Invocation to Caliophy

ODYSSEY – Book 1

·  Invocation to Caliophy

·  On Olympus, Poseidon has gone to Ethiopia for a feast and Athena invites the gods to send Odysseus home.

·  Athena plans to go to Telemachus to assist him. She appears as a stranger in the court and he feeds her, welcomes her, talks of the trouble at home with the suitors.

·  She advises him how to drive the suitors from the hall through an assembly, and for Telemachus to go searching for this father advising him to 1. Go to Nestor 2. Brave out another year and 3. If you hear he is dead, you’ll have to take matters in your own hands. Time to grow up.

·  Athena leaves ( without the gift Telemachus wanted to offer) and the bard sings the stories of the Trojan war. Penelope comes down and asks him to sing something else, Telemachus argues with her and tells her to go back with her women since “I hold the reins of power in the house.”

·  Telemachus tells the suitors about the assembly tomorrow and Antinous argues with him and demands to know about the visitor Telemachus entertained.

·  Eurycleia helps Telemachus get ready for bed.

Book 2

·  Assembly is called and the islands ask what the emergency is since they haven’t been called to assembly in years.

·  Telemachus asks them to leave, to stop eating him out of house and home.

·  Antinous argues that Penelope has been playing “fast and loose” with the suitors, encouraging them and misleading them with her weaving. He refuses to leave until she marries one of them.

·  Telemachus tells the men he cannot issue an ultimatum to his own mother and that if they think it okay to devour someone else’s house, then there will be a reckoning.

·  Zeus sends a sign – two eagles fighting. Halitherses reads the prophecy, but Eurymachus cuts him of and threatens him.

·  They refuse, and he asks for a ship to go find his father. The assembly breaks up and Athena appears again to him as Mentor, gives him the plan.

·  Athena goes and rallies the men. When Telemachus goes him, Antinous asks him to dine, but Telemachus refuses to join him because he is insulting. He convinces Antinous that he is going as a passenger, not commanding his own ship. Antinous suggests he might just drown!

·  Telemachus packs, asks Eurycleia to pack foods for him, and promise not to tell Penelope.

·  Athena gets everyone going and makes the suitor fall asleep. Telemachus sets sail.

Book 3

·  They arrive in Pylos where the people are having a feast. Athena encourages Telemachus to not be shy, to speak out for himself. He is nervous, but she assures him that he has help from high places.

·  Pisistratus, Nestor’s son, brings them to the feast, where they invite the disguised Athena to make an offering to Poseidon, which she does.

·  Telemachus answers the inquiry about who they are. He asks about this father.

·  Nestor tells the tale of the Trojan war and about how he sailed home while some of the other kings went back to fight on.

·  He tells Telemachus what he know about the different armies who returned. He has heard of Telemachus’ problem. When Nestor says that it is too bad Athena doesn’t favor Telemachus as she did his father, Nestor rebukes him, saying it is better to take a long time to get home than face what Agamemnon faced. (270)

·  They are told the tale of Aegisthus and Clytemnestra (7 years ), then the story of Menelaus. This is to serve as a warning to Telemachus not to stay away from home too long. Nestor advises him to go to Menelaus.

·  They make a place for them to sleep, but Athena refuses and transforms into an eagle while they watch.

·  Next morning, Nestor calls for the sacrifice he offered the night before and they feast. Then Telemachus and Pisistratus take a chariot to Menelaus’ house.

Book 4

Summary:

·  Telemachus and Pisistratus arrive at the home of Menelaus, where a wedding feast is being held of Achilles’ son Neoptelomus to his daughter and a bride for his “natural” son Megapenthes.

·  Eteoneus questions whether they should invite the two men in since it is a wedding: Menelaus chides him for his rudeness.

·  They boys are bathed and welcomed, then fed by Menelaus himself.

·  Telemachus is amazed at the wealth and says so. Menelaus overhears him and tells a story of how he became so rich in Egypt. While he was gone his brother was killed and he talks of sadness he’s experienced, yet his heart mostly grieves for Odysseus.

