Post on the theme of Homer the poem of the Odyssey. Odyssey

Name: Odysseus (Odysseus)

A country: Greece

Creator: ancient Greek mythology

Activity: king of Ithaca

Family status: married

Odysseus: Character Story

The hero of the mythology of the ancient Greeks, the king of the island of Ithaca, a participant in the Trojan War, a brave warrior and a skilled speaker. In the Iliad, he is present as a key character. In the poem "Odyssey" - the main character. A feature of Odysseus is a dodgy character, the ability to cunningly get out of dangerous situations, saving himself and his comrades. Therefore, "cunning" has become one of the constant epithets of the hero.

History of creation

The image of Odysseus became a reflection of the era of the development of the sea by the Greeks. The situations when the warriors set sail on their ships and their connection with their relatives was cut off for a long time found their mythological embodiment in the story of the wanderings of Odysseus. Homer (Iliad, Odyssey), Hecuba, Cyclops, Ajax, Philoctetes and other authors wrote about the adventures of the hero and his journey home to his wife Penelope.

Various episodes from the life of the hero are captured in the form of drawings on Greek vases. According to them, you can restore the alleged appearance of the hero. Odysseus is a mature bearded man often depicted wearing the oval cap worn by Greek sailors.

Biography

Odysseus was born from the marriage of the Argonaut Laertes, king of Ithaca, and the granddaughter of the god Hermes - Anticlea. The hero's grandfather Autolycus bore the proud title of "the most thieving of men", was a clever swindler and personally from Hermes, his father, received permission to swear by the name of this god and break oaths. Odysseus himself is married to Penelope, who gave birth to the hero's son Telemachus.

Odysseus met his future wife Penelope in Sparta, where he arrived, among other suitors, to woo Elena the Beautiful. There were many who wanted to marry, but Elena's father was afraid to make a choice in favor of one person, so as not to incur the wrath of the others. The cunning Odysseus gave a fresh idea - to give the girl the right to vote, so that she chooses the groom herself, and bind the suitors with an oath that, if necessary, they will all help Elena's future husband.

Helen chose Menelaus, the son of the Mycenaean king. Odysseus laid eyes on Penelope. Penelope's father gave his word that he would give his daughter to the one who won the race. When Odysseus became the winner, his father tried to dissuade Penelope from this marriage and stay at home. Odysseus repeated his trick and let the bride choose herself - to stay with her father or go with him, and she, despite the persuasion of the parent, chose the hero. Having played the wedding, Odysseus and his young wife returned to Ithaca.

When Paris kidnapped Helen, the former suitors were gathering for the Trojan War. The oracle predicted to Odysseus that if he went under Troy, he would return home after 20 years, poor and without companions. The hero tried to "slope" from this event. Odysseus tried to pretend to be crazy, but was exposed.

The man began to sow the field with salt, harnessing a bull and a horse to the plow, but when his newborn son was thrown under the plow, he was forced to stop. So it became clear that Odysseus was fully aware of his actions, and the hero had to go to war. According to Homer, the hero was persuaded to go under Troy by King Agamemnon, who came to Ithaca for this.

Under Troy, Odysseus comes with 12 ships. When ships come ashore, no one wants to get off. Another prediction promises that the first person to set foot on the land of Troy will certainly perish. Nobody wants to be the first, so Odysseus jumps off the ship, and people follow him. The cunning hero makes a deceptive maneuver and throws a shield under his feet, so that it turns out that it was not he who first set foot on the Trojan land, but the one who jumped off after him.

During the war, Odysseus manages to settle personal scores by exposing as a traitor the man who threw his son under the plow, thereby forcing the hero to go to war. A number of conditions are necessary for victory, and Odysseus fulfills them one by one. Produces a bow, which remained with Philoctetes, abandoned at the beginning of the war on the island and embittered at the others. Together with Diomedes, he steals a statue of the goddess Athena from Troy. Finally, Odysseus gives the idea with the famous Trojan horse, thanks to which, along with other warriors, he falls outside the walls of the city.

After the victory at Troy, the ships turn back and Odysseus's wanderings by sea begin. The hero experiences many misadventures, during which he loses ships and crew, and returns to Ithaca 10 years after sailing from the coast of Troy. In Ithaca, meanwhile, the suitors are besieging Penelope, claiming that Odysseus died long ago and it would be necessary to remarry, choosing one of them. The hero, turned by Athena into an old man, comes to his own palace, where no one recognizes him, except for the old nanny and the dog.

Penelope offers the suitors a competition for their hand - to pull the bow of Odysseus and shoot an arrow through 12 rings. The grooms insult Odysseus in the guise of an old man, but none of them can cope with the bow. Then Odysseus himself shoots an arrow, thus revealing himself, and then, together with his grown-up son Telemachus, arranges a bloody battle and kills the suitors.

However, the hero's journey does not end there. The relatives of the suitors he killed are demanding trial. Odysseus, by decision of the arbitrator, is expelled from Ithaca for 10 years, where the son of the hero Telemachus remains king. In addition, the god is angry with the hero, whom the hero offended by blinding the son of the god Polyphemus, the giant Cyclops.

To appease the god, Odysseus, with an oar on his shoulders, must walk through the mountains to find a land where people have never heard of the sea. Odysseus finds land where his oar is mistaken for a shovel and stops there. Poseidon forgives the hero after he makes sacrifices, and Odysseus himself marries the local queen.

The further fate of the hero in different sources is described in different ways. Odysseus either died in foreign lands (in different versions - in Aetolia, Etruria, Arcadia, etc.), without returning home, or returned after the expiration of the exile to Ithaca, where he was mistakenly killed by his own son, born of the sorceress Circe. There is even a version according to which Odysseus was turned into a horse and died in this guise from old age.

legends

The most famous adventures of the hero happened on the way home from Troy and are described in Homer's poem "The Odyssey". Returning, the ships of Odysseus moor to one or another island inhabited by mythological creatures, and each time the hero loses some of the people. Lotuses grow on the island of lotophages, granting oblivion to those who eat them. On the island of the Cyclopes lives the one-eyed ogre Polyphemus, the son of Poseidon. The heroes try to find shelter for the night in Polyphemus' cave, and he eats some of Odysseus' men.

The hero and the surviving companions blind Polyphemus, gouging out the giant's only eye with a pointed stake, and then escape with the help of sheep. The blind giant examines the sheep by touch before releasing them from the cave, but does not find the heroes clinging to the animal's fur from below, and so they get out of the cave. However, Odysseus calls the giant his real name, and he turns to his father Poseidon with a cry for help. Since then, Poseidon has been angry with Odysseus, which does not make the hero's journey home by sea easier.

Having escaped from Polyphemus, the heroes end up on the island of the wind god Eol. He presents Odysseus with a fur, inside of which the winds are hidden. The hero must not untie this fur until he sees the shores of his native Ithaca. Odysseus and his team almost get home, but his people, thinking that there is a treasure hidden inside the fur, untie it while the hero is sleeping, release the winds into the wild, and the ship carries far into the sea.

On the island of the sorceress Circe, Odysseus's companions turn into animals after tasting treats, and the hero himself conceives a son with the sorceress, who, according to one version, will cause his death. With Circe, the hero spends a year, and then goes on and passes the island of sirens, who enchant and destroy sailors with singing, and then swims between the huge whirlpool Charybdis and the six-headed monster Scylla, which devours six more crew members.

Gradually, Odysseus loses all his companions and on the island of the nymph Calypso finds himself alone. The nymph falls in love with Odysseus, and the hero spends 7 years with her, because there is not a single ship on the island to sail away. In the end, Hermes appears to the nymph and orders the hero to be released. Odysseus is finally able to build a raft and sail away.

• The name of the hero has become a household name. The word "odyssey" means a long journey with many obstacles and adventures and is often found in contexts far removed from ancient Greek realities. For example, in the title of the film "Space Odyssey 2001", filmed in 1968 based on the story of Arthur C. Clarke, or in the title of the adventure novel "Odyssey".
• In the literature of the New Age, one can often find the image of Odysseus - reworked or taken "as is". In the book Eric, a character named Windrisseus appears, an ironically reimagined variation on the theme of Odysseus. In 2000, the two-volume novel Odysseus, Son of Laertes by Henry Lyon Oldie was released, where the story is told from the perspective of the hero.

• The image of Odysseus also penetrated the cinema. In 2013, the Franco-Italian TV series Odysseus was released, which is not about the hero’s wanderings, but about the family that is waiting for his return, about the intrigues and conspiracies of suitors who want to seize the throne, and about the events that take place after The king returns to the island. In 2008, Terry Ingram's adventure film Odysseus: Journey to the Underworld was released, where the actor played the hero.
• Odysseus is one of the characters in the Age of Mythology strategy game released in 2002.

In today's lesson, we will get acquainted with Homer's poem "The Odyssey", the main plot of which is the wanderings of Odysseus, the king of the island of Ithaca, who was returning home after the capture of Troy by the Greeks. “There is nothing sweeter than our homeland and our relatives,” Odysseus did not tire of repeating. However, the gods pursued him, for a long ten years he wandered the seas, until he saw the shores of his Ithaca.

