marital bedroom which Odysseus himself made immovable around the stock of a mighty olive. 'They then
gladly went together to bed, and their old ritual' (23. 296). The poem ends at the farm of Laertes,
Odysseus' father, in the Ithacan countryside near by.
The first word of the Odyssey is andra, 'the man', and that man is far more directly the core of the poem
than 'the wrath of Achilles' is of the Iliad. The first four books, the 'Telemachy', is the only substantial part
in which Odysseus is not involved; and even that is very clear preparation for him. Telemachus finds out
the nature of a properly civilized society, the sort worthy of that great friend and fellow fighter of Nestor
and Menelaus, Odysseus.
Odysseus left Troy a great hero. We hear from Demodocus of his finest hour at the sack. But as his travels
go on he loses his treasure and his companions. To escape the Cyclops he even toys with losing his name.
As part of his plot to escape he gives his name as 'Noman'. Once at sea Odysseus cannot resist revealing
his real name. Though this gives the Cyclops a name to curse, it also salvages Odysseus' heroic identity.
But after many years of slothful obscurity with Calypso (whose name is close to the Greek word for to
'conceal') what is there left of the celebrated Odysseus? On his journey to Phaeacia he loses even his
clothes. He has no possessions at all, and to approach Nausicaa he has to hold a branch in front of his
nakedness. Only his wits are left to him, and these he puts to good use.
It is not until he has proved himself in Phaeacia that he is ready to proclaim himself. Despite the urgent
curiosity of his hosts, the moment is held back until Book 9 (19-28):
I am Odysseus son of Laertes, known before all men
for the study of crafty designs, and my fame goes up to the heavens.
I am at home in sunny Ithaca ...
a rugged place, but a good nurse of men; for my part
I cannot think of any place sweeter to look at.To win on Ithaca he has to disguise himself and reveal his identity to as few as possible. But when the
vital moment comes, there is no need for Odysseus to declare his name, and he identifies himself with
great dramatic understatement:
You dogs, you never thought I would any more come back
from the land of Troy, and because of that you despoiled my household ...(22.35 ff.)
The Odyssey is not, then, only a journey of physical endurance for Odysseus; the survival of his heroic
stature and his reputation are put to the test. He has to come back from the very verges of civilization and
of humanity; and to do so he has to show patience as well as cunning. He must never give himself away
until he is sure of the other party; and so again and again there are scenes of testing-Odysseus even tests
his old father after the danger is past. He always keeps his guard up. The only time it fails is when his
wife out-tests him with the secret of the construction of their bed: Penelope shows herself-worthy of