1 00:00:04,075 --> 00:00:09,040 As if we needed anymore indication from book one that it was time for Telemachus 2 00:00:09,040 --> 00:00:13,023 to, to grow up a little. It actually comes out of Athena's mouth in 3 00:00:13,023 --> 00:00:16,059 her disguise. She's standing next to him on page 87 and 4 00:00:16,059 --> 00:00:21,001 says you must not cling to your boyhood any longer, it's time you were a man. 5 00:00:21,001 --> 00:00:25,030 So, Telemachus realizes it's time to change, somethings got to give. 6 00:00:25,258 --> 00:00:31,008 It spurs him into his action of failed attempt to rile the suitors in his of 7 00:00:31,008 --> 00:00:34,757 beginning of Book two. And then, he gets ready to haul off on 8 00:00:34,757 --> 00:00:37,411 this tour with mentor as his guide, Athena. 9 00:00:37,411 --> 00:00:41,993 And when he does head out on this tour, he's going to learn things. 10 00:00:42,206 --> 00:00:48,862 Travels a way for him to gain knowledge. And in his tour round these great capitals 11 00:00:49,094 --> 00:00:54,645 in books three and four, what Telemachus is really going to do is take a journey 12 00:00:54,645 --> 00:00:58,000 into a past. And this past is already something that 13 00:00:58,000 --> 00:01:02,034 has a kind of grandeur to it. He'll look at Pylos and this wonderful 14 00:01:02,034 --> 00:01:05,052 wealthy citadel of, of, of that we see with Nestor. 15 00:01:05,052 --> 00:01:09,582 And then, we're going to move on to Sparta and see Menelaus and Helen of Troy 16 00:01:09,582 --> 00:01:12,471 herself. We're going to see grand figures that are 17 00:01:12,471 --> 00:01:17,764 already a mythic proportion according to how Telemachus marshal his engagement with 18 00:01:17,764 --> 00:01:20,934 them. I thought in making this turn to this 19 00:01:20,934 --> 00:01:26,350 grand past such as we're going to see in three and four, I might just toss up here 20 00:01:26,350 --> 00:01:31,646 a slide of a famous probably our most famous ancient citadel from this time, the 21 00:01:31,646 --> 00:01:36,827 citadel of Mycenae, Agamemnon's palace This is so-called lion gate and it has an 22 00:01:36,827 --> 00:01:41,030 air of majesty to it. And, thinking back to the time when this 23 00:01:41,030 --> 00:01:44,330 was built back in the first early, you know, early, early, early times first 24 00:01:44,330 --> 00:01:48,484 millennium BCE and even before these citadels emerged up out of the out of the, 25 00:01:48,625 --> 00:01:54,109 the plain around us and at a time, when there were simple agrarian folk in most 26 00:01:54,109 --> 00:01:58,053 parts of the world. There would be these grand citadels. 27 00:01:58,053 --> 00:02:03,795 And in the memory of time as the citadels age and as history builds up around them, 28 00:02:03,795 --> 00:02:09,094 and events take place that involve these places, eventually people start to think, 29 00:02:09,094 --> 00:02:15,238 my gosh, how in the world did they build those things, anyway, all those centuries 30 00:02:15,238 --> 00:02:17,977 ago? And when they did that, they started down 31 00:02:17,977 --> 00:02:23,023 a path of imaging that their ancestors were greater than they were. 32 00:02:23,212 --> 00:02:28,059 They even called these stones, Cyclopean stones because they felt there was no way 33 00:02:28,059 --> 00:02:33,028 a human being could have moved them and they are kind of things that only a 34 00:02:33,028 --> 00:02:35,938 Cyclops could move. So, there was a, a, a kind of, of mythic 35 00:02:37,006 --> 00:02:41,099 orientation toward their deep past that the Greeks already had during Homer's 36 00:02:41,099 --> 00:02:44,273 time. The, the impulse here to look at your 37 00:02:44,460 --> 00:02:49,655 ancestors as being much greater than you were leads us to our first universal law 38 00:02:49,655 --> 00:02:52,916 in the course. I'm going to give you a few universal laws 39 00:02:52,916 --> 00:02:57,567 in the course guarantee to be universal money back guarantee. 40 00:02:57,716 --> 00:03:00,555 And how much money do we pay for a course there anyway? 41 00:03:00,555 --> 00:03:03,615 Anyway, universal laws are money back guarantee. 