'What could be more beautiful than listening to a storyteller?'Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Book 9 opens with what might be called an apologia from the poet: "what could be more beautiful / than to listen to a singer of tales" (9.2-3)1. Odysseus praises Demodocus , the blind bard, and at the same time Homer praises his own art of telling stories, an art that I will examine in the course of this essay, through two books that occupy a particular thematic importance in the Odyssey. The first of these, Book 9 , concerns Odysseus' meeting with Polyphemus, the man-eating Cyclops, while in the second, Book 19, the hero, now in the guise of an old beggar, meets his wife Penelope. Both challenge and stimulate the protagonist, both emotionally and emotionally. physically or mentally, and in doing so the episodes emphasize and augment many of the pervasive thematic and narrative features of the epic. As the protagonist, of course, Odysseus is himself a galvanizing force within the poem Foreground of the narrative, as in Telemachy, Odysseus provides a center for the actions and words of those on whom Homer chooses to focus. Penelope's lasting grief, Telemachus' journey, and the presence of the suitors all stem from the problems of this single figure. It is therefore not surprising that, sometimes, there is only an oblique distinction between 'characteristic' and 'theme', as in the case of mêtis (intelligence/cunning). Physical prowess alone is not enough to merit the label “hero.” Strength must be balanced with mental dexterity and ingenuity, a faculty that Odysseus applies to great effect in his escape from Polyphemus' cave: "There is no one in my name." They call me Nobody. My mother, my father and all my friends too!' (9.364-365) Odysseus designs a plan that simultaneously punishes the Cyclops and ensures that he and his men are freed from the habitation, and although physical strength is involved, the hero could not have escaped without this quality of mind. Sheila Murnaghan also notes that one of the various forms of "no one" in Greek is actually mêtis, an irony sadly lost in translation.2 Importantly, Odysseus defines himself, both immediately and through action, as a trickster. Nor are his words empty, and time and again in the Odyssey he proves himself to be a warrior of the sharpest intelligence, as evidenced by the meticulously prepared deaths of the Suitors (Book 22). However, Odysseus' self-labeling here also reflects the functional use of epithets within the narrative. The poet often applies the term polumêtis to the hero, meaning "mêtis in abundance", and books 9 and 19 illustrate the repeated application of a variety of epithets, including "cunning" (9.22, 19.640), "Son of Laertes " (9.21 , 503, 524 & 19.179, 268, 371), 'god-like' (19.234, 293), and 'flawless' (19.355, 499). Almost like layers of paint on a canvas, the portrait of the multifaceted Ulysses is built, and the same technique is used to portray other characters; Athena, for example, is continually called "grey-eyed." Homer also uses the repetition of some syntactic units. 'Rose-fingered Dawn' is perhaps the most obvious of these, while in Book 19 alone, Odysseus's 'teeming mind' phrase occurs no less than eleven times.3 What can be seen then, is that repeated epithets and lines they act as narrative building blocks that punctuate the story and allow it to progress smoothly. This formulaic quality serves to highlight the oral tradition from which the Odyssey descends, and improvisational singers such as Demodocus would have used repetition to structure theirpieces, as well as to give yourself the much-needed opportunities to think about the future. Interestingly, Odysseus is not the only individual with whom the word mêtis is associated. Antinous cites Penelope as "Who knows more tricks than any living woman" (2.96). Certainly his weaving and unraveling of Laertes' shroud, a trick that keeps the suitors at bay for nearly four years, is a deception of which the hero himself would have been proud. Penelope links these "wiles" to her husband in disguise in Book 19 (lines 154-177), and it is significant that this is the second account of the episode in the Odyssey. Penelope's description of events corresponds to that told in Book 2 (lines 101-120), by Antinous, word for word, but for the necessary transition from the third to the first person. However, this shift in perspective is important. On the one hand Antinous addresses Telemachus like this: The fault is not with the suitors, but with your mother (2.94-95). But on the other hand, Penelope's response to the situation is markedly different: The men burst in and grabbed me, and a howl went up. So I was forced to finish the shroud. Now I can't escape marriage. I'm at my limit. (19.168-170)Here the language is that of coercion, incarceration, even violence. The retelling of the story in Book 19 is more than