Odysseus told how, having lost his way on the sea routes, he landed on the island of one-eyed giants-cyclops. Near the sea, the Greeks saw a large cave and entered it. Soon, along with the herd, the owner of the cave, the Cyclops Polyphemus, the son of the lord of the seas, the god Poseidon, appeared (Fig. 2).

Having driven a herd of sheep and goats into the cave, Polyphemus blocked the entrance to it with a piece of rock. He greeted the guests warmly.

Horror gripped the Greeks. Then Odysseus untied a leather sack with wine and "bravely offered a full cup to Polyphemus." The giant liked the drink. He invited Odysseus to give his name, promising to give him a gift. The cunning Odysseus said:

“I am called Nobody; I was given this name

Mother and father and comrades all call me that.

With an evil sneer, the cannibal beast-like answered me:

“Know, Nobody, my dear, that you will be the very last

Eaten when I'm done with the others; here's my present."

Then he collapsed on his back completely drunk.

The Greeks found a huge stake in the cave, heated it on a fire and knocked out the cannibal's only eye. Polyphemus howled wildly...

Hearing loud cries, Cyclopes fled from everywhere:

“Who, Polyphemus, is destroying you here by deceit or by force ?!”

He answered them from a dark cave desperately wild

With a roar: "No one! .." Cyclopes screamed in their hearts:

“If no one, why are you alone crying like that? ..”

The Cyclopes dispersed to their caves. And in the morning Odysseus tied rams in threes. Under each middle was tied one of the Greeks. Polyphemus moved a huge stone away from the entrance and, feeling the rams from above, released the whole herd. And along with it, the Greeks ... Having reached the ship, they foamed the dark waters with oars. Here Odysseus shouted to the Cyclops: “Know, ogre, that Odysseus, the ruler of Ithaca, blinded you!” Hearing the name of his enemy, Polyphemus prayed to Poseidon: “Oh, lord of the seas! My father! May Odysseus never see his homeland. If, by the will of fate, he reaches Ithaca, let him return alone, on a strange ship and find misfortune in his house! Since then, Poseidon began to pursue Odysseus.

Rice. 2. Odysseus and Polyphemus ()

Once Odysseus sailed past the island of the Sirens. They were evil sorceresses, half birds, half women. With their sweet-sounding singing, the sirens lured sailors and devoured them. The whole island was white with the bones of the dead. Odysseus really wanted to listen to magical singing and stay alive. He sealed the ears of his comrades with wax and asked to be firmly tied to the mast. The sirens sang beautifully. Odysseus forgot about everything: about his rocky Ithaca, about his wife Penelope and son Telemachus. He tried to break the ropes. But with a vengeance, his faithful companions pressed the oars. And only when the island of the Sirens was out of sight, they untied Odysseus from the mast (Fig. 3).

Rice. 3. Meeting with sirens ()

Soon, Odysseus and his companions again experienced mortal danger. “In great fear then we passed through a narrow strait,” Odysseus told King Alcinus. From a rocky cave on one side of the strait crawled out a terrible monster - Scylla. It was a huge snake with six dog heads, each of which had the sharpest teeth in three rows. On the other side of the narrow strait, a no less terrible monster, Charybdis, lay in wait for the sailors. Three times a day, she opened her huge mouth, absorbing the black waters, and then vomited them back. Passing between Scylla and Charybdis, Odysseus and his companions "in awe fixed their eyes on the threatening death."

After listening to the woeful story of Odysseus, Tsar Alkinoy ordered a ship to be equipped to deliver it to Ithaca.

The curse of the Cyclops came true: on a strange ship, alone, ten years after the death of Troy, Odysseus returned to his homeland. In his house, noble youths of Ithaca feasted as uninvited guests. They considered Odysseus dead, brazenly disposed of his property, wooed his wife Penelope (Fig. 4), mocked their son Telemachus, hoping to deprive him of his father's inheritance.

Penelope did not stop believing that Odysseus was alive and was waiting for him. She came up with a trick: she promised to choose a new husband as soon as she weaves the funeral cover for Odysseus's father (he was old and was preparing for death). During the day she weaved tirelessly, and at night she unraveled the threads. The deception lasted for three years, on the fourth one of the maids revealed to the suitors the secret of the mistress.

Rice. 4. Penelope ()

Not wanting to be recognized, Odysseus changed into patched clothes and, under the guise of a beggar, entered his house. The riotous suitors ate and drank, forcing Penelope to choose a new husband for herself. Finally, she announced that she would become the wife of the one who won the archery belonging to Odysseus. She herself hoped that no one would even be able to bend a mighty bow. And so it happened. Odysseus asked permission to draw his bow. The suitors decided that the beggar tramp had lost his mind.

Taking your mighty bow, Odysseus, solid in trials,

Instantly he pulled the bowstring, and an arrow flew through the rings ...

Odysseus brutally dealt with the suitors: "In his house he exterminated all the riotous suitors here ...". The relatives of the dead rushed to the palace of Odysseus, calling for revenge. With great difficulty, Odysseus achieved reconciliation with the nobility of Ithaca.

Bibliography

1. A.A. Vigasin, G.I. Goder, I.S. Sventsitskaya. Ancient world history. Grade 5 - M .: Education, 2006.
2. Nemirovsky A.I. A book to read on the history of the ancient world. - M.: Enlightenment, 1991.

1. Lib.ru ()
2. Godsbay.com ()

Homework

1. Why couldn't Odysseus return to his homeland for ten years after the end of the Trojan War?
2. What does the catchphrase "between Scylla and Charybdis" mean? In what cases can we use this aphorism?
3. Describe the character of Odysseus. What character's actions do you like? What actions do you condemn?

© Introductory article. Markish S. Heirs, 2018

© Notes, dictionary. Osherov S. Successors, 2018

© Edition in Russian, design. Eksmo Publishing LLC, 2018

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Way to Homer

In the second act of Shakespeare's Hamlet, a wandering troupe appears, and one of the actors, at the request of the prince, reads a monologue in which the Trojan hero Aeneas tells about the capture of Troy and the cruelties of the victors. When the story comes to the suffering of the old queen Hecuba - in front of her eyes, Pyrrhus, the son of Achilles, who was rabid from anger, killed her husband Priam and abused his body - the actor turns pale and bursts into tears. And Hamlet utters the famous, proverbial words:

What is Hecuba to modern man, what is Achilles, Priam, Hector and other heroes of Homer to him; what is their torment, joy, love and hate, adventures and battles, which died down and burned out more than thirty centuries ago? What takes him back to antiquity, why does the Trojan War and the return of the long-suffering and cunning Odysseus to his homeland touch us, if not to tears, like a Shakespearean actor, then still quite vividly and strongly?

Any literary work of the distant past is capable of attracting and captivating a person of modern times with the image of a vanished life, in many ways strikingly unlike our life today. The historical interest inherent in any person, the natural desire to find out “what happened before,” is the beginning of our path to Homer, or rather, one of the paths. We ask: who was he, this Homer? And when did you live? And did he "compose" his heroes, or do their images and exploits reflect true events? And how true (or how freely) are they reflected and what time do they belong to? We ask question after question and look for answers in articles and books about Homer; and at our service - not hundreds and not thousands, but tens of thousands of books and articles, a whole library, a whole literature that continues to grow even now. Scientists not only discover new facts related to Homer's poems, but also discover new points of view on Homer's poetry as a whole, new ways of evaluating it. There was a time when every word of the Iliad and Odyssey was considered an indisputable truth - the ancient Greeks (in any case, the vast majority of them) saw in Homer not only a great poet, but also a philosopher, teacher, naturalist, in a word - the supreme judge on all occasions. There was another time when everything in the Iliad and the Odyssey was considered fiction, a beautiful fairy tale, or a crude fable, or an immoral anecdote that offended "good taste." Then the time came when Homer's "fables" one after another began to be reinforced by the finds of archaeologists: in 1870, the German Heinrich Schliemann found Troy, at the walls of which the heroes of the Iliad fought and died; four years later, the same Schliemann unearthed "abundant with gold" Mycenae - the city of Agamemnon, the leader of the Greek army near Troy; in 1900, the Englishman Arthur Evans began excavations, unique in terms of the wealth of finds, in Crete, the “hundred-city” island, repeatedly mentioned by Homer; in 1939, the American Bligen and the Greek Kuroniotis also found ancient Pylos, the capital of Nestor, the “sweet-voiced vithia of Pylos,” the indefatigable giver of wise advice in both poems…

The list of "Homer's discoveries" is extremely extensive and has not been closed to this day - and is unlikely to be closed in the near future. And yet it is necessary to name one more of them - the most important and most sensational in our century. During excavations on the island of Crete, as well as in Mycenae, in Pylos and in some other places in the southern part of the Balkan Peninsula, archaeologists found several thousand clay tablets covered with unknown letters. It took almost half a century to read them, because even the language of these inscriptions was not known. Only in 1953 did the thirty-year-old Englishman Michael Ventris solve the problem of deciphering the so-called Linear B. This man, who died in a car accident three and a half years later, was neither a historian of antiquity nor an expert in ancient languages ​​- he was an architect. Nevertheless, as the remarkable Soviet scientist S. Lurie wrote about Ventris, “he managed to make the largest and most amazing discovery in the science of Antiquity since the Renaissance.” His name should be next to the names of Schliemann and Champollion, who unraveled the mystery of Egyptian hieroglyphs. Its discovery put into the hands of researchers authentic Greek documents of about the same time as the events of the Iliad and the Odyssey, documents that expanded, clarified, and in some ways turned the previous ideas about the prototype of that society and state that are depicted by Homer.

