citation of Zeus’ characterization of Odysseus’ preeminent quality, nóos

analysis of Odysseus’ role and function in the Odyssey as expressed by Zeus. His destiny is to “return home,” an idea expressed by the word nóstos – a nominal derivative of néomai

Athena announces here her plan to visit Telemachus in order to ‘arouse’ him and ‘put spirit in his mind’. These two expressions mean the same thing. When Athena carries out her plan she disguises herself, in Book 1, as Mentes, a foreign trader, and then, in Books 2 and 3, as Mentor, an old man of Ithaca, and both these names mean the same thing, ‘he who arouses, he who stirs up’. The noun menos, ‘spirit’, in Od. 1.89 contains the same verbal root men- as the names Mentēs and Mentōr, and the occurrence of the noun in Athena’s speech anticipates her two disguises. For the meaning of the name Mentōr, particularly in relation to the name Nestōr, see the essay “Nestor’s Name”. As ‘he who stirs up’ the name Mentōr implies an active verb menō, ‘stir up’, which does not occur in Greek. The active verb with the meaning ‘stir up’ is epotrunō, which is what occurs in Athena’s speech. To make the verbal connection with the names Mentēs and Mentōr the verb epotrunō is glossed in Athena’s speech by the phrase with menos. For more on the verb (ep)otrunō in relation to the name Mentōr*, see Frame 2009:25n37.

Frame, Douglas, 2009. Hippota Nestor. Cambridge, 2009

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.

Zeus, Athena, and Hermes (1810). Drawing by John Flaxman. Image via Wikimedia Commons.

(What follows is epitomized from H24H 9§17.) At a council of the gods, the goddess Athena declares her intention to go to Ithaca to become a mentor to the young hero Telemachus, O.01.088–089. Descending from Olympus and landing in Ithaca, the goddess assumes the human form of a fatherly hero named Méntēs, O.01.105, who proceeds to give wise advice to the young hero. In a subsequent intervention, O.02.268, the goddess will assume the human form of another fatherly hero, named Méntōr, and, as in the present intervention, this other father-substitute will likewise proceed to give wise advice to the young hero. These two names Méntēs and Méntōr are both related to the noun menos, which I translate as ‘mental power’. This word, as we can see here at O.01.089, refers to the heroic ‘power’ that the goddess Athena says she will put into Telemachus. The noun menos, usually translated as ‘power’ or ‘strength’, is derived from the verb-root mnē-, meaning ‘mentally connect’ (details in GMP 113). Likewise derived from this verb-root are the agent nouns Méntēs and Méntōr, which both mean ‘he who connects mentally’. When a divinity connects a hero to his heroic mentality, the hero will have menos, that is, ‘power’ or ‘strength’. To have heroic power or strength, you have to have a heroic mentality. See further the comment on O.01.320–322.

|88 αὐτὰρ ἐγὼν Ἰθάκηνδε ἐλεύσομαι, ὄφρα οἱ υἱὸν |89 μᾶλλον ἐποτρύνω καί οἱ μένος ἐν φρεσὶ θείω, |90 εἰς ἀγορὴν καλέσαντα κάρη κομόωντας Ἀχαιοὺς |91 πᾶσι μνηστήρεσσιν ἀπειπέμεν, οἵ τέ οἱ αἰεὶ |92 μῆλ’ ἁδινὰ σφάζουσι καὶ εἰλίποδας ἕλικας βοῦς. |93 πέμψω δ’ ἐς Σπάρτην τε καὶ ἐς Πύλον ἠμαθόεντα |94 νόστον πευσόμενον πατρὸς φίλου, ἤν που ἀκούσῃ, |95 ἠδ’ ἵνα μιν κλέος ἐσθλὸν ἐν ἀνθρώποισιν ἔχῃσιν.

|88 As for me, I will go travel to Ithaca, going to his [= Odysseus’] son |89 in order to give him [= Telemachus] more encouragement and to put mental power [menos] into his heart [phrenes]. |90 He is to summon the long-haired Achaeans for a meeting in assembly, |91 and he is to speak out to all the suitors [of his mother Penelope], who persist in |92 slaughtering again and again any number of his sheep and oxen. |93 And I will conduct [pempein] him to Sparta and to sandy Pylos, |94 and thus he will learn [punthanesthai] the return [nostos] of his dear [philos] father, if by chance he [= Telemachus] hears [akouein] it, |95 and thus may genuine glory [kleos] possess him throughout humankind.

