Before I read “The Odyssey,” I thought I was pretty familiar with “The Odyssey.” There was Wishbone’s version, of course, and probably some illustrated kids’ edition, and a live-action movie with campy special effects that I must have been shown in middle school.
If I’d been asked to recount the story from memory, the Cyclops would have featured heavily, along with the scene of Odysseus tying himself to his ship’s mast so he could listen to the Sirens’ call without being led off course. I would have conflated Calypso and Circe, and mentioned Lotus Eaters and the Cattle of the Sun, without being able to provide further details. The memorable bits, or at least the bits that are plucked out to make for exciting children’s stories, are the adventures Odysseus encounters on his way home.
But when I actually read the book (Emily Wilson’s translation), it turns out the focus of the narrative is much more on what’s happening at home in Ithaca while Odysseus is away, and what happens when he finally makes it there.
This isn’t supposed to be some hot take or anything. It’s literally what the book is about. I’m just revealing my own (previous) ignorance.
The story begins when Odysseus is almost home, but at his last few stops, he regales everyone with tales of all the hardships he’s been through. (Those stories-within-a-story are the pieces that retellings latch onto.) Meanwhile, his wife Penelope and son Telemachus are waiting at home for him, holding out hope against all evidence that Odysseus survived the Trojan War.
The palace is overrun with noblemen who’ve decided to hang around until Penelope finally admits that she’s a widow and agrees to marry one of them. Telemachus is not a fan.
They make no contribution.
This food belongs to someone else, a man
whose white bones may be lying in the rain
or sunk beneath the waves. If they saw him
return to Ithaca, they would all pray
for faster feet, instead of wealth and gold
and fancy clothes.
Emily Wilson’s translation got a lot of attention when it was first published because of her use of modern English and her unblinking use of the word “slave” for people that the Greeks would have considered slaves. The Victorians used words like “servant,” or “handmaiden,” that weren’t based on any reality about ancient Greece.
There wasn’t really a way for her to get away from referring to the men creeping on Penelope as “suitors,” but they sure don’t spend much time wooing Penelope. They’re squatters waiting for the green light to force her to marry one of them.
Since “The Odyssey” is literally millennia old, I’m not too worried about spoilers. That said, I don’t know, look away now if you don’t want to know the ending.
The suitors all get slaughtered and it’s very satisfying.
I’m including a quote from right beforehand, as an example of just how weird the story gets sometimes. Athena makes them be extra jerky, in a passage reminiscent of God hardening Pharaoh’s heart in Exodus, and then a visiting prophet has a vision of their imminent deaths.
Athena turned the suitors’ minds; they laughed
unstoppably. They cackled, and they lost
control of their own faces. Plates of meat
began to drip with blood. Their eyes were full
of tears, and they began to wail in grief.
the prophet Theoclymenus addressed them.
“What awful thing is happening to you?
Your faces, heads, and bodies are wrapped up
in night; your screams are blazing out like fire.
The ornate palace ceilings and the walls
are splattered with your blood. The porch is full
of ghosts, as is the courtyard—ghosts descending
into the dark of Erebus. The sun
has vanished from the sky, and gloomy mist
is all around.”
In researching this, I discovered a stunning and definitely statistically significant clustering of Emilys around “The Odyssey.” My name is Emily, and I have read “The Odyssey.” Emily Wilson translated it. And in the Wishbone version of “The Odyssey,” a kindergartener named Emily briefly dog-naps Wishbone, because she really, really wants a dog and doesn’t understand why Wishbone can’t be her dog just because he belongs to someone else.
This adorable child is the Calypso / Circe analog in the “real world” storyline within the Wishbone episode about “The Odyssey.” The episode title is “Homer, Sweet Homer,” in case you were wondering.