In book eleven we're off to the
Underworld. One of the first things, though, that we
notice about Homer's underworld is that he's not really under anywhere.
It's far away. Odysseus and his men go to the place that
Circe told him to go. When they do they dig a trench.
And in that trench, they put in some potions of ram's blood and milk and barley
and some things that they are told to put in.
And when they do, up out of the earth come these shades.
So Odysseus does not actually spend time going down, down, down, a la Dante.
And Dante modeled himself, of course, on Virgil.
Things are a little different in that underworld.
For Odysseus it's a faraway place. Out of contact with you and I, but it's
because it's so far away, not because it's so far down.
We've put together some pictures of kind of sulfurous openings in the earth that
might be more reminiscent of what Homer's underworld is than trying to imagine it as
some kind of down cave. Deep beneath the Earth, down beneath the
recesses of things. Now, in order to get these shades, to, to
come out and make, conversation with him, Odysseus has this bait.
And inside of the trough, one of the ingredients in the bait is blood.
And, there's a kind of physics, involved here, or biology.
The shades need to get blood. And, why would that be?
Well, these shades are just human beings like you and I who have lost all their
blood and their substance, and now they're just kind of floating around disembodied.
If they had more blood in them, life would return to them.
Getting the blood in them allows them to now talk and Odysseus can have
conversations with them. They don't get fully reembodied though, as
we learn in that very famous scene of Odysseus trying to hug his mother; they
are insubstantial shades. Being a shade is not a happy thing to be.
The Greeks would much rather be alive than be dead.
Can't quite make a universal law out of this one, but among the Greeks it's surely
true, it's better to be alive than to be dead.
The afterlife for them in Homer's time is not a place, for the most part where
ethical scores are settled. It's not as though those who have died in
this underworld are getting judged and punished if they've done bad things and
rewarded if they've done good things. Mostly they're all just kind of floating
around in this gray area and they would all much rather be alive.
Even the great ones, don't seem to have a very good life at all.
They, they, they would much rather be, be living.
We hear this in this kind of poignant, piece that we'll close with in thinking
about this, about what comes out of Achilles' mouth, when Odysseus has a
chance to talk to him in person. So, the underworld is not a place where
ethical scores are settled. It's a, a holding tank, it's a place you'd
rather not be, it's kind of like being at an eternal layover at an airport.
It's not like living. It's not necessarily actively being
punished, but it's just not like living a rich full life.
There are of course a few exceptions to this rule, about the underworld being a
place where ethical scores are not settled, there's one or two where we see
very famous sinners down there that are getting eternal punishment.
People like Tantalus and Sysophis, famous ones.
But they're the exception for the most part it is not a place where good and bad.
Ends just as desserts are being meated out.
Another exception that some of you all will hear about are the Islands of the
Blessed. This maybe has been something that you've
run into in your own engagement with Greek mythology.
It's something that we will see in our, in our story.
Articulated at a few points. But for the most part this is not a fully
worked out idea. It's a smaller piece of the larger set of
ideas about what the afterlife is all about.
Not necessarily all that, wide spread of a notion.
We will talk about that further, further out of the course.
Now when Odyssey puts out its trough, we do get to see Elpenor poor guy, there he
is. What the heck happened to you, you know
where have you been? And he says, well I'm dead.
And Odysseus says, I can't believe it. And what Elpenor gets to do is give us a
full-throated endorsement of the idea that you should be buried.
Elpenor tells Odysseus and his men, please, bury me, it's what we dead want.
And a functionalist would come along again and read this story and say clearly what
Homer is doing here is providing a sense of legitimacy to the social, cultural,
religious custom of burying dead bodies. Clearly the dead want that it comes out of
the mouth of Elpenor himself. So we run into this, guy.
Look at him. He's kind of, insubstantial as wonderful,
decoration on our Greek pottery. Odysseus has sacrificed the animals.
Hermes is there next to him. Hermes, who has control over souls on
their way to the underworld, guiding Odysseus here and Elpenor who shows up
with his hand raised in a gesture saying oh my gosh Odysseus, if only you had been
able to save me, things would have been much better for me but instead I'm dead.
Please bury me. Then we get, early on, to the point of why
we're out in that underworld in the first place.
We get to see this figure Tiresias. He's the whole reason we're there.
Tiresias is Apollo's priest. He has deep wisdom of not only the future
remember being a seer in Ancient Greece is not just about seeing future events, it's
also about seeing the present. In a way that you and I as typical mortals
are not able to see details. It's also about seeing the past in a way
that you and I as typical mortals may not have a memory about this past.
Well, a seer is able to see past, present, and future, and it's marvelous that
they're able to do any of these things. So when Odysseus goes to Tiresias to ask
him some help, Tiresias answers back, well, there has indeed been a problem,
Odysseus. You have run afoul of Poseidon.
It's here that Odysseus gets the message that it's time for him to make amends.