·  Telemachus starts to cry when he hears this lament.

·  Helen enters the room with her women and her spinning. She says he looks like his father. Menelaus agrees. Pisistrasus says that he is Odysseus’ son and briefly tells why Telemachus has come.

·  Menelaus is thrilled to see the son of his dear friend, but they all grieve and they all stat crying for Odysseus. Helen mixes a drug into their win to make them all happy. 240

·  Helen tells the story of how she recognized Odysseus when he snuck into the city of Troy and how she gets him to tell the strategy since her heart yearns now to go home.

·  Menelaus tells of how when they were in the Trojan Horse that Helen sang in the voices of their wives and they are almost undone by it, but that Odysseus has to silence Anticlous.

·  Telemachus suggests they go to bed.

·  In the morning, Menelaus gets Telemachus alone and Telemachus tells him of his troubles ( same language as earlier).

·  Menelaus tells Telemachus the story of Proteus, the Old Man of the Sea and how he wrestled him to submission to get him to tell the truth of why he was so delayed in getting home and what was happening to the others. (390-640)

·  Menelaus invites Telemachus to stay a while, but Telemachus has to leave. Menelaus offers him a gift of horses and a chariot, but again Telemachus declines, having no way to get them home and no pasturage on Ithaca.

·  Menelaus offers him a wine mixing bowl and tells of its lineage.

·  Meanwhile, back in Ithaca, innocent Noëmon asks Antinous when he thinks Telemachus might be back, since he needs his ship again. Antinous is shocked that Telemachus is gone. Noëmon is confused about Mentor going aboard because he saw Mentor the other day. . .

·  Anticlous and Eurymachus plan to kill him on his way home

·  Medon the herald tells Penelope what the suitors are planning. She gives him grief first, groups Medon with the suitors. He tells her that Telemachus has sailed away – she didn’t know it until now.

·  Eurycleia tells her how she helped Telemachus and swore and oath not to tell Penelope. 840

·  Antinous picks out the twenty men to help him destroy Telemachus.

·  Athena sends Penelope her sister as a dream –image and tells Penelope not to despair, since Telemachus travels with an escort that every man would desire for himself. Penelope knows this is a god, and asks about Odysseus and is told nothing about him by the goddess.

·  The ambush is ready.

Questions/ explorations. This is a chapter about marriage – it starts with one and the role of woman is explored. Imagine yourself as an archaeologist and this is the material you have to work from. What conclusions can you draw about the role of women based on this reading?

End of the fist section part one deal with Telemachus and his problems.

Book Five

·  On Olympus, Athena rallies the gods to think of Odysseus now, and Zeus has Hermes deliver a message to Calypso to release Odysseus.

·  The island of Calypso is described, and we see Odysseus crying by the sea.

·  Calypso agrees to release Odysseus, though she is miffed about it and thinks the gods are scandalized that she has taken a human lover.

·  Comment about how he slept with her every night, even though she no longer pleased. He’s been here nine years, after all.

·  He makes her swear a blood oath that she has no evil intentions. They build and plan.

·  He sails away and 17 days and on the 18th reaches sight of the land of the Phaeacian’s.

·  Poseidon just returning from Ethiopia, sees him and gets mad. Sends a storm.

·  He is saved by Ino, Cadmus’ daughter sits on the wreck and speaks to him. Gives him a scarf of immortality. He doubts her, too. She is asking him to let go of what he thinks is saving him. He has to strip naked.

·  He swims for three days. The surf keeps him from landing. Goes to a river’s mouth and prays to the god of the river for assistance. He returns the scarf and collapses. He makes a bed under some olive trees and sleeps.

Poseidon lets him go here after knocking him around awhile. Why do you think he might have softened toward Odysseus?

This chapter is half as long as the one before. Do you feel that it is a “filler” chapter? Does it give you any sense of what Odysseus is about? Describe him based on his actions.

Chapter 6

·  Athena sends Nausicaa a dream so that she can help Odysseus

·  Somehow Nausicaa’s asking to help with the chores indicated to everyone that she is ready for marriage. Somebody explain that.

