1 00:00:04,074 --> 00:00:08,012 Now we're moving on to books nine through twelve of The Odyssey. 2 00:00:08,012 --> 00:00:12,099 Some of the best parts of The Odyssey exist in this arc of the story. 3 00:00:13,197 --> 00:00:18,003 A lot of the things that you'll remember about the cyclops, the sirens, all these 4 00:00:18,003 --> 00:00:21,098 famous episodes get stuck into Odysseus recounting his own tales. 5 00:00:22,195 --> 00:00:26,849 Recall what's happened, we've been on this island of Scheria for some books so 6 00:00:26,849 --> 00:00:30,036 Odysseus has slowly carefully pieced himself together. 7 00:00:30,227 --> 00:00:34,054 He's got his strength back. He's figured out a way to work himself 8 00:00:34,054 --> 00:00:38,031 back into human society but his identity is still a riddle. 9 00:00:38,031 --> 00:00:41,096 His host don't know who he is. And only after they've given him 10 00:00:41,096 --> 00:00:46,075 overwhelming hospitality do they even bother, or, they, do they even presume to 11 00:00:46,075 --> 00:00:49,055 ask his name. And now starting off in book nine, 12 00:00:49,056 --> 00:00:53,080 Odysseus is going to start to fill in what that ident, identity's all about. 13 00:00:53,080 --> 00:00:58,094 Remember at the close of eight, the direct question for him that came from the king, 14 00:00:58,094 --> 00:01:00,091 Alcinous. Now, tell us who you are? 15 00:01:00,091 --> 00:01:06,005 And in trying to figure out that question of identity there were several points 16 00:01:06,005 --> 00:01:10,035 that, Alcinous made salient. Your name, your lineage and where are you 17 00:01:10,035 --> 00:01:13,090 from? What is your name or your parents and what 18 00:01:13,090 --> 00:01:17,070 place are you from? Odysseus goes ahead and answers those 19 00:01:17,070 --> 00:01:22,350 right at the beginning above nine sets out his own identity straight forwardly for 20 00:01:22,350 --> 00:01:26,097 his audience. But then he carries on to fill up the last 21 00:01:26,097 --> 00:01:31,045 piece, this is going to be his past. What great things have you done? 22 00:01:31,045 --> 00:01:36,043 Oh yes, yes, we need to know those, in order to figure out who it is that you 23 00:01:36,043 --> 00:01:39,068 are. So a great Greek heroes identity is gonna 24 00:01:39,068 --> 00:01:44,053 be, yes, name, lineage, whether from, and also, a grand and glorious set of 25 00:01:44,053 --> 00:01:49,071 adventures in their past, what they've done magnificent things that they've 26 00:01:49,071 --> 00:01:53,043 engage in. Odysseus now when he identified himself is 27 00:01:53,043 --> 00:01:56,081 also taking over the role of the bard in the story. 28 00:01:57,167 --> 00:01:59,616 He's going to become the singer of the tale. 29 00:01:59,783 --> 00:02:05,165 It's like Homer hands things over to him and says go ahead Odysseus now you can to 30 00:02:05,165 --> 00:02:09,340 have the reins for a while. And then here's Odysseus basically in you 31 00:02:09,340 --> 00:02:14,441 know, perfect dactylic hexameter just like a real poet, performing for us his own 32 00:02:14,441 --> 00:02:17,734 identity. He gets to take over the story now form 33 00:02:17,734 --> 00:02:20,841 nine through twelve with a short breather in book eleven. 34 00:02:20,843 --> 00:02:26,259 Now in the parts that we're going to turn to in the coming books keep an eye on 35 00:02:26,259 --> 00:02:31,163 this, certain overall structure. They're are a lot of episodes that come 36 00:02:31,163 --> 00:02:36,480 fast and furious, and lots of details, lots of adventure to come up, but there is 37 00:02:36,480 --> 00:02:41,969 a way that you can organize your reading of it such that you can allocate interest 38 00:02:42,161 --> 00:02:45,006 to what the episodes that are most important. 