I’ve finally managed to complete reading the ‘Odyssey’!!
No, not Homer’s original. Nor a heavy and testing translation, faithfully true to his work. But a lighter adaptation by Simon Armitage written as a play for BBC Radio 4.
Years ago, I had tried to enjoy a translation of Homer’s ‘The Iliad’, but I never completed it, because I’ll admit to finding it a bit heavy going. Armitage’s Odyssey however is an easy, frothy romp. Although it misses some of the fine details, it allows one to flow freely through Odysseus’ epic 10-year return home to his palace on Ithaca (an island in the Ionian) after his success at the Battle of Troy.
In the blog ‘Hints of the East’, I mentioned how I had visited Mycenae back in 1987. This was the home of Agamemnon – we visited his famous tomb - and the starting place of The Iliad. Helen, the wife of Agamemnon’s brother Menelaus, was taken to Troy by Paris [not via Paris, but by a Trojan called Paris]. Agamemnon gathered an army of reluctant Greeks to sail across the Aegean to get his sister-in-law back.
One of his recruits was Odysseus, and it was Odysseus’ idea to build the famous wooden horse. This horse was not mentioned in The Iliad, as (spoiler alert) that story ends before the war’s completion!
As the Greek army sailed away as a decoy, the Trojans pulled the wooden horse inside their city walls and, that night, Odysseus and his men let themselves out of the horse, opened the gates and let the Greeks inside to take the city.
Homer’s Odyssey charts Odysseus’ long and challenging trip home after the war to return to his ever-faithful wife Penelope and his son Telemachus. The Trojan War had lasted ten years and Odysseus was to take a further ten testing years to find Ithaca, and so she waited a long time!
But this all happened long before the age of GPS, chart-plotters and accurate weather forecasts. It’s quite easy to imagine how a sailor, three-and-a-half millennia ago, could have been blown off-course, or in the wrong direction (these ancient boats could not sail upwind) and got seriously lost and imperilled.
The Return Journey
1. Troy
For well over 2,000 years, many scholars and laymen have tried to plot Odysseus’ journey home from Troy to Ithaca. But Homer’s tale is not necessarily a documentary and many places may be fictitious or illusions to add spice to his story. Troy exists, of course, in modern Turkey, and Missy Bear may take us there in seasons to come.
And the island of Ithaca lies just down the coast from her overwintering base in Preveza. In fact, some believe that Odysseus’ Palace has been found on the north of the island. But some scholars even question whether modern Ithaca was indeed the location of Odysseus’ home.
Nevertheless, it’s interesting to try and follow his voyage, because Missy Bear may already have crossed his path without knowing it.
2. Ismarus
On sailing from Troy, the wind pushed his fleet northwards to Ismarus (in Thrace, on the northern coast of the Aegean) where his wild men shamefully plundered the city. Odysseus spared one local man, who gave him a goatskin of strong local wine in thanks. But the locals (the Cicones) returned in strength and killed many of Odysseus' men, with the remainder fleeing out to sea under oar.
As they were passing Cape Malea (south-west tip of the Peloponnese, near the island of Kithira) a strong northerly wind blew them off course. Missy Bear will be passing there next spring!
After nine days they spotted land.
3. The Lotus Eaters
The land was a tropical paradise with exotic birds. Three of the crew came back drugged-up after eating local fruits from a ‘lotus’ plant. It made them high and sanguine and they did not want to leave.
There is no agreement as to what that actual lotus was. It could have been the water lily, or equally it could have been a species of local buckthorn.
Herodotus (5th century BC) believed that lotus-eaters still existed in coastal Libya. In a strong Meltemi today, if you were blown south-wards you could easily end up on the African coast of Libya, or the island of Djerba in Tunisia, or even Egypt in that timeframe.
Odysseus confiscated the plants, had the decks scrubbed and tied those three crewmen to the deck to force them to leave suffering ‘cold turkey’. Landfall came quickly.
4. Sicily and the Cyclops
A sirocco (southerly) wind could have sped Odysseus from Africa to Sicily in good time. We have already come across Cyclopean walls in Sicily: in the temple near the top of the Rocca at Cefalu. They were named so because their colossal size meant they could have only been positioned by a Cyclops, a giant, one-eyed cannibal.
Odysseus and his crew sneaked into the cave of a cyclops called Polyphemus, who was a son of Poseidon, to steal his stores. But Polyphemus caught them, ate two crew whole, and locked the rest in his cave by rolling a huge boulder across the entrance.
Odysseus managed to drug the giant on the strong wine they had left over from Ismarus. As the giant slept, Odysseus managed to poke a red-hot wooden stake into Polyphemus’ only eye. Later, the Cyclops opened the cave to count out his sheep and rams by stroking their backs, not knowing that Odysseus and his men were clinging underneath the animals and out of his touch.
The sailors left with the cyclops’ provisions, but now had incurred the wrath of his father, the sea god Poseidon! After riding out a storm, they next landed on the Island of Aeolia.
5. Aeolia
Missy Bear visited the Aeolian Islands at the north-eastern coast of Sicily, but there is no agreement that any of these islands is the one where Odysseus landed.
Nevertheless, Odysseus asked Aeolus (as master of the winds) to help him return home. Aeolus placed the contrary winds into a pouch, except for the favourable west wind, which would blow them directly towards Ithaca.
I doubt, therefore, that Aeolus resided at the modern Aeolian islands, because this would have meant Odysseus then having to pass south through the Strait of Messina now, a trial he was to first face much later in his voyage.
It is more likely, therefore, that the island in question lay south of Sicily; there are many to choose from, maybe even Pantallera?
