At this point in our story, we make a
transition back to Ithaca. Odysseus is now home but in this
interesting way, way of twisting things that Homer has.
He's home in the same position, he's been as a homeless person all throughout this
story. He washes up on shore, not sure where he
is. He is a wandering old man of misery.
Who's land have I landed on now? What are they here?
Violent, savage, lawless, or friendly to strangers?
Are they God fearing men? In other words, the same kind of thing
that he wonders when he washes up anywhere.
He's just not sure where he is. He functionally, has no name.
He's trying to figure his way. It reminds us a lot of what's happened to
Odysseus in the earlier adventures. He is now into a different world.
He's into the world of Ithaca. This is a different place than he's been
in. It's, of course, his home.
He has people he loves there. His wife is there.
It's a domestic intimate setting. It seems like all should be well.
Odysseus is already home, right? So, there he is on the shores of Ithica,
why doesn't he just waltz up to Penelope and say, hi honey, I'm home?
Well, I've got one answer for you. Agamemnon.
Now, remember that story, and Odysseus surely does.
Things are in trouble. You're just not sure what's going on, be
careful when you get home. Odysseus is definitely going to be careful
when he gets there. Yeah, it's a little bit of a matter of
trust with Penelope, etc. There's also much more there.
There, Odysseus realizes that whatever situation he's running into is bound to be
very complex. He has to get some information about it
and figure out what's happening. We're also going to find that Penelope is
doing the same thing. These two great figures, Penelope and
Odysseus, are interestingly in Homer's Odyssey characterized by the same verb.
In Greek, there's a, a word that means, a verb that means to weave.
And it's used for things like plots and plans and schemes.
So, when Odysseus is making his plots and plans, he does the weaving.
Well, guess what Penelope is famously known for in her story?
She is indeed a skilled master weaver. They both do the same thing incredibly
skillfully. And we're going to see that there is a lot
going on in Penelope's wider world. We'll spend a lot of time in the coming
twelve books talking about Penelope's world.
Everything that Odysseus has learned in his adventures, all the skills that he's
had in terms of social connections. In terms of his strength and his wits.
All of them, he's going to have to put to use in this next set of challenges The
Shores Of Ithaca. In pacing, there are different parts of
the story one through twelve, were all over the place to the underworld and back
to the most exotic places on the surface of the earth.
All the last of the, the remaining books, the last twelve books.
The second half of it, were all in one spot.
We're in Ithaca. But the land and the territory there is as
complex and as freeded and as rich and as packed with meaning as the whole rest of
the wider world. That's as though Homer is giving us a kind
of equivalence between Odysseus's wide world and what he sees when he washes up
on shore. This beautiful land of Ithaca these lovely
sheep there waiting for him, bucolic scene.
We're going to spend some time out in this world with Odysseus making alliances on
the outskirts laying back in the weeds trying to figure out what's happening in
the city center. But all of it, this terrain and every
square inch of it that is packed and loaded with important things for Odysseus.
His careful, cautious calibrating spirit as he gets through this land is absolutely
necessary for him to make it through without a problem.
Now, I thought we take a look at Ithaca in this schematic obviously, kind of map as a
way to kind of dive home some of the pieces of what this territory is all
about. Well, getting on to Ithaca is huge.
It's taking half of the book to get there. As I say, it'll take the second half of
the book for him to get from this edges of this little area up to the center
[unknown]. It'll take the second half of the book for
him to get that far. To be on Ithaca right now such as he is
washed up on the shore, that hasn't been well, that's actually been monumentally
hard to get home. But lots of people can just wash up on the
shore there. Odysseus has done that and he's already
there. Now, there is, once he gets into Ithaca, a
town center that he's going to have to make his way to.
Represented by this first larger box here. The town center is something that Belongs
to the people of Ithaca. He'll be recognized there as a stranger,
someone who doesn't quite belong. But it's perfectly okay for strangers to
walk into a town, they could just expect some kind of conversation.