At the beginning of the II millennium BC. e. Achaean Greek tribes appeared on the Balkan Peninsula. By the middle of this millennium, slave-owning states had formed in the southern part of the peninsula. Each of them was a small fortress with adjacent lands. At the head of each stood, apparently, two rulers. The rulers-kings with their entourage lived in a fortress, behind mighty, cyclopean masonry walls, and at the foot of the wall a settlement populated by royal servants, artisans, merchants arose. At first, the cities fought with each other for supremacy, then, around the 15th century BC. e., the penetration of the Achaeans into neighboring countries, across the sea. Among their other conquests was the island of Crete - the main center of the ancient, pre-Greek culture of the southeastern region of the Mediterranean. Long before the beginning of the Achaean conquest, there were states with monarchical power in Crete and a society clearly divided into classes of free and slaves. The Cretans were skilled sailors and merchants, excellent builders, potters, jewelers, artists, they knew a lot about art, they knew writing. The Achaeans had previously been strongly influenced by the high and refined Cretan culture; now, after the conquest of Crete, it finally became the common property of the Greeks and Cretans. Scientists call it Cretan Mycenaean.

The land that constantly attracted the attention of the Achaeans was the Troad in the northwest of Asia Minor, famous for its favorable location and fertile soil. To the main city of this land - Ilion, or Troy - campaigns were equipped more than once. One of them, especially long, which brought together a particularly large number of ships and soldiers, remained in the memory of the Greeks under the name of the Trojan War. The ancients attributed it to 1200 BC. e. - in terms of our chronology - and the work of archaeologists who dug the Hissar-Lyk hill after Schliemann confirm the ancient tradition.

The Trojan War turned out to be the eve of the collapse of the Achaean power. Soon new Greek tribes appeared in the Balkans - the Dorians - just as wild as their predecessors, the Achaeans, were a thousand years ago. They went through the entire peninsula, displacing and subjugating the Achaeans, and completely destroyed their society and culture. History turned back: a tribal community reappeared in place of the slave-owning state, maritime trade died out, the royal palaces that survived the destruction were overgrown with grass, arts, crafts, and writing were forgotten. The past was also forgotten; the chain of events was broken, and individual links turned into legends - into myths, as the Greeks said. The myths about heroes were for the ancients the same indisputable truth as the myths about the gods, and the heroes themselves became the object of worship. Heroic traditions were intertwined with each other and with myths about the gods. Circles (cycles) of myths arose, connected both by the sequence of facts underlying them, and by the laws of religious thinking and poetic fantasy. Myths were the soil on which the Greek heroic epic grew.

Every nation has a heroic epic. This is a story about a glorious past, about events of paramount importance that were a turning point in the history of the people. Such an event (or at least one of such events) was the great campaign against Troy; legends about him became the most important plot basis of the Greek epic. But from the time when the epic was created, these events were separated by three or even four centuries, and therefore the pictures of the bygone life, remembered with extraordinary accuracy, were joined by details and details borrowed from the life that surrounded the creators of the epic unknown to us. At the very foundation of the myth, much remained untouched, but much was reinterpreted in a new way, in accordance with new ideals and views. Layering (and, therefore, inevitable inconsistency) was originally a characteristic feature of the Greek epic, and since it was in constant motion, the number of layers increased. This mobility is inseparable from the very form of its existence: like all peoples, the heroic epic among the Greeks was oral creativity, and its written consolidation marked the last stage in the history of the genre.

The performers of epic works and, at the same time, their co-creators, co-authors were singers (in Greek, “aeds”). They knew by heart tens of thousands of poetic lines that were inherited and God knows who and when composed, they owned a set of traditional means and techniques that also passed from one generation of poets to the next (this includes various repetition formulas for describing similar or in accuracy of repetitive situations, and constant epithets, and a special poetic meter, and a special language of the epic, and even the very range of plots, quite wide, but still limited). The abundance of stable, unchanging elements was a necessary condition for independent creativity: freely combining them, intertwining them with their own poems and half-verses, the aed always improvised, always created anew.

Most modern scholars believe that Homer lived in the 8th century BC. e. in Ionia - on the western coast of Asia Minor or on one of the nearby islands. By that time, the Aeds had disappeared, and rhapsodic reciters took their place; they no longer sang, accompanying themselves on the cithara, but recited in a singsong voice, and not only their own works, but also those of others. Homer was one of them. But Homer is not only an heir, he is also an innovator, not only the result, but also the beginning: in his poems lie the origins of the spiritual life of all Antiquity as a whole. The Byzantine Michael Choniates (XII-XIII centuries) wrote: “Just as, according to Homer, all rivers and streams originate from the Ocean, so any verbal art has its source in Homer.”

There is an assumption that the Iliad and the Odyssey really conclude a centuries-old tradition of improvisational creativity - that they were the first examples of a written “great epic”, from the very beginning they were literature in the literal sense of the word. This does not mean, of course, that the text of the poems known to us does not differ in any way from the original, as it was written down or “pronounced” at the end of the 8th or beginning of the 7th century BC. e. It contains many later inserts (interpolations), in other cases very lengthy, up to a whole song; quite a few, probably, cuts, cuts, and stylistic corrections, which should be called distortions. But in such a “distorted” form, it dates back almost two and a half thousand years, in this form it was known to the ancients and accepted by them, and trying to return it to its original state is not only impossible in essence, but also pointless from a historical and cultural point of view.

The Iliad tells about one episode of the last, tenth, year of the Trojan War - the wrath of Achilles, the most powerful and brave among Greek heroes, offended by the supreme leader of the Achaeans, the Mycenaean king Agamemnon. Achilles refuses to participate in the battles, the Trojans begin to gain the upper hand, drive the Achaeans to the very camp and almost set fire to their ships. Then Achilles allows his beloved friend Patroclus to join the battle. Patroclus dies, and Achilles, finally renouncing his anger, avenges the death of his friend by slaying Hector, the protagonist and protector of the Trojans, the son of their king Priam. Everything important in the plot of the poem comes from myths, from the Trojan cycle. The Odyssey is also connected with the same cycle, telling about the return to his homeland after the fall of Troy of another Greek hero - the king of the island of Ithaca Odysseus. But the main thing here is not a myth: both main plot components of the Odyssey - the return of a spouse to his wife after a long absence and amazing adventures in distant, overseas lands - go back to a fairy tale and a folk story. The difference between the two poems is not limited to this, it is noticeable in the composition, and in the details of the narrative, and in the details of the worldview. Already the ancients themselves were not sure whether both poems belonged to the same author, and there are many supporters of this view in modern times. And yet, more likely - although, strictly speaking, exactly the same provable - seems to be the opposite opinion: there are still more similarities between the Iliad and the Odyssey than different ones.

Dissimilarity and direct contradictions are found not only between the poems, but also within each of them. They are explained primarily by the multi-layered Greek epic mentioned above: after all, in the world that Homer draws, the features and signs of several eras are combined and adjacent - Mycenaean, pre-Homeric (Dorian), Homeric in the proper sense of the word. And next to the Dorian ritual of burning corpses - Mycenaean burial in the ground, next to Mycenaean bronze weapons - Dorian iron, unknown to the Achaeans, next to the Mycenaean autocrats - powerless Dorian kings, kings only in name, but in fact tribal elders ... In the last century, these contradictions led science to the fact that the very existence of Homer was called into question. The idea was expressed that Homeric poems arose spontaneously, that is, by themselves, that this is the result of collective creativity - like a folk song. Less decisive critics admitted that Homer did exist, but assigned him the relatively modest role of an editor, or, more precisely, a compiler who skillfully brought together small poems belonging to different authors, or, perhaps, folk ones. Still others, on the contrary, acknowledged Homer's copyright for most of the text, but attributed the artistic integrity and perfection of the Iliad and the Odyssey to some editor of a later era.

Scientists tirelessly uncovered ever new contradictions (often they were the fruit of scientific imagination or scientific captiousness) and were ready to pay any price to get rid of them. The price, however, turned out to be too high: not only Homer turned into fiction, fiction, but also the dignity of his “imaginary” creations, torn to shreds by the merciless feathers of analysts (this is how the overthrowers of the “united Homer” are called). This was sheer absurdity, and over the past fifty years the opposite point of view, the unitary one, has taken over. For the Unitarians, the artistic unity of the Homeric heritage is undeniable, which is directly felt by any unbiased reader. Their goal is to reinforce this feeling with the help of a special “analysis from the inside”, an analysis of those rules and laws that, as far as one can judge, the poet himself set for himself, those techniques that make up Homer’s poetry, that worldview that underlies it. So, let's look at Homer through the eyes of an open-minded reader.

First of all, we will be puzzled and attracted by the similarity, the closeness of the ancient to the modern. Homer immediately captures and immediately from the subject of study becomes a part of our "I", as any favorite poet becomes, dead or alive - it does not matter, because the main thing for us will be an emotional response, an aesthetic experience.

