John Breeden, my good friend and partner at the Tech Writers Bureau, is a literate guy who definitely appreciates fantasy and adventure. But he said that Homer’s stories had been made so boring at school that he hasn’t read them. It’s a shame to turn kids away from something so exciting.
I first encountered Odysseus in the fifth grade and was immediately hooked. What 11-year-old boy wouldn’t love gods, man-eating monsters and a hot stake in the eye? And the great revenge scene where Odysseus reveals himself to his wife’s suitors and proceeds to kill everyone in the room. Homer’s body count exceeds that of Shakespeare and Quentin Tarantino combined.
But it is Homer’s characters that have kept me hooked for more than 50 years.
Stories as old as time
You already know the basic stories. The Iliad tells of a quarrel between Achilles, the Greek champion, and Agamemnon, commander of the Greek army, in the tenth year of the Trojan War. When Agamemnon insults Achilles the warrior decides to sit out the battles. Zeus, who—along with the rest of the gods—takes a personal interest in the war, assists the Trojans to teach Agamemnon a lesson. Achilles wins his point, but at a terrible price.
The Odyssey opens ten years later with Odysseus (or Ulysses, depending on the translation) stranded on his journey home from the war. He has lost his fleet and all of his men to battles, monsters and divine anger, and Poseidon has vowed to keep him from returning to Ithaca where his wife, Penelope, and son, Telemachus, are waiting for him. Still, it could be worse. He is stranded with a beautiful goddess, Calypso, who loves him and wants to make him immortal. Odysseus prefers his home, however, and the gods finally send him. There he must confront the scores of suitors who are plaguing his wife.
Homer recounts battles and deaths in unsparing detail and with graphic descriptions. There is nothing glorious about Homeric warfare. This is great stuff for an 11-year-old. But as an adult it is shocking. People knew this 3,000 years ago and we’re still fighting? If today’s leaders would really read Homer there might be less warfare today.
Character
It is easy to dismiss Achilles as childish for sulking in his tent after Agamemnon’s insult. But Achilles is a champion in a warrior society where honor is everything. More than wealth or life itself. The Greek concept of the afterlife is pretty grim and the only consolation is to be remembered well after death. Achilles has made an explicit choice for honor over a long life:
Here, if I stay, before the Trojan town,
Short is my date, but deathless my renown:
If I return, I quit immortal praise
For years on years, and long-extended days.
Alexander Pope
So Agamemnon’s disrespect is a more-than-mortal insult.
Despite the focus on Achilles, the closest thing to a hero in The Iliad is Hector, son of the Trojan king and brother of Paris, the jerk who started the war. Hector is the protector of his city and a loving husband and father. But he is a little too cool and cautious, a little too reliant on the gods’ will to be the hero.
The Iliad is really an ensemble piece without a single main character. Agamemnon and his brother Menelaus (whose wife, Helen, is who they are fighting over), Odysseus, the two Ajax, and a score of other warriors, are all well-defined characters who demonstrate their strengths and weaknesses in counsel and battle. The one character who stands out throughout The Iliad is Odysseus, whose story is continued in The Odyssey.
Odysseus exemplifies the Greek virtues of excellence and moderation. He is a cunning tactician, but he is not the greatest warrior, nor the wisest counselor, nor the most powerful leader. But he is second best at everything. He is the best all-around man, the man everyone wants at his side when the chips are down. Plus, he has a goddess on his side. Many of the Greeks and Trojans are helped by gods or goddesses; but this is usually a matter of some self-interest on the gods’ part. Athena, on the other hand, seems to genuinely like Odysseus and sticks by him.
More than anyone else among the Greeks, Odysseus is a family man. The use of patronyms is common for all other characters, but Odysseus is the only Greek who is identified through his son, being sometimes called the father of Telemachus. He also is happily married. Wives are commodities in Homer’s Greece, but Odysseus loves Penelope and is usually faithful to her. And Penelope is faithful to him, fending off scores of suitors during his long absence. Homer contrasts Penelope with Helen, who ran off with Paris, and Agamemnon’s wife, Clytemnestra, who murdered him when he came home.
Odysseus and Penelope are a couple worthy of each other, and his homecoming is a worthy climax to the story.
There are scores of translations of Homer, in verse and prose. Some retain the archaic tags and repeated phrases that are artifacts of the original oral composition, which I happen to enjoy. Others use more modern language. Whatever your preference there is something to suit you if you want to discover what you missed in school. Look around your local library or bookstore.