Here the nostos of Odysseus, O.01.094, is shown to be not only a ‘homecoming’ but also a ‘song of homecoming’. On the meaning ‘song of homecoming’, see the comment on O.01.326–327. On kleos in the sense of an overall reference to the ‘glory’ of poetry, see the comment on I.02.325. Here at O.01.088–095, we can see that nostos as a ‘song of homecoming’ is a prerequisite for the quest of Odysseus to achieve the kleos ‘glory’ of poetry. Odysseus will receive the kleos ‘glory’ of his own Odyssey only if he achieves a successful nostos ‘homecoming’, and it is the kleos ‘glory’ of poetry that turns his homecoming into a song of homecoming. What the goddess says at O.01.094 is not that Telemachus will learn about the nostos of Odysseus if he is fortunate enough to hear about it. In the original Greek text, the noun nostos is the direct object of both the verb punthanesthai, ‘learn’ and the verb akouein ‘hear’ at O.01.094 here, and that is why I chose to translate the verse this way: ‘and thus he will learn [punthanesthai] the return [nostos] of his dear [philos] father, if by chance he [= Telemachus] hears [akouein] it’. Elsewhere too in the Odyssey, we see nostos as the direct object of punthanesthai ‘learn’: O.02.215, O.02.264, O.02.360, O.04.714—as also of akouein ‘hear’: O.01.287, O.02.218, O.02.360. It is not a question of learning about a homecoming, of hearing about a homecoming. Rather, Telemachus will learn the actual song of the homecoming, the song of nostos, by hearing it. He will actually hear the song from the hero Nestor in Odyssey 3 and from the hero Menelaos along with his divine consort Helen in Odyssey 4. (This formulation is epitomized from H24H 9§20; see also Stone 2016.09.28.)

Athena (1810). Drawing by John Flaxman. Image via Wikimedia Commons.

The text as transmitted by Aristarchus (see the inventory of Words and Ideas) reads:

πέμψω δ’ ἐς Σπάρτην τε καὶ ἐς Πύλον ἠμαθόεντα

‘I [= Athena] will conduct [pempein]him [= Telemachus] on his way to Sparta and to sandy Pylos’

But the text as transmitted by Zenodotus (see again the inventory of Words and Ideas) reads:

πέμψω δ’ ἐς Κρήτην τε καὶ ἐς Πύλον ἠμαθόεντα

‘I [= Athena] will conduct [pempein] him [= Telemachus] on his way to Crete and to sandy Pylos’

The variant reading that we see transmitted here by Zenodotus (quoted in the scholia for O.03.313) indicates a variant epic tradition to which I will refer hereafter as a Cretan Odyssey. Further details at O.01.284–286, anchor comment on Cretan Odyssey.

Here Ithaca is figured as one single dēmos ‘community, district’.

The meaning of the name Méntēs, ‘he who connects mentally’, is relevant to the plot of the Odyssey: see the comments on O.01.088–089.

