A Guide to the Odyssey: A Commentary on the English Translation of Robert Fitzgerald (46 page)

65
thoughtful beauty:
The comparison with Artemis or Aphrodite that follows (66–67) suggests beauty as well (see also XVII.46, above), but in fact Homer uses only the epithet
periphrôn
[53] for Penélopê in the first line of this new section (see I.379, above). He
emphasizes her prudent intelligence, not her physical appearance.

The epithet is repeated frequently at intervals throughout this section, and while it stands behind the modifiers “carefully” (123 [103]), “attentive” (364 [308]), and “grave and wise” (682 [588]), it leaves no distinct trace in the English of lines 73 [59], 108 [89], 146 [123], 409 [349], or 589 [508]. Throughout the same section Odysseus is described with comparable frequency as
polymêtis
, which the translator is more inclined to render, for example, “the great tactician” (52 [41], 579 [499]), “the great master of invention” (194 [164]), “the master improviser” (310 [261])—these last two appear before the longer patches of narrative in the interview—“warily” (392 [335]), “ready for this” (447 [382]), “the master of subtie ways and straight” (643 [554]), although this epithet too is occasionally allowed to pass in silence (86 [70], 127 [106], 262 [220], 674 [582]; see also 678, below).

The treatment of Homeric epithets belongs as well to the history of interpretation of the poem, and it is particularly interesting to note that Odysseus’ wiliness somehow seems worthier of emphasis than Penélopê’s prudence. It is harder to escape the conclusion that gender must have something to do with the differential treatment.

83
looking the women over:
Melántho judges the actions of Odysseus according to the behavior of the suitors. She knows where some of this “looking” leads: she herself is involved in an affair with Eurýmakhos.

88–107
Little devil…:
Compare the relative mildness of Odysseus’ rebuke of Melántho here with his withering words at XVIII.418–20, after she gave him a comparable challenge. Again, this is technically couched as a warning (100–101). The difference is of course Penélopê’s presence, and Odysseus fairly invites his wife to show her sentiments (101-2). Clearly Penélopê is the real audience of this speech, and she once again hears of the stranger’s past good fortune and current bad luck, and, above
all, an additional reminder that this stranger has reason to think Odysseus’ return likely (102–3).

127–45
And he replied …:
Part of Odysseus’ craft is that, like any good politician, he chooses which questions to respond to, and when. Rather than answering Penélopê’s standard request for his background (124–26), he launches into an encomium of Penélopê’s fame (128–36). His request not to be forced to tell of his (fictive Kretan) woes (137–45) only augments her desire to hear them—as it also increases the likelihood that she will pity him after she has heard them.

Odysseus will soon give the fourth version of his by now familiar Kretan story (see XIII.327–65, above, for a full list), but, as members of Homer’s audience, we already note an important difference between this telling and others: although he previously lamented his sad lot, in no instance had he given a full-scale version of the argument “I cannot narrate my story because it involves too much grief”; this was most likely a topos (rhetorical commonplace) at the first performance of
The Odyssey
and certainly became one in its wake. (Compare Aeneas’ words to Dido at the opening of
Aeneid
II: “Unspeakable, O queen, the grief you bid me renew,” v. 3.)

129–36
It is an interesting commentary on the status of gender roles and on Penélopê’s (and to some extent Odysseus’) capacity to move slightly beyond them that Odysseus compares Penélopê’s fame not to the fame of a queen but to that of a king. Both men and women could be praised for governance. Men were to govern (or to participate in the governance of) the polity, while (free married) women were to exercise comparable skills within the domain of the household. We know much more about the role of women in later Greek societies, and it is worth noting that what differentiates Penélopê from, say, a proper Athenian wife and mother is her fame. In the later city-state of so-called Classical times, at least ideally, the virgin daughters and wives of citizens were to be seen outside a home only in carefully organized
rituals, and they were never to be spoken about. To be famous was to be infamous. The representation of heroic women in such a culture required a whole set of strategies, as the extant tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides clearly indicate.

132
black lands:
Rich soil.