39 00:02:45,190 --> 00:02:50,750 They tend to come in threes in book nine, we have a group of three, the adventure 40 00:02:50,750 --> 00:02:55,084 with the Ciconians, then the Lotus Eaters, then the Cyclops. 41 00:02:55,084 --> 00:03:00,300 In book ten, we have another three, Ilyste, the Lystrigonians and Cerces, then 42 00:03:00,300 --> 00:03:03,772 in book eleven a long journey into the underworld. 43 00:03:03,772 --> 00:03:08,136 And book twelve another group of three. The Sirens, Scylla, and Charybdis, and the 44 00:03:08,136 --> 00:03:11,575 cattle of the son. You can see our friends the sirens here. 45 00:03:11,575 --> 00:03:14,482 Careful. Watch out if you start to hear their song. 46 00:03:14,482 --> 00:03:18,908 It's going to entice you in. So we have in each of these groupings, two 47 00:03:18,908 --> 00:03:23,322 short ones and a long one, that first group of three in book nine, the Caconians 48 00:03:23,322 --> 00:03:29,038 and the Lotaseaters are both actually very short then the Cyclops is much longer and 49 00:03:29,038 --> 00:03:32,903 takes up nearly half the book. In group two we have Ealis the 50 00:03:32,903 --> 00:03:36,977 Lystergonians, those are the two short episodes, and then Zyrosy, which is the 51 00:03:36,977 --> 00:03:40,509 much longer episode, the more substantial episode in book ten. 52 00:03:40,509 --> 00:03:45,496 Book eleven, longer digression in the underworld, same cavings takes over again 53 00:03:45,496 --> 00:03:49,846 in book twelve, short, short, long Siren, Sillan and Karyptos, and the cattle of the 54 00:03:49,846 --> 00:03:52,036 sun. Watch for several important themes. 55 00:03:52,036 --> 00:03:56,397 I'm just going to point out to a couple, there are more that you're going to 56 00:03:56,397 --> 00:04:00,588 identify yourself in your own reading look for the idea of temptation. 57 00:04:00,588 --> 00:04:05,039 There are pleasures awaiting you, but those pleasures sometimes have a price 58 00:04:05,039 --> 00:04:08,059 associated with them. Also, curiosity goes together with 59 00:04:08,059 --> 00:04:12,606 temptation to be tempted to grab something also is married in this set of stories 60 00:04:12,606 --> 00:04:15,082 with the idea of curiosity and gaining knowledge. 61 00:04:15,082 --> 00:04:20,067 Odysseus push and drive is always a sense of my goodness, what is that over there? 62 00:04:20,067 --> 00:04:25,003 It could be something amazing, and I've got to spend some time trying to get to 63 00:04:25,003 --> 00:04:27,082 know it. Also, look out for Xanea, this idea of 64 00:04:27,082 --> 00:04:33,010 treating a guest in a proper way shows up in our stories, oftentimes in a perverted 65 00:04:33,010 --> 00:04:37,054 sense, we get examples of how not do Xanea, how not to treat your guest. 66 00:04:37,054 --> 00:04:42,087 Watch out for food crimes of all kinds. There are things floating around in these 67 00:04:42,087 --> 00:04:48,002 stories, that are being treated like their food, but really shouldn't be eaten and 68 00:04:48,021 --> 00:04:51,096 when you see those keep an eye out keep an eye out for them. 69 00:04:51,096 --> 00:04:56,091 Lots of shape shifting going to be going on, humans are going to be taking the 70 00:04:56,091 --> 00:05:01,493 shapes of animals and strange creatures are going to show up that are kind of 71 00:05:01,493 --> 00:05:05,029 human but not quite. Now, throughout this journey Odysseus is 72 00:05:05,029 --> 00:05:10,066 constantly trying to find out new things. Most of what happens in his exploration is 73 00:05:10,066 --> 00:05:14,000 actually specifically keyed as a search for knowledge. 