(I Read) The Odyssey by Homer translated by Peter Green
I started writing this at half past 3 in the morning – I’m at a hotel now & couldn’t go back to sleep after a nasty encounter with an insect. Funnily, I didn’t have nasty encounters with insects during my almost 1-week stay at Tirtha Quddus considering it’s a farm. 😂
The Odyssey is my 2nd attempt at reading Homer. I tried reading The Iliad 6 years ago but paused because I was tremendously busy which meant I wouldn’t have been able to enjoy such a MASSIVE book.
10 years gone by because of the Trojan War, 7 years because of being held captive by a nymph, & the remaining 3 years because of mischief, quests and Poseidon’s wrath. If the maps found online are to be believed, could Odysseus have gone back to Ithaca right after Troy and Ismarus? He could but supposedly Odysseus’ price to pay for participating in the war is a delayed return to Ithaca. The Greek’s divine intervention, innit.
One thing I found remarkable is the tremendous hospitality shown towards guests; be it for fellow mere mortals or for gods. Someone in Sunday Curation Book Club’s Discord shared a few pages from the book translated by Emily Wilson which highlights the Greek’s idea of hospitality called xenia. It requires both the host & the guest to pull the rope – and a lot of trust is involved which puts the host’s safety at risk. Back in the ancient days, folks seldom know anyone beyond their town.
I have little clue with how the poem is structured but Peter Green’s prose sets Odysseus up as a master storyteller. I felt IMMERSED in the stories Odysseus were telling. It can be easy to forget that The Odyssey is a poem.
The final 8 chapters are a mix of setting up Odysseus’ long-awaited return and the battle with Penelope’s suitors whom are unhappy with the outcome of Penelope’s promise where she would marry the man who could use Odysseus’ bow effectively. At this point, she still hasn’t a clue that Odysseus has returned to Ithaca as he was disguising as a beggar. This is the only part of the poem where it gets really bloody.
Is it possible that the Greek gods existed? I wouldn’t rule it out because ALL sorts of creatures exist on earth; the ones we can see & the ones we can’t.
On to the next one AI x