, although we must remember that it is possible for things to escape the notice of Homeric gods, as Odysseus’ own progress had escaped Poseidon’s notice until he came within eyesight of it. On this occasion, Athena does not reveal herself to Odysseus, who is left to fear the worst (406) even as he strives on.

408ff
. There is a “perils of Pauline” aspect to Homer’s management of the narrative here, creating a consequent roller-coaster of emotions for the audience. Lines 408–16, particularly the almost sentimental simile of the recovering father (411–14), lead us to believe that Odysseus is out of danger and will make it to land. But, alas, there is more danger: being ripped by the reefs and hurled upon the cliffs. This is indeed a real danger, as any who have boated around Greece or comparable rocky coasts will know, and Homer’s audience would have appreciated it. It is also an example of the additive style of Homeric narrative, which permits the poet to add on another scene the way one would add on a building block. As with the arrival of the storm itself and then the appearance of Ino, this new turn of events provides Homer the opportunity to have Odysseus give another speech. This narrative style is of course not restricted to Homer. Popular narratives of many times and now in many media come to mind. I alluded at the beginning of this note to one set of early cinematic cliff-hangers; we might also compare “just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water …” or many a television program or series.

424–25 and 307–8
[
406–7 and 297–98
]
Odysseus’ knees grew slack:
The second line of the pair also occurred at 368 [355].

427 and 442
Zeus
and
he who makes earth tremble hates
me:
Tipped off by Ino, Odysseus now knows which god is helping and which is working against him. As I noted above that Homer gives Odysseus a speech in response to each new stimulus, but each one is very different. Here in particular we hear Odysseus’ mind at work, considering the pros and cons of each possible course of action.

443
During this meditation:
Again, events force Odysseus to react rather than to act. The virtual repetition of line 378 (with only a verb tense changed) underscores the parallelism of the two situations [424 and 365, respectively, in the Greek].

451–52
The simile of the octopus is vivid and brilliant from many points of view, but one feature of its aptness is lost in translation. “Octopus” in Greek is not “eight-” but “many-footed” [
po(u)-lypos
, 432], a word which shares its first element with a range of epithets applied prominently to Odysseus (
polymêtis
and
polytropos
, “of many devices” or “shifts,”
polytlas
, “much suffering,” and so on).

455–56
The Greek behind “battered inhumanly” (456) is
huper moron
[436] (see I.51–52, above).

456–57
but he had the gift:
Athena’s aid comes in the form of inner fortitude or “self-possession,” comparable to the instruction she gave at 446.

467
O hear me, lord of the stream:
Without prompting, Odysseus appeals to the god of that stream. Normally, it is essential to invoke a god by name in order to get him or her to show favor; in the Greek, Odysseus avails himself of the formula used when addressing an unknown god (“whoever you are” [445]).

473
servant:
In Greek,
hiketês
[450], the “suppliant who beseeches protection” and a very powerful word. Such technical terms present a particular challenge for the translator, who aims at communicating something of the feeling and not just the lexical meaning of the original. Fitzgerald has clearly attempted to establish a comparably sacral register by echoing Judeo-Christian Biblical
and liturgical language with which he imagines his readers will be familiar.

486ff
.
Then the man / crawled to the riverbank
…: A less prudent man, having gained earth at last, might have just fallen asleep, with no thought of possible risks and the best ways to forestall danger. Not Odysseus.

513–19
A man in a distant field
…: The book’s conclusion is simple and quiet, but the simplicity of the effect should not take away our appreciation of the poet’s craft. The simile of the “spark” (described metaphorically in the Greek as “the seed of fire” [
sperma puros
, 490]) evokes a civilized man almost beyond the edge of civilization; he has no neighbors and must rely on his cunning to preserve his fire. Just so Odysseus buries himself in the leaves to preserve his “spark of life.” Then Athena enters to pour sleep on the suffering Odysseus. She, too, is hiding Odysseus to preserve him. That the action of the mortal is nested within that of the goddess is suggested by the echo and extension of “hid himself” (516 [
kalupsato
, 491]). The last word of the book, which refers to Athena, is built on the same root [“covering round,”
amphikalupsas
, 493 (translated as “she sealed,” 519)]. The more distant echo of a major character in this book, Kalypso—which sounds here at the end to mark the distance Odysseus has come—suggests that Athena is a better and more productive “hider” than the Ogýgian nymph. Perhaps more significant is the foreshadowing of books to come: at many junctures, but none more crucial than after his return to Ithaka, Odysseus will have to hide himself, with Athena’s help, to preserve his “seed of fire.”

5–8
In days gone by, these men …:
These lines at once establish the Phaiákians as peace-loving people and the Kyklopês as brutes. The Phaiákians will thus understand Odysseus very well when he tells them about his experiences in the land of the Kyklopês.

10
a New World across the sea:
The Greek “far from toiling men” [8] sounds less prophetic of Columbus and the “discovery” of America. The eighth and subsequent centuries, however, were for Greece, like the fifteenth and subsequent centuries for Europe, times of intense colonization, expanding commerce, and war.

