Turning to book five now we see Odysseus.
We get to meet him and we get to meet him exhibiting his hero-ness not right off the
bat in book five but surely by the middle of book five and forward.
Now given all the characterizations I've given of Telemachus up till now, as
someone who sits around, feels sorry for himself, doesn't take action, as being not
heroic. Well, when we meet up with Odysseus, he's
pretty much matching that description as well, isn't he?
He's just been sitting on the beach and he's got Calypso who's keeping him
captive. This nymph goddess has him in her
clutches. She won't let him go.
He feels sorry for himself and cries on the beach.
There's not much he can really do. That situation that he is in of
powerlessness, though, is soon going to change.
And if you're sitting back wondering, you know, why does Odysseus spend quite so
long on that island? Why doesn't he break free and get out of
there? Then the other side of you starts to say
to yourself, "Well it doesn't seem to be so bad.
He's on an island with this beautiful nymph.
She has desires for him, and" he seems to be in a kind of Bower of Bliss.
Of course he's not leaving. If you start down that path,
Well lots of people started down that path in the past too.
The ancients themselves, when they read this epic, were wondering why did Odysseus
spend so much time with that with that Goddess.
But in any case he's there and he's stuck and there's no way for him to get off.
That's quite clear. He, he's not about to be able to break
free of a Goddess. And his being trapped though at the
beginning of the epic it's about to be changed.
Book five you recall, begins it leads us into a, a new set of, of what we're going
to be examining in the epic. We change course.
One through four, we've got Telemachus, and five through eight we're going to
start learning about Odysseus and a parallel, kind of journey that he's going
to make to a place where he can learn and, and get himself rebuilt.
But for him, it's going to be a slightly different kind of a story.
To mark this. Transition, we have a, as we did at the
beginning of book one, we've got an audience with Zeus.
We go back up to the very top of the universe.
We have our audience with Zeus. There's a strong marker of transition
there. And when the message is given to Hermes,
go down and tell Calypso it's time to free Odysseus.
When the message is given to Calypso Hermes laces it with an interesting thing
that we shouldn't just let pass. He, he basically says, you know, don't
cross Zeus. If you don't do what Zeus says, you know
he's going to make your life a living hell.
It means Zeus is going to crush you, physically.
Zeus's power in the Universe comes from violence and people are frightened of him.
This is the kind of Homeric, The starkness of the Homeric world from
the top down that's built in from the, to the power structures all the way up.
It's also the kind of thing we're seeing exhibited as the great elders of the large
aristocratic side, are telling Telemachus, it's time to get violent.
Those suitors, they are all expecting that's the next step.
Well Zeus shows us that, that kind of thing happens in the wider scale of the
universe as well. So Hermes comes down and delivers the
message to Calypso, it's time to let him go.
Calypso relents. This goddess whose name, Calypso comes
from a verb meaning to hide. Odysseus kind of disappears, is withdrawn
from life and from the wider Greek world for those seven years.
He is pulled back and pulled out. At that time when, Calypso gets the
message she lets him go and when she does, all she has to do is give him some tools.
With tools, Odysseus can fix anything. He gets his axe chops down the trees in a,
a beautiful elegant set of motions. It's extremely efficient.
He strips them, plains them, gets them perfectly true, binds them together,
erects a mast, puts together the all the different kinds of tackle that are
required to make his sailing vessel sound and he's got you know, within no time, a
few days, he's got a perfect ship ready to go.
And once he gets started on that craft, the building, he can't be stopped.
Odysseus is a great builder. This use of hands and the introduction of
Odysseus in the scene of the, of the raft building shows his heroness fully on
display. Heros are just good at things.
They have skills to get things done. They're good yes I mean in a kind of
abstract moralistic way but they're really effective.
They're efficient. They get stuff done.
They get action, They take action and can get it done
cleanly and efficiently. So Odysseus is now gaining back some of
what it is he's lost over these last seven years being disappeared under Calypso.
He now is getting his craft back. His wits are kind of coming back to him
and he's able to make his raft. Pages 159 and 60 of our translation.
This sail then sailboat then Odysseus jumps onto and he's able to sail it as a
master sailor. He's not only good at building a raft,
He's good at sailing a craft also. And now notice it, it becomes in his
hands, A perfectly seaworthy vessel.
It's just a very primitive raft that he made out of whatever was around him, all
by himself for a few days. But still he's able to make into a
strongly seaworthy vessel. But ofcourse,
Poseidon shows up right there. We're going to learn lots about Poseidon.
Why is it that he's so angry with Odysseus?