146–57
stranger, my looks, my face …:
These phrases and arguments will sound familiar, not only to Homer’s audience but to Odysseus himself. Lines 147–53 [124–29] are very similar to the words Penélopê directed to Eurýmakhos, which Odysseus of course overheard (XVIII.31521 [251–56]). And lines 154–57 [130–33] are virtually identical to XVI.143–46 [122–25], which formed part of Telémakhos’ explanation of the situation on Ithaka to the man he still thought only to be a traveler and guest in Eumaios’ hut. The variation here is that Penélopê now presents them directly to Odysseus. The ironies arising from the presence of the disguised and unrecognized Odysseus are strongest in this first direct interview between the spouses.

158–60
Can I give proper heed to guest …:
Odysseus and Penélopê share a concern with protocol. Here Penélopê refers to the consequence of the present circumstances in Ithaka, which make it difficult for her to fulfill the proper duties toward guests, suppliants, and heralds. Recall the conclusion of Odysseus’ speech (141–45), where rather than focus on whatever personal pain might be behind his tears, he rejects a tearful show of emotions as unseemly “in another’s house” (142) because it could be interpreted by observers as the effect of excessive drink (144–45).

It is not surprising that Homer shows them sharing such a concern: the couple are after all models of
homophrosunê
(see VI.194–99, XI.515–17, and XV.246, above). However, it would be more accurate to say that what they share is an ability to employ appeals to protocol in their rhetoric, for they are most similar in their craftiness.

163–82
We have heard of Penélopê’s ruse of the web (or shroud)
before. Lines 165–78 [139–52] are virtually identical to II.101–15 [94–107], which formed part of Antínoös’ rebuttal of Telémakhos. Not surprisingly, the two accounts diverge at the point they relate Penélopê’s maid’s revelation of her secret (II.116 [108] and XIX.180 [154]). Antínoös and the suitors regard this action as only fair, but Penélopê is bound to view it as rank treachery (see II.116, above). Antínoös specifically says “one of her maids,” but Penélopê, who is likely to be less well informed on the particulars of their plotting, merely says “maids,” whom she vilifies in the Greek in terms harsher than Fitzgerald’s: something like “good-for-nothing bitches” [
kunas ouk alegousas
, 154].

The most substantial variation, however, is one of narrative context: even the lines that are exact repetitions of lines in
Book II
take on a different tone now that they are Penélopê’s own description of the desperate measures to which she had been reduced in order to avoid remarriage—not a reproach of Penélopê’s devices by Antínoös to Telémakhos. The present narrative context also involves the disguised Odysseus as a listener. We are free to imagine his delighted admiration of Penélopê’s cunning, though his strategy constrains him to conceal any such reaction. (Homer will explicitly ask us to imagine his suppressed reactions at 248–52.)

Along the way I have made reference to Greek traditions of allegorical interpretations of Homer (see VIII.280–392, XIII. 127–37, and XIX. 1, above). As Stanford notes, the “allegorical interpreters … explained Penélopê’s ruse as being really a matter of argument—a subtly woven web of dialectic that delayed the Suitors with its prolonged complications” (2.320 [XIX. 139]). As always, Homer’s image is more compelling if taken literally, but such allegorical interpretations are not without interest, particularly as indicators of the Homeric inventions that later ages found either incredible or embarrassing for one reason or another. Such interpretations form part of a text’s “reception history,” the story of subsequent readers’ responses to an original
text. These responses range from explanations and imitations to interpolation and censorship at one extreme, and translation into other languages and media (i.e., painting, sculpture, or film) at another. Even our current preference for “literal” over “allegorical” interpretations in Homer is part of the reception history of the poem. Although once taken as real explanations of cosmic origins, the variations on celestial myths that turn-of-the-century scholars purported to find behind virtually all ancient narratives might themselves be better seen as allegories of the scholars’ own historicizing age. Russo relates just such an explanation (HWH 3.82 [on XIX. 149–50]), by Van Leeuwen (1917), in which Penélopê represents the moon, the repeatedly woven and unwoven shroud the moon as it waxes and wanes, and the returning hero Odysseus the sun. Like more traditional allegories, such “symbolic” or mythological interpretations are not subject to proof or disproof: they are matters of belief.