just narrative repetition. We are offered testimony opposite to that of Book 2, which places the "blame" at the feet of the suitors rather than Penelope. And this antithesis is indicative of the transitory nature of point of view in the Odyssey as a whole, a trait that prefigures the "stream of consciousness" used by modernist novelists such as Joyce and Woolf. The murder of Agamemnon, presented by Zeus in Book 1, by Menelaus in Book 4, and finally by the shadow of Agamemnon himself in Book 11, is a particularly strong example of this narrative technique. Homer offers first and foremost the perspective of the divine; secondly, the human; and thirdly, the dead. The Odyssey is a poem of changes in perspective, but also of changes in time. Throughout the Odyssey the past is interpolated with the present, as in the case of Book 9, where, in the comfort of the Phaeci palace, Ulysses recounts his misfortunes following the triumph of the Greeks in Troy. Many comments have been made about the poem's complex, perhaps even convoluted, structure, but it allows for the juxtaposition of characters and situations which in turn augment some of the story's pervasive themes. For example, book 9 explores the conventions of hospitality and civility through a contrast between the Phaeacians and the Cyclopes. The book opens with Odysseus extolling the banquets, drinking and singing of Alcinous' court as "the most beautiful thing in the world" (9.12). The narrative then jumps back an entire decade as he proceeds to recount his encounters with the Cicones, the Lotus Eaters, and Polyphemus. As Steve Reece notes, the ending of these is anything but welcoming: instead of giving them a meal, he makes them a meal [...] This is surely the darkest form of parody. (Steve Reece, A Stranger's Welcome, University of Michigan Press 1993, p. 134) The Cyclopes' reversal of their friendship with the host is certainly surprising. Reece argues that the scene follows the model of hospitality previously shown by the Phaeacians (as well as by Nestor and Menelaus), but that the conventions are continually reversed.4 Thus, the revelation of the guest's true name occurs upon departure rather than upon departure. I arrive; the guest is questioned before, rather than after the meal, as was traditional; the gifts exchanged (Ulysses' wine and Polyphemus' sardonic promise) aim at destruction; and the host casts a curse instead of a blessing as his guest leaves. This is not to say that Odysseus and his men are free of guilt: they enter the cave uninvited, feast merrily on its supplies, thenthey blind their host and flee with his flock. Importantly, Polyphemus' bastardization of his friendship with his host resonates with the subsequent transgressions of the suitors, who devour the host family's wealth and react aggressively toward anyone they consider a beggar. And this tension between the civilized and the wild, the hospitable and the inhospitable are found in book 19, where the tenderness of Eurycleia contrasts with the rudeness of Melanchthon, who threatens to hit the disguised Ulysses with a torch (19.72-75 ). Reece highlights a further inversion here, as the torch has associations with fire, heat and shelter. However, there is a second key contrast in Book 19, between Odysseus the boy and Odysseus the man, and as in Book 9, it is achieved through a temporal shift in the narrative. Odysseus's memory of the wound he received from the tusk of a boar while visiting his grandfather, Autolycus, on Parnassus briefly transports the reader back to the hero's childhood: Odysseus rushed at him, holding his spear high, eager to strike. too fast. (19.488-490) Odysseus's recklessness as a teenager is juxtaposed with the patience and restraint he demonstrates during his conversation with Penelope, where his 'eyes were still [...] as if they were made of horn or iron' (19.27 -28). What we have here is Ulysses in microcosm: a man learning from his experiences to avoid repeating previous mistakes. The blood-spattered hero's refusal to "gloat over the slain" in Book 22 (l.436) is indicative that he has learned the lessons learned from his encounter with Polyphemus, where his jokes and boasts arouse the wrath of Poseidon. Over the course of the poem the reader sees the protagonist grow: the Odyssey is a journey of self-discovery, as much as a journey home. Interestingly, young Odysseus also serves as a contrast to Telemachus, whose coming of age is another major theme in the epic, and in book 19 he is twice called "man"; first from his father (19.96) and then from his mother (19.174). The interpolation of the present with the past, therefore, acts as a crucial narrative device, as it highlights many of the central themes and ideas of the Odyssey. Time past and time present collide throughout the story, and the result is a vivid image of an irremediably changed post-war world. Retrospection is continually accompanied