gods, a will that no mortal man can hope to oppose. Th e war,
however, ends with a spark of willful human improvisation—
the defeat of the Trojans by the cunning device of the Trojan
horse, the brainchild of Odysseus himself. Homer continues
to off er moral lessons by relating the character and motiva-
tions of his hero to their eventual outcomes. Th e patience and
mental cunning of Odysseus eventually enable him to return
home and reclaim his throne in the face of adversity from
both men and gods. But in the end it could be argued that this
homecoming would not have been possible without the in-
tervention of the goddess Athena, his protectress, and Posei-
don, god of the sea, who for years throws Odysseus’s ship off
course until his own anger at the hero fi nally subsides.
Th e Odyssey explores all the major elements of what the
anthropologist Joseph Campbell calls the “hero’s journey.”
Homer’s poem begins with the search for Odysseus by his son
Telemachus, who refuses to believe that his father has been
killed in the war. Th e background is important. Odysseus’s
departure for Troy on the day his son is born is motivated by
the Greek sense of honor, the oath of loyalty sworn between
fellow Greek kings. Helen, the wife of the Greek king Mene-
laus, has been carried off by the Trojan prince Paris. Torn by
the confl ict between the code of honor and an equally strong
Greek love for his family, Odysseus sets sail with his com-
rades to conquer Troy and reclaim Menelaus’s wife, or so the
story goes. In fact, the Greeks had imperial ambitions toward
the rich trading city of Troy and longed to control its trade
routes and resources. In the story, however, Athena, goddess
of war and wisdom, visits Odysseus on board ship and tells
him that she “wants him to go” for the glory of the ages. Th e
war rages for 10 long years, as described in the Iliad. In the
Odyssey, the episode of the Trojan horse is recounted as a dis-
tant memory, but this episode brings an end to the war and
enables Odysseus to begin his journey home.
Th e hero’s journey back to Ithaca is plagued with diffi -
culties because of Poseidon’s anger at Odysseus. Soon aft er
leaving Troy, Odysseus’s ship washes ashore on the island of
the Cyclops Polyphemus, Poseidon’s son. Odysseus endures
many more dangers and confrontations with death in his at-
tempt to get back home. Washed ashore on an island ruled by
the witch Circe, he discovers that during their shore leave she
has turned his men into pigs, and he is forced to submit to her
terms (to have sex with her) in order to get his men back and
fi nd his way home. Later, Odysseus and his crew encounter
the Scylla, a multiheaded, cave-dwelling monster who kills
several of Odysseus’s men as they try to navigate through her
cave, at the far end of which lurks the Charybdis, a deadly
whirlpool that sucks all save Odysseus himself down to their
deaths. Left to his own devices, Odysseus is again blown off
course and comes upon the island of Calypso, a sea nymph
who seduces him and keeps him on her island for seven years,
until Hermes, the winged messenger of the gods, interceding
on behalf of Athena, arrives and insists that he be released.
Aft er further adventures, the dramatic denouement of
the story comes when the anger of Poseidon fi nally subsides
enough to allow Odysseus, war torn and beaten, to wash
ashore near Ithaca. He has an emotional reunion with his
son and a faithful slave of many years. Th ey tell him of the
intruders and their plans to take over his palace, but rather
than impulsively falling on the enemy, Odysseus characteris-
tically refl ects on his situation and contemplates his strategy.
Impressed with his patience and wisdom, Athena appears to
him and transforms him into an old beggar so that he may
move about his palace unrecognized, until such time as he
can safely resume his throne without being killed by the in-
truding suitors. Th e suitors have devised a plot to provoke
Telemachus into a fi ght so that one of them can kill him,
thereby removing any lingering bloodline to the throne. Od-
ysseus advises his son to be patient, saying that “to be an-
gry is easy.” Meanwhile Penelope, unaware that Odysseus is
alive and back, has prepared a test, under the advisement of
the slave who knows of Odysseus’s plan. Th e suitor who can
string the bow of Odysseus and shoot an arrow clean through
a series of rings will take his place as her new husband and
rightful king. When none of the suitors is able to accomplish
the task, the old beggar steps up, strings the bow, and fi res
the arrow straight through the rings, at which moment he is
transformed, before the eyes of all, back into the true king of
Ithaca.
Loyalty, bravery, courage, and honor; the heroic journey;
the love of family and comrades; persistence and the virtue of
patience; the ability to control one’s anger; the importance of
timing and rational contemplation; humility toward the gods;
the equation of happiness and a man’s world with his home,
his wife, and his family—these are some of the major themes
of Western literature established in their most complete and
powerful form in the works of Homer.HESIOD: WORKS AND DAYS AND THEOGONY
Homer’s near contemporary Hesiod (active ca. 700 b.c.e.), an-
other great Greek poet who wrote in hexameter verse, is con-
sidered to be the father of Greek didactic poetry (as opposed
to the epic poetry of Homer). Didactic poetry was so called
because it was intended to teach moral lessons or off er im-
portant instruction or factual information. Th e Th eogony, for
example, gives an account of the emergence of the universe
from chaos and a detailed genealogy of the gods, carrying
strong moral implications for humankind. Works and Days,
Hesiod’s other major work, however, is the more interesting
of the two, in part because it deals with a subject—farm-
ing—that had not been given any attention by Homer and in
part because it contains what little information we have on
Hesiod’s life. He was the son of an impoverished farmer who
went to sea to make a better living. Hesiod spent most of his
life farming in Boeotia, living in resentment of his brother,
who had apparently cheated him out of his share of the family
property. Hesiod’s personal experience would thus appear to
be a valuable background for understanding Works and Days,
which consists of a series of moral maxims and precepts on
farming.656 literature: Greece