After ten days at sea, the crew believed they had spotted their home. As Odysseus slept, his crew speculated what riches lay in the pouch and opened it. Instead of finding treasure, they released the contrary winds in a hurricane, which blew them any which way but east. They were blown back to Aeolus, who refused to help them again. And then onwards to Laestrygonia.
6. Laestrygonia
This place was inhabited by giant cannibals, who killed all his men with spears and smashed all his ships on the shore with rocks, save for his own ship and his crew, as Odysseus had anchored in a hidden cove nearby.
But where was this land? According to historians in ancient Greece, it may have well been back on Sicily, in the south of the island? It seems that Sicily had a reputation for giant cannibals, they being one-eyed or otherwise!
We know that afterwards, Odysseus in his one surviving ship, zig-zagged between islands until they reached Aeaea, the home of Circe (pronounced Kirke). There are many islands around Sicily where this episode could have taken place.
7. Aeaea
At some point, Odysseus must end up north of Sicily, because he eventually journeys southwards through the Strait of Messina to head home, as we know from previous blogs. So perhaps Aeaea is, as many believe, somewhere up the western coast of mainland Italy?
[Ed, that being said, having sailed through the Strait of Messina twice, and once on Missy Bear, I can’t imagine the geography being the location of Odysseus later trial.]
Circe is a bewitching woman with a beautiful voice and a mastery of potions. She invites some of Odysseus’ party to dinner, but gives them spiked wine that gradually turns them all into squealing pigs.
Odysseus goes to find Circe, but the god Hermes finds him first and tells Odysseus to find and collect a plant with black roots and white flowers, called the ‘moly’. This grows in the grass and is an antidote to Circe’s drug. The antidote worked, but Circe still seduced Odysseus. He agreed to ‘stay with her’ for a while in return for turning his men back into human form. The stay lasted for twelve months!! Men! And women for that matter, I suppose...
Eventually his yearning to leave for home wins, but Circe persuades Odysseus to travel to the 'Land of the Dead' first and there to speak to the dead prophet Tiresias of Thebes.
8. Land of the Dead
When he finds the flooded forest, Odysseus follows Circe’s instructions and digs a trench into which he pours milk, honey, pure water and sacrificed animals’ blood. This attracts the spirits of the dead, including the spirits of his comrades at Troy, his lost crewman, his own mother and the prophet Tiresias.
No-one that Odysseus speaks to seems to have a good word to say about death or Hades.
Tiresias informs Odysseus that Poseidon will create more challenges for him and that he MUST NOT harm the cattle of Helios, else he will lose all of his men and his ship.
I have no idea where this vision takes place, but one would guess that it is south of Aeaea on mainland Italy? As from there Odysseus continues south towards the Strait of Messina.
9. The Sirens
First, he passes the island of the Sirens. He gets the crew to tie him to the mast and to ignore any order he may give. And then he makes them all plug their ears with beeswax.
Odysseus falls for the song of the Sirens and orders his crew to row towards them, but they ignore his orders, partly because their ears are blocked. And so, they row safely past.
It is possible that these dangerous rocks that they steered well clear of are the Aeolian islands. Very many ships have perished on the rocks and reefs here, as we saw in the museum at Lipari.
10. Scylla and Charybdis
According to Armitage’s adaptation, the ship then approaches a narrow channel between two islands, with a crag on one side and a cliff on the other. In my experience, this does not describe the narrows at the northern end of the Strait of Messina.
Nevertheless, the crew row between a whirlpool (‘Charybdis’) on the port side and a six-headed, man eating ‘Scylla’ off to starboard. He steers closer to Scylla, who plucks six oarsmen from their seats, one in each mouth. He steered between a rock and a hard place, but they managed to row clear and eventually ended up on the island of Thrinacea.
11. Thrinacea
It is here that Helios’ huge docile cattle were grazing. Some identify this island as Sicily. Although they know they should not, the crew were kept on land by a long-lasting storm, and they could not resist slaughtering and feasting on a few of the cattle. Odysseus was livid. The wind abated and changed direction, and although Odysseus realised that this was a trap by Poseidon, they cast off from shore.
No sooner had they rounded the point than a violent thunderstorm started. His ship was torn to pieces and all the crew drowned, save for Odysseus himself. He managed to cling onto some flotsam and fashioned a crude raft, but drifted back towards Scylla and Charybdis. He rowed with his arms for ten days, and then, half-conscious, he landed on the island of Ogygia, home of Calypso.
12. Ogygia
Calypso was an enchantress who enthralled Odysseus who stayed (willingly?) in her grip for seven years! She wanted to marry him, but realised sadly that he still yearned to return to his wife Penelope. So, eventually she provided him with tools, and told him to fell the trees required to build himself a boat.
There is a huge geographical range covering suggested locations for Ogygia: some say it is Gozo, near Malta; others say Othonoi (north west of Corfu). There are other guesses. My inkling would be towards Gozo, simply because you would be hard pressed to cross the Ionian Sea in a crude raft. rowing with your arms only, but might manage that journey alone in a boat.
And so it was that, eighteen days later, Odysseus landed on Phaeacia, which everyone seems to agree is Corfu.
13. Phaeacia
He was welcomed into the Palace of the Phaeacians and he astounded them with his maritime tales. They eventually provided Odysseus with a ship, a crew and treasures to sail back to Ithaca, a couple of days’ sail to the south. Missy Bear will head there early next spring.
14. Ithaca
Odysseus was left on the beach with his treasure, and was eventually reunited with his wife and son at the Palace. Finally, after killing all his wife’s potential suitors (who had been hanging around her for years awaiting news of this death), with a bow and arrows, the epic story ends.
For fun, I’ve plotted his journey (as I interpret it) on the Windy app. What do you think?