74 00:05:14,000 --> 00:05:19,012 He gets down to the underworld oh sorry, he gets, when he gets over to Searcy, its, 75 00:05:19,012 --> 00:05:24,019 its clue, he's, he's clued into the idea that says that actually what you should be 76 00:05:24,019 --> 00:05:28,731 doing is finding out an important secret. There's a reason why all these terrible 77 00:05:28,731 --> 00:05:34,358 things are happening to you while these wonderful adventures, that you're having 78 00:05:34,358 --> 00:05:38,282 and explorations that you're having, are being forced upon you because of 79 00:05:38,282 --> 00:05:41,069 something. Go to the Underworld to find out. 80 00:05:41,069 --> 00:05:46,044 There's a specific search for knowledge, that's anchored from Circe forward. 81 00:05:46,062 --> 00:05:51,558 But really all of the episodes have built into them this kind of temptation toward 82 00:05:51,762 --> 00:05:55,034 some unknown thing curiosity pulling the way. 83 00:05:55,052 --> 00:06:00,318 Not least behind us we see are sirens. They have this amazing, marvelous song 84 00:06:00,318 --> 00:06:04,621 that's going to bring Odysseus to new depths of understanding as we'll see. 85 00:06:04,782 --> 00:06:09,652 In order to get yourself a fuller sense of what these episodes are all about take 86 00:06:09,652 --> 00:06:14,706 some time to link them into your memory. Get the groups of three straight. 87 00:06:14,860 --> 00:06:20,300 There's going to be a quiz that pops up on the next slide run through that quickly to 88 00:06:20,300 --> 00:06:25,344 make sure you've got each of the episodes straight in, in your own mind and then 89 00:06:25,344 --> 00:06:27,795 we'll carry on with the rest of this lecture. 90 00:06:27,795 --> 00:06:32,058 During Odysseus's ventures the further out we go the stranger things get. 91 00:06:32,254 --> 00:06:37,694 Near the beginning we have some adventures that seemed pretty much like standard hero 92 00:06:37,694 --> 00:06:40,484 stuff. He lands on the, the shores meets the 93 00:06:40,484 --> 00:06:43,254 Kikonians. They clobbered them, grabbed their 94 00:06:43,254 --> 00:06:47,161 treasure and leave standard kind of a hero pillaging behavior. 95 00:06:47,161 --> 00:06:51,304 Then we get to Lotus eaters, they seem roughly like normal people, we can 96 00:06:51,304 --> 00:06:56,570 converse with them there's some social interactions back and forth but they do 97 00:06:56,570 --> 00:07:01,581 have the strange fixation on a certain kind of food they like to eat the lowes 98 00:07:01,581 --> 00:07:04,751 leaves. Strange not sure what's so wonderful about 99 00:07:04,751 --> 00:07:07,097 them. They make them feel marvelous. 100 00:07:07,097 --> 00:07:10,555 There must be some kind of pharmacological effect. 101 00:07:10,555 --> 00:07:15,540 Odysseus as man quite loved this. And Odysseus realizes uh-uh, we've got to 102 00:07:15,540 --> 00:07:20,461 go no sense in anchoring ourselves here. For a hero you don't want to hang around 103 00:07:20,461 --> 00:07:23,803 and relax. You know, early retirement so you can play 104 00:07:23,803 --> 00:07:27,006 golf is not the kind of thing a hero wants to do. 105 00:07:27,183 --> 00:07:31,080 Then we get to the cyclops. With the cyclops, things get very strange. 106 00:07:31,080 --> 00:07:36,027 We are definitely in the world of strangeness when we arrive there. 107 00:07:36,187 --> 00:07:40,751 The approach that Odysseus makes to the cyclops is typical of a kind of approaches 108 00:07:40,751 --> 00:07:44,843 we're going to see in these episodes. The shore the, the ship will land on 109 00:07:44,843 --> 00:07:49,081 shore, a party of men gets out. They scout the horizon, look for places to 110 00:07:49,081 --> 00:07:51,002 go. See signs of life. 111 00:07:51,002 --> 00:07:56,147 There might be smoke off in the off in the far reaches, there might be a spring that 112 00:07:56,147 --> 00:08:00,010 they want to go to, a food source somewhere and they start to explore. 113 00:08:00,010 --> 00:08:03,074 When they do, they make their way up a path, maybe up a hillside. 114 00:08:03,074 --> 00:08:06,052 A rocky place, a wooded place. And they get to. 115 00:08:06,052 --> 00:08:09,081 Something that's wondrous, and something that's marvelous. 