- How to make your fortune in the Odyssey
- 14.8-10 Eumaus the swineherd: while Odysseus was away, he
was without a boss and ran things himself.
- 14.96 the riches of Odysseus' herds
- 14.228 part of the made up lie which Odysseus told Eumaus
- he made 9 forays (against whom? does it matter? he won!)
- he got rich from the spoils
- 14.285 another part of the made up lie which Odysseus told
Eumaus
- he went on a foray to Egypt
- he lost, because his men got greedy (cf. Odysseus' tales)
- he begged the king for mercy, the king took pity on him,
and he remained in Egypt and got rich from "gifts"
- how did that work: "gifts?" like the Phaeacians? I got
nothing to really explain this.
- Sounds like he was a smoothe operator somehow
- 14.296 another part of lying tale told by Odysseus to Eumaus
- A Pheonician man tricked him on board ship to go "trading"
- the real plan was to sell him for profit!
- NONE of this is judged as right or wrong or evil or illegal
or legal or in any real normative moral terms
- It is just reported, fairly neutrally.
- Suffering and pain are noted.
- So that is the world of Oydsseus: what about our world?
- We have laws!
- A tale of a landlord and tenants...
- Odysseus' lying story told to Eumaus 14.460ff.
- about being at Troy under the walls at night with Odysseus
- 'Odysseus' trick to get a cloak for him
- The tale works: it gets the real Odysseus a cloak!
- AND EUMAUS SAYS "THIS TALE WORKED!"
- within the story a character acknowledges what the story
was told for and what it got and that it is effective!
- Stories as tools to manipulate people! Once that door is
opened, what about the bard himself: is he manipulating us? It
would be hard for him not to, even if he wanted to avoid it.
Surely you don't think of Odysseus as a thieving spoiled lying
pirate who would happily slit your throat! And yet, he is! No?
- He sacks the city of the Cicones and makes their women
slaves and kills their men.
- He tells lies whenever he pleases to get what he wants.
- He ignores pleas for mercy on the Doloneia.
- He's been gone for 20 years and knows full well that in
the world he lives in, 20 years is a lifetime (literally):
the suitors are not wrong. They simply lost. That doesn't
make Odysseus right. It's much more complex than simply
right v. wrong.
- I don't say this to make you think ill of Odysseus: I tell
you this to reflect on what a story does to you and how it
does it. Perspective matters incredibly. The "truth" is not
just some neutral thing that we can check in with to figure
out what is right. We must decide and judge and take on that
burden and privilege of being human.
- Theoclymenus 15.225 ff
- murderer who asks Telemachus to help him!
- Telemachus just does.
- But he murdered!
- What of guilt and punishment for a crime?
- This world of the Homeric Epics is lawless, but not without
codes. They simply conflict and are open to multiple
possibilities.