The Odyssey by Homer: Day 3
Book 3, lines 1-497
Long before we meet him for ourselves, Odysseus comes to us piecemeal through the memories and purposes of others. Nestor wants Telemachus to know Odysseus had no equal in cleverness. Also that he and Nestor “always agreed in councils, with one mind.” A famed and wily storyteller, Odysseus is already exposing so much—about everyone else.
The uncomfortable pleasure of knowing that Nestor and Telemachus are talking about Athena right in front of her.
Agamemnon’s tragic story runs like a seam beneath Odysseus’s. It’s a looking glass version of events: maybe a warning or a gambit thrown. Faithless wife, avenging son.
Join us on March 18 for a virtual discussion of The Odyssey with Stefania Heim
In Book 3 Orestes' murder of his mother Clytemnestra to avenge her murder of his father Agamemnon haunts the Telemachus and other characters of the Odyssey. In Aeschylus' backstory in the 5th century BC play Oresteia, in "The Eumenides," the final play of the Oresteia trilogy, Orestes is not just lionized for avenging his father's murder by his mother. He is tried by a jury of Athenians with Athena acting as judge. Even the gods must submit to the verdict as the play's theme is the primacy of the rule of law over primitive rules governing blood feuds and vengeance and the right of trial by jury. The jury is deadlocked, its votes split evenly, and Athena casts the deciding vote to acquit Orestes. She then placates the angry Furies, deities of vengeance, by giving them a place of honor in Athens as the "Kindly Ones", transfigured into protectors of justice rather than agents of vengeance.
May the rule of law forever rule!
I was haunted by the violence of sacrifice evoked: "a sharpened axe prepared to strike"; "axe sliced through the sinews of the [cow's] neck"; "cow was paralyzed"; "hoisted the body"; "sliced through the throat"; "black blood poured out"; "butchered her"; "life was gone." Such visceral violence juxtaposed with the washing of Telemachus "rub[bing] his skin with oil" and "dress[ing] him in a "tunic and fine cloak" until he "emerged" with "looks like a god's" is unsettling in its implicit evocation of hierarchical value regarding life, living, and worth. Perhaps, the unsettling nature of who "qualifies" as a "god" (god-worthy?) in today's world, has left me a bit sensitive?