“Somewhere along the Ionian coast opposite Crete and the islands was a town of some sort, probably of the sort that we should call a village or hamlet with a wall. It was called Ilium but it came to be called Troy, and the name will never perish from the earth. A poet who may have been a beggar and a ballad-monger, who may have been unable to read and write, and was described by tradition as blind, composed a poem about the Greeks going to war with this town to recover the most beautiful woman in the world. That the most beautiful woman in the world lived in that one little town sounds like a legend; that the most beautiful poem in the world was written by somebody who knew of nothing larger than such little towns is a historical fact…”
__________
Pulled from midway into Chesterton’s The Everlasting Man, about the book Alexander slept with under his pillow. Mark Van Doren: “Homer is a world; Virgil is a style.”
“The Odyssey is a homecoming. It’s what the Greeks called a nostos, which means a return home, and that word is very close to the Greek word for mind, nous. Both come from an Indo-European root, nos, which means a return from darkness to light. And that’s what Odysseus does, in both senses.
He is hidden, for seven years, on the island of Calypso, who is really enchanted with him. She doesn’t want to let him go. It’s a marvelous scene when she finally tells him, ‘Alright you can go, but do you really want to? You can stay here with me and be immortal and ageless all your days.’ What would you say to Calypso at that point?
Odysseus, always thinking — this is one of his epithets, polymetis, many, many thoughts — he’s always ready for any occasion, and this might be a difficult situation for him. If you’ve ever left someone who didn’t want you to leave… well, you know what I’m talking about. So he says this to her:
‘Goddess and mistress, don’t be angry with me.
I know very well that Penelope,
For all her virtues, would pale beside you.
She’s only human, and you are a goddess,
Eternally young. Still, I want to go back.
My heart aches for the day I return to my home.
If fate hits me hard as I sail the deep purple,
I’ll weather it like the sea-bitten veteran I am.
God knows I’ve suffered and had my share of sorrows
In war and at sea. I can take more if I have to.’
They make love that night for the last time, then he’s off on a raft on his struggle to return home.
He faces many adversities. He meets them all with a mind that is flexible, ready for any twist of fate. He can get out of seemingly any situation, no matter how difficult. It is by virtue of his truly incredible mind that he finally arrives back at Ithaca.”
__________
Stanley Lombardo, introducing a reading from his translation of Homer’s Odyssey, for my money the best version of my favorite story. Watch S.L.’s superb reading below:
Menelaus, the head of the table, overheard
And, speaking to both of them, had this to say…
“I would gladly live with a third of my wealth
To have those friends back who perished
Far from the bluegrass pastures of home. And yet,
Though I weep for each of them often in my halls,
Easing my heart, I do not grieve constantly —
A man can get too much of chill grief.
I miss them all, but there is one man I miss
More than all the others. When I think of him
I don’t want to sleep or eat, for no one
In the entire Greek army worked as hard
As Odysseus, and all he ever got for it
Was pain and sorrow, and I cannot forget
My sorrow for him. He has been gone so long,
And we do not know whether he is alive or dead…
I used to think that if he came back
I would give him a welcome no other Greek
Could ever hope to have — if heaven
Had brought us both home from over the sea
In our swift ships. I would have given him
A city of his own in Argos, built him a house,
Brought him over from Ithaca with his goods,
His son and all of his people — a whole city
Cleared out just for him! We would have been together,
Enjoying each other’s company, and nothing
Would have parted us until death’s black cloud
Finally enfolded us. But I suppose fate itself
Begrudged us this, for Odysseus alone,
That unlucky man, was never brought home.”
His words aroused in all of them
A longing for lamentation. Argive Helen,
A child of nobles, wept; Telemachus wept;
And Menelaus wept, the son of Atreus.
Nor could Nestor’s son keep his eyes dry,
For he remembered Antilochus,
His flawless brother, who had been killed
By Memnon, Dawn’s resplendent son,
And this memory gave wings to his words:
“Son of Atreus, old Nestor used to say,
Whenever we talked about things like this,
That no one could match your understanding.
So please understand me when I say
That I do not enjoy weeping after supper—
And it will be dawn before we know it.
Not that I think it’s wrong to lament the dead.
This is all we can do — cut our hair
And shed some tears. I lost someone myself
At Troy, my brother, not the least hero there.
You probably knew him. I am too young
Ever to have seen him, but men say Antilochus
Could run and fight as well as any man alive.”
And Menalaus, the king:
“No one could have put that better, my friend,
Not even someone much older. Your speech,
wise and clear, shows the sort of father you have.
It’s easy to spot a man for whom heaven
Has spun out happiness in marriage and children,
As he has done for Nestor throughout his life.
And now he has reached a sleek old age in his halls
And his children are good and fight with the best
So we will stop this weeping, and once more
Think of supper.
‘You’re a hard man, Odysseus, stronger
Than other men, and you never wear out,
A real-iron man.’ […]
Then Odysseus
Stood up and placed a two-handled cup
In Arete’s hands, and his words rose on wings:
“Be well, my queen, all of your days, until age
And death come to you, as they come to all.