116 00:08:09,081 --> 00:08:14,130 In this case, something that's marvelously, marvelously strange and 117 00:08:14,130 --> 00:08:19,017 frightening. They arrive at the area of the Cyclops. 118 00:08:19,221 --> 00:08:25,615 Looking around to see what they might find and what they mostly find on their way in 119 00:08:25,615 --> 00:08:32,207 to this strange clumping of, of, of animals, a clumping of creatures is that 120 00:08:32,207 --> 00:08:35,463 there's a lot of things that they're just missing. 121 00:08:35,463 --> 00:08:38,838 They're not quite like you and I, these Cyclopses. 122 00:08:38,838 --> 00:08:43,506 They're lacking cultivation. They're, they don't know anything about 123 00:08:43,506 --> 00:08:46,849 farming. So they don't have the tools and resources 124 00:08:46,849 --> 00:08:51,219 to subsist on a grain-based diet. They don't have that settled farming 125 00:08:51,397 --> 00:08:55,104 technology. They don't have then also the kind of 126 00:08:55,104 --> 00:08:58,534 supplement in their diet that grain would give them. 127 00:08:58,534 --> 00:09:03,417 A stable bread that they might have to, to, to eat and to provide them with 128 00:09:03,417 --> 00:09:06,234 nutrition. They're going to have to get their 129 00:09:06,234 --> 00:09:08,698 nutrition from somewhere else. Watch out. 130 00:09:08,883 --> 00:09:13,032 They don't have councils. The Cyclopses don't get together to solve 131 00:09:13,032 --> 00:09:17,078 problems, they don't work together to get things done, they don't form alliances. 132 00:09:17,078 --> 00:09:21,097 They also don't have homes, they just live in these caves, completely rustic. 133 00:09:22,014 --> 00:09:26,182 They're lacking each marker of civilization most prominent among these or 134 00:09:26,182 --> 00:09:30,504 at least something that we could really remark on, is the fact that they don't 135 00:09:30,504 --> 00:09:34,026 have ships. These Cyclopses don't know how to build 136 00:09:34,026 --> 00:09:38,655 ships, and since they don't, they're not going to have contact with the outside 137 00:09:38,655 --> 00:09:43,383 world, they're not going to meet lots of people that are different from them which 138 00:09:43,383 --> 00:09:48,238 for us, great Greek heroes that we are the traders across the Mediterranean sea. 139 00:09:48,395 --> 00:09:50,817 This is a sign of great lack of civilization. 140 00:09:50,817 --> 00:09:55,268 Not to be in contact with, network with, people that are not like you. 141 00:09:55,268 --> 00:09:59,354 That's very strange, that the Cyclopses don't have that. 142 00:09:59,354 --> 00:10:05,117 In their in their cultural purview, they also lack and this importantly comes out 143 00:10:05,117 --> 00:10:08,820 with Polyphemus, they entirely lack the idea of Xenia. 144 00:10:08,820 --> 00:10:13,762 Remember our statement about hospitality and how important it is we see it coursing 145 00:10:13,762 --> 00:10:18,729 through really most of the books of the Odyssey it surely shows up in a negative 146 00:10:18,729 --> 00:10:23,076 way in these episodes we see people not performing the proper kind of Xenia or 147 00:10:23,076 --> 00:10:26,070 hospitality. The Cyclopses are really most prominent 148 00:10:26,070 --> 00:10:30,021 example of this. They don't understand the basic guest host 149 00:10:30,021 --> 00:10:33,048 relationship. Cyclops, the Polyphemus doesn't realize 150 00:10:33,048 --> 00:10:38,006 that he's supposed to be providing a gift to the people that arrive in his house. 151 00:10:38,183 --> 00:10:41,023 He doesn't know how to do it. He, he's not generous. 