183–87
And now:
We realize that Penélopê has told rather more than is necessary to support her ostensible point—that Odysseus’ absence causes her continuing grief and pain (see 147–53). She has also managed to convey that she is virtually bound to remarry in the near future and that all her official suitors are hateful to her. While the first point is of course part of Homer’s general strategy of increasing the narrative tension, the second may suggest that Penélopê, who clearly finds this traveler wise and infinitely more to her liking than the suitors, is thinking that it might be good if he entered the competition. This may even be unconscious; in any event, Penélopê would be most subtie in her formulations. Still, she is a prudent woman, and once again presses to learn the traveler’s identity (191–93).

195–239
This latest of Odysseus’ “Kretan” tales contradicts earlier versions in some details. For example, here he presents himself as Idómeneus’ son, whereas he had told the first person he met on Ithaka that he had killed Idómeneus’ son Orsílokhos (XIII.331–32). Of course, he need not fear being caught in a contradiction
since the lad to whom he told that story turned out to be Athena. The particular connection to the royal Kretan house he presents is an index of his rise. To Eumaios he made himself out to be a prominent Kretan raider who, like Idómeneus, led ships to Troy (XIV.230fT., esp. 273–79). Now he is no less a personage than Idómeneus’ younger brother, thereby Minos’ grandson and great-grandson of Zeus. Marriageable material indeed! He also finally gives his Kretan disguise a name, “Aithôn” (216), which means “bright” or perhaps “russet-colored” like a fox, so that (some have argued) it could mean “foxy.”

Odysseus has always tailored his stories to the situation: to the first person he met in an unknown place, he claimed to have murdered a prominent man—a healthy warning; to Eumaios he presented himself as resourceful and relatively unscrupulous, but utterly needy; now that he has more than a foot in the door, he presents himself to Penélopê as an aristocrat obviously fallen on hard times, in birth Penélopê’s and Odysseus’ equal.

217–39
Note that in this version the Kretan claims to have seen Odysseus on his way to Troy (221), in other words, some twenty years earlier (compare 264–65). Thus, as Penélopê hopes and expects (see XVII.689–92), if the traveler has intelligence of Odysseus’
recent
travels and whereabouts, he is not yet ready to deliver it. (For a possible rationale of Odysseus’ strategy here, see 256–304, below.)

235–36
that wind out of the north:
Boreas [200]. See XV.238, above.

248–52
Homer underscores the irony of this interview, in which Odysseus’ identity is doubled. We are not only to imagine Odysseus’ longing for Penélopê and his reactions to her weeping but to appreciate the mental discipline required to suppress them (see 164–82, above).

256–304
Penélopê asks for proof that her interlocutor is telling the truth: he must either produce some token or identify Odysseus’ companions. Odysseus has, of course, no problem providing such
information, and Penélopê is convinced. Perhaps now it is clear why Odysseus invented this meeting: had he, like other visitors, come out directly with a claim to know Odysseus’ present whereabouts, there would be no way for anyone to test it. Odysseus cleverly tells a plausible tale which he knows can be subjected to “proof,” and, indeed, he “proves” his report to Penélopê’s evident satisfaction. Having established his general credibility, the good rhetorician knows his subsequent claims are more likely to be believed. I write “proves” in quotation marks, because of course no one can really prove that a falsehood is true. The “Kretan” ’s tale, however plausible and credible, is a he. Yet Odysseus’ falsehoods mask a higher-level truth: the speaker knows details of Odysseus’ clothes and companions not because he hosted Odysseus but because he
is
Odysseus. Likewise, further along in the interview, his claim of Odysseus’ whereabouts is not really true, but it points to a more potent truth: Odysseus’ actual presence.

Later (sixth-century
B.C.E
.) Greek sophists might have been thinking of a similar situation when they formulated their characteristically paradoxical claim—that the more an artist deceives, the more accomplished he or she is; and at the same time, that a viewer or reader is wiser to the degree that she or he permits the deception to have its effect. Odysseus, particularly the Odysseus of the Kretan tales, possesses virtues like those that distinguish the good poet.