To go a little bit further inward there's going to be a outlay.
This is the representation here of the large box.
This is the outer courtyard of Odysseus's house.
Here is a place where, yeah, strangers might be walking around in the town
center. People could look at them and wonder who
they are or someone might strike up a conversation.
Once someone comes into this outlay Odysseus's courtyard, then they're surely
going to have a conversation. Surely a stranger is may well walk in
there, a messenger, someone from a foreign king, somebody wants to make contact with
the household. But if a person walks into that space,
they are definitely going to have a conversation.
Who are you? What can I do for you?
What are you doing here? Okay, that is going to surely show up when
we get to the, to the outlay. Now, going a little bit further to the
inside. Now, the interior rooms of the house, this
is the oikos, the next square inside out nest of squares.
The oikos, the inner rooms of the house. This is the place where Penelope is in
charge. That is her area and her turf.
To make it into that space, requires something much more than just a curiosity
on the part of the visitor, I'd like to knock on the door and see if they will
have me in. Pretty much anybody can do that and they
can make it into the outlay. But to make it into the oikos, the more
inner the inner rooms of the house, it's going to be more of a challenge.
That requires an invitation. Penelope has to say it's okay for a person
to make it at that next step. These could be friends of the family some
of the, the people who live in the house are interested in talking to Penelope may
want to gather some information from someone who she hasn't been introduced to
yet, but she's willing to make a family connection with that person that person
could come into the oikos. Now, inside of that though, is an inner
room. Inside of those inner rooms, that is going
to be Penelope's bedroom. To get into there is a really tricky
business that is not going to be easy for anyone to do and it's definitely not going
to be easy for our wayward Odysseus, to make his way back to that spot.
It's where he wants to go, but he's not going to a be able to get there.
To make it to that bedroom is going to require all the skills that he can muster.
But there's a final infinitesimally small point inside of that final box of the
bedroom. There's a final infinitesimally small
point inside of there. And that's Odysseus's and Penelope's, bed.
Odysseus, eventually wants to make it to that spot.
That's going to require all the ingenuity he's been able to muster, up till now in
the epic. All the skills, the wits, the, the, the,
the game playing. All, all of that is going to be required
to get him through there. And not to mention, the physical strength.
But even more, is going to be required to make that final step from the innermost of
inner rooms to Penelope's bed. We'll have to track Odysseus' progress as
he tries to make his way, through that. Now, before he can get there, he is going
to need some guidance. Athena is going to be his first guide when
he washes up on shore. Remember the connection here with what
we've already seen earlier when Odysseus washes up on Scheria, he has a guide in
the form of a, a, a young woman who shows up.
Athena is here kind of playing a sort of Nausicaa kind of role.
The immediate response that Odysseus has is like he does with Nausicaa instantly
comes out a lie, right? Odysseus just jumps right into his perfect
crafted on the spot lie where he's jumps into the knee jerk response when Athena
asks, you know, who are you, what are you doing here?
He just starts lying instantly. Athena's response to this is quite
fascinating. She loves this.
She loves it when Odysseus lies. Oh, my little liar, I just love it when
you tell an, an untruth, the way you do so skillfully.
And then, she they make contact, they make a connection.
And then, Athena says, okay, it's time to get down to business right away.
She starts to fill him in as to what's going on in his household coaches him
instantly to go to Eumaeus. He needs to go make this transition to
Eumaeus's hut. It's there that he can make an anchoring
spot for himself and have a kind of beachhead in this new foreign strange land
of his own home and try to gain his strength, gain information and find his
way into what he's going to eventually try to do which is get his way into the inside
of innermost points in his own house, but that's going to take some more time.
We're going to see Odysseus being Odysseus in the next pieces of the story.
He's going to be making connections with people, making social connections, he's
going to be lying ah., all, all over the place and he's going to be in, in,
incredibly effective at working his way in to this next set of challenges.