He has to apologize to Poseidon for the awful thing he did to that guy,
Polyphemus, happens to be Poseidon's son and he gets the orders from Tiresius.
The punishment seems to be a little strange at first what Tiresius says is
that you have to take an oar. So an implement of pulling a boat along
the water. And bring it so far inland that people
don't recognize it anymore. They can't tell what it is.
And once you get there plant the oar in the ground and build a temple to Poseidon.
Now why in the world would Tiresias want, Telodesias that that's what he should do
to make Poseidon fell better. Well gods like to be worshiped.
It's true. The Gods enjoy when we worship them and
they like to be worshipped widely. So Poseidon's temples mostly are nearby
the sea. Those that live near the sea know of
Poseidon's powers and worship him. Those that are inland may or may not have
even heard of him. So what Odysseus is doing here is
spreading the theme of, of Poseidon even beyond areas of the landscape that are
effected by the sea. Getting so far inland that people would
mistake his oar for a winnowing fan and think of it in another word as a, as a
farming implement. It means that Odysseus is far enough
inland that it would be a great pleasure for Poseidon to receive a temple in that
spot. So having gotten those instructions now
Odysseus knows what he's supposed to do. He's got what he needs.
But we're not going to leave the underworld quite yet.
There's more stuff for us to learn down there.
We run into others. Among the dead.
They come out, drink some blood and have a conversation with Odysseus.
Odysseus gets to learn from all these dead people in the past.
Some amazing stuff. He gets to hear about.
He sees, he sees not only his mother, he has a quick conversation with her.
It's also quite sad and poignant because they're unable to embrace.
She's dead. We hear from lots of female heroes and the
adventures they've gone through. Then, at the end of this catalog of, of
famous women also, we hear a voice we haven't heard for a while, Alcinous.
We might also be thinking to ourselves, my goodness.
Alcinous down there in the underworld. Well, this is Homer's way of breaking the
flow of the narrative interrupting things to give us a change of pace.
Reminding us that actually hey, guess what.
Remember, you are on the island of Scaria and Odysseus is telling Alcinous and his
people the story. Odysseus seems to be quiet tired and
exhausted. Alcinous breaks in and says please
Odysseus go on and tell us more. Odysseus then jumps in carries back on
with the narrative and starts to tell us stories about the heroes of the ancient
past. Here I've got a picture of the on the ore
that we're going to mistook for a widowing fan if we bring it far enough inland.
Odysseus is going to start to learn some of the adventures of the great.
Male heroes, that he runs into in the Underworld.
He gets to see his dead compatriots. He sees, Agamemnon.
And remember the story of Agamemnon. We've already seen it repeated to us
several times as people are trying to educate Tiresias.
They tell him listen, when Agamemnon was killed, his son came in and righted things
in his house. Here we get to meet the real Agamemnon.
Agamemnon has a, a further message for Odysseus, which is be careful when you go
home. You're not going to know what happened.
You've been gone for a long time and look at me.
My wife killed me. She took up a relationship with someone
else. So when you go home, be cautious.
Now this message is not going to be lost on Odysseus.
He's a very clever and cautious man. Of course, they have a back and forth and
talk about well, you know Penelope's a much better woman than Clytemnestra ever
was, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. But still, as this message is going to get
locked into Odysseus, and he is going to be cautious when he gets home.
Watch out when you get there. We're also going to meet this wonderful
Greek hero Achilles. You see him here lying down on the ground.
Awful scene. Achilles does indeed get killed.
Does not happen in the Iliad. Homer, this is the place where he talks
about the killing of Achilles. It doesn't happen in the Iliad.
And we get to hear from Achilles this long poignant conversation with Odysseus, or
somewhat long, intense conversation with Odysseus.
That says, you know what all that glory, I opted for a short glorious life on the
battlefield. Well, I would rather be a slave down here
in the Underworld, taking care of other people in the lowliest social position
than try to, be sorry. I would rather be a slave up there and,
and, and still alive, taking care of other people's, menial tasks, than be the grand
person that I am, and be locked down here among the dead.
Kim comes out of Achilles mouth at an interesting point in the Illiad, just the
opposite kind of, kind of sentiment, saying no that he, he'd rather live a
glorious short life, get killed but still have a great, powerful social standing and
become a hero, than to opt for a life of leisure and being a, being a servant to
other people and not having that grand and glorious life.
He seems to reverse himself, here in book eleven, again, underscoring just how awful
it is to be dead. Well, luckily for us, Odysseus and his men
are not dead. They get to the underworld and getaway.
Unlike most of us getting to the Underworld is something that is sadly easy
for fragile organisms such as we are. Getting out is a trick.
Odysseus does indeed get away from this place and he gets out from here.
They are going to have to take care of some business with their friend Elpenor.
Gets some clues for what to do next from their new friend or their friend of just a
year Circe and then from there its going to be off to the land of the sirens.