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To get started on our reading of Homer.
I thought what we'd do is concentrate on

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ten of these 12,000 magnificent lines of
the Odyssey, and have a look at the

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opening ten lines of the Odyssey.
You see, up here, I've reproduced the

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Greek text.
It's not expected in this class that

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you've already had Greek, though it would
be a good thing to do.

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In the coming months and years, who knows,
maybe you will learn ancient Greek, if you

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don't already know it.
And those of you that already have your

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ancient Greek, please do jump into the
forum, in the course, and help us answer

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the questions that come up that make
reference to the original language.

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I'll go through ahead, I'll go ahead
through and correlate the Greek terms such

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as they show up here in these opening ten
lines with some pieces of our translation

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that we're using for the class.
The translation from Robert Fagles.

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A wonderful translation, from a colleague
up at Princeton from some years ago.

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Quite an amazing work in itself.
So using Fagles as our guide, we'll jump

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into this Greek text.
The first word, in Homer's Epic, is the

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Greek word andra, which indeed means man.
It is the word that means a male, example

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of the human species.
The Greeks had another word that would,

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meant, meant the general example, an
un-gendered example of any, any human

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being.
But an andra is a male gendered version of

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what the human species is all about.
As the first word in the epic, in the

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Greek this tells us what the epic is all
about.

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It is epic convention that, that first
word indicate that whole and most

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important theme of the story.
I made reference to the Iliad, and how it

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starts with the Greek word for rage.
[foreign], that talks about a horrible,

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menacing rage, that has to do with, even
divine rage.

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That's what starts off that epic.
Telling us that the, the, Homer's

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representation of the Trojan War is gonna
have that as its focal point.

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Well, starting off his epic on the, of the
Odyssey, with the Greek term, andra, Homer

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tells us that this is going to be a story
about what it is to be a male human being.

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The second term in the epic, Moy.
Homer brings himself in, makes reference

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to himself in this pronoun.
And what he wants to have happen is that

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someone should sing.
Enipe is a way of giving a command to

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someone to say, you, other person out
there, do the singing.

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And the person that Homer wants to be sung
to is himself.

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Sing to me.
Now, who's, who's he calling on?

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Who does he want to go ahead and do the
singing this Greek term mousa tells us,

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the muse.
Homer's story, he, as he understands it

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resides with this goddess, the muse, and
she now is going to sing to him and use

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him as a conduit to spread his, to spread
her tale her story, using him as a

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mouthpiece for that story.
Translate it for human beings.

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So this has, a, a sense of divine
inspiration to it.

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It's a, it's a, it's a old model.
It's a tried and true kind of,

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construction that the poets fall back on
to say they're actually just mouth pieces

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for the gods.
In some cultures or some, historical

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context that we know, this will, generate
the idea that there was a, a sacred and

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perfect text which could never be changed
because it came from the god.

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But in, in the Homeric case that's not.
Really true, it's understood.

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That's not how they think about it.
They understand the muse is there as a

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inspirational helper, that uses Homer's
vocal cords as a way to transmit the

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divine voice, yes.
But it's not thought that what [foreign]

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is somehow perfect and unchangeable.
Although it's pretty amazing and most of

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the Greeks would have thought that it was
pretty amazing.

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So Homer is asking the muse to sing to him
about a man, an ambra.

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The first descriptor Homer decides to use
to tell us about this man is that its

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going to be a man of twists and turns.
The Greek word polytropos there.

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You see the beginning polu-, that means
many.

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Some of you will remember from math class
or where ever else you might have learned

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that prefix and then tropos is a term that
means a turn, a twist or a turn.

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The man that we're gonna learn about, this
male version of the human species, is

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known to be someone who has many twists
and turns.

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Now that Greek term, polytropos wonderful
translation that Fagles has chosen for it,

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but, it means many other things as well.
It means resourceful.

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You might get yourself into trouble but
you know you always get out of trouble.