The singer of tales here, named Phemios, O.01.154, is ‘singing’ for the suitors as his audience, and the word translated as ‘sing’ here is aeidein at O.01.154 and at O.01.155. Such a singer is not exactly the equivalent of a “court poet,” since Phemios is singing for the suitors against his will, that is, he is singing anankēi ‘by way of constraint’, O.01.154. And what kind of a singer is this Phemios? He sings while accompanying himself on a kind of lyre, designated by the noun kitharis at O.01.153; also, his playing on the lyre is designated by the verb phormizein at O.01.055. In Plato Ion 533b-c, Phemios is described as a rhapsōidos ‘rhapsode’. The description is accurate in the sense that rhapsodes were professional performers of Homeric poetry in the classical period, as we see clearly in the overall context of Plato’s Ion. But this same description is inaccurate in the sense that rhapsodes in the classical period performed Homeric poetry without accompanying themselves on the kitharā ‘lyre’: as we see overall in Plato’s Ion and elsewhere, the rhapsodic form of ‘singing’ Homeric poetry was basically recitative, with reduced melody. By contrast, as we read in Plato Ion 533b-c, performers in the classical period who sang with full-blown melody while accompanying themselves on the kitharā ‘lyre’ were called kitharōidoi ‘citharodes’, that is, ‘kitharā-singers’. In other words, these ‘lyre-singers’ were performers of what we call lyric. At the festival of the Panathenaia in Athens during the classical period, these lyre-singers or citharodes competed with each other in singing lyric, while rhapsodes competed with each other in singing epic. As we can learn from Plato Ion 533b-c, the prototypical citharode was considered to be Orpheus, while the prototypical rhapsode was Phemios. But Phemios, even though he sings epic and not lyric, is not exactly a rhapsode in the classical sense of the term: as I have already pointed out, Phemios sings while accompanying himself on a kind of lyre, designated by the noun kitharis at O.01.153; also, his playing on the lyre is designated by the verb phormizein at O.01.055. Nevertheless, Plato has a point in considering Phemios a prototypical rhapsode, since what he sings is epic, which is what rhapsodes recite in the classical period—and which is not what citharodes any longer sing. On Phemios as a singer of epic, see the comment on O.01.325–327.

The theme of abduction by gusts of wind is analyzed at length in the comment at O.15.250-251.

The text as transmitted by Aristarchus (see inventory of Words and Ideas) reads:

πρῶτα μὲν ἐς Πύλον ἐλθὲ καὶ εἴρεο Νέστορα δῖον,

κεῖθεν δὲ Σπάρτηνδε παρὰ ξανθὸν Μενέλαον·

ὃς γὰρ δεύτατος ἦλθεν Ἀχαιῶν χαλκοχιτώνων.

‘First you [= Telemachus] go to Pylos and ask radiant Nestor

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.’

But the text as transmitted by Zenodotus (see again the inventory of Words and Ideas) reads:

πρῶτα μὲν ἐς Πύλον ἐλθέ, …

κεῖθεν δ’ ἐς Κρήτην τε παρ’ Ἰδομενῆα ἄνακτα,

ὃς γὰρ δεύτατος ἦλθεν Ἀχαιῶν χαλκοχιτώνων.

‘First go to Pylos …

and then from there to Crete and to king Idomeneus

who was the last of the Achaeans, wearers of bronze tunics, to come back home.’

Here at O.01.284–286, as also already at O.01.093, the variant reading that we see transmitted by Zenodotus (quoted in the scholia for O.03.313) indicates a variant epic tradition to which I have already referred as a Cretan Odyssey in my comment on O.01.093. As I argue in Nagy 2015.09.24§§36–37, what we see in these variant verses is a trace of a Cretan Odyssey as primarily represented in our Odyssey by the “Cretan lies,” which are micro-narratives embedded in the epic macro-narrative of the Homeric Odyssey. In comments forthcoming, there will be more to say about these “Cretan lies.” Here I confine my comments to points that are relevant to what we read at O.01.093 and O.01.284–286. In “our” Odyssey, as Nestor reports at O.03.191–192, Idomeneus after the Trojan War returns to Crete with all his men safe and sound. In the Cretan Odyssey, by contrast, Idomeneus seems to have traveled with Odysseus after the conquest of Troy by the Achaeans, and this king of the Cretans even experienced, together with Odysseus, the horrors of the Cave of the Cyclops: such a story about joint adventures experienced by Idomeneus and Odysseus is attested in a painting on a red-figure stamnos, 480 BCE, featuring the name-tags ΙΔΑΜΕΝΕΥΣ ‘Ida-meneus’ [sic] and ΟΔΥΣΥΣ ‘Odusus’ [sic] appended to images of these two heroes, showing each one of the two clinging to a ram’s underbelly (Levaniouk 2011:105).