42 00:03:03,615 --> 00:03:08,589 Universal law number one, nostalgia is the most powerful force in the universe. 43 00:03:08,798 --> 00:03:14,633 When people are looking back to their past they always imagine that it must have been 44 00:03:14,633 --> 00:03:17,893 better. Seems to be something that is exhibited 45 00:03:17,893 --> 00:03:22,748 across time and surely the Greeks are susceptible to this form of nostalgia as 46 00:03:22,748 --> 00:03:25,763 well. So, Telemachus has his cue, it's time to 47 00:03:25,763 --> 00:03:29,733 go and off he goes. He's going to visit two amazing places. 48 00:03:29,923 --> 00:03:34,816 Athena's going to bring him along. He's going to see Nestor's coastal city. 49 00:03:35,022 --> 00:03:40,843 And when he does, he's going to move from the his edge of his island of Ithaca and 50 00:03:40,843 --> 00:03:45,698 have a trip down by boat to Pylos. Now remember, when he arrives by boat in 51 00:03:45,698 --> 00:03:48,828 Pylos, what does he see there on the shore? 52 00:03:48,828 --> 00:03:54,638 There are nine divisions of 500 people each. 53 00:03:54,638 --> 00:04:00,854 So, already, we've got 4,500 people on a beach, that's probably going to arrest 54 00:04:00,854 --> 00:04:05,015 your attention. And now in case, we haven't gotten your 55 00:04:05,015 --> 00:04:09,068 attention, each of those groups of 500, each of those nine groups of 500 is 56 00:04:09,068 --> 00:04:13,081 slaughtering nine bulls. So, we've got 81 bulls being slaughtered 57 00:04:13,081 --> 00:04:18,028 simultaneously on a beach. If that doesn't grab your attention, then 58 00:04:18,028 --> 00:04:23,094 you probably need some smelling salts. What Telemachus sees there absolutely is 59 00:04:23,094 --> 00:04:28,055 just extraordinary to him. The grandeur of this scene something 60 00:04:28,055 --> 00:04:32,008 amazing. And the display of wealth, the conspicuous 61 00:04:32,008 --> 00:04:36,021 display of wealth. 81 bulls during Telemachus' time is, a, a 62 00:04:36,021 --> 00:04:42,085 fortune to last, you know the equivalent of a fortune that could last a huge chunk 63 00:04:42,085 --> 00:04:45,767 of a lifetime. And yet, here they are just being expended 64 00:04:45,767 --> 00:04:48,078 in this one event on the shores as he goes. 65 00:04:48,078 --> 00:04:51,067 So, we know we're entering into a world of grandeur. 66 00:04:51,067 --> 00:04:54,945 And now, keeping in mind that this is a world of grandeur, we're always going to 67 00:04:54,945 --> 00:04:59,642 be remembering, although it's going to take Telemachus a little while to remember 68 00:04:59,642 --> 00:05:04,450 himself, that this should be the kind of grandeur that exists in his household. 69 00:05:04,450 --> 00:05:07,738 And instead, these vagabonds are running riot across it. 70 00:05:07,884 --> 00:05:10,353 From Pylos and then, we go over land, over to Sparta. 71 00:05:10,353 --> 00:05:14,953 And at that point, we're going to meet Menelaus, Agamemnon's very brother, and 72 00:05:14,953 --> 00:05:17,975 Helen of Troy, that face that launched a thousand ships. 73 00:05:17,975 --> 00:05:22,297 We're going to have a private audience with her through Telemachus' eyes, we're 74 00:05:22,297 --> 00:05:25,198 going to see Helen. Now, through this trip through this 75 00:05:25,198 --> 00:05:30,091 traveling that Telemachus is going to do, it's a way for him to gain knowledge. 76 00:05:30,091 --> 00:05:35,790 And at the same time, he's mirroring in a smaller, more controlled way, the kind of 77 00:05:36,021 --> 00:05:40,057 adventure that his father is on. For each of them the experiential 78 00:05:40,057 --> 00:05:45,049 knowledge that's gained through traveling is something that's profound, that's 79 00:05:45,049 --> 00:05:50,061 powerful, that's life-shaping that gives them tools, and that allows them to 80 00:05:50,061 --> 00:05:54,941 advance in their own lives. Travel is a deeply powerful tool according 81 00:05:54,941 --> 00:06:01,035 to the scale of values. So as he gets ready to make his journey, 82 00:06:01,035 --> 00:06:07,016 makes his connection gears up his boat, gets his provisions, makes his way to 83 00:06:07,016 --> 00:06:12,059 Pylos, sees this grandeur, he sits down and has his audience with Nestor. 