Reading Homer, you are convinced that much in his view of the world is not only eternal and enduring truth, but also a direct challenge to all subsequent centuries. The most important thing that distinguishes this view is its breadth, the desire to understand different points of view, tolerance, as they would say today. The author of the heroic epic of the Greeks does not harbor hatred for the Trojans, the undisputed culprits of an unjust war (after all, it was their prince Paris who offended people and offended the divine law by kidnapping Helen, the wife of his hospitalist, the Spartan king Menelaus); let's say more - he respects them, he sympathizes with them, because they also have no other choice but to fight, defending their city, wives, children and their own lives, and because they fight courageously, although the Achaeans are stronger and more numerous. They are doomed; True, they themselves do not yet know this, but Homer knows the outcome of the war and, a generous winner, sympathizes with the future vanquished. And if, according to the poet himself, “holy Troy” is hated by the gods “for the guilt of Priamid Paris”, then Homer is higher and nobler than the Olympian gods.

The breadth of the look is inspired by kindness, humanity. It is hardly coincidental that European literature is opened by a call for kindness and a condemnation of cruelty. Justice, which people are obliged to observe and protect the gods, is in mutual love, meekness, friendliness, complacency; lawlessness - in ferocity, in heartlessness. Even Achilles, his exemplary hero, is not forgiven by Homer for the "lion's ferocity", and to this day this is not a common curse of common vice, but a living experience for which people throughout their history have paid so much and every time again. Homer's humanity is so great that it even triumphs over the inherent features of the genre: usually a heroic epic is a song of war as a test that reveals the best forces of the soul, and Homer really glorifies war, but he already curses its disasters, its ugliness, shameless outrage over human dignity. The first, apparently, comes from the primitive morality of the barbarian Dorians, the second - from the new morality of law and peace. She had to subjugate the universe, and to this day it cannot yet be said that this task has been solved. That's where Homer meets Shakespeare, and we meet both, that's what Hecuba is to us! We perfectly understand the horror of old Priam, who mourns in advance his ugly and inglorious death:

Oh, nice young man
No matter how he lies, fallen in battle and torn to pieces by copper, -
Everything with him and the dead, whatever is open, is beautiful!
If a gray-haired beard and a gray-haired head of a man,
If the shame of a murdered old man is defiled by dogs,
There is no more miserable fate for unfortunate people!

And no less, no worse, we understand Shakespeare's furious protest against the fate that allowed this to happen:

Be ashamed, Fortune! Give her a break
Oh gods, take the wheel, break the rim, break the spokes
And roll its axis from the clouds
To hell!

The humiliation of a person by injustice, violence is a shame and torment for each of the people; villainy throws its brazen challenge to the entire world order, and, therefore, to each of us, and, therefore, everyone is responsible for villainy. Homer had a presentiment, Shakespeare clearly understood.

But tolerance nowhere never turns into tolerance for evil, timidity before it, an attempt to justify it. The firmness of the ethical position, the serious and strict unambiguous attitude to life, so characteristic of Homer (and of the ancient tradition as a whole), has in our eyes a special attraction. "The inviolability of the rock of values", from Homer to the present day - the ineradicability of goodness and honesty in the face of malice and betrayal, the eternity of craving for beauty in spite of the temptations of the ugly, the "eternity" of maxims and commandments that seem to other simpletons to be born only yesterday or even today - carries joy and encouragement. And there is no need to suspect that such unambiguity of assessments is the result of primitive, primitive complacency, which does not understand what doubt is; no, under it is hidden the organic self-confidence of a healthy intellect, a healthy feeling, confidence in one's right (and in one's duty!) to decide and judge.

For a healthy feeling and a healthy intellect, life is a great gift and the most precious asset, despite all its disasters, torments and grave vicissitudes, despite the fact that Zeus speaks from heaven:

... Of the creatures that breathe and crawl in the dust,
Truly, there is no more unhappy person in the whole universe!

But the immortal cannot understand mortals, and the poet is not only nobler, but also wiser than his gods. He accepts reality calmly and sensibly, he catches in it the rhythm of alternating joys and sorrows and sees in such an alternation an immutable law of being, and resolutely says “yes” to being, and “no” to non-being.

Decisively, but not unconditionally, because he looks into the face of death with the same fearlessness and calmness as he looks into the face of life. The inevitability of death cannot and should not poison the joy of earthly existence, and its threat should push one to dishonor. One of the best and most famous passages in the Iliad is the words of the Trojan hero Sarpedon to a friend before a battle:

Noble friend! when now, refusing to scold,
We were with you forever, ageless and immortal,
I myself would not fly ahead of the army to fight,
I would not drag you into the dangers of a glorious battle.
But now, as always, countless deaths
We are surrounded, and a mortal can't miss them, can't avoid them.
Together forward! or for the glory of someone, or for the glory themselves!

Homer's worldview is the highest calmness and enlightenment of the spirit, which has experienced both violent delight and violent despair and has risen above both - above the naivety of optimism and the bitterness of pessimism.

The words of Sarpedon, calling on a friend to fight, urge the reader to think about how free a person is in Homer - whether he has freedom of choice, free will, or is bound by “higher forces” hand and foot. The question is extremely complex, and the answers are contradictory, because the ideas about the gods and Fate, combined in the Greek epic, are contradictory. Quite often, people really complain that they are nothing more than toys in the hands of the gods, and they blame the insidious celestials for all their troubles and mistakes, but if this is so, why are the gods indignant at the lies committed by people? Then this is their, divine, untruth, and Homeric morality loses its foundation. No matter how you interpret these complaints (and they can also be explained psychologically, for example, by an attempt to justify oneself, to shift one's own guilt onto someone else's shoulders), it is very difficult to smooth out the contradiction. Yes, it's useless. Moreover, we will meet enough places where a person makes a decision consciously, sensibly weighing all the pros and cons, without any help (or insidious prompting) from above, and therefore is obliged to bear responsibility for his act. Similar to man in everything, the gods of Homer and here act in purely human roles: they give advice - just like the wise old man Nestor, they participate in fights - just like mortal heroes, sometimes even with less luck than mortals, do not disdain to interfere and in the little things of earthly life. They are able to help a person or harm him, but they cannot decide his fate - not one of them, not even Zeus.

The fate of man is predetermined by Fate, the highest power in the world, to which the gods themselves obey. They are the servants of Fate, the executors of her decisions; to bring closer or to postpone what is appointed by Fate - that's all they are capable of. Their main advantage over people is knowledge, wisdom, foresight of the future (as well as the main cause of human unrighteousness, sin is ignorance, spiritual blindness, stupidity), and they willingly use this advantage to inform the mortal in advance that "it is destined for him by fate" . And this is very important, because within the framework of what is predetermined, within the framework of necessity, there is almost always room for freedom. Fate offers a dilemma: if you do this, you will survive, if you do otherwise, you will die (which means “despite fate, descend into the abode of Hades”). The choice is an act of free will, but once it is made, nothing can be changed in its consequences. Hermes inspired Aegisthus so that he would not encroach on the life of Agamemnon when the king returned from a campaign against Troy, and would not marry his wife. Aegisthus remained deaf to the admonition of God and, as Hermes warned him, suffered punishment at the hands of the son of the slain.

Reading Homer, you are convinced that there are times when banal, captured clichés, which have long lost their meaning and expressiveness, suddenly come to life. He is indeed a "genius of poetry" and indeed an "artist of the word." He draws and sculpts with a word, created by him is visible and tangible. He has a sharp eye that is unique even among fellow geniuses, and therefore the world of his vision - the most ordinary objects in this world - is sharper, more distinct, more meaningful than what is revealed to any other gaze. I would like to call this quality, following Marx, childishness, because only in the early years, only a child has such vigilance. But Homer's childishness is also a bright sun that permeates the poems, and admiration for life in all its guises (hence the general elation of tone, epic majesty), and an inexhaustible curiosity for details (hence the countless, but never tiring details). Childishness finally manifests itself in the way the artist relates to his material.

The writer of modern times, as a rule, struggles with the material, he organizes the word and the reality behind it is precisely the process of organization, the transformation of chaos into space, disorder into order. The closer to today, the more noticeable the struggle, the less the artist tries to hide it from prying eyes, and often defiantly exposes the resistance of the material to the public. The ancient writer did not know this resistance; in Homer, the subject is not yet opposed to the object (society or even nature): so the child does not realize the opposition of “I” and “not-I” for a long time. The organic feeling of unity weakened over the centuries, but up to the very end of the ancient tradition did not completely disappear, and this gives to any ancient book, and especially to Homeric poems, a special integrity that cannot be confused with anything and which attracts and pleases us - by contrast. The same feeling, perhaps, is embodied in Homer's contemporary plastic and vase painting, usually referred to as archaic. Looking at the “kouros” (full-length statues of young men), at their restrained, constrained power and blissful smile, looking at vases and clay figurines, each of which has the right to be called a masterpiece, you think about how free and carefree, how wise oblivion everyday hardships and anxieties, with what childish confidence in the future and confidence in it the ancient artist perceived the world. That's why the lips smile, that's why the eyes are so wide open - with curiosity about everything in the world, with dignity and calmness, which miraculously combine with expression, bold expressiveness of movements in the strings of people and animals.