by displays of grief, as Odysseus acknowledges at the beginning of Book 9: But you have a mind to draw my sorrows and sorrows out of me, and make me feel them again. (9.13-14) These are the words of a war veteran and encapsulate the struggle to contain and understand the painful nature of the past in the poem. In book 4, the characters of Menelaus, Helen, and Telemachus are united by the need to cry, and both books 9 and 19 end with "mourning"; Odysseus' men mourn their lost companions (9.556-557) and Penelope sobs herself to sleep (19.664). Yet perhaps the most striking image of grief in Book 19 is highlighted by means of a simile: The snow laid high in the mountains by the wild west wind slowly melts under the breath of the east wind, and as it melts the rivers grow in their channels. (19.221-223) Penelope's tears are compared to melting snow on mountain tops, in an extremely positive image. The cold and wild are dispelled by the warm and gentle, just as Odysseus' homecoming will chase away the suitors' wildness and his wife's frozen, painful state. The simile thus transforms Penelope's pain into an act that heralds the hero's triumph. Together with her auspicious dream, in which the eagle breaks the necks of the geese, the poetess tells usprepares for the climax of the story. As Agatha Thornton notes, in the previous omens, the bird of prey has caught its prey (15.174-176) and plucked it (.15.573-576), but, so far, has not actually killed it.5 Homer uses similes throughout the Odyssey to focus the reader's attention on particular aspects, or nuances, of the story. In Book 9, where Polyphemus is "like a mountain lion" (9.285) and Odysseus' men "like cubs" (9.282), similes are employed to heighten the contrast between wild and gentle, strength and weakness. Sometimes the poet uses this narrative technique in collusion with another irony. The most notable example of this is the striking simile of Odysseus as a weeping woman in Book 8 (l.565), in which the images of the warrior and the widow are simultaneously juxtaposed and unified. Irony, or more specifically dramatic irony, also plays an important role. in the encounter between disguised Odysseus and Penelope in book 19. We, as the audience or reader, are aware of what Penelope is not and that the man she is interrogating is, in fact, her husband.6 And this in turn leads aa another important theme of the Odyssey, that of deception and identity. Self-preservation through self-suppression is one of the poem's pervasive ironies. Odysseus becomes a wizened beggar only to defeat the Suitors, just as by becoming "Nobody" he is able to deceive and escape the Cyclopes. Like his patron god, Athena, Odysseus has a chameleonic nature, which he uses skillfully, both to survive and, above all, to test. It is for this reason that, as a king, he is willing to suffer a pauper's existence and, as a hero, to accept anonymity. He wishes to test Penelope's love and loyalty and see "if he [the Cyclops] would give him a gift of hospitality" (9.220). Thornton points out that "testing a person is a well-established compositional theme in the Odyssey."7 Odysseus tests Laertes in book 24 and Eumaeus in book 15, while in return he himself is tested by his father (24.336- 338) and twice by his wife (19.232, 23.179-186). The scar left by a boar's tusk constantly reminds Odysseus of the dangers of reckless behavior. He is as precise in preparation as he is energetic in action. However, one might question the moral certainty of the test in book 19. Despite Agamemnon's warning to "go easy on your wife" (11.458), Odysseus's refusal to reveal his true identity to Penelope seems rather cruel. Even when she breaks down before him, her pain a sure sign of his love, he still maintains his disguise. This is the woman holding Calypso above her, the woman she hasn't seen in twenty years, yet she is as still as "iron." Equally questionable is the blinding of Polyphemus and the particularly gruesome way in which it is accomplished. After all, Odysseus, as I stated earlier, is hardly a model guest. Perhaps even more disturbing, however, is the hero's conduct at the beginning of Book 9, in Ismaros: "I plundered the city and killed the men. The women and the treasures we carried away I divided as equally as possible [ ...]" (9.42-44) Odysseus' actions here seem all the more ruthless because, first, the attack was unprovoked (unlike the blinding of Polyphemus or the death of the suitors), and secondly because he shows no remorse. MI Finley argues that such acts are justifiable when viewed in the context of a warrior culture, and to some extent I believe this is true.8 However, Odysseus is a complex character, and perhaps his chameleon-like nature extends to morality. He thinks the Cyclopes are "a savage with no sense of right and wrong" (9.206), but the paradox here is that right and wrong are themselves equivocations. The world.113