Homer Odyssey 1.280

Table of Contents

Search the Perseus Catalog for:

View: By Book
← Previous Next →

Odyssey. Homer. Boston. 1873.

Current edition Experimental

English (William Cullen Bryant, 1873) (OCR draft) (English) (English (William Cullen Bryant, 1873))

Provisional text from uncorrected OCR; expect errors.

Editions (1)
Ὀδύσσεια Perseus (Homer. The Odyssey, Volume 1-2. Murray, A. T. (Augustus Taber), editor. London: William Heinmann; New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1919.) — 1.325 focus
Translations (8)
Odyssey Perseus (Homer. The Odyssey, Volume 1-2. Murray, A. T. (Augustus Taber), translator. London: William Heinmann; New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1919.) — 1.280 focus
Odyssey Perseus (Homer. The Odyssey: rendered into English prose for the use of those who cannot read the original. Butler, Samuel, 1835-1902, translator. Revised by Timothy Power and Gregory Nagy. London: A.C. Fifield, 1900.) — 1.314 focus
English (Butler, rev. Nagy et al., 2020) (OCR draft) Experimental (English (Butler, rev. Nagy et al., 2020)) — 1.280 focus
to take the best ship you can get, with a crew of twenty men, and go in quest of your father who has so long been missing. Some one may tell you something, or (and people often hear things in this way) some message [ kleos] sent from the gods may direct you. First you go to Pylos and ask radiant Nestor; [285] and then from there to Sparta and to golden-haired Menelaos, the one who was the last of the Achaeans, wearers of bronze tunics, to come back home; if you hear that your father is alive and about to achieve his homecoming [ nostos], you can put up with the waste these suitors will make for yet another twelve months. If on the other hand you hear of his death, [290] come home at once, celebrate his funeral rites with all due pomp, build a grave marker [ sēma] to his memory, and make your mother marry again. Then, having done all this, think it well over in your mind how, by fair means or foul, [295] you may kill these suitors in your own house. You are too old to plead infancy any longer; have you not heard how people are singing Orestes’ praises [ kleos] for having killed [300] his father’s murderer treacherous Aegisthus? You are a fine, smart looking young man; show your mettle, then, and make yourself a name in story. Now, however, I must go back to my ship and to my crew, who will be impatient if I keep them waiting longer; [305] think the matter over for yourself, and remember what I have said to you.”
English (Alexander Pope, 1726, ed. Watson, 1858) (OCR draft) Experimental (English (Alexander Pope, 1726, ed. Watson, 1858)) — 1.280 focus
'Instant, to foreign realms prepare to sail,
365
'To learn your father's fortunes: Fame may prove,
'Or omen'd voice, (the messenger of Jove,)
'Propitious to the search. Direct your toil
'Through the wide ocean first to sandy Pyle;
'Of Nestor, hoary sage, his doom demand :
370
'Thence speed your voyage to the Spartan strand;
'For young Atrides 1 to th' Achaian coast
'Arriv'd the last of all the victor host:
'If yet Ulysses views the light, forbear,
'Till the fleet hours restore the circling year.
375
'But if his soul hath wing'd the destin'd flight,
'Inhabitant of deep disastrous night;
'Homeward with pious speed repass the main,
'To the pale shade funereal rites ordain,
'Plant the fair column o'er the vacant grave,
380
'A hero's honours let the hero have.
'With decent grief the royal dead deplor'd,
'For the chaste queen select an equal lord.
'Then let revenge ycur daring mind employ,
'By fraud or force the suitor-train destroy,
385
'And, starting into manhood, scorn the boy.
English (Thomas Hobbes, 1667, ed. Molesworth 1843) (OCR draft) Experimental (English (Thomas Hobbes, 1667, ed. Molesworth 1843)) — 1.280 focus
English (George Chapman, 1667, ed. Hooper 1857) (OCR draft) Experimental (English (George Chapman, 1667, ed. Hooper 1857)) — 1.280 focus
English (William Cowper, 1791, ed. Southey) (OCR draft) Experimental (English (William Cowper, 1791, ed. Southey)) — 1.280 focus
English (H. B. Cotterill, 1911) (OCR draft) Experimental (English (H. B. Cotterill, 1911)) — 1 focus

New Alexandria Commentaries

Gregory Nagy

The comments I offer on Odyssey Rhapsody 1 through Rhapsody 24, starting here with Rhapsody 1, were based mostly on details that derive from seven books that I indicate in the Bibliography by way of these abbreviations: BA, GMP, H24H, HC, HPC, HQ, HR, MoM, PasP, PH. Each one of these books has its own index locorum. My colleague Anita Nikkanen, an Associate Editor for this online project, tracked the sequences of Homeric verses as listed in the indices for six of these books and then summarized my comments on those verses. Following up on her meticulous work, I am in the process of converting her summaries into a form of commentary. My comments on the Odyssey as I presented them in Classical Inquiries are merely samplings of the content that I hope to contribute to the overall commentary, to which a number of other colleagues are also contributing their own comments. That said, I now proceed to offer a sampling of comments on Rhapsody 1. At this point, my comments about the beginning of the Odyssey need no further introduction of their own.

draft js image errorZeus, Athena, and Hermes (1810). Drawing by John Flaxman. Image via Wikimedia Commons.

source

Telemachus argues with his mother, defending the song that is sung by the singer Phemios about misfortunes experienced by heroes in the course of seeking a successful homecoming. There is a pleasure in the hearing of such a song, Telemachus says at O.01.346–347. Evidently, he does not yet understand the personal involvement of Penelope in the story of such homecoming—or of course his own involvement—because he does not yet understand that the ultimate character in the ultimate story of homecoming will be Odysseus himself. Telemachus speaks positively about the reception of the song of homecoming as sung by the singer Phemios. He says that the audience gives glory to the song, and the verb that is used in his wording is epi-kleiein at O.01.351, which I translate as ‘turn [deeds] into glory [kleos] and pass it on’. I render the epi- of epi-kleiein here as ‘and pass it on’, in the sense that epi- conveys the idea of ‘in addition to, on top of’, supplementing -kleiein in the sense of ‘turn [deeds] into glory [kleos]’. The wording of Telemachus is justifiable to the extent that the glory of heroes and gods as produced by the singer produces also glory for the song itself as received by the audience. That is to say, this verb epi-kleiein ‘turn [deeds] into glory [kleos] and pass it on’ is reciprocal: there is not only the giving of glory by the audience to the song sung by the singer but there is also the giving of glory by the singer to the song that he sings. Thus it is justifiable for Telemachus to say that the greatest glory goes to the aoidē ‘song‘, O.01.351, that is neōtatē ‘newest’, O.01.352, since the glory to be transmitted must be the latest glory to be received. The reception by the most recent audience must be decisively successful. What Telemachus does not yet understand, however, is that the most recent audience for an ongoing song of homecoming will be not the suitors but the ultimate audience of the Odyssey. The audience of the Odyssey will be the definitive audience for the reception of this ongoing song of homecoming. And, for that ultimate audience of the Odyssey, the ultimate hero of the song of homecoming will be Odysseus himself.

source

Here we see for the first time the leader of the suitors. His name, Anti-noos, is antithetical to the identity of Odysseus as an exponent of nóos ‘mind’, which stands for that hero’s special way of thinking in the Odyssey. On the nóos of Odysseus, see already the comment on O.01.003.

source
Leonard Muellner

analysis of the meaning of epidōsometh’ in I.10.463 and its variant reading epibōsometh’

source