The same with Homer. "Static" sketches alternate with "dynamic" ones, and it's hard to say which one works better for the poet. Compare:

The mantle was woolen, purple, double
He is clothed; golden beautiful with double hooks
The mantle was held on with a plaque; master on the badge skillfully
A formidable dog and in his mighty claws he has a young
Doe sculpted ...
... in amazement that badge
She brought everyone. Chiton, I noticed, he wore from a wonderful
Fabrics, like a film, removed from the head of a dried onion,
Thin and bright, like the bright sun: all women, seeing
This wonderful fabric, they were inexpressibly surprised at it.

This is how the huge Telamonides came out, the stronghold of the Danaev,
Grinning with a formidable face, and sonorous strong feet
He walked, speaking widely, hesitating with a long-ranged spear.

What to give preference to, let everyone decide for himself, but in any case, remember that it is unfair and absurd to reproach the Homeric epic for being primitive, for being unable to depict movement.

Visibility, visibility, as the main quality of Homer's poetry, makes it possible to explain a lot in the Iliad and Odyssey. The consistent personification of everything abstract (Resentment, Enmity, Prayers) becomes clear: what cannot be grasped by the gaze simply does not exist for Homer. Complete concreteness is understandable - not just human likeness, but precisely concreteness, materiality - of the images of celestials. Concreteness inevitably reduces the image, and only here, in a heightened sense of reality, and not in any way in primitive free-thinking, we must look for the reason for what seems to our perception to be a mockery of the gods: the gods of Homer are quick-tempered, vain, vindictive, arrogant, simple-minded, not alien to them and physical flaws. Homeric mythology is the first that we know from the Greeks; no one knows what is in it from generally accepted religious beliefs, what was added by the poet’s fiction, and it can be assumed with a high probability that the later, classical ideas about Olympus and its inhabitants are in many ways directly borrowed from the Iliad and the Odyssey and their origin owe to the artistic gift of the author of the poems.

Concreteness and in general somewhat reduces the elation of tone, epic majesty. One of the means that created this elation was the special language of the epic - originally unspoken, composed of elements of various Greek dialects. At all times, it sounded distant and lofty to the Greeks themselves, and already in the classical era (5th century BC) it seemed archaic. The Russian translation of the Iliad, made by N. I. Gnedich about a hundred and fifty years ago, perfectly reproduces the alienation of the epic language, its elevation above everything ordinary, its antiquity.

Reading Homer, you are convinced that not only the appearance of the world, its face - when smiling, when gloomy, when formidable - he was able to portray, but also the human soul, all its movements, from the simplest to the most complex, were led by the poet. There are real psychological discoveries in the poems, which even now at the first meeting - the first reading - amaze and are remembered for a lifetime. Here is the decrepit Priam, secretly appearing to Achilles in the hope of receiving the body of his murdered son for burial,

unnoticed by anyone, enters the rest and, Pelida
Falling at his feet, he hugs his knees and kisses his hands, -
Terrible hands, his children killed many!

Undoubtedly, the poet himself knew the price of these lines: it is not for nothing that he repeats them a little lower, putting them into the mouth of Priam himself and supplementing them with a direct “psychological commentary”:

Brave! you are almost gods! take pity on my misfortune,
Remembering Peleus' father: I am incomparably more pitiful than Peleus!
I will experience what no mortal has experienced on earth:
Husband, murderer of my children, I press my hands to my lips!

Or another example - another discovery: grief both unites and at the same time separates people. The slaves sob together, mourning the murdered Patroclus, but in their souls each one laments her own grief, and the enemies Achilles and Priam are also crying, sitting nearby:

Taking the elder's hand, he quietly turned it away from him.
Both of them remembering: Priam - the famous son,
Wept bitterly, at the feet of Achilles prostrate in the dust,
King Achilles, sometimes remembering his father, sometimes his friend Patroclus,
He cried, and their mournful groan was heard all around the house.

And Lotofagi

Soon the flotilla of Odysseus sailed to the island, on which many goats were grazing. The Greeks heartily treated themselves to their meat. The next day, Odysseus with one ship went to inspect the island. It soon became clear that it was inhabited by ferocious cyclops giants, each of which had only one eye in the middle of the forehead. Not knowing how to cultivate the land, the Cyclopes lived as shepherds. They had no cities, no authorities, no laws. The Cyclopes lived alone - each in his own cave among the rocks. Seeing the entrance to one of these caves, Odysseus and his companions entered there, not knowing that it was the abode of the Cyclops Polyphemus, son of the sea god Poseidon, a ferocious cannibal. The Greeks lit a fire, began to fry the goats found in the cave and eat the cheese hung on the walls in baskets.

The Destruction of Troy and the Adventures of Odysseus. cartoons

In the evening Polyphemus suddenly appeared. He drove his herd into the cave and blocked the exit with a stone, which was so huge that the Greeks had no way to move it. Looking around, the Cyclops noticed the Hellenes. Odysseus explained to Polyphemus that he and his men were sailing home from the long Trojan War and asked for hospitality. But Polyphemus growled, grabbed two of Odysseus' companions by the legs, killed them with a blow to the ground with their heads and devoured them, not even leaving bones.

Odysseus in the cave of the Cyclops Polyphemus. Artist J. Jordans, first half of the 17th century

Having finished his bloodthirsty feast, the cyclops snored loudly. The Greeks could not get out of the cave, as the exit was blocked by a huge stone. Rising in the morning, Polyphemus smashed the heads of two more companions of Odysseus, had breakfast with them and left to graze the herd, locking the Greeks in the cave with the same stone. But while he was away, Odysseus took the trunk of a wild olive tree, sharpened its end, burned it on fire and hid it under a pile of dung. In the evening, the Cyclops returned and dined with two more people of Odysseus. Pretending to be polite, Odysseus offered Polyphemus a full cup of strong wine. The Cyclops, who had never tasted wine before, liked this heady drink very much. Emptying another cup, Polyphemus asked Odysseus his name. "My name is Nobody," replied Odysseus. “Well, then, Nobody, as a sign of my disposition, I will eat you last,” Polyphemus burst out laughing.

The drunken Cyclops quickly fell into a dead sleep, and Odysseus and his comrades, who had not yet been eaten, heated the trunk on a fire, stuck it in the giant's only eye and began to rotate.

Odysseus blinds the Cyclops Polyphemus. Black-figure vase from Laconica, mid-6th century. BC

Polyphemus yelled loudly. At his cry, other Cyclopes came running, asking a neighbor what happened to him.

“No one, my friends: I am perishing by my own mistake. No one could harm me by force! shouted Polyphemus.

“If no one,” answered the other Cyclopes, “why are you crying like that?” If you are sick, then ask for help from your father, the god Poseidon.

The Cyclopes are gone. In the morning, Polyphemus removed the stone from the entrance to the cave, stood nearby and began to release his herd to pasture. At the same time, he fumbled with his hands to grab the Greeks if they tried to get out. Then Odysseus tied three rams and attached his people under their belly, one at a time. He himself placed himself under the belly of the leader of the sheep herd, holding on to the wool from below with his hands.

Polyphemus, releasing the rams, felt their backs to make sure that no one was riding the animals. Under the belly of the sheep, the Cyclops did not think of sticking his hands. Odysseus and his companions rode out of the cave under the rams and boarded the ship. Sailing away, Odysseus shouted to Polyphemus that, having now become blind, he would no longer be able to devour the unfortunate wanderers. Enraged, Polyphemus threw a huge rock into the sea, which fell in front of the ship and raised a wave that almost threw the ship back onto the shore. Pushing off from the land with a pole, Odysseus shouted:

- Know, Cyclops, that you were blinded by the destroyer of cities, the king of Ithaca, Odysseus!

Flight of Odysseus from the island of Polyphemus. Artist A. Böcklin, 1896

Polyphemus prayed to his father, the god of the seas, Poseidon, asking that Odysseus endure many misfortunes on the way home. The Cyclops threw another rock after the Greeks. This time she fell behind the stern of the ship, and the wave raised by her carried the ship of Odysseus out to sea. Having gathered the rest of the ships around him, Odysseus left the island of the Cyclopes. But the god Poseidon heard the request of his son Polyphemus and swore to fulfill it.

Odysseus on the island of Aeola

The heroes of the Odyssey soon arrived on the islands of Eol, the god-lord of the winds. Aeolus celebrated sailors for a whole month. Before they sailed on their way, he handed Odysseus a fur tied with a silver thread. In this fur, Aeolus placed all the stormy winds subject to him, except for the affectionate western Zephyr, who was supposed to carry the ships of Odysseus towards his native Ithaca. Eolus said that Odysseus should not untie the silver thread on the bag before he sailed home.

The journey became calm. Odysseus was already approaching Ithaca and could even make out the fires burning on it, but at that moment he fell into a dream from extreme fatigue. The companions of Odysseus, who believed that rich gifts given to their leader were in the bag of Eol, furtively untied the silver thread. The winds broke out and rushed home to Aeolus, driving Odysseus' ship ahead of them. The heroes of the Odyssey soon found themselves again on the island of Eola and began to ask him for help, but the angry god drove them away.