I am leaving now. But you, Lady — enjoy this house,
Your children, your people, and Lord Alcinous.”
And godlike Odysseus stepped over the threshold.
Alcinous sent a herald along
To guide him to the shore and the swift ship there,
And Arete sent serving women with him,
One carrying a cloak and laundered shirt,
And another to bring the strong sea-chest.
A third brought along bread and red wine.
They came down to the sea, and the ship’s crew
Stowed all these things away in the hold,
The food and drink, too. Then they spread out
A rug and a linen sheet on the stern deck
For Odysseus to sleep upon undisturbed.
He climbed on board and lay down in silence
While they took their places upon the benches
And untied the cable from the anchor stone.
As soon as they dipped their oars in the sea,
A deep sleep fell on his eyelids, a sleep
Sound, and sweet, and very much like death.
And as four yoked stallions spring all together Beneath the lash, leaping high, And then eat up the dusty road on the plain,
So lifted the keel of that ship, and in her wake
An indigo wave hissed and roiled
As she ran straight ahead. Not even a falcon,
Lord of the skies, could have matched her pace,
So light her course as she cut through the waves,
Bearing a man with a mind like god’s,
A man who had suffered deep in his heart,
Enduring men’s wars and the bitter sea —
But now he slept, his sorrows forgotten.
__________
Odysseus’s departure from the island of Scheria in books 12 and 13 of Homer’s Odyssey(Lombardo translation).
Read on:
The unbeatable opening words that set off The Odyssey
“Glaucus, you know how you and I
Have the best of everything in Lycia —
Seats, cuts of meat, full cups, everybody
Looking at us as if we were gods?
Not to mention our estates on the Xanthus,
Fine orchards and riverside wheat fields.
Well, now we have to take our stand at the front,
Where all the best fight, and face the heat of battle,
So that many an armored Lycian will say,
‘So they’re not inglorious after all,
Our Lycian lords who eat fat sheep
And drink the sweetest wine. No,
They’re strong, and fight with our best.’
Ah, my friend, if you and I could only
Get out of the war alive and then
Be immortal and ageless all of our days.
I would never again fight among the foremost
Or send you into battle where men win glory.
But as it is, death is everywhere
In more shapes that we can count,
And since no mortal is immune or can escape,
Let’s go forward, either to give glory
To another man or get glory from him.”
__________
Sarpedon speaking to Glaucus during the height of the Trojan War. Lines 320-342 in book 12 of Homer’s Iliad (Lombardo translation).
The wealthy, the heads of government fighting at the front lines. What a concept.
“Banquets of like-minded friends were called symposia. (The singular, symposium—the Greek original is symposion—means ‘a drinking together,’ that is, a drinking party.)…
There was plenty of tension in Greek life, since the Greeks, however many parties they threw, became as time went on even more bellicose than they had been in Homer’s day. These symposia may have been, as much as anything, occasions to release the pent-up anxieties of a society always at war—’the father of all, the king of all,’ ‘always existing by nature,’ as the Greek philosophers expressed it. Enough wine and one could forget about the war of the moment or, if not forget, reduce its importance at least temporarily. Thus this ditty attributed to Theognis, an early-sixth-century songwriter of airy facility who believed in good breeding, great parties, and lively romance, the Cole Porter of ancient Greece:
Strike the sacred strings and let us drink,
and so disport ourselves ’mid sounding reeds
that our libations gratify the gods—
and who gives a shit about war with the Medes
But as tends to be the case when drunkenness substitutes for thoughtfulness, the hilarity often ended badly… There’s sadness beneath the merriment. It is as if, no matter how much these revelers sing, dance, howl, recite their jokes, and screw one another, a constant, authoritative note of pessimistic pain sounds beyond all their frantic attempts not to hear it. Even Archilochus, a sensational athlete in his time and a master of the revels if ever there was one, cannot deny that none of these nighttime activities makes good sense. In his most thoughtful lines, he seems to remove the mask, denuding himself of his gruff and rollicking persona, and to counsel himself in the clear light of day not to excess but to sobriety—to balance, modesty, and even resignation:
O heart, my heart, no public leaping when you win;
no solitude nor weeping when you fail to prove.
Rejoice at simple things; and be but vexed by sin
and evil slightly. Know the tides through which we move.
The last sentence is quietly ominous. The tides through which we move—the highs and the lows, the peaks and the troughs—tell us repeatedly that nothing lasts… Let us temper our excitement and agitation, whether for the ecstasy of battle or the ecstasy of sex, whether over great achievement or great loss, and admit to ourselves that all things have their moment… If we live according to this sober knowledge, we will live as well as we can.”
I wrote some comments about the above bust of Archilochus in a post yesterday. Check it out, as well as the sources (brought to my attention by Ted Rey) of the lines from Archilochus cited above.
SPEAK, MEMORY—
Of the cunning hero, The wanderer, blown off course time and again After he plundered Troy’s sacred heights.
Speak
Of all the cities he saw, the minds he grasped,
The suffering deep in his heart at sea
As he struggled to survive and bring his men home
But could not save them, hard as he tried—
The fools—destroyed by their own recklessness
When they ate the cattle of Hyperion the Sun,
And that god snuffed out their day of return.
