This week, we are going to carry forward
with our Homer. We introduce some basics of what the
Homeric story is like last time and a close look at the opening lines of the
book one. This week we are going to look at huge
pieces of Homer's poetry books one through eight.
To get our self started, I thought I would do a similar kind of thing which I do at
the very beginning of book one and take a look some more lines at the end of book
one. Remember, what we did at the beginning of
book one, there was a tremendous amount of grandeur in those lines.
We talked about our hero how he moves from one part of the world to the other we
talked about the Gods, we talked about grand historical themes.
As you carry forward in your reading of book one, These things are, are, these
expectations of grandeur are surely met. We go up to Olympus.
We learn about, what Zeus' life is like. We learn about how the world works a
little bit. We get a take on the larger story.
And we get major pieces of the, of the story get put into place.
But have a look with me for a second at how book one closes.
I'm just reprinting here the pieces of the Fagles' translation that I have
recommended that you all read, strongly recommended that you all read for this
class. Wonderful translation.
Let's take a look at what Fagles makes of these closing lines of book one of the
Odyssey. Telemachus off to his bedroom built in the
fine courtyard a commanding, lofty room set well apart, retired too, his spirit
swarming with misgivings. His devoted nurse attended him, bearing a
glowing torch. Eurycleia the daughter of Ops, Pisenor's
son. Laertes had paid a price for the woman
years ago, still in the bloom of youth. He traded twenty oxen, honored her on a
par with own loyal wife at home but fearing the queen's anger, never shared
her bed. She was his grandson's escort now, and
bore a torch. She was the one of all the maids who loved
the Prince the most. She'd nursed him as a baby.
He spread the doors of his snug, well made room, sat down on the bed, and pulled his
shirt off, tossed it into the old woman's conscientious hands.
And after folding it neatly, patting it smooth, she hung it up on a peg beside his
corded bed. Then, padded from the bedroom, drawing the
door shut with a silver hook. Sliding the door bolt home with its
rawhide strap. There, all night long, wrapped in a
sheep's warm fleece, he weighed in his mind the course Athena charted.
So, the way this book works, we start off with grandeur we move away all the way up
to the top of the Olympus, we learn grand things that may be happening.
But Homer in his cinematic take on the world shows us by the time he closes book
one, that not only she is going to be master of broad sweep of things and the
big landscape, but it's also being master of a small intimate detail.
This is an epic we're brings together grand historic large happenings with very
small personal intimate interactions between people and thoughts in people's
own minds. Here we've got a close up scene, where
we're taking a look at Telemachus, this young man and the tender relationship that
exists between Telemachus and his nurse maid the person that brought him up as a
young infant through the earliest years of his life and has been with him all his
life more intimate than that is very hard to get.
She takes off his shirt, hangs it on a hook the bed is described with its smooth
fleece and its warm kind of coziness, Telemachus is kind of tucked in there and
this huge sweep of epic events that starts off book one closes in book one with a
tiny sound. It's the click of a door bolt as it goes
to snap. So this huge event that is moving us from
one side of the world to the other Homer closes us of with his very small grace
note. From his breadth pointing out as a good
entry into some of the specific ways that Homer is going to make this like real
world very immediate for us. Now, this man who have been introduced to,
this young man by his, some of his poetic discussions in book one and by his
close-end back and forth with clear at the close we're going to know more about him
in the coming lectures.