112 pages • 3 hours read
Homer, Transl. Emily WilsonThe Odyssey
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Symbols & Motifs
Returning
Narratives of returning (nostos in ancient Greek) are a recurring motif in the Odyssey that affirm the centrality of home and family in mortal identity. Odysseus’s homecoming is the central and most important return, but those of Telemachus, Nestor, Menelaus, and Agamemnon also feature, either complementing or contrasting with Odysseus’s.
Athena prompts Telemachus to visit Nestor and Menelaus to find news of his father, but the underlying purpose of his trip is to gain experience and confidence by undertaking a challenge and overcoming it. These are means of acquiring glory and becoming immortalized in poetic song. During his journey, Telemachus learns, with Athena’s guidance, to speak with more confidence and survive danger. The poem’s first four books have been called the Telemachy for this reason: Their subject is Telemachus’s maturation process, exemplified by his ability both to leave and successfully return to Ithaca, a mini “Odyssey.”
During his visits to Pylos and Sparta, Telemachus hears the return narratives of Nestor and Menelaus. Nestor’s return from Troy was the most trouble-free, perhaps representative of his function as wise elder, both in the Iliad and the Odyssey. Menelaus’s return more closely resembled Odysseus’s, though it is shorter and less fraught. Both are blown off course, receive help from goddesses, and are instructed to consult with a prophet. Where Odysseus has to save himself and his crewmen by hiding under Polyphemus’s rams and goats, Menelaus has to hide under a seal’s hide to capture Proteus. Menelaus’s journey includes obstacles, but their threat level is considerably lower. Agamemnon’s return serves as a cautionary tale. His rash assumption that his wife and slaves would be happy to see him proves disastrous.
Lotus Eaters and Sirens
To achieve his return home, Odysseus must resist the temptation to forget that he wants to return home. The Lotus Eaters and the Sirens represent this temptation in different ways.
After leaving Troy, Odysseus and his crew’s second stop is the island where the Lotus Eaters live. They are humans who have no desire to hurt Odysseus and his men, but “their sweet delicious fruit” causes anyone who eats it to forget “the will to come back” (243). The crewmen who eat the fruit forget home completely and have to be forcibly carried back to their ships. The Lotus Eaters represent the temptation that travelers may feel to stay in a beautiful, enticing new place, forgetting where they come from and who they are.
Advising Odysseus on his journey from Aeaea to Ithaca, Circe warns him about the Sirens, who “bewitch / all passerby” with their songs (302). Any man who hears them “will never travel to his home, / and never make his wife and children happy / to have him back with them again” (302). Circe tells him of the rotting corpses of men who succumbed to temptation. If he wants to hear their songs, she advises him to have his crew members plug their ears with wax and tie him securely to the mast. The songs that tempt Odysseus promise him knowledge and wisdom because they “know / whatever happens anywhere on earth” (307). The Sirens represent the temptation to travel endlessly, to continue gathering new experiences and knowledge, sacrificing home and identity in the process.
Cyclops and Laestrygonians
The Cyclops and the Laestrygonians represent the danger travelers face when they encounter people who do not share the same beliefs and traditions. The Laestrygonian episode recounted in Book 10 is relatively brief. Odysseus’s scouts encounter a young girl who takes them to her parents. They turn out to be giants who treat the comparably tiny crew members as appetizers, spearing them in the harbor as they try to flee. Only Odysseus’s ship, which he had moored outside the harbor, escapes. The episode with the Cyclops receives more extended treatment. Telling his story to the Phaeacians, Odysseus lingers on the details of how he engineered his crew’s escape but also provoked Poseidon’s rage.
Though Odysseus depicts the Cyclops as wild and uncivilized, Polyphemus is a god’s son who is supported by his father and cannot be dismissed as a villain. The same can be said of the Laestrygonians. Though devastating for the victims and survivors, the Laestrygonians’s behavior is not necessarily depicted as malicious, even with Odysseus narrating the story. The Cyclops and the Laestrygonians suggest that people with different customs may turn out to be dangerous or harmful, whether or not their intentions are malicious.
Scylla and Charybdis
To return to Ithaca, Odysseus and his men have to pass through a corridor with two threats: On one side is Scylla, a six-headed monster who devours passing sailors, and on the other is Charybdis, a monster who inhales passing ships in a whirlpool effect. With no good options, Odysseus must choose the least bad one, which is Scylla. As Circe tells him, passing Scylla will cost six men, but attempting to pass Charybdis will cost the entire ship. Scylla and Charybdis represent the unavoidability of suffering as well as the options humans have to mitigate their suffering.
Odysseus and Penelope’s Bed
Penelope and Odysseus’s bed has a unique feature: Odysseus built it himself using a living tree for one of its posts. This feature is also a secret between the couple. The only other person who knew was a slave of Penelope’s called Actoris, who, it is implied, has since died. This secret becomes the means through which Penelope confirms Odysseus’s identity. When he expresses outrage that she would move the bed, it is because he knows that doing so would require cutting down the tree. Penelope did not take apart the bed or cut down the tree. The bed as a living object symbolizes the enduring quality of Odysseus and Penelope’s union.