152 00:10:41,023 --> 00:10:45,087 He doesn't provide Odysseus and his men with the kind of overwhelming hospitality 153 00:10:45,087 --> 00:10:50,067 that a real good host is supposed to do. You might think that Odysseus and his men 154 00:10:50,067 --> 00:10:54,091 are a bit rude cuz they just keep you know, rummaging around on their own, 155 00:10:54,091 --> 00:10:59,008 looking for it and asking for it. Right in the Cyclops' face they ask for a 156 00:10:59,008 --> 00:11:03,091 gift that might seem a little bit forward or a little bit presumptuousness but 157 00:11:03,091 --> 00:11:08,075 actually Homer doesn't seem to bat an eye about it and the reason that he doesn't is 158 00:11:08,075 --> 00:11:13,208 because he thinks presumably that oh, this is a great hero, of course, he should be 159 00:11:13,208 --> 00:11:16,066 getting some gift giving, but of course he gets none. 160 00:11:16,227 --> 00:11:19,085 The gifts in the episode show up in interesting ways. 161 00:11:19,257 --> 00:11:24,091 Odysseus is repeatedly asking for one when he arrives there, hey where's my gift, I'm 162 00:11:24,091 --> 00:11:29,049 a guest in your house, where is my gift? Cyclops doesn't provide it, then also 163 00:11:29,049 --> 00:11:33,856 there's that wine that Odysseus brings from this ship as their making their way 164 00:11:33,856 --> 00:11:38,025 into the center of the island to look for this civilization. 165 00:11:38,025 --> 00:11:41,340 And they grab that and take that with them. 166 00:11:41,340 --> 00:11:46,534 Odysseus recalls it as a gift that he got himself, a guest gift that he got himself 167 00:11:46,534 --> 00:11:50,718 from a hero called Maron. Odysseus had saved his family as heroes 168 00:11:50,718 --> 00:11:55,052 might do sometimes Maron then gave him the gift of the wine. 169 00:11:55,052 --> 00:12:00,011 Odysseus is now going to use this. Later on in the episode it becomes his 170 00:12:00,011 --> 00:12:04,026 perverted gift to Cyclops. He says, here, why don't you have some of 171 00:12:04,026 --> 00:12:07,028 this wine? What it's going to do is not make the 172 00:12:07,028 --> 00:12:13,003 Cyclops enjoy wine, such as people do under normal circumstances, is going to 173 00:12:13,003 --> 00:12:19,021 utterly debilitate him so that Odysseus and his mates can do some awful things and 174 00:12:19,021 --> 00:12:25,031 poke out the one eye the poor cyclops has. I keep saying poor cyclops, I'm not sure 175 00:12:25,031 --> 00:12:29,003 why I feel sorry for him. I do, a little bit anyway. 176 00:12:29,188 --> 00:12:34,024 But so, they just drill this awful heated opposed into the Cyclops's eye. 177 00:12:34,024 --> 00:12:40,680 The thing is now blinded and utterly named having failed to give gifts to Odysseys 178 00:12:40,680 --> 00:12:46,785 men he gets the nasty one in return. Now, the gift giving and the laws of Xenia 179 00:12:46,785 --> 00:12:53,186 are consistently violently in the scene were they violated at their worst, is when 180 00:12:53,186 --> 00:12:58,581 the Cyclops decides not to serve food to Odysseus's men but instead to use 181 00:12:58,581 --> 00:13:03,499 Odysseus's men as his own food. He grabs two of Odysseus's compatriots 182 00:13:03,499 --> 00:13:07,823 right, when he sees them. Smashes their head against the ground and 183 00:13:07,823 --> 00:13:10,578 eats their brains. This is very bad manners. 184 00:13:10,578 --> 00:13:15,054 You're not supposed to do this kind of thing, instead a good host is supposed to 185 00:13:15,054 --> 00:13:20,025 feed his guest not feed on his guests. The cyclops goes ahead and does that. 186 00:13:20,025 --> 00:13:25,066 The worst perversion of all that one can imagine for the rules of Xenia. 