Of all these things
Speak, Immortal One,
And tell the tale once more in our time.
By now, all the others who had fought at Troy—
At least those who had survived the war and the sea—
Were safely back home. Only Odysseus
Still longed to return to his home and his wife.
These lines were composed in the 8th century BCE. Other than the Iliad, the work which these words set off is the oldest extant work of Western literature.
As a reminder to those who’ve forgotten their 10th grade English curriculum, the Iliad is the story of the final few weeks of the Trojan War. The Odyssey is the decade-long tale of its hero, Odysseus, as he returns home to his wife and son in Ithaca, where he is king. Odysseus is noted for his brilliance, perseverance, and cunning; he devised the Trojan horse, the winning ruse which, after ten years of warfare, led the Greeks to “plunder Troy’s sacred heights”.
The larger narrative of the Iliad and Odyssey is an immortal one, vibrating with harsh and immediate lessons for our own age. Philosophically, it relates the pitfalls of pride, the capriciousness of fate, the pulls of romantic love, and the truth of Oscar Wilde’s great dictum to be careful what you wish for — you may get it. On a practical level, however, it tells of war’s horrors and pities, its moments for heroism and glory, and the fact that, oftentimes, the settling of the dust marks only half the battle, because it’s the return home that often proves most perilous. It was true in the day of Patroclus, and true in the age of PTSD. As Chris Hedges noted, in his New York Timesreview of the Lombardo translation, “every recruit headed into war would be well advised to read the Iliad, just as every soldier returning home would be served by reading the Odyssey.”
Some brief notes about SPEAK MEMORY:
The opening words are essential. Homer’s poems would not have been codified on tablets or parchment; instead they were orated to an audience and set to some form of rhythmic music, such as the slow beat of a griot’s drum. For this reason, it’s important to try to hear his words spoken, either by yourself or by a performer such as Stanley Lombardo, who penned the above translation and reads them in the video below.
“Speak Memory” is also crucial because although we don’t know whether Homer was an actual person, folklore tells us that he was real and that he was also blind. So the “memory” part was something he would have only been able to express through his tongue. What’s more, like Shakespeare, he may never have existed; like Milton, he may never have actually seen the works over which we now pore.
Third, “Speak Memory” is notable because it is also the title of Vladimir Nabokov’s memoir. In a strong field, one of the most compelling titles I know of for an autobiography.
Watch Lombardo perform this portion of the Odyssey, as well as an extended discussion about the work, here:
“When we say that we love a writer’s work, we are always stretching the truth: what we really mean is that we love about half of it. Sometimes rather more than half, sometimes rather less. The vast presence of Joyce relies pretty well entirely on ‘Ulysses,’ with a little help from ‘Dubliners.’ You could jettison Kafka’s three attempts at full-length fiction (unfinished by him, and unfinished by us) without muffling the impact of his seismic originality. George Eliot gave us one readable book, which turned out to be the central Anglophone novel. Every page of Dickens contains a paragraph to warm to and a paragraph to veer back from. Coleridge wrote a total of two major poems (and collaborated on a third). Milton consists of ‘Paradise Lost.’ Even my favorite writer, William Shakespeare, who usually eludes all mortal limitations, succumbs to this law. Run your eye down the contents page and feel the slackness of your urge to reread the comedies (‘As You Like It’ is not as we like it); and who would voluntarily curl up with ‘King John’ or ‘Henry VI, Part III’?
Proustians will claim that ‘In Search of Lost Time’ is unimprovable throughout, despite all the agonizing longueurs. And Janeites will never admit that three of the six novels are comparative weaklings (I mean ‘Sense and Sensibility,’ ‘Mansfield Park,’ and ‘Persuasion’). Perhaps the only true exceptions to the fifty-fifty model are Homer and Harper Lee. Our subject, here, is literary evaluation, so of course everything I say is mere opinion, unverifiable and also unfalsifiable, which makes the ground shakier still. But I stubbornly suspect that only the cultist, or the academic, is capable of swallowing an author whole. Writers are peculiar, readers are particular: it is just the way we are. One helplessly reaches for Kant’s dictum about the crooked timber of humanity, or for John Updike’s suggestion to the effect that we are all of us ‘mixed blessings.’ Unlike the heroes and heroines of ‘Northanger Abbey,’ ‘Pride and Prejudice,’ and ‘Emma,’ readers and writers are not expressly designed to be perfect for each other.”
__________
Martin Amis’s brilliantly clever introduction to his review of Don DeLillo in The New Yorker.
“Somewhere along the Ionian coast opposite Crete and the islands was a town of some sort, probably of the sort that we should call a village or hamlet with a wall. It was called Ilium but it came to be called Troy, and the name will never perish from the earth. A poet who may have been a beggar and a ballad-monger, who may have been unable to read and write, and was described by tradition as blind, composed a poem about the Greeks going to war with this town to recover the most beautiful woman in the world. That the most beautiful woman in the world lived in that one little town sounds like a legend; that the most beautiful poem in the world was written by somebody who knew of nothing larger than such little towns is a historical fact…”
