* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
Download Question 3 Sample Answer “I respect you, Demodocus, more than
Survey
Document related concepts
Argonautica wikipedia , lookup
The God Beneath the Sea wikipedia , lookup
Greek mythology in popular culture wikipedia , lookup
Age of Mythology wikipedia , lookup
Historicity of Homer wikipedia , lookup
Troy series: Characters wikipedia , lookup
The Penelopiad wikipedia , lookup
Transcript
Question 3 Sample Answer “I respect you, Demodocus, more than any man alive surely the Muse has taught you, Zeus’s daughter, or god Apollo himself. How true to life, all too true... you sing the Achaeans’ fate, all they did and suffered, all they soldiered through, as if you were there yourself or heard from one who was. But come now, shift your ground. Sing of the wooden horse Epeus built with Athena’s help, the cunning trap that good Odysseus brought one day to the heights of Troy, filled with fighting men who laid the city waste. Sing that for me - true to life as it deserves and I will tell the world at once how freely the Muse gave you the gods’ own gift of song.” This is a speech by Odysseus to the Phaeacian bard (aiodos) Demodocus. It occurs in Book 8 of the Odyssey, near the end of the festivities held by the king Alcinous in honour of this mysterious stranger’s arrival in Scheria; the ensuing song by Demodocus, along with Odysseus’ tearful reaction to that song, forms the immediate prelude to his dramatic unveiling of his identity at the start of Book 9 and to his subsequent narrative of his own adventures since the fall of Troy. This passage shows Odysseus taking decisive control of his own image among the Phaeacians. The first song by Demodocus featured Odysseus in a somewhat less flattering light, as one who quarrelled with Achilles (as Agamemnon does in the Iliad). Especially given the Phaeacians’ general dislike of strife and tension (they have moved far away from the violent Cyclops to avoid any conflict, and Alcinous shows his aversion to quarrels during his handling of the Broadsea incident), Odysseus (who is now paving the way for his self-revelation) will be keen not to let his hosts think of him as anything less than a perfect team player (as he is represented by Nestor during one of the latter’s speeches to Telemachus in Book 3). Odysseus now makes a significant change to the course of the day’s entertainment (“shift your ground”), just as he changes so many things in the world around him: the story proposed by him to Demodocus suggests collaboration rather than conflict, since it shows him working with the craftsman Epeus and the goddess Athena to accomplish the ruse of the Trojan Horse, instead of quarrelling with Achilles. The story also, of course, shows Odysseus at his most glorious, with his finest heroic achievement (at least before his triumphant return to Ithaca): the Trojan Horse showcases his cunning (Odysseus’ key heroic attribute, and one that he emphasizes again to the Phaeacians during his narrative of e.g. his escape from the Cyclops), and it also allows him to achieve the greatest feat of modern arms, namely the sack of Troy. The crafty Odysseus is thus presented as the one really responsible for Greek victory, rather than the valiant Achilles through the killing of Hector (a tension between Achilles and Odysseus is also suggested during their confrontation in the Underworld in Book 11, when Achilles bemoans his early death and thereby implies that Odysseus can surpass him by surviving to a ripe old age). This speech can be paralleled with other methods by which Odysseus ensures a favourable impression of himself among the Phaeacians: he makes a spectacular throw of the discus, in response to Broadsea’s taunts, so that the Phaeacians will not think of him as some lowly, feeble tradesman; he downplays his marriage to Penelope (at least initially), to suggest his availability as a suitor for Nausicaa; he emphasizes his conflict with the Cyclops (the bane of the Phaeacians); and he emphasizes the importance of hosts treating him in accordance with the principles of xenia, and the negative consequences for hosts who fail to do so. The speech also illustrates Odysseus’ artful use of flattery to get his way, with his fulsome praise for Demodocus: compare his flattery of Nausicaa upon first arriving in Scheria in Book 6 (when he compares her to a goddess), and his extremely tactful refusal of Calypso’s advances in Book 5 (a marked contrast to the rudeness displayed by Gilgamesh toward Ishtar during a comparable scene of the Epic of Gilgamesh). There is also a certain metaliterary dimension to this speech: Homer (or whoever composed the Odyssey) is commenting on the nature of the craft of aoidos (the need to report historical events with perfect accuracy, reliance on divine inspiration from the Muse or Apollo), and on the bard’s place within society. Demodocus’ elevated stature among the Phaeacians is part of a general utopian colouring to their exotic society (compare the magically fertile garden of Alcinous, or the Phaeacians’ magic ships): he is respected and honoured (as suggested by his name, which means “welcomed by the people” in Greek), and Odysseus here joins in the Phaeacians’ general deferential treatment of their aoidos (having already offered Demodocus choice cuts of meat). This is how Homer himself would ideally like to be treated (and he implies that such treatment will get the best results from him), and is in marked contrast to the “real-world” lot of poor Phemius: in Book 1, Phemius is bullied and intimidated by the violent suitors to perform songs (on the Greek heroes’ returns, nostoi, from Troy) targeted against Odysseus’ interests, as part of the suitors’ campaign to wear Penelope down and break down the hopes of Penelope and Telemachus. In Book 23, Odysseus once again makes cunning use of a bard to project the right public image, when he instructs the newly spared Phemius to perform a festive wedding song as a means of concealing (for now) the recent massacre of the suitors from any Ithacans passing by the palace.