Homer Odyssey 13.217

View: By Book

Odyssey. Homer. London. 1858.

Sponsored by Perseus Project, Tufts University.

Current edition Experimental

English (Alexander Pope, 1726, ed. Watson, 1858) (OCR draft) (English) (English (Alexander Pope, 1726, ed. Watson, 1858))

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.) — 13.217 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.) — 13.217 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.) — 13.217 focus
English (Butler, rev. Nagy et al., 2020) (OCR draft) Experimental (English (Butler, rev. Nagy et al., 2020)) — 13.217 focus
He counted his goodly coppers and cauldrons, his gold and all his clothes, but there was nothing missing; still he kept grieving about not being in his own country, [220] and wandered up and down by the shore of the sounding sea bewailing his hard fate. Then Athena came up to him disguised as a young shepherd of delicate and princely mien, with a good cloak folded double about her shoulders; [225] she had sandals on her comely feet and held a javelin in her hand. Odysseus was glad when he saw her, and went straight up to her.
English (William Cullen Bryant, 1873) (OCR draft) Experimental (English (William Cullen Bryant, 1873)) — 13.217 focus
English (Thomas Hobbes, 1667, ed. Molesworth 1843) (OCR draft) Experimental (English (Thomas Hobbes, 1667, ed. Molesworth 1843)) — 13.217 focus
His garments and his plate then number'd he,
And nothing missing was of all his pelf.
Then walk'd he softly along by the sea,
Lamenting and bewailing of himself.
And then came Pallas to him. She had on
205
The body of a shepherd young and tender,
As if she had of some prince been the son;
Lin'd was his coat, the thread was fine and slender,
With dart in hand, and fine shoes on his feet.
Ulysses, who beheld her, was much joy'd,
210
And forth himself advanced, her to meet.
And first he to her spake, and thus he said:
Joy to you be, and good-will towards me ;
Save for me these my goods, and save me too.
You are the first I meet here ; at your knee
215
I bow myself, as men bow Gods unto.
Tell me, I pray you, true: What land is this ?
What town ? Th' inhabitants what men ?
An isle, or of the continent a piece ?
To this the Goddess answered agen.
220
Simple you are, or very far hence dwell,
To ask what country this is. For 'tis not
A place obscure; for known 'tis very well
Both east and west, though but a little spot,
And rugged ground, not fit for galloping ;
225
Yet corn it bears abundantly and wine ;
And is well watered both with dew and spring,
And nourisheth great herds of goats and kine.
Of wood of ev'ry sort there is good store.
Though from Achaea far men say is Troy,
230
Yet Ithaca is talk'd of on that shore.
English (George Chapman, 1667, ed. Hooper 1857) (OCR draft) Experimental (English (George Chapman, 1667, ed. Hooper 1857)) — 13.217 focus
English (William Cowper, 1791, ed. Southey) (OCR draft) Experimental (English (William Cowper, 1791, ed. Southey)) — 13.217 focus
English (H. B. Cotterill, 1911) (OCR draft) Experimental (English (H. B. Cotterill, 1911)) — 13 focus

New Alexandria Commentaries

Gregory Nagy

The storytelling of Odysseus has come to an end, and he will now be sent home to Ithaca by his hosts, Alkinoos and the Phaeacians. Sailing through the night in a ship provided by king Alkinoos, Odysseus is in a deep sleep, which is compared to death itself. At the precise moment when the ship reaches the shores of his homeland, Ithaca, Odysseus will ‘come to’, experiencing a mystical return to light and life.

draft js image error“Ulysses Asleep Laid on his Own Coast by the Phaeacian Sailors” (1805). John Flaxman (English, 1755–1826). Purchased as part of the Oppé Collection with assistance from the National Lottery through the Heritage Lottery Fund 1996. Image via the Tate.

source

Here at O.13.256–286 we see the first example of “Cretan lies” told by Odysseus in the context of his re-entry into the kingdom of Ithaca. The concept of “Cretan lies” was introduced in the anchor comment at O.01.284–286 on a Cretan Odyssey.

source

The goddess here formally declares to Odysseus her support for the hero, which leads ultimately to his success in his final confrontation with the suitors. But there is an undercurrent of antagonism between the goddess and the hero, insofar as they are both exponents of mētis ‘mind, intelligence’. Here it is Athena who boasts of her own poetic glory for possessing qualities of mētis ‘mind, intelligence’, O.13.299.