84 00:06:12,059 --> 00:06:17,580 When he gets to Sparta, he'll sit down and have his audience with Menelaus and with, 85 00:06:17,772 --> 00:06:21,394 with Helen. Now, at each turn, the, the elders sit 86 00:06:21,394 --> 00:06:27,666 back and listen to Telemachus' version of events, and the first thing they do, when 87 00:06:27,666 --> 00:06:33,069 they hear what is happening, is to react the way, presumably, we're being taught a 88 00:06:33,069 --> 00:06:38,081 person should react, they don't just feel sorry for Telemachus, they don't pat him 89 00:06:38,081 --> 00:06:42,006 on the head and give him some Kleenex, they're angry. 90 00:06:42,006 --> 00:06:47,001 They're angry. The constant exhibition of Telemachus's 91 00:06:47,001 --> 00:06:51,042 elders after he tells them this story is to feel anger. 92 00:06:51,254 --> 00:06:55,074 We see this multiple times as the story is being told. 93 00:06:55,315 --> 00:07:02,006 Athena has already shown it page 85, as [unknown] mentor, she is outraged and she 94 00:07:02,006 --> 00:07:05,057 talks about how shameful this exhibition is. 95 00:07:05,057 --> 00:07:11,033 On page 134, we hear from Menelaus, we also hear from Nestor, that this is 96 00:07:11,033 --> 00:07:16,022 shameful what's happening. Anger comes up when they hear this. 97 00:07:16,252 --> 00:07:21,352 The tour is partly an education for Telemahus to be schooled in how his 98 00:07:21,352 --> 00:07:24,890 emotions ought to be working. His emotions need some calibration. 99 00:07:24,890 --> 00:07:29,240 They need some changing. Oftentimes, I think we think that emotions 100 00:07:29,240 --> 00:07:33,759 are just kind of natural responses to things and that just by nature you are 101 00:07:33,759 --> 00:07:38,061 going to feel things like embarrassment, or anger, or joy or what, whatever it is. 102 00:07:38,246 --> 00:07:43,057 But the stance that Homer is taking here in the Odyssey is a little bit different. 103 00:07:43,057 --> 00:07:47,012 It seems that Telemachus actually needs some schooling in this. 104 00:07:47,012 --> 00:07:51,074 There's an acculturation that he needs to do to know that it is right now to feel 105 00:07:51,074 --> 00:07:54,201 anger. That is the kind of emotional response he 106 00:07:54,201 --> 00:07:57,884 should be having. Each person that he talks to expresses 107 00:07:57,884 --> 00:08:01,034 that. Then also, at each turn, we hear a 108 00:08:01,034 --> 00:08:07,085 particular name that's brought up. When we're talking to Nestor on page 113, 109 00:08:07,085 --> 00:08:14,021 the name Orestes comes up. Athena disguised as mentor on page 115 110 00:08:14,021 --> 00:08:17,076 talks about Orestes. Menaleus, page 141. 111 00:08:17,076 --> 00:08:22,052 After hearing the story of what's happening in Telemachus household, talks 112 00:08:22,052 --> 00:08:27,065 about Orestes, and in fact, casting our mind back for a second, back to book one 113 00:08:27,066 --> 00:08:31,775 Zeus in his introductory remarks right at the very beginning, talks about Orestes 114 00:08:32,027 --> 00:08:38,237 right on page 78 in the translation. At each point a person who mentions 115 00:08:38,237 --> 00:08:43,957 Orestes is an older authority figure. They're reacting to this expression of 116 00:08:43,957 --> 00:08:47,248 powerlessness. In Zeus' case, it's the idea that people 117 00:08:47,248 --> 00:08:52,552 just toss up their hands and it just feels like everything is just faded and it's the 118 00:08:52,552 --> 00:08:55,767 gods fault. Instead, take action like that Orestes 119 00:08:55,767 --> 00:08:58,910 did. The mentor Nestor and Menelaus each after 120 00:08:58,910 --> 00:09:03,944 they hear the story that Telemachus tells and of his own pathetic powerlessness in 121 00:09:03,944 --> 00:09:07,841 the situation say, oh, have you heard the one about Orestes? 122 00:09:07,841 --> 00:09:12,559 Now, what are they referring to? What is this situation involving Orestes? 