We're going to learn. So, Poseidon crushes him as he's trying to
make his way. And Odysseus at that point then tries to
find where he can to land. after he's journeyed for some time, tries to find out
where it is he can land. He's looking for a spot now to get into
his safe harbor. Now, if you're a sailor, you will know,
that seeing a shoreline, If you're you, you know, in a bad
situation, A bad kind of bad weather,
Seeing the shoreline is not necessarily your friend.
If it is a gentle shoreline or if it's has an inland or a port, that's perfectly
good. You can get in and get out of the storm.
But if there's a, a shoreline that doesn't have a nice place for you to land, a
shoreline means certain death. And Odysseus is facing that kind of a
thing as he's being tossed by the waves, And trying to calculate his way into the
shoreline that's nearby him after Poseidon crushes his raft.
Now he's able to sense when he gets nearby the current of a river that's flowing out
from the mainland. This is, for him, a, sign that yes, there's safety there.
He can sense in his body the river nymph. it's as if there's a kind of second nature
to him to know where safety's going to come.
So he finds his way in and where there's a river there must be a way for him to swim
in to get away from the violent crashing of the waves of the sea against the shore
line, get into the river, get inland and at that point he can then crawl out
without, without problem. So when he's gets to that, into that inlet
gets out of the river washes up on shore, Odysseus now emerges literally naked from
the roiling sea and just plops on the shoreline.
And there's not much life left in him at all.
In fact, all that he really has is the ticking of his heart.
The only thing that's left operative. He, on page 167 though, still has enough
of his brainpower to start a calculation. He wonders to himself whether it will be
wise for him to, stay nearby the river overnight and if he does that he runs into
a danger, he realizes, he calculates. That danger is that he could be exposed,
because the he, he remembers that a cold, a wind blows cold from a river toward
dawn. So though it may seem okay now in, by dawn
there will be a cold air blowing across him and he could expire from exposure.
So he decides, maybe I should go, up inland more,
But then if he moves inland, he's going to make himself vulnerable to becoming prey
for animals that will hunt him and eat him.
So he's stuck in a situation where he as to choose between dying of exposure,
staying on the on the shoreline, or dying of being eaten by going into the shelter
of the woods. So what he does is choose a middle course.
He set out for the woods not far from the water.
And he winds up getting himself into a situation where he can make a rudimentary
shelter for himself. And here we see again, Odysseus'
craftsmanlike self coming back in spades and really showing itself.
Odysseus goes on and we've got our olive bush here to help illustrate what he winds
up seeing. He found a grove with a clearing all
around and crawled beneath two bushy olive springs from the same root.
One olive wild, the other well bred stock. No saddened gusty winds could ever pierce
them, Nor could the sun sharp rays invade their
depths, Nor could a downpour drench them through
and through, So dense they grew together, tangling side
by side. Now, Odysseus, using his craft,
Starts to gather up what he finds. In fact, he finds Leaves.
He finds. Lots of leaves, an abundance of leaves and
his reaction is to feel overjoyed at the abudance of leaves.
He thinks there's extra leaves. Hey great I've got so many leaves it would
be shelter for lots of guys and yet I got all these leaves to myself.
He looks forward to what's going to hap, what he's able to make out of the
situation around him. He anchors on to the positive things.
He focuses on what he's capable of. He doesn't sit back and feel sorry for
himself. Oh I've gotta sleep in dead leaves all
night. Instead he thinks oh, well this is great.
I've got this wonderful abundance of leaves.
That's kind of poignant when you think about poor Odysseus.
And then he's stuck at the very end of book five.
The leaves are all around him, He's craft, he's crafted himself this
special kind of bed out of olive leaves that's going to we hope, keep him alive
enough for the evening, When Homer closes with really a
wonderfully poignant simile about the situation our hero finds himself in.
As a man will bury his glowing brand in black ashes off on a lonely farmstead,
No neighbors near to keep a spark alive, No need to kindle fire from somewhere
else. So great Odysseus buried himself in
leaves, And Athena showered sleep upon his eyes.
Sleep in a swift wave, delivering him from all his pains and labors.
Blessed sleep, that sealed his eyes at last.
So Odysseus gets his rest at the end of book five after a long book of struggle,
After a long book of getting him away from Calypso, having him escape the dangers
that he finds at the sea, Getting himself inland, escaping the
danger of crashing against the shore, escaping the danger of dying of exposure,
Escaping we hope, the danger of dying of exposure,
Escaping, we hope, the danger of getting eaten by a wild animal.
Buried like a firebrand, A glowing piece of metal underneath ashes
as if he himself is now being buried. Ashes being associated with a funerary
rite, as if he himself is getting buried and now all that he hopes is that he can
last, last till the morning. We'll find out at the beginning of book
six if he makes it we'll talk about that in the next lecture.