Odysseus and the Lestrigons

More details - see a separate article

Leaving Aeolus, Odysseus sailed to the country of the terrible giants of the Laestrygons. Like the Cyclopes, they were cannibals. Still not knowing where they had drifted, the Greeks entered a bay with a narrow entrance, surrounded by sharp rocks, and moored at the place where the road approached the water. Odysseus himself, out of caution, did not bring his ship into the bay. He sent three men to find out what kind of island it was. Homer reports that these people met an enormous maiden who led them to the house of her father, the leader of the Laestrigons, Antifates.

Odysseus and the Laestrigons. Wall painting of the end of the 1st century. BC

At the house, a crowd of giants attacked the three companions of Odysseus. They ate one of them, the other two ran away. The cannibals who rushed after them began to throw stones from the rocks at the ships of the flotilla of Odysseus. All the ships that stood at the edge of the land were broken. Having descended to the shore, the lestrigons, like fish, strung the dead on stakes and carried them with them to be eaten. Odysseus barely escaped with a single ship standing outside the bay. Avoiding death, he and his comrades worked with oars with all their might.

Odysseus and the sorceress Circe

Rushing eastward by sea, they soon reached the island of Ei, where the sorceress Circe, the daughter of the sun god Helios, lived. By her father, she was the sister of the treacherous king of Colchis, Eet, from whom the Argonauts mined the golden fleece. Like this brother of hers, like her niece Medea, Circe was tempted in witchcraft and did not like people. Eurylochus, a friend of Odysseus, and with him 22 more people went to inspect the island. In the center of it, in a wide clearing, they saw the palace of Circe, around which wolves and lions roamed. The predators, however, did not attack the people of Eurylochus, but began to caress them, waving their tails. The Greeks did not know that these beasts were in fact humans, enchanted by Circe.

Circe herself also went out to the Greeks and, smiling affably, offered them a meal. Everyone agreed, except for the cautious Eurylochus. He did not go to Circe's house, but began to peep through the windows to see what was happening there. The goddess set before the travelers delicious dishes with a magic potion added to them. The Homeric poem reports that when the Greeks tasted it, Circe touched them with a magic wand, turned them into pigs and, with a malevolent grin, drove them into a pigsty.

Crying Eurylochus returned to Odysseus and told about what had happened. Odysseus rushed to rescue his comrades. On the way, the god Hermes appeared to him and gave him a remedy that could protect Circe from witchcraft. It was a fragrant white "moth" flower with a black root. When Odysseus reached the house of Circe, she invited him to the table. However, while eating her treat, the hero, on the advice of Hermes, sniffed the magic flower all the time.

Circe hands Odysseus a bowl of witchcraft. Painting by J. W. Waterhouse

Circe touched Odysseus with her wand with the words: "Go and wallow like a pig in a cloak." But the witchcraft didn't work. Odysseus jumped up and raised his sword over Circe. The sorceress began to ask for mercy, promising that she would treat Odysseus well and share the marital bed with him.

Odysseus and Circe. Greek vessel c. 440 BC

Taking an oath that Circe would not harm him, the hero of Homer lay down with her. He did not respond to Circe's love caresses until she removed her charms not only from his comrades, but from all the seafarers she had previously bewitched. Odysseus lived for a long time on the island of Circe. She gave birth to three sons from him: Agria, Latina and Telegon.

Odysseus descends into the realm of Hades

Longing for Ithaca and his wife Penelope, Odysseus nevertheless decided to leave Circe. She advised him first to visit the underground kingdom of the dead of the god Hades and ask the shadow of the famous soothsayer Tiresias of Thebes living there about his future fate in his homeland. Homer's poem describes how Odysseus and his companions, driven by a fair wind sent by Circe, sailed north to the edge of the world, where the Cimmerian tribe lives in thick fog and twilight. In the place where the underground rivers Cocytus and Phlegeton merge with Acheront, Odysseus, on the advice of Circe, sacrificed a cow and a black ram to Hades and his wife Persephone. The souls of the dead people immediately flocked to drink the sacrificial blood. On the advice of Circe, Odysseus had to drive away all the shadows with his sword until the soul of Tiresias of Thebes arrived to drink the blood.

The first to the place of sacrifice was the shadow of Elpenor, the companion of Odysseus, who a few days ago fell drunk from the roof of the palace of Circe and died to death. Odysseus was surprised that Elpenor reached the kingdom of Hades, sooner than his comrades, who sailed there on a fast ship. Strictly following the words of Circe, Odysseus, overcoming pity, drove away the soul of Elpenor from the blood of the slaughtered cow and ram. He drove away from her even the shadow of her own mother, Anticlea, who also flew to where her son was standing.

Odysseus in the kingdom of Hades, surrounded by the shadows of his dead comrades

Finally, Tiresias of Thebes appeared. After drinking plenty of blood, he told Odysseus that the god Poseidon would cruelly persecute him for blinding his son, the Cyclops Polyphemus. Tiresias urged Odysseus by all means to keep his companions from kidnapping the bulls of the solar god Helios on the island of Trinacria (Sicily). He said that big troubles awaited Odysseus in Ithaca, but he would be able to take revenge on the thieves of his property. But even upon returning to his homeland, the wanderings of Odysseus will not end. He must take the ship's oar and travel until he meets people who have never seen the sea. Where Odysseus' oar is mistaken for a shovel, his wanderings will end. There he should make a sacrifice to the propitiated Poseidon, and then return to Ithaca. Having lived there to a ripe old age, Odysseus will receive death from across the sea.

After listening to Tiresias, Odysseus finally allowed his mother to drink blood. Then the shadows of the dead wives and daughters of glorious heroes clung to her. According to Homer, Odysseus noticed among them the famous Antiope, mother of Helen the Beautiful Leda, wives of Theseus – Phaedra and Ariadne, as well as Erifil - the culprit of the campaigns against Thebes of the Seven and epigones.

Odysseus also spoke with the souls of his deceased comrades-in-arms in the Trojan War: Agamemnon, Achilles. Ajax Telamonides, unfriendly to him, did not conduct conversations and left in gloomy silence. Odysseus saw how the judge of the underworld judges the shadows of the dead Minos how to hunt Orion, Tantalus and Sisyphus suffer, and saw the mortal soul of the great Hercules.

Before continuing on to Ithaca, Odysseus returned to the island of Circe. The sorceress warned the hero that he would have to swim past the island of sirens, bloodthirsty women with the body and legs of birds (some legends tell, however, that the sirens had a fish body and tails). With beautiful, enchanting singing, they lured sailors to their magical island and betrayed them to a fierce death, tearing them to pieces. They say that the goddess of love Aphrodite turned the sirens into birds because these arrogant maidens did not allow anyone to deprive themselves of their virginity. On the meadow of their island were piles of human bones. Circe advised Odysseus to seal his men's ears with wax so that they would not hear the sirens sing. If Odysseus himself wants to enjoy their beautiful singing, then let him order his companions to tie themselves tightly to the mast and not untie them, despite any requests.

Odysseus and the Sirens. Attic vase, ca. 480-470 BC

Now Odysseus had to go between two cliffs standing close in the middle of the sea waters, on which two disgusting monsters lived - Scylla and Charybdis. The huge Charybdis (“whirlpool”), the daughter of the god Poseidon, sucked masses of water from her cliff three times a day and then spewed it out with a terrible noise. On the opposite rock lived Scylla, the daughter of the terrible monsters Echidna and Typhon. It was a monster with six terrible dog heads and twelve legs. Announcing the whole neighborhood with a heartbreaking screech, Scylla hung from her rock, caught sailors passing by, broke their bones and ate them.

Odysseus' ship between Scylla and Charybdis. Italian fresco of the 16th century

To escape from Charybdis, Odysseus sent his ship a little closer to the cliff of Scylla, which grabbed six of his companions with six mouths. The unfortunate, dangling in the air, screaming outstretched their hands to Odysseus, but it was already impossible to save them.

Odysseus on the island of Helios Trinacria

Soon, Trinacria (Sicily), the island of the sun god Helios, who grazed seven herds of beautiful bulls and numerous flocks of sheep, appeared before the eyes of sailors. Remembering the prophecies of Tiresias of Thebes, Odysseus took an oath from his comrades not to kidnap either a bull or a ram. But, according to the story of Homer, the stay of the Greeks in Trinacria was delayed. A contrary wind blew for thirty days, food supplies were exhausted, and hunting and fishing gave almost nothing. Once, when Odysseus fell asleep, his friend Eurylochus, tormented by hunger, persuaded his associates to slaughter several selected bulls, saying that in gratitude they would erect a temple to Helios on Ithaca. The sailors caught several bulls, slaughtered them, and ate the meat to their heart's content.

Waking up and learning about this, Odysseus was horrified. Helios complained about the arbitrariness of the travelers to Zeus. When the ship of Odysseus left Trinacria at sea, Zeus sent a strong wind on him and struck the deck with lightning. The ship sank, and everyone who sailed on it, with the exception of Odysseus himself, drowned - as Tiresias of Thebes predicted in the kingdom of Hades. Odysseus somehow tied the mast and keel floating on the water with a belt and held on to them. Soon he realized that the waves were carrying him to the rock of Charybdis. Clinging to the roots of a fig tree growing on a cliff, he hung on them until Charybdis first swallowed the mast and keel with water, and then released them back. Grasping the mast again and starting to row with his hands, Odysseus swam away from the whirlpool.