source
Leonard Muellner

analysis of Athena’s reminding of Hermes [MRBTP: 'ff']

source

analysis of the formulas with a dative after eukhesthai where it is not explicitly a god/a collection of gods, and the irony present when hōs theōi (as in these verses, Odysseus addressing disguised Athena) is used

source

analysis of the attestations of sacral eukhesthai in the present tense and comparison of variant formulas with eukhetasthai for eukhesthai in formulas with enjambed, present tense, sacral eukhesthai, in the context of analyzing Allen’s text of I.08.526

source

anomaly of the formula in this verse, namely, the complement to eukhomai is not a noun (e.g. name of divinity) but a pronoun

source

in a list of examples of eukhesthai + dative (sacral), and in a list of anomalous attestations (divergent inflection of eukhesthai, other imperative)

source

comment on Odysseus’ characteristic duplicity (mētis and deceptive communication), in the context of analyzing his speech in I.09 [MRBTP: 'ff']

source

When Odysseus arrives back in Ithaka in Odyssey 13, he encounters Athene in the shape of young shepherd. After Odysseus lies to her about his identity, Athene reacts with a smile and another transformation:\r\n\r\nὣς φάτο, μείδησεν δὲ θεὰ γλαυκῶπις Ἀθήνη,\r\n\r\nχειρί τέ μιν κατέρεξε· δέμας δ' ἤϊκτο γυναικὶ\r\n\r\nκαλῇ τε μεγάλῃ τε καὶ ἀγλαὰ ἔργα ἰδυίῃ·\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nSo he spoke, and the goddess gray-eyed Athene smiled,\r\n\r\nand she stroke him with her hand. And she took on the shape of a woman\r\n\r\nbeautiful and tall and skilled in beautiful handiworks,\r\n\r\nand speaking to him she addressed him in winged words.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nSome scholars have interpreted this transformation as the goddess revealing herself to the hero in her true form (e.g., Stanford 1948, ad 13.289; Heubeck 1988-1992, ad 13.288), but as Pucci argues, it is unlikely that Odysseus sees the goddess as she really is (Pucci 1986:7-28). The diction of the passage makes clear that Athene’s appearance “in the shape of a beautiful woman” is as much a disguise as the others she adopts elsewhere: as the poet tells us, “she took on (ἤϊκτο) the shape of a woman.”\r\n\r\nThe formulaic language to describe the goddess’ reaction and transformation has both erotic and maternal connotations. The formula “and she/he stroked him/her with her/his hand” appears seven times in Homeric epic, always to describe intimate moments between mother and child or between lovers. In the Iliad, the phrase is mostly used to described mother and child (1.361, 5.372, 23.127) and once of husband and wife (6.484-5). In the Odyssey the phrase occurs two other times: Menelaos smiles and strokes Telemachos in a fatherly manner (4.610), and there is perhaps a maternal aspect to Athene’s concern for Odysseus, but the encounter is not without sexual undercurrents, which are also present in the only other Odyssean instance of the phrase, which involves Kalypso smiling and stroking Odysseus (5.180-1).\r\n\r\nWhen Athene strokes Odysseus, the erotic tenor of her gesture is made evident in both her physical transformation and the conversation that follows, which centers on the like-mindedness of the goddess and the hero, a quality Odysseus praises as the basis of a good marriage (Odyssey 6.183). Athene chooses an appearance that is particularly appropriate to this moment of intimacy between goddess and her mortal protégé: the shape of a seductive woman, beautiful and skilled at handiworks, or in short and as the Greek gunê also denotes, a perfect wife endowed with the most desirable qualities. The encounter between goddess and hero in Odyssey 8 is thus replete with motifs—an encounter with a beautiful female divinity in the countryside, a shrine of the nymphs—usually associated with stories of love between goddesses and men, and Odysseus in this scene is depicted as the notional lover of the goddess, or as a nympholept (numpholeptos).\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nReferences\r\n\r\nHeubeck, A. et al. 1998-1992. A Commentary on Homer’s Odyssey. Volume 2. Books 9-16. Oxford.\r\n\r\nPache, C. 2011. ‘A Moment’s Ornament’: The Poetics of Nympholepsy in Ancient Greece. Oxford.\r\n\r\nPucci, P. 1986. “Les figures de la Mêtis dans l’Odyssée.” Mètis 1:7-28.\r\n\r\nStanford, W.B. 1948. Homer. Odyssey XIII-XXIV. Edited with Introduction and Commentary. London.

source

analysis of Athena’s reminding of Hermes in O.13.221ff.

source