123 00:09:12,559 --> 00:09:17,427 Well, it just so happens that the, one of the famous stories of homecoming is 124 00:09:17,427 --> 00:09:22,450 something that's already percolating in the background of Homer's Odyssey. 125 00:09:22,643 --> 00:09:27,598 When Agamemnon famously makes his way home, he gets home pretty quickly. 126 00:09:27,598 --> 00:09:32,918 It's not a struggle for him to get a ship back to his to his citadel. 127 00:09:32,918 --> 00:09:36,218 But when he does, he sees his wife. Hello and I'm, I'm back home. 128 00:09:36,218 --> 00:09:41,846 He doesn't realize that his wife has taken up a liaison with a lover and that the two 129 00:09:41,846 --> 00:09:46,217 of them go ahead and murder Agamemnon shortly after he arrives. 130 00:09:46,217 --> 00:09:51,711 Now, this is an awful thing, Clytemnestra, Agamemnon's wife, and her lover killed the 131 00:09:51,711 --> 00:09:56,997 head of household, Agamemnon, her husband. Now, it just so happens that within the 132 00:09:56,997 --> 00:10:03,170 Greek ethical code, if someone kills your father as a son or a daughter, it is now 133 00:10:03,170 --> 00:10:07,755 your duty to kill your father's killer. Well now, what happens in Agamemnon's 134 00:10:07,755 --> 00:10:10,823 family? Agamemnon's own son and daughter are 135 00:10:10,823 --> 00:10:16,175 responsible now for taking revenge against this killer, which means for them, killing 136 00:10:16,175 --> 00:10:18,849 their own mother. This is a nasty business. 137 00:10:18,849 --> 00:10:23,694 This is ugly, and this is awful. In Homer's version of it, the part that's 138 00:10:23,694 --> 00:10:26,600 really emphasized is the lover part, Aegisthus. 139 00:10:26,773 --> 00:10:31,022 It's, he's talked about as the one most responsible for the death of Agamemnon. 140 00:10:31,022 --> 00:10:34,663 So, Orestes goes ahead and takes care of business and kills Aegisthus. 141 00:10:34,828 --> 00:10:38,527 But it's a messy story. It's already messy in Homer's time. 142 00:10:38,527 --> 00:10:43,469 And if you get even messier when we concentrate on it in our out weeks of the 143 00:10:43,469 --> 00:10:48,985 class, we're going to turn to, after we turn to classical Athenian tragedy we're 144 00:10:48,985 --> 00:10:52,947 going to see the story of Agamemnon told through Aeschylus' eyes. 145 00:10:52,947 --> 00:10:56,045 My goodness, that's going to make my hairs grow. 146 00:10:56,543 --> 00:11:03,153 But when Homer focuses on it, what he means to point is, Orestes in a situation 147 00:11:03,153 --> 00:11:09,573 that was very ugly and very nasty, he had the gumption to do what needed to be done. 148 00:11:09,573 --> 00:11:16,124 Even in a situation where that was nasty, nasty business, Orestes, did, what needed 149 00:11:16,124 --> 00:11:19,453 to be done. Orestes and the story of run, cycling 150 00:11:19,453 --> 00:11:23,192 around Agamemnon show up multiple times in Homer's Odyssey. 151 00:11:23,192 --> 00:11:28,819 And in relation to Telemachus, they always show up as this kind of coda tom that's 152 00:11:28,819 --> 00:11:33,461 placed on the end of Telemachus feeling sorry for himself in the code that comes 153 00:11:33,461 --> 00:11:37,243 from a more, from an older more experienced person saying, you know what, 154 00:11:37,243 --> 00:11:41,216 even in the nasty business that Orestes had to take care of, his house was all 155 00:11:41,216 --> 00:11:44,187 messed up and Orestes came in and took care of business. 156 00:11:44,187 --> 00:11:49,021 So when Telemachus is being schooled on how he should be reacting to the world, 157 00:11:49,021 --> 00:11:53,520 he's being introduced generally to the grand and aristocratic world that is his 158 00:11:53,520 --> 00:11:57,651 birthright, that he ought to be enforcing to be his own on the island of Ithaca, 159 00:11:57,651 --> 00:12:00,515 he's being introduced to an emotional response. 160 00:12:00,515 --> 00:12:03,978 He's being enculturated to the right emotional response. 161 00:12:03,978 --> 00:12:08,125 Anger is what the person is supposed to feel when something as nasty as what is 162 00:12:08,125 --> 00:12:12,011 happening in your house is happening. Not pity , not sorry for yourself. 