Odysseus at Calypso

Nine days later he found himself at the island of Ogygia, the home of the nymph Calypso, covered with meadows of flowers and cereals. Calypso lived there in a huge cave overgrown with poplars, cypresses and wild grapes. The beautiful nymph greeted Odysseus, fed him and put him to bed with her. Soon she gave birth to the twins Navsifoy and Navsinoy from the navigator.

Odysseus and Calypso. Artist Jan Styka

For seven years Odysseus lived with Calypso on Ogygia. But he did not cease to yearn for his native Ithaca and often spent time on the shore, looking into the sea. Finally, Zeus ordered Calypso to release Odysseus. Upon learning of this, Odysseus tied the raft, said goodbye to the hospitable nymph and sailed home.

But the light ship of the hero was accidentally seen by his hater, the god Poseidon, who was driving across the sea on a winged chariot. Having sent a huge wave to the raft, Poseidon washed Odysseus overboard. The sailor barely floated to the surface and somehow climbed back onto the raft. Next to him, the merciful goddess Levkoteya (Ino) descended from the sky in the form of a diving bird. In her beak she held a wonderful veil, which had the ability to save those who wrapped themselves in it from death in the depths of the sea. Poseidon shook the raft of Odysseus with a second wave of terrible height. Thinking that this time the hero could not be saved, Poseidon went to his underwater palace. However, the cover of Leucothea did not allow Odysseus to drown.

Odysseus on the island of theacs

Two days later, completely weakened from the struggle with the water element, he reached the island of Drepana, where the Feak tribe lived. Here, on the shore, Odysseus fell into a sound sleep.

Odysseus at the court of Alcinous, king of the Theacians. Painter Francesco Hayez, 1814-1815

The next morning, Nausicaa, the daughter of the king and queen of the Feacians (Alcinous and Arete), came with her maids to the stream to wash clothes. After work, the girls began to play ball and screamed loudly when it fell into the water. This cry woke Odysseus. Covering his nakedness with branches, he went out to the girls and, with skillful speech, aroused the sympathy of Nausicaa. The king's daughter took him to the palace, to his father and mother. Tsar Alkinoy listened to the story of Odysseus' travels, gave him gifts and ordered him to take the hero by sea to Ithaca.

Departure of Odysseus from the country of the feacs. Artist C. Lorrain, 1646

Being already near his native island, Odysseus fell asleep again. The feacs who were with him did not wake up the navigator, but carried him to the shore, sleeping, laying Alcinous' gifts next to him. When the feacs were returning by ship to their pier, Poseidon, angry with their help to Odysseus, hit the ship with his palm and turned it, along with the crew, into stone. He began to threaten Alcinous that he would destroy all the ports on the island of the feacians, filling them with the fragments of a large mountain.

Odysseus and suitors

Return of Odysseus to Ithaca

Waking up on Ithaca, Odysseus went far from the seashore and met along the way the goddess Athena, who took the form of a shepherd. Not knowing that Athena was in front of him, Odysseus told her a fictional story, calling himself a Cretan who fled his homeland because of a murder and accidentally ended up in Ithaca. Athena laughed and revealed her true form to Odysseus.

The goddess helped the hero hide the gifts of King Alcinous in the grotto and made him unrecognizable. Odysseus's skin was covered with wrinkles, his head went bald, his clothes turned into miserable rags. In this form, Athena took him to the hut of the servant of the kings of Ithaca, the faithful old swineherd Eumeus.

The son of Odysseus and Penelope, Telemachus, shortly before this, went to Odysseus' comrade-in-arms in the Trojan War, the Spartan king Menelaus. On the way back from the walls of Troy, Menelaus also underwent many adventures and misfortunes, he was even in Egypt. Telemachus asked Menelaus, who had recently returned home, if he had heard news of Odysseus anywhere.

In Ithaca, everyone thought that Odysseus was dead, and 112 noble youths from this and neighboring islands began to brazenly court his wife, Penelope. By marrying her, each of these young people hoped to get the local royal throne. The suitors hated Telemachus and were going to kill him when he returned from Sparta.

Suitors, says Homer, asked Penelope to choose one of their husbands. At first she flatly refused, saying that her husband Odysseus was no doubt still alive. But the persuasion of the young men was very persistent, and Penelope outwardly agreed to choose a new spouse. However, she said that she would do this only after she weaves a shroud in case of the death of Odysseus's old father, Laertes. For three years Penelope sat over the shroud. Being faithful to her husband and deceiving suitors, she weaved during the day, and in the evening secretly unraveled all the work done during the day. The suitors, for these three years, feasted in the palace of Odysseus: they drank his wine, slaughtered and ate his cattle, and plundered his property.

Having met a warm welcome from Eumeus, Odysseus did not yet reveal his real name to him and called himself a foreign wanderer. At this time, Telemachus returned to Ithaca from Sparta. The goddess Athena inspired him to hurry home. She also brought Telemachus to the hut of Eumeus, where his father was. During their meeting, Athena temporarily returned Odysseus to his former appearance, and the son and father recognized each other. Odysseus decided to act against the suitors by surprise and therefore did not allow Telemachus to tell anyone about who he was. Telemachus was not supposed to let even his mother, Penelope, into this secret.

Having again taken the form of a beggar tramp, Odysseus went to his house, where the suitors were feasting. On the way, no one recognized him, and the rude goatherd Melanfius even attacked the legitimate king of Ithaca with abuse. In the palace courtyard, Odysseus saw his faithful hunting dog, Argus, once strong and agile, but now dying of old age on a dunghill. Recognizing the owner, Argus wagged his tail, moved his muzzle - and died.

Eumeus led Odysseus into the hall where the grooms were feasting. Telemachus, who was present here, pretended not to know the stranger, and affectionately invited him to the table. Continuing to pretend to be a beggar, Odysseus walked along the table, asking the suitors for leftovers. But these greedy and impudent young men unceremoniously drove him away. The most shameless of the suitors, Antinous, threw a bench at Odysseus, on which he had put his feet before. The local beggar Ir, fearing that the stranger would now compete with him for the remnants of food left by the suitors, began to drive Odysseus out of the hall. Puffing up to expose himself as a brave man, Ir challenged Odysseus to a fistfight. The insolent Antinous, hearing this, laughed and promised to treat the winner of the fight with goat stomachs.

Odysseus threw off the upper part of his rags and went to Ira. Seeing the powerful muscles of Odysseus, the beggar was terribly frightened. Odysseus knocked him to the ground with the first blow of his fist. Watching the clash of two old tramps, the suitors were dying of laughter. Then they continued to feast, and in the evening they went home. When no one was left in the hall, Odysseus ordered Telemachus to remove and hide in the pantry the weapons of the suitors hanging on the walls.

Meanwhile, Penelope, having found out about a stranger who had come to her house, called him to her and asked if he had heard news of her missing husband Odysseus. Odysseus has not yet begun to open up to her, saying only that her husband is alive and should return soon. Penelope ordered Odysseus' old nurse, Eurycleia, to wash the wanderer's feet. Having brought water, Eurycleia suddenly saw an old scar familiar to her on Odysseus' thigh. She screamed with joy and surprise, but Odysseus put his finger to her lips, making it clear that the time had not yet come to reveal his presence to Penelope.

Eurycleia's maid washes Odysseus' feet

The next day, the suitors, who had again gathered to feast, began noisily demanding that Penelope make the final choice and call one of them her husband. Penelope announced that she would marry someone who had the strength to pull the strong bow of her ex-husband Odysseus and shoot from it so accurately that the arrow flew through the holes in twelve axes. The bow in question was once presented to Odysseus by Ifit, the son of that hero Eurytus, who competed in shooting with Hercules himself. Several suitors tried to bend the bow, but could not. Telemachus could have done this, but Odysseus with a look told him to put the bow aside and took it himself. Telemachus led his mother out of the hall into the inner rooms, grabbed the bow, pulled it lightly and fired accurately. The arrow fired by him flew through the holes of twelve axes.

Odysseus stood with a bow and arrows at the entrance to the hall, and Telemachus stood next to him, holding a spear and a sword. Having killed Antinous with the next shot, Odysseus told the suitors his true name. The suitors rushed to the walls for heavy weapons, but saw that they were not there. Most of them, however, had swords. Having exposed them, the suitors rushed at Odysseus, but he hit them with his arrows with extraordinary accuracy. Telemachus brought shields, spears and helmets from the pantry for his father and his two faithful servants, Eumeus and Philotius, who, recognizing the owner, stood next to him. One by one, Odysseus killed all the suitors except for the herald Medon and the singer Phemius. Several palace servants were also killed, who debauched with the suitors and helped them plunder the Odyssey property.