11
Skhería Island:
Although it has almost always been taken to be an island—the fourth-century
B.C.E
. historian Thucydides was not the first to identify it with Corfu (
History of the Peloponnesian War, I
.25)—and much in Homer strongly suggests this, it must be admitted that at no point does Homer actually say Skhería is an island. Granted, it is far off in (or across) the sea (218), and the
city itself has harborage on two sides (280–81). In contrast, Homer is utterly unambiguous when describing Ithaka and the islands near it. There is as little reason to get exercised about this as about the location of Skhería: we have entered again the realm of fantastic geography.

28–29
Athena always chooses to appear in the form of someone who would be likely to speak to the dreamer. Here, she is a close friend the same age as Nausikaa, for whom it would be quite natural to bring up the topic of marriage.

33
put thy minstrelsy in wedding dress:
In other words, Nausikaa must provide clothes for the male retinue who would escort her home. An ancient scholiast took this as a clever move on Athena’s part to guarantee that Nausikaa took men’s clothes as well as her own garments to the river; this may be supersubtle, but, on the other hand, we underestimate Homer only at our peril.

36
Would the image of the princess going to the river to do her own washing have seemed fantastic to Homer’s audience? To us it seems one of the more naive and charming points of the story, but we must be careful: although Homer’s audience may have found it charming, it would have been in different terms. First of all, audiences of folktales know by the rules of the game not to focus on realism or even plausibility at all points in the story; things are “just so” and not otherwise. Furthermore, the Phaiákians inhabit a peaceful land and embody a well-nigh ideal situation. The ancient Greek ideal was not unstructured ease represented in folklore and ballad as the “Rock Candy Mountain” or, earlier, the “Land of Cockaigne.” The dangers of such luxury are represented by the Lotos Eaters (Book IX, below). Rather, while the Phaiákians need not work terribly hard to have plenty, they work nonetheless. And, particularly in the eyes of Greek men, the ideal Greek woman would work at certain tasks: weaving first and foremost and running the house, including supervising all the female (and in some cases some of the male) servants. A good
example comes just a few lines further on, when we first see Nausikaa’s mother, Arête (57–59). That Nausikaa would be concerned with washing her clothes is a sign that she is likely to be a good wife, in accordance with the cultural codes of ancient Greek society. Of course, multiple maids—who walk behind the cart while she rides—at the very least assist her with the actual work and may, in fact, do it all themselves.

47–53
Olympos is a mountain, and nothing here contradicts this conception. Yet here and elsewhere in Homer, we see the beginning of its development into a heavenly place.

63
Papà:
The Greek is
Pappa
[57]—the names for mother and father seem astonishingly close within the Indo-European family of languages, even after millennia of diffusion and development. It is particularly hard to know the exact nuance of such familiar forms; the Greek may well be as familiar as “Daddy,” which I personally prefer. Still, if “Papà” seems a bit stiff, at least today, it may nonetheless be right: Nausikaa is, after all, a princess speaking in an epic poem and in perfect control of what she says.

65ff
. Nausikaa speaks of doing the household washing and says nothing about her trousseau. But lest we think she is just being cunning, Homer (73–74) tells us that she was too embarrassed to mention her marriage. Her father knows, though, either because he saw a blush (an inference on Fitzgerald’s part, quite possible but unstated in Homer [66]) or simply because he is wise.

91
princess, maids:
Homer is even more clear that Nausikaa is “not alone” [84], her maids present not only as helpers but as guarantors of propriety.

93
with water all year flowing:
In dry climates like those around the Mediterranean basin, all but the larger rivers dry up in summer, and those that flow are often just dirty trickles. The perennial abundance and clarity (“limpid,” 94) of this river is thus remarkable—another admirable feature of Skhería.

102
sea:
They have come to the mouth of the river, as the story demands. So vivid, detailed, and engaging is the story of Nausikaa’s
washing expedition that we may well forget for a time that Athena had more than dirty clothes on her mind when she motivated this excursion. The sea is the first reminder of Odysseus and Athena’s higher purpose in roughly eighty lines.

110–18
The comparison of Nausikaa amid her maids to Artemis running with her nymphs, the princess and goddess each more impressive than her companions, serves both to conclude a charming episode and to elevate it at its conclusion.

115
Lêto:
Artemis’ mother delights to see Artemis’ superiority. In the immediate context of the simile, it is not the absent Arête, Nausikaa’s mother, who corresponds to Lêto, but rather the hidden Odysseus, who will soon be awakened to observe the princess and her friends (122ff.)

118
princess:
Homer rounds out the line with “unwedded maiden” [109], emphasizing her unmarried state rather than her royal status.

130–31
Any traveler might wonder about the people into whose land he has come, but we will discover when Odysseus narrates the earlier stages of his journey why he in particular would think of “savages …, strangers to courtesy.” The appearance in this context of the Homeric compound “guest-loving” [
philoxenoi
, 121, almost the exact opposite of the modern English “xenophobic”] reflects the fact that hospitality was not only a courtesy but a pious duty enjoined by the gods, Zeus first and foremost (Fitzgerald uses “gentle folk”). One of the epithets of Zeus is “protector of guests” [
Xenios
], as Odysseus reminds the Kyklops in vain (IX.292–93 [271]; on the epithet,
Xenios
or
Xeinios
, depending on the metrical slot in which it appears, see III.377, above, and XIV. 189–90, below). And even sooner, in the narrative economy of
The Odyssey
, Nausikaa formulates this principle quite clearly (221–22).