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You don't just take no for an answer.
That you would just run into a problem and

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then shirk away from it.
You have many ways at it, you can always

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get your way through some difficult
situation and find your way out of it.

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Also, with the twistiness of Fagle's
chosen translation indicates an aspect of

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the Greek term that very much present as
well, which means you are a little

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slippery.
And maybe of a kind of trickster

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characteristic to you.
Odysseus is a, defined as a hero by his

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cleverness and his wiliness, but also,
he's kind of a wiseguy.

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He sneaks around through things.
He's a bit sneaky and, crafty.

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So, Odysseus is going to be a character,
that exhibits, all the greatness, of human

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wisdom, including the sides of human
wisdom that lead to craftiness,

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sneakiness, and trickery.
This male version of the human species is

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driven, time and again off course, time
and again of course.

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The story that we're going to hear about
what it is to be a human male talks about

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resourcefulness and also talks about
displacement.

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It is fundamentally dislocated.
He is out of place, not quite in the place

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he is supposed to be.
This is an aspect of what it is to be a

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male human that Homer is going to explore
with us.

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He once had once he had pla-, plundered
the hallowed trite, heights of Troy.

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So Odysseus is resourceful, he has a
tremendous amount of wandering, and he

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also has a story in his background.
He has a past.

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What it is to be.
And example of this human species is that

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you're going to be resourceful, you're
going to be dislocated and you're going to

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have a past.
In Odysseus's case this past is centered

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on Troy, what happened there is huge and
creates, stirs up an energy, negative and

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positive, that's going to drive the events
in this epic and in much, a huge swath of

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Greek mythology, once he had plundered the
hallowed heights of Troy.

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Now, during this wandering, during this
period of dislocation Odious doesn't just

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shrink into himself, feel sorry for
himself, and, and fearfully stay away from

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what's around him.
He sees a certain amount of serendipity,

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that's possible, in this situation of
being dislocated.

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There are lots of things to see out there
in the world.

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In, in his core, internal curiosity.
Ramps itself up when he finds himself in

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this, dislocated position.
When he's out there, there are many cities

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of men for him to see.
He's not fearful of people that are

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different or places that are different.
He also is going to learn the minds of the

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people that he runs into in these many
cities.

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When Odysseus runs into someone that
doesn't think quite like him, he doesn't

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sit them down and lecture them, and tries
to change their mind and insists that his

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way of thinking about something is right
and their way must be wrong.

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He's not a dogmatic man who comes in and
is interested in, in different ways of,

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different points of view, only so that he
can change them and match his.

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Odysseus is constantly curious about other
ways of looking at the world.

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He assimilates those, listens to them and
brings them into his own character.

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This is what gives him his power and his
ability to be resourceful.

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He knows all kinds of ways in and out
because he is a wonderful student of how

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different people view the world.
There's a kaleidoscopic array of

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viewpoints of the world out there.
Odysseus fear none of them and learns from

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them all.
Many pains he suffered.

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Heart sick on the open sea.
Odysseus is a man of suffering.

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He has a very intimate relationship with
pain, difficulty, suffering, and also at

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the same time endurance.
When he undergoes awful things, again, he

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doesn't just turn tail and feel sorry for
himself.

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He bears up under them and presses
forward.

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There was something about being one of
these andra that is related also to the

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idea of suffering and enduring pain.
When Odysseus endures pain, he fights

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back.
Fighting to save his life and bring his

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comrades home.
Now, in our story earlier, in the earlier

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lecture, we talked about the nostos.
You'll see here, the Greek term, here in

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its accusative form that has a different
end point, noston, but that comes from the

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Greek nominative, nostos, which means
home.

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A, a homeward, a journey that he is trying
bring his men on.

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So he's trying to move them, to find their
way home.

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And it's going to be a struggle through,
to endure through all of these

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difficulties.
But, and there's the Greek [foreign] that

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changes direction.
But, he could not save them from disaster,

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hard as he strove.
His men are not quite, you know, up to the

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challenges that Odysseus himself is up to
and they succumb.

