The Odyssey Page 0,8

Dante’s Commedia to The Wizard of Oz to the revealingly titled 2001: A Space Odyssey.

The tale suggests the upper and lower bounds of (particularly masculine) behavior when Odysseus carries human custom into the semidivine worlds of the Phaeacians and the Cyclopes, whose common descent from Poseidon emphasizes their equal but opposite distance from normal reality. The victory Odysseus wins over the much larger, much stronger herdsman Polyphemus reflects the widespread belief of ancient agricultural societies that tilling the land marked the boundary between the civilized and the savage, superior and inferior. Indeed, the work constructs Cyclopean “society” in contrast with human society as utterly lacking not only farming, but any governmental or communal structures, any unit larger than the family. The Cyclopes see only half so well as humans, who live in social union with each other; hence, the single eye proves the downfall of Polyphemus. That Odysseus overcomes the giant largely by the use of words, whose meaning comes from a shared act of communication between people using a system communally inherited rather than individually created—that is, a language—further attests to the power of shared culture against the mere brute force of the mountainous Cyclopes, who defy even the gods. (Of course, the suitors, who show little respect for custom or for the council of elders that represents government on the island of Ithaca in the absence of its king, demonstrate the human capacity for monstrosity when men’s eyes close to social responsibility.)

More tellingly, the episode ultimately reveals a fissure within the values set forth in the Telemachy. Despite his triumph, Odysseus cannot stand to remain a “Noman” to Polyphemus and reveals to the monster his true identity and lineage—in modern terms, practically giving away his home address, phone number, and ATM code. This act not only nearly allows the blinded Polyphemus to capsize the hero’s ship by hurling boulders toward the sound of his voice, but directs the curse of Poseidon onto Odysseus as the self-confessed culprit in the maiming of the sea god’s descendant. Thus, in his zeal to affirm his heroic identity, the very deed that seems to promise Telemachus a way to cure his land’s disorder, Odysseus courts discord. He doubly endangers his crew by asserting himself at the expense of their safety from Polyphemus and Poseidon, reversing the relation of individual to communal needs that had seemed to be integral to his victory over the Cyclops. Examined in this distant mirror, a contradiction that is suppressed when Homer looks directly at his culture emerges: The hero’s responsibility to demonstrate his greatness ill-suits the role of hierarchical leader for which his heroism is supposed to guarantee he is fit.

If, in his barbaric individualism, Polyphemus disguises what is finally a very human face behind a mask of monstrosity, then his cousins the Phaeacians conceal a virtual divinity in what seem to be merely human features. Sympathetic and generous, they accept the wrath of their father, Poseidon, to land the stranger Odysseus safely on Ithaca, first enriching him with greater treasure than he had obtained in the sack of Troy and lost in the wreck of his last ship before he washed up on Ogygia, the island of Calypso. The values of the Phaeacians’ orderly, productive realm quietly challenge those even of the kingdoms Telemachus has visited on the Greek mainland, the epic’s prior images of well-regulated society, throwing into question the whole heroic ethos of connecting masculine worth to military leadership. When the son of Alcinouäs goads Odysseus into showing his athletic prowess, he offers, in effect, to lick any man in the house. But his host gently reminds him of that house’s different nature: “We are not faultless boxers, no, nor wrestlers; but in the foot-race we run swiftly, and in our ships excel. Dear to us ever is the feast, the harp, the dance, changes of clothes, warm baths, and bed” (p. 94). Rivalry without violence, bravery without warfare, peace without conquest: The paradise of Scheria may lie beyond human capacity, just as Poseidon finally removes the land itself from human access, but the achievements of the Grecian kings still diminish in its distant light.

Through the figure of Arete, the Phaeacian Queen, the episode particularly reconsiders the traditions into which the Telemachy initiates the youthful son of Odysseus. While Telemachus must turn from his mother to prove his maturity, Athene advises Odysseus to humble himself before the Phaeacian woman, whose status so differs from anything known in the Grecian world: “For of sound judgment,