This expression ep’ anthrōpous ‘throughout humankind’ is conventionally associated with words referring to remembrance by way of song. See the anchor comment at I.10.213.

association of Ithaka with sight of fire and smoke, the etymology of Ithakē connecting it to aithein, and Odysseus’ calling himself Aithōn (comparison with Hermes, who in turn is compared with Prometheus-Ithas)

There is parallelism and overlap between Hermes and Athena (here, Athena is wearing Hermes’ sandals) as in the plotting of the narrative itself; see also the comment on O.01.1 above and the way that Athena takes on the appearance of Hermes in O.13.221-231 (also featuring sandals and a spear).

comparison of Greek formulas for asking a person’s identity with Avestan and Indic parallels, as well as genos eukhesthai einai formulas

analysis of xeinos (etc.) eukhesthai einai formulas as having the same function as genos eukhesthai einai formulas

comparison of Greek formulas for asking a person’s identity with Avestan and Indic parallels, and here specifically the answers to such questions (genos eukhesthai einai formulas), and their demonstrating that such usages can be inherited phenomena

analysis of the development of the formula | eukhomai einai # huios, perhaps from a lyric formula *huios eukhomai einai #

in a list of attestations of genos eukhesthai einai and its transformations

comparison of Greek formulas for asking a person’s identity with Avestan and Indic parallels, and here specifically the answers to such questions (genos eukhesthai einai formulas), and their demonstrating that such usages can be inherited phenomena

one of the three places where the convention of naming-statements to omit one’s own name is broken

analysis of xeinos (etc.) eukhesthai einai formulas as having the same function as genos eukhesthai einai formulas

analysis of xeinos (etc.) eukhesthai einai formulas as having the same function as genos eukhesthai einai formulas

in a list of eukhesthai einai + social relationship (xeinos, hiketēs)

Athena/Mentes’ misrepresentation of Odysseus’ situation that puts Telemachus in the same position with his father

analysis of the contrast between unmarked phanai and marked eukhesthai in contexts where the latter is associated with asserting superiority, here Telemachus’ modesty about his genos as he uses phanai [MRBTP: 'ff']

comment on Athena’s naming herself (as Mentes, in disguise) as offering a counter-example to Telemachus’ doubt about who his father is (in these verses), one of the three places where the convention of naming-statements to omit one’s own name is broken

comment on birth and death in epic diction in term of being let forth into the light and absence from it, respectively, here, with reference to Odysseus in Kalypso’s cave

comment on birth and death in epic diction in term of being let forth into the light and absence from it, respectively, here, with reference to Odysseus in Kalypso’s cave

