Before we launch out into Books nine
through twelve, Odysseus's famous adventures there's one other piece of Book
eight that we'll really pay some close attention.
In there, we see a figure of a poet, Demodocus makes a, an appearance.
And in focusing on this character, we're going to get a little window into what it
might've been like for this guy, Homer in his own world.
We have a kind of vision through Homer's eyes of how a poet functions in the
society through the character. Of Demodocus.
Very useful thing to just pay a little bit of attention to.
So, we know from Homer's portrayal of Demodocus that ancient poets had a bardic
role in their society. They sung songs that were there in order
to entertain. They were great entertainers.
They were part of the retinue of wealthy, aristocratic people.
They hung around after dinner. They had some light musical accompaniment.
They may well have had dancers accompanying the different stories that
they told. And they were there in a, a mode to tell
episodes from famous mythic past. So, for example, in this story, we have
Odysseys himself asking for, hey, could you play the one about the Trojan Horse?
And Demodocus answers his call, picks up the, the, the, his musical instrument, and
goes ahead and tells the story of the Trojan Horse, in which Odysseys figures
prominently, provokes the, the great hero to tears, and sets off the course of
events that leads [unknown] to try to call him out and figure out ways to try to
identify this man. So, a, a, a poet after dinner will listen
to requests, will tell episodes from great ancient narrative tales and has a, a, a
role as an entertainer in the court retinue of a, of aristocratic peoples.
They're also known for a few feats. They're able to do things that are a
little bit extraordinary. Two things I'm going to focus on here.
Number one memory. An ancient poet could sit down and recite
from memory huge chunks of poetry and recite them in perfect metrical cadence
with musical accompaniment in way that was stunning.
These people had extraordinary powers of memory and beguiled their audiences with
their ability to recall details and tell things in a beautiful way.
Secondly poets exhibited a certain kind of wonderousness in their ability to take
some emotional state, that they themselves may feel, and impersonate, and exhibit as
they are performing their poetry. And then, transfer that to large groups of
people. So, almost by magic, they can internalize
some subjective state and transmit it to other people.
Anyone who's been in a room where a charismatic figure is working their wiles,
already knows that this feel like a kind of magical power.
The bard was thought to have the magical power residing in them of having other
people around being moved by his or her song be affected by the song that was
being sung. Some people in antiquity compared this
power to magnetism something extraordinary action at a distance that made a, a,
certain subjective state and the poet kind of be like a contagion and spread around
the crowd around them. Now in looking at this figure of Demodocus
yes, he gives us a window into how Homer imagined ancient bards to act.
There are also some interesting pieces we can look at, and we look at the traditions
that surround Demodocus and the stories that he tells.
You recall that one of his stories in perhaps, Demodocus' most famous story, not
the Trojan Horse, it's this seen where Aphrodite has an affair with Ares to the
detriment of her loving husband, Hephaestus.
This story unfolds in detail that gives us pause and makes us feel a little bit sorry
for Hephaestus. Ares comes along and seduces Aphrodite,
she gives in, and they go ahead and have this amorous tryst.
Helios, the god who inhabits the sun sees everything, since he can see everything
that's happening on Earth, and he goes over and tells Hephaestus.
Hephaestus then is angry over what's happening, of course he then goes makes a
special netting made out of, of very fine metal, metal.
He is perfect at working with different kinds of metals and makes a trap that not
even gods can escape from. So, next time Ares and Aphrodite get into
the bed they get trapped by Hephaestus' net.
And all the gods come around and start to laugh.
They laugh at this awful scene, talking about oh, ho, ho, ho poor Hephaestus.
Look, Ares is having sex with Aphrodite. Chuckle, chuckle, rib, rib.
And then one or two of them says, oh, boy wouldn't it be nice to be Ares right now
because you could have this beautiful queen to yourself and so on and so on.
And it's a, a story that is has, has a certain edginess to it.
It's not quite it pushes the boundaries of propriety.
And if it does to our eyes, well, it surely did to ancient eyes as well.
And, in fact, the tryst of Ares and Aphrodite was something that was,
fascinating to ancient commentators. They were trying to figure out, what the
heck is this doing in here? This doesn't seem all that it doesn't add
anything to the story. What's Homer trying to tell us with this
tryst of, of Ares, the God of War and Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love.
And what's Hephaestus' role in all this? Well, the allegorists have a field day
with this. They jump on in and claim, in antiquity,
that there's all kinds of hidden subterranean messages in this story of the
affair of Ares and Aphrodite. One of them, Heraclitus from the first
Century CE this is not the Heraclitus from the pre-Socratic philosopher this is
commentator on Homer's poetry, and Heraclitus is from the first century CE
tells us that the union of Aphrodite, love and Ares of strife, is, is actually the
union of love and strife. This is a story Aphrodite narrates as the
story of the union of love and strife. There's laughter, surely, when the gods
gather round, but it's divine laughter because it's a cause for joy when love and
strife come together. Never mind Heraclitus that they seem
clearly to be laughing out of a snickering, sardonic kind of emotion, not
out of joy, but it didn't matter to Heraclitus.
Then another idea that he forwarded, claimed that this whole thing was this
whole story, was a comment on the art of blacksmithing.
So, we have fire, Hephaestus who softens iron, Ares by capturing him, and then we
need to apply Aphrodite, or sorry, we need to apply passion, here represented by
Aphrodite to the work in order to be good blacksmiths.
And at the end, remember, it's Poseidon who calls everything off and all the other
gods are snickering and Poseidon says, no, no, that's enough.
Let's, you know let them free, Hephaestus and let them go.
So, Heraclitus reads that as an indication that water, in a form of Poseidon holes
the iron out and cools it off. That's Heracles view of tryst of Aries and
Aphrodite. Another commentator from the first century
a man named Cornutus tells us that when Aries and Aphrodite get together it's kind
of adultery. So fair enough and he says the brutal and
the violent do not correspond well with the cheery and the gentle nor is one
naturally intertwined with another but there is a noble offspring because the
legend had it later on that after Ares and, and Aphrodite got together, there was
indeed an issue from their romantic relationship and this is the god the deity
Harmony. So, we have, in Cornutus' reading yes,
it's a representation of adultery but in the end harmony.
Something good comes out of the brutal and the violent and the cheery and the gentle
coming together. Finally, the author of the life of Homer,
an unknown person who was known in antiquity as Plutarch, but that's not
surely the right name. But the, the unknown author of the Life
of, of Life of Homer in the first century CE, writes this, Ares and Aphrodite are
love and strife and they sometimes get together then there is harmony and
sometimes they're apart. Helios denounces them, Hephaestus chains
them, and Poseidon water, frees them. He claims that it is clear from this that
the hot, dry essence and it's opposite the cold, wet one, sometimes draw the universe
together, sometimes pull it apart. So, there are lots of interpretations that
get kicked off by this story that Demodocus tells us of Ares and Aphrodite.
And, in fact, as this probably still the case today, it is the parts of it ancient
myths that seem to be the strangest, that are the most disturbing to us, that are
the most provocative the most unsettling. These are the parts of myth that draw the
most attention and get the most work of, of commentary as people try to figure out
what the heck just happened. Here's an example from antiquity of a myth
that gets told, retold, interpreted and reinterpreted.
We're about to kick into some of the strangest parts of Homer's Odyssey Books9
through twelve are going to introduce us to things that make out the tryst of Ares
and Aphrodite look like kid stuff. So, hang onto your seats.
It gets ugly for awhile but don't worry, Odysseus will bear up.
He will suffer but he will also endure.