163 00:12:12,011 --> 00:12:16,407 Not powerlessness. He's also being schooled in historical 164 00:12:16,407 --> 00:12:19,375 lessons. By saying, look, if you're in this 165 00:12:19,375 --> 00:12:24,919 situation, you think you've got it bad, well, don't overlook what happened in a 166 00:12:24,919 --> 00:12:29,797 similar, you know, in a, in a situation that was surely as bad as yours, and 167 00:12:29,797 --> 00:12:34,779 probably much worse. Also, Orestes took care of business in his 168 00:12:34,779 --> 00:12:38,266 own situation. And you, as the son of a father whose 169 00:12:38,266 --> 00:12:43,852 being displaced by people that are eating you out of house and home, it's going to 170 00:12:43,852 --> 00:12:49,041 be incumbent upon you, their hinting, hinting, hinting to take action yourself. 171 00:12:49,041 --> 00:12:53,078 Go ahead and be the Orestes of your own story and take action. 172 00:12:53,078 --> 00:12:59,038 Now, in book four, there's a wonderful scene that I just wanted to spend a little 173 00:12:59,038 --> 00:13:04,643 bit of time with, we get to after we've had a chance to meet Nestor and his 174 00:13:05,015 --> 00:13:11,899 amazing display of wealth we get a chance to see what's happening, in the, the house 175 00:13:11,899 --> 00:13:15,920 of house of Menelaus. We also get to see that beautiful woman 176 00:13:16,099 --> 00:13:21,051 Helen of Troy herself. She comes in and has an entrance into the 177 00:13:21,051 --> 00:13:24,088 story. We get to hear from her and hear her own 178 00:13:24,088 --> 00:13:27,537 story. When she does jump into the story there 179 00:13:27,537 --> 00:13:31,052 are some interesting things for us to recognize. 180 00:13:31,052 --> 00:13:34,066 First of all, her beauty. Her bewitching guile. 181 00:13:34,066 --> 00:13:38,046 It's extraordinary. It's, it's obviously overwhelming. 182 00:13:38,223 --> 00:13:41,079 She is indeed the face that launched a thousand ships. 183 00:13:41,079 --> 00:13:47,029 When we get to see her she brings in a nice bowl for us to drink from that is 184 00:13:47,029 --> 00:13:51,081 going to soothe our, our pains or else an, an alcoholic beverage. 185 00:13:51,081 --> 00:13:55,061 But she also adds to it something extra, something special. 186 00:13:55,061 --> 00:14:00,790 These are special drugs that she got on her sojourn in Egypt when she and Menelaus 187 00:14:00,790 --> 00:14:04,998 were blown off course. And these drugs, she can now mix into 188 00:14:04,998 --> 00:14:10,280 wine, that mix into this wonderful potion, where no one could feel any pain for 189 00:14:10,280 --> 00:14:14,066 having had it. The narcotic effect of the wine is another 190 00:14:14,066 --> 00:14:18,527 thing that seems to be hovering around the aura that is Helen. 191 00:14:18,527 --> 00:14:23,231 So, in the case of Helen, we have beauty, we have magical power, we have 192 00:14:23,231 --> 00:14:26,129 intoxication. A little bit of danger, as well, because 193 00:14:26,129 --> 00:14:31,849 she can bring you out of this world. All of these things together showing up in 194 00:14:31,849 --> 00:14:36,564 the figure of Helen, this is a cluster of ideas that we're going to see visited 195 00:14:36,745 --> 00:14:40,009 regularly in Homeric epic. Of women who have power. 196 00:14:40,009 --> 00:14:43,033 Who have very clear erotic dimension to their power. 197 00:14:43,033 --> 00:14:46,038 Who also are mixed up in the idea of, of, of magic. 198 00:14:46,245 --> 00:14:51,030 Who have extraordinary beauty. And who when they arrive in a room, turn 199 00:14:51,030 --> 00:14:54,415 lots of heads. There's a tremendous power that Homer sees 200 00:14:54,621 --> 00:15:00,448 in, in this cluster of ideas, and we're going to see it represented in multiple 201 00:15:00,448 --> 00:15:06,212 places as our story moves forward. Not least, when we turn to away from our 202 00:15:06,212 --> 00:15:11,487 story of Telemachus in the first four books of the Odyssey and move on to meet 203 00:15:11,669 --> 00:15:23,816 our hero, the man himself the, the, the man the muses are singing of, Odysseus. 204 00:15:24,583 --> 00:15:33,027 He'll appear in our next lecture.