This is the first occurrence of Penelope's name in the Odyssey. Πηνελόπεια is a nom parlant and signals Penelope's belonging to a thematically related group of women in myth. The name was perceived as significant in antiquity and a linguistically unobjectionable derivation from the name of a bird, πηνέλοψ, was known to Didymus (as attested by Eustathius' Commentarii ad Homeri Odysseam 1.65.36). The etymology of the word πηνέλοψ itself is obscure beyond the second part of the compound, derived from the h₃ek^ṷ root and meaning "looking (like)" (Chantraine 2009, s.v. ὄπωπα, πηνέλοψ). Nevertheless, the relevance of the penelops to Penelope can be ascertained. The penelops appears to be a bird similar to a halcyon. According to Aristotle Historia Animalium (593b23) the penelops is a small waterbird and lives at sea. Penelopes are mentioned together with halcyons in Aristophanes Birds 298 and Ibycus fr. 317a PMG. In the latter fragment, penelopes are described as ποικίλαι (2), αἰολόδειροι (2), and possibly also ἁλιπορφυρίδες (3), if Schneidewin's reconstruction is correct (Schneidewin 1833.128-131). Penelopes are said to be ποικιλόδειροι and τανυσίπτεροι in Alcaeus 345 L-P.2. Of these epithets the penelops shares with the halcyon ποικίλος ‘of varied color’ and τανυσίπτερος ‘long-winged’. If ἁλιπορφυρίδες is correctly restored, then this too allies the penelops to the halcyon, which is described by the rare epithet ἁλιπόρφυρος in Alcman 26 PMG.4. The penelops in Alcaeus 345 L-P. and the halcyon in Alcman 26 PMG are represented as (respectively) flying over the waves and coming from Okeanos. In poetry and myth, the (female) halcyon characteristically faithful to her mate, laments when the mate is lost, and is tied to the solar symbolism of death and rebirth (e.g. Alcman 26 PMG, Simonides 508 PMG, Aristotle, Historia Animalium 8.542b4, Dionysius, De Avibus 2.7, Plutarch On the Intelligence of Animals * 983a). These features are shared by a mythological character whose name derives from the name of the bird, Alkyone, the wife of Keyx (Hesiod, fr. 10a.94-96 M, fr. 10d MW, Ovid, Metamorphoses 11.410-748, Ps.-Apollodorus 1.7.4). Alkyone is a woman dominated by faithfulness to her husband, for whom she laments and finally dies when he departs on a long sea voyage and does not return. Just as Penelope's story is morphologically similar to that of Alkyone, so are the two birds that give them their names. Being similar to the halcyon, the penelops is a fitting match for Penelope, among whose dominant features are faithfulness to her husband and lament for him while he is absent. An argument has also been made that Penelope takes part in the operation of the overarching solar metaphor in the Odyssey (Levaniouk 2011:298-312). The similarities between the two myths parallel those between the two bird-named women and also those between the two birds. The connections appear to be systemic rather than accidental. Penelope and Alkyone have further points of contact with yet another woman with a bird's name, Aedon the nightingale, to whom Penelope compares herself in Odyssey 19.518. Penelope and Alkyone are closer to each other than to Aedon, though all three share key features, the most important being their laments. In the same way, penelops and halcyon are more similar to each other than to the nightingale, but both have associations with the latter. Both ποικιλόδειρος and αἰολόδειρος (the epithets of the penelops in Alcaeus and Ibycus respectively) are epithets of the nightingale (Hesiod Works and Days 203; Nonnus Dionysiaca 26.211). In Ibycus’ fragment penelopes and halcyons are represented as sitting πετάλοισιν ἐπ' ἀκροτάτοις ‘on the topmost leaves’, literally ‘petals’, a topos about the nightingale (Odyssey xix 520, Homeric Hymn to Pan 17-18, Anthologia Palatina 12.2.3, 12.136.3). Since the halcyon's voice is described in the same terms as that of the nightingale and since, like the nightingale, the halcyon is imagined as a woman transformed into a bird and forever lamenting, it is likely that the penelops too is a bird of lament similar to the nightingale and the halcyon and that, as with the nightingale (Nagy 196:59n.1), the compounds with -δειρος applied to it (ποικιλόδειρος and αἰολόδειρος) signify the quality of its voice rather than the color of its neck. For a fuller discussion of the name's significance see Levaniouk 2011:287-318.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nReferences\r\n\r\nChantraine, P. 2009. Dictionaire etymologique de la langue grecque. Histoire des mots. Paris.\r\n\r\nLevaniouk, O. 2011. The Eve of the Festival. Cambridge, MA.\r\n\r\nNagy, G. 1996. Poetry as Performance: Homer and beyond. Cambridge.\r\n\r\nSchneidewin, F. 1833. Ibyci Rhegini Carminum Reliquiae, Göttingen.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n