The beating of suitors by Odysseus. From a painting by G. Schwab

Lawsuit of Odysseus with the inhabitants of Ithaca

Homer tells further how Odysseus went to Penelope, revealed himself to her and told her about his adventures. He also met his old father, Laertes. But in the morning, the rebellious inhabitants of Ithaca, relatives of Antinous and other dead suitors, approached the palace. Odysseus, Telemachus and Laertes entered into a battle with them, which was stopped only by the intervention of the goddess Pallas Athena. The relatives of the murdered suitors began a lawsuit with Odysseus, which was referred to the decision of the son of the great Achilles, the king of Epirus Neoptolemus. Neoptolemus decided that Odysseus should leave Ithaca for ten years for the murders, and the heirs of the suitors should pay for this period the damage to Telemachus, which was caused to the royal property by the insolent people who were wooing Penelope.

The last journey of Odysseus and his death

Later legends say that Odysseus decided to devote the years of his exile to propitiating Poseidon, who had not yet forgiven him for the murder of his son. On the advice received, Odysseus set off to wander with an oar on his shoulder. His path lay through the years of Epirus. When the hero reached Thesprotia, remote from the sea, the locals, who had never seen oars, asked what kind of shovel he was carrying on his shoulder. Odysseus made a thanksgiving sacrifice to Poseidon and was forgiven by him. But the period of his exile from his native island has not yet expired. Unable to return to Ithaca yet, Odysseus married Callidike, queen of the Thesprot. She bore him a son, Polypoit.

Nine years later, he inherited the kingdom of Thesprot, and Odysseus finally went to Ithaca, which was now ruled by Penelope. Telemachus left the island because Odysseus had received a prediction that he would die at the hands of his own son. Death came to Odysseus, as Tiresias predicted, from across the sea - and indeed from the hand of his son, but not from Telemachus, but from Telegon, whose son the hero lived with the sorceress Circe

The ODYSSEY is a Greek epic poem, along with the Iliad, attributed to Homer. Being completed later than the Iliad, O. adjoins an earlier epic, without constituting, however, a direct continuation of the Iliad. The theme of the Odyssey is the wanderings of the cunning Odysseus, king of Ithaca, who was returning from the Trojan campaign; in separate references there are episodes of the saga, the time of which was timed to coincide with the period between the action of the Iliad and the action of the Odyssey.

COMPOSITION "O". built on very archaic material. The plot of a husband returning unrecognized to his homeland after long wanderings and ending up at his wife's wedding is one of the widespread folklore plots, as well as the plot of "a son going in search of his father." Almost all episodes of Odysseus' wanderings have numerous fairy-tale parallels. The very form of the story in the first person, used for the stories about the wanderings of Odysseus, is traditional in this genre and is known from the Egyptian literature of the beginning of the 2nd millennium.

Narrative technique in "O." in general close to the Iliad, but the younger epic is distinguished by greater art in combining diverse material. Separate episodes are less isolated and form integral groups. The composition of the Odyssey is more complex than the Iliad.

The plot of the Iliad is presented in a linear sequence, in the Odyssey this sequence is shifted: the narration begins in the middle of the action, and the listener learns about previous events only later, from the story of Odysseus himself about his wanderings, i.e. one of the artistic means is retrospection .

The "song" theory, which explained the emergence of large poems by the mechanical "stitching" of individual "songs", was therefore rarely applied to "O."; Much more widespread among researchers is Kirchhoff's hypothesis that "O." is a reworking of several "small epics" ("Telemachia", "wanderings", "the return of Odysseus", etc.).

The disadvantage of this construction is that it breaks apart the plot of the “return of the husband”, the integrity of which is evidenced by parallel stories in the folklore of other peoples, which have a more primitive form than “O.”; theoretically a very plausible hypothesis of one or more "proto-dysseys", i.e. poems that contained the plot completely and formed the basis of the canonical "O.", encounters great difficulties when trying to restore the course of action of any "proto-dyssey" .

The poem opens, after the usual appeal to the Muse, with a brief description of the situation: all the participants in the Trojan campaign, who escaped death, returned home safely, only Odysseus languishes in separation from his family, forcibly held by the nymph Calypso. Further details are put into the mouths of the gods, discussing the issue of Odysseus at their council: Odysseus is on the distant island of Ogygia, and the seductress Calypso wants to keep him with her, hoping that he will forget about his native Ithaca,

But, wishing in vain To see at least smoke rising from his native shores in the distance, He prays to death alone.

The gods do not give him help because Poseidon is angry with him, whose son, Cyclops Polyphemus, was once blinded by Odysseus. Athena, who patronizes Odysseus, offers to send the messenger of the gods Hermes to Calypso with the order to release Odysseus, and she herself goes to Ithaca, to Odysseus' son Telemachus. In Ithaca, at this time, suitors wooing Penelope feast daily in the house of Odysseus and squander his wealth. Athena encourages Telemachus to go to Nestor and Menelaus, who have returned from Troy, to find out about their father and prepare for revenge on the suitors (Book 1).

The second book gives a picture of the popular assembly of Ithaca. Telemachus brings a complaint against the suitors, but the people are powerless against the noble youth, who demand that Penelope choose someone else. Along the way, the image of the “reasonable” Penelope arises, with the help of tricks delaying consent to marriage. With the help of Athena, Telemachus equips the ship and secretly leaves Ithaca for Pylos to Nestor (Book 2). Nestor informs Telemachus about the return of the Achaeans from under Troy and about the death of Agamemnon. Having escaped, thanks to the miraculous intervention of the goddess Levkofei, from the storm raised by Poseidon, Odysseus swims ashore about. Scheria, where happy people live - feaks, sailors who have fabulous ships, fast, “like light wings or thoughts”, who do not need a rudder and understand the thoughts of their sailors. The meeting of Odysseus on the shore with Nausicaa, the daughter of the Phaeacian king Alminoy, who came to the sea to wash clothes and play ball with the servants, is the content of the 6th book, rich in idyllic moments. Alkina, with his wife Areta, receives the wanderer in a luxurious palace (book 7) and arranges games and a feast in his honor, where the blind singer Demodocus sings about the exploits of Odysseus and thereby brings tears to the eyes of the guest (book 8). The picture of the happy life of the feacs is very curious. There is reason to think that according to the original meaning of the myth, the feacs are death shippers, carriers to the kingdom of the dead, but this mythological meaning has already been forgotten in the Odyssey, and the death shippers have been replaced by a fabulous “gay-loving” people of sailors leading a peaceful and magnificent lifestyle, in which , along with the features of the life of the trading cities of Ionia in the 8th - 7th centuries, one can also see memories of the era of the power of Crete.

Finally, Odysseus reveals his name to the Phaeacians and tells of his ill-fated adventures on the road from Troy. The story of Odysseus occupies the 9th - 12th book of the poem and contains a number of folklore plots, often found in the tales of the New Age. The form of the story in the first person is also traditional for stories about the fabulous adventures of seafarers and is known to us from Egyptian monuments of the 2nd millennium BC. e. (the so-called "story of the shipwrecked").

The first adventure is still quite realistic: Odysseus and his companions rob the city of the Kikons (in Thrace), but then a storm carries his ships over the waves for many days, and he ends up in distant, wonderful countries. At first it is a country of peaceful lotophages, "devourers of the lotus", a wonderful sweet flower; having tasted it, a person forgets about his homeland and forever remains a lotus collector.

Then Odysseus finds himself in the land of the Cyclopes (Cyclops), one-eyed monsters, where the cannibal giant Polyphemus devours several of Odysseus' companions in his cave. Odysseus saves himself by drugging and blinding Polyphemus, and then exits the cave, along with other comrades, hanging under the belly of long-haired sheep. Odysseus avoids revenge from other Cyclopes, prudently calling himself "Nobody": the Cyclopes ask Polyphemus who offended him, but, having received the answer - "no one", they refuse to interfere; however, the blinding of Polyphemus becomes the source of numerous misadventures of Odysseus, since from now on he is pursued by the wrath of Posidon, the father of Polyphemus (book 9).

The folklore of navigators is characterized by a legend about the god of the winds Eol living on a floating island. Aeolus amiably handed Odysseus a fur with unfavorable winds tied in it, but not far from their native shores, Odysseus' companions untied the fur, and the storm again threw them into the sea. Then they again find themselves in the country of the cannibal giants, the lestrigons, where "the paths of day and night converge" (obviously, distant rumors about the short nights of the northern summer reached the Greeks); the lestrigons destroyed all the ships of Odysseus, except for one, which then landed on the island of the sorceress Kirka (Circe).

Kirka, like a typical folklore witch, lives in a dark forest, in a house from which smoke rises above the forest; she turns Odysseus' companions into pigs, but Odysseus, with the help of a wonderful plant indicated to him by Hermes, overcomes the spell and enjoys Kirk's love for a year (book 10). Then, at the direction of Kirk, he goes to the realm of the dead in order to question the soul of the famous Theban soothsayer Tiresias.

In the context of the Odyssey, the need to visit the realm of the dead is completely unmotivated, but this element of the story contains, apparently, in naked form, the main mythological meaning of the entire plot about the husband’s “wanderings” and his return (death and resurrection; cf. p. 19). on Ithaca and the journey of Telemachus, and from the 5th book attention is concentrated almost exclusively around Odysseus: the motif of unrecognizability of the returning husband is used, as we have seen, in the same function as the absence of the hero in the Iliad, and meanwhile the listener does not lose Odysseus out of sight - and this also testifies to the improvement of the art of epic storytelling.