187 00:13:25,066 --> 00:13:31,098 It's not only that the cyclops is ignoring the rules of Xenia, it's that the cyclops 188 00:13:31,098 --> 00:13:37,002 is actually perverting them. Turning them inside out in awful, awful 189 00:13:37,002 --> 00:13:40,033 ways. This brings us to universal law number 190 00:13:40,033 --> 00:13:44,545 three, universal law number three, pretty much held true across all of human 191 00:13:44,545 --> 00:13:46,805 society. All my universal law are like that. 192 00:13:46,805 --> 00:13:50,520 Universal law number three is, it's not good to be food. 193 00:13:50,520 --> 00:13:56,155 It is not good to be food. Human beings do not like the idea of 194 00:13:56,155 --> 00:14:03,028 becoming food for other creatures. It is a source of revulsion to us. 195 00:14:03,028 --> 00:14:09,023 It's so awful that it causes us to have an awful kind of disgust response. 196 00:14:09,023 --> 00:14:12,023 Ugh. It's not just terrifying or frightening, 197 00:14:12,023 --> 00:14:17,034 it's actually utterly disgusting. The violence that's involved in killing 198 00:14:17,034 --> 00:14:23,039 someone is here gone a further step as a ripped up human being is now chewed on, 199 00:14:23,039 --> 00:14:28,199 swallowed and metabolized. The full annihilation that comes through 200 00:14:28,199 --> 00:14:34,013 metabolism seems to be worth at the core of just how awful it is to image a human 201 00:14:34,013 --> 00:14:38,079 being becoming food. Then there's also the problem that reminds 202 00:14:38,079 --> 00:14:44,000 us that whatever living things that are out there in the world survive. 203 00:14:44,000 --> 00:14:47,016 It's true. By eating other living things. 204 00:14:47,221 --> 00:14:52,031 That's a sad thing about organic, the organic world but is indeed nearly 205 00:14:52,031 --> 00:14:57,038 universally true that living things survive by eating other living things. 206 00:14:57,246 --> 00:15:03,007 When you and I start to think of ourselves as food we place ourselves in this very 207 00:15:03,007 --> 00:15:08,042 broad spectrum of all of living things out there who are part of a food chain. 208 00:15:08,224 --> 00:15:13,091 I think that there's a part of us that likes to think of ourselves as much more 209 00:15:13,091 --> 00:15:17,096 special than that and not just as a member in a food chain. 210 00:15:17,295 --> 00:15:23,086 It makes us it's awful for us to think of ourselves as belonging to that part of 211 00:15:24,007 --> 00:15:28,045 what it is to be inside, of, to be a living organism as well. 212 00:15:28,045 --> 00:15:33,461 Now, to make his way out of this particular problem, Odysseus has this 213 00:15:33,461 --> 00:15:39,148 amazingly clever idea of debilitating the Cyclops rather than killing him. 214 00:15:39,148 --> 00:15:44,974 Killing the Cyclops they'd be stuck in the cave in the cave so he debilitates and 215 00:15:44,974 --> 00:15:49,234 this then gives Odysseus a means to get out of the cave. 216 00:15:49,429 --> 00:15:55,052 Straps himself to the bottom of the ram and has his mates strapped to the bottom 217 00:15:55,052 --> 00:16:01,591 of the other animals in the flock and they escape out the open door underneath these 218 00:16:01,591 --> 00:16:07,366 animals when Cyclops tries to check the animals to make sure nothing funny's going 219 00:16:07,366 --> 00:16:10,762 on about Odysseus and his men get through and get out. 220 00:16:10,762 --> 00:16:15,914 Not before Odysseus in a further sense of cleverness introduces another of the 221 00:16:15,914 --> 00:16:20,581 famous tricks in this episode when he is tormenting the Cyclops. 222 00:16:20,796 --> 00:16:25,264 The cyclops is asking his name. Odysseus says my name is No Man. 223 00:16:25,264 --> 00:16:32,071 Now this the Polyphemus being sure that the person that is having all this doing 224 00:16:32,071 --> 00:16:36,008 all this mischief in his own cave is named, No Man. 225 00:16:36,008 --> 00:16:41,631 When his neighbors come over to ask him what's wrong, Polyphemus he says to his 226 00:16:41,631 --> 00:16:47,031 fellows Cyclopses, "Well I'm, No Man is harming me, No Man is harming me," at 227 00:16:47,031 --> 00:16:49,616 which point. The fellow's not to bright. 