·  The cheering and yelling of the girls wakes Odysseus. He covers himself with a branch for modesty’s sake.

·  All the girls run except Nausicaa and she speaks to him, helps him and has her maids bathe and dress him.

·  She gives him a plan to get to her mother first and to follow him into town.

·  Athena wraps him in a mist to hide him.

·  He follows her to Alcinous’ house.

Chapter 7

·  Odysseus meets a disguised Athena who directs him to the house of Alcinous. Athena gives him the names an lineage of the people he will meet (60).

·  The house is described as magical. Springs feed it and the fruit trees always produce. . . a place that is a gift of the gods.

·  Odysseus embraces her knees and begs for convoy home.

·  Alcinous raises him up from the ashes and honors him, agrees to take him home and calls an assembly for the morrow to arrange it.

·  Arete recognizes the shirt he is wearing as one she has made herself and knows that Nausicaa has had a hand in this. She questions him.

·  Odysseus tells her he has been a captive of Calypso for 7 years, about the shipwreck ( raft-wreck?) and about swimming into the mouth of a river to land in the land of the Phaeacians.

·  Alcinous tells him they will take him home and about the magic ships they control, and Odysseus is joyful.

Chapter 8

·  Assembly is called, Demodocus the bard is called and when he sings of the Trojan war, Odysseus weeps. Compare to Telemachus weeping at Menelaus’ hall.

·  When he sees his guest crying, Alcinous suggests they play games instead.

·  They wrestle, run foot races. Laodamas (the king’s son) challenges Odysseus and Odysseus gives him a hard time about being challenged, saying he has suffered enough. Broadsea then calls Odysseus a coward and angers him enough to invoke taunts and insults back. Then Odysseus shows off by throwing a discus farther than anyone else (220).

·  Alcinous suggest they dance instead, so they send for the bard who plays while they dance and then sings a song about the trap Hephaestus set for Ares and his wife Aphrodite.

·  Laodamas and Halius dance with a ball.

·  Alcinous calls for parting gifts from the twevlce peers of the kingdom – a fresh shirt and a bar of gold each. Broadsea gives a sword.

·  The gifts are spread at Arete’s feet and she gets a chest to put them in. Odysseus ties the knots (Circe taught him the knots).

·  Nausicaa passes and Odysseus thanks her for she saved him.

·  The bard Demodocus sings of the wooden horse after Alcinous requests it (550). Odysseus cried ( for a change).

·  Alcinous tries to cheer Odysseus up by telling a tale of the prophecy about the Phaeacians. He begs Odysseus to tell his tale.

Book 9

·  Odysseus tells them who he is. Tells them the tale of his journey, of Circe and Calypso, of the lotus eaters. Of the cyclopse and tricking Polyphemus.

Book 10

·  He tells then of arriving at the island of Aeolus where he stays a month. Aeolus takes the winds and puts them in a sack for him. His crew thinks it is treasure and opens it when he is asleep and they are blown back to the island of Aeolus, where Aeolus urges him and sends him away.

·  They then arrive at the land of the Laestrygonians, where they meet the king’s daughter. She tells of the king’s palace, but they are attacked because the Lastrygonians are cannibals. He loses all ships except his own.

·  They reach the home of Circe next and she turns them into swine. First he kills a stag, then sends the men scouting. They know they’ve seen smoke.

·  All them 20 men go towards the castle, but Eurylochus stays behind. She feeds the men and turns them to swine.

·  When Odysseus is on his way to Circe, Hermes comes to him to tell him about moly and about what he should do to get him men free.

·  Circe knows who he is once her magic doesn’t work on him. She begs at his knees and drags him to bed. He makes her swear a binding oath not to hurt him. They make a feast for him, but he refuses to eat while his men as still swine. She changes them back to men and invites the rest of the crew to her feast.

·  They stay for a year. Circe tells him he must go to the house of death to speak to Tiresias. She tells him how to get there and how to handle himself.