I thought I would just post a few musings/questions I wanted to ask about the weekend’s readings on the blog instead of taking up class time.
Book 11, line 235 on = Is it just by chance that the first of the illustrious ladies that Odysseus presents was a lover of Poseidon? I found it rather ironic; perhaps she was first because Odysseus knew that the Phaiakians were primarily sea-farers, thus close to Poseidon (thus giving the right story to get on the good side of Queen Arete)?
Book 11, the great warrior men (Agamemnon, Achilles) = I just want to clarify if the dead can recognize one another in death (i.e. without access to the blood to make them have sense). Could they recognize family members if they were dead in the vast expanse of Hades? I mean, in Dante’s Inferno (sorry to bring in the Afterlife class here, but I don’t know how else to describe it), some of the dead did not realize that their relatives were dead as well.
Also, do the dead wish to know of their sons/kin since their own sense of fame lives on in the deeds of their children? I know that in modern times, it is thought that if the children can surpass the deeds of their parents, this would be a moment of honoring the parents and can invoke a sense of pride. Was this also the case for people in the Greek tradition?
Book 12, lines 362-3 = since Odysseus’s foolish men killed the cattle of Helios and there was no wine left to make the sacrifice/pour the libation and they used water; is this a symbol/indication/sign of their future suffering/bad luck? Just water does not seem sufficient after all the pomp we saw Odysseus had to do to supplicate the dead (wine was second on the list, whereas water was the last) Is this a sign from Homer that his audience would understand as a sign of deficiency (like how Patroklus couldn’t handle Achilles’s great ash spear in the Iliad = he couldn’t fill the role)?
And my favorite lines of the readings: Book 12, line 381-383 - “Unless these are made to give me just recompense for my cattle, I will go down to Hades’ and give my light to the dead men.”
I can just imagine the mass and utter chaos, so it’s a very serious threat and it reminds me of when Prometheus gave fire to the mortals and the Gods got uppity.
Sorry that this post was mainly a list of disjointed rambles…
Midori, what a wonderful collection of thoughts and observations!! Your favorite = my favorite, too! I suspect your suspicions about the chaos that would ensue are right on target.
Yes, the sacrifice of the cattle of Helios IS insufficient in terms of doing the acts properly; their reverence has been consumed by hunger. Notice also that once again Eurylochos is the voice of weakness.
I know that in modern times, it is thought that if the children can surpass the deeds of their parents, this would be a moment of honoring the parents and can invoke a sense of pride.
Remember Hector’s prayer for Astyanax from book 6 (I think) of the Iliad? That’s what I thought of immediately - praying that everyone who sees him would say that he’s greater by far than his father. I think I remember someone saying this to Telemachus, too (am I completely imagining that?) If so it’s a nice parallel, because in both cases the father is either about to die or presumed dead, but is still respected and so the wish that the son be even better means a lot.