228 00:16:49,616 --> 00:16:53,459 So yah, okay well one's harming you we'll just go back to our business. 229 00:16:53,459 --> 00:16:58,396 So they just depart and go away. Odysseus then adopts this pure anonymity, 230 00:16:58,396 --> 00:17:03,409 the name of no name. He, in some ways loses his name in the 231 00:17:03,409 --> 00:17:09,685 Cyclops episode not though quite well enough in Marx's entrance into a certain 232 00:17:09,685 --> 00:17:14,436 kind of anonymity, in a strange world modern about Odysseus is on his way out, 233 00:17:14,436 --> 00:17:19,862 like great heroes who can't stand the idea that the Cyclops might go through the rest 234 00:17:19,862 --> 00:17:23,005 of his life not knowing who it is that beat him. 235 00:17:23,005 --> 00:17:28,343 So as he and his men are escaping, Odysseus shouts back, oh, and by the way 236 00:17:28,343 --> 00:17:34,318 in case anyone wants to know, the one who blinded you and beat you at this 237 00:17:34,318 --> 00:17:38,537 competition is Odysseus. Now, when he does that Odysseus can't help 238 00:17:38,537 --> 00:17:44,396 but give his name so that his fame can spread and his glory can spread for having 239 00:17:44,628 --> 00:17:48,648 bested Polyphemus. But what he does is give Polyphemus now a 240 00:17:48,648 --> 00:17:54,461 means to draw down a curse on Odysseus. Odysseus would have been completely at 241 00:17:54,461 --> 00:17:58,197 anonymous. Had he not told Polyphemus' name, shouting 242 00:17:58,197 --> 00:18:03,583 out his name at the end gives him the glory of having bested Polyphemus but it 243 00:18:03,583 --> 00:18:08,348 now gives Polyphemus the means to call down a terrible curse on Odysseus. 244 00:18:08,348 --> 00:18:12,407 Without the name, Polyphemus would have been powerless to do it. 245 00:18:12,582 --> 00:18:16,806 The name gives him a way in, it's like his address, his special identity. 246 00:18:16,806 --> 00:18:21,865 Now that Polyphemus knows Odysseus's identity, he can say to his father, who 247 00:18:21,865 --> 00:18:25,569 just happened to be Poseidon. Sorry Odysseus, bad mistake. 248 00:18:25,569 --> 00:18:30,422 Just happens to be beside. Dad, take care of that awful man Odysseus, 249 00:18:30,422 --> 00:18:35,489 who took care of me. And when he does that Polyphemus will 250 00:18:35,489 --> 00:18:40,708 surely answer him and nasty things are going to come Odysseus' way. 251 00:18:40,708 --> 00:18:45,409 Now if we wanted to half step back and tried to think about this episode as a 252 00:18:45,409 --> 00:18:51,800 whole, Cyclops represents according to one of the tools we've already seen in our 253 00:18:51,800 --> 00:18:57,051 curse, a wonderful example of a kind of social lesson on the importance of Zenia. 254 00:18:57,051 --> 00:19:03,062 In the case of Polyphemus, this is the kind of reading I've been developing for 255 00:19:03,062 --> 00:19:09,049 you, in the case of Polyphemus, this example of Xenia is actually a perverted 256 00:19:09,049 --> 00:19:13,043 example. He stands as a perfect negative example of 257 00:19:13,043 --> 00:19:16,807 what not to do. And with this story, all the Greeks that 258 00:19:16,807 --> 00:19:23,070 are reading can sit back and listen to a myth that underlines and underscores the 259 00:19:23,070 --> 00:19:27,658 importance of proper guest treatment. The importance of properly treating a 260 00:19:27,658 --> 00:19:30,422 guest. Without doing that, a person is running 261 00:19:30,422 --> 00:19:35,468 the risk of being compared to one of these awful criminals the cyclops himself. 262 00:19:35,653 --> 00:19:41,098 So make sure that you uphold Xenia, you Greeks, otherwise some people might start 263 00:19:41,098 --> 00:19:46,418 thinking you're acting like a cyclops and, boy, that would be a horrible thing for 264 00:19:46,418 --> 00:19:48,029 people to think about you.