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Odysseus could not save them from the
difficulties that awaited them.

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Suffering challenges at every corner,
Odysseus gets through them, but not his

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men.
The recklessness of their own ways

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destroyed them all.
The recklessness of their own ways.

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When you're a Greek.
Male and andra, being reckless is not a

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good thing.
Yes, you're supposed to be fearless, yes,

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you should not shrink back from difficult
situations, but to walk in pell-mell into

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awful situations without thinking things
through first, that counts as

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recklessness, and that's never a smart
thing to do.

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Odysseus's men are reckless, they don't
think through, and they pay a terrible,

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terrible price.
They are indeed destroyed so, spoiler

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alert, Homer is telling us all of the men
are going to be destroyed.

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Odysseus alone Is going to make it
through.

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Now what's the difficulty?
What did they succumb to?

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What was the problem they ran into to?
The blind fools, they devoured the cattle

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of the sun.
And the sun got wiped from sight the day

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of their return.
Now, you'll remember that in the Odyssey

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there are lots of different episodes.
And some of you will recall very famous

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ones.
For example, the cyclops or maybe you'll

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remember the sirens or any of the other
many episodes that Odysseus and his men

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get into.
Cattle of the Sun is surely an important

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one, but it's not always the, the foremost
one in people's minds.

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Homer, though, look what he's doing.
He's placing this episode right at the

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beginning, showing us what's really
important.

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I mean, the whole epic is contained in
these ten lines.

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Why does Homer decide to place the Cattle
of the Sun as the most prominent of these

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episodes?
This is something we'll need to pay some

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attention to, and especially when we get
to our discussion of book twelve.

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I'll do some talking about why it is that
Homer might have placed this episode, as a

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central one in, in his story.
The men devour the cattle of the sun.

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And when they do, the sun god wipes their
homecoming from sight.

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Homer then goes back to his muse, and
tells, asks the muse to, continue on.

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Launch out on his story muse, daughter of
Zeus.

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Start from where you will.
Begin from where you wish to begin, muse,

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and get us started on our story.
The story we're gonna embark on, we're

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gonna jump right into the middle.
We get into the action.

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And we're gonna fill in the back story
with, recollections and flashbacks.

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And we'll move toward the future as the
story carries on.

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But we're gonna launch.
Right into it, from where the muse wants

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us to begin, and which is right from the
middle.

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And she indeed is a fugatere dias.
She is a daughter of Zeus.

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This muse is no small goddess.
She's a daughter of Zeus himself.

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Then to close he's opening, Homer, re-,
brings the news back into the story and

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asks again, this word for sing, [foreign].
And here also brings back himself, sing

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for our time, too.
Sing also for us, is the very literal way

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that the Greek works.
[foreign], sing also for us.

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Homer brings in the first person pronoun
again.

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In the first line, it was the first person
singular.

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Homer is invoking himself to get involved
in his own story, asking the Muse to keep

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it going.
By the end of the tenth line, Homer is

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saying, yes.
First person, let's bring me in, But he

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includes us as well.
The first person singular becomes a first

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person plural.
So now all of us are invited to come along

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with Homer on this journey that is going
to be his Odyssey.

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As the weeks come along in the next, in
the opening weeks of this class, we're

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going to spend a lot of time with Homer.
It's an amazing story.

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Off we launch on our own journey to learn
from it and delight from it and to get a

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window into what really makes myth tick.
This concentration on the Odyssey and how

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its, its many twists and turns are going
to be kind of laboratory for us to

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understand.
Many details of what makes Greek myth,

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Greek myth.
So, pay attention as closely as you can in

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your reading.
It's the great part of this course, to

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spend time with Homer and the other
magnificent poets we're gonna spend time

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with.
I think is one of the great joys, so just

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please be sure as I said at the beginning
of the course.

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Be sure to give yourself time to enjoy it.
From here on, off we launch on our