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Across all the books, seventeen through
twenty, there is an interesting new

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language that is afoot in the story.
The story starts to mo-, move, by secret

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signs and secret codes.
We've already seen Odysseus and Athena

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especially share some secret codes.
They do their winks and their nods back

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and forth.
And, there's an intimate circle of

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knowledge that, that creates.
But there's further kinds of richness in,

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in secret languages, that gets built into
seventeen through twenty.

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And it's worth us paying a little bit of
attention to what this is all about.

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In antiquity it was understood that
messages from the gods were built into the

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world around us.
And that they were not just leaving us

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hanging, that we had to figure everything
out on our own.

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But they were purposely trying to send us
messages in the otherwise innocuous things

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that seem to be happening around us.
So if there was a strange coincidence,

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something fell off of a, a, of a
mantelpiece or something, we would say to

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ourselves, oh my god, you know, there must
be a god trying to talk to us.

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The gods talked to us in certain types of
ways.

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They talk to us through the behaviors of
animals, so the flights of birds, the

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croak of a frog before a storm, the
screeches of a bird or the flight path,

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the darting to the left or to the right.
They also were interested in things like

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thunder and lightning.
Overheard words were also important.

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So if you were walking past a window and
someone just happened to be saying you'll

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win the lottery today to their friend that
was a message for you if you just happened

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to hear it and then indeed you were
supposed to win the lottery that day so

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you want to make sure you hear that
overhead word.

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There are direct visions that sometimes
people get.

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So if you see something and then there's a
vision of, that has.

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Resonate for you in your future somehow
about a revealing, about future state of

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events.
There are dreams that the ancients are

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interested in.
The gods were thought to send messages

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this way to us.
So we could hear what was going on in

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their own minds, and what was going to
happen in the universe, as long as we paid

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attention to what we saw in our dreams.
So things like birds, lightning, thunder

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the gods visiting us in dreams.
These were thought not just to be, you

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know, strange coincidences, or kind of,
you know, intuitive.

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Things that we might use our intuition to
draw conclusions from so you know, I just

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don't like the feel of this place or this
seems a little bit strange to me, I'm not

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sure why.
When you and I start talking about

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intuition, it's during those moments that
the Greeks start talking about signs.

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They don't talk about intuitive knowing,
they talk about knowing by signs.

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There are signs that show up throughout
all these books, the divine ones I want to

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talk about in just a second, but also
there are signs that show up just

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physically that are, they are giving
information that sometimes some people are

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able to see and other times other people
are not.

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Take a look at what happens around just
the body of Odysseus.

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It itself is a kind of sign.
The Greeks thought that great person would

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have a marvelous physique and would be
beautiful.

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So, when we see this beggar, and on
occasion we get little glimpses that there

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is amazing physique underneath all those
rags.

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We should be thinking to ourselves, if
we're smart Greeks, well this can't be

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just any beggar.
This must be someone really important.

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Well the suitors get chance to see this
happening.

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At a couple really interesting points and
they sort of blow it.

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They don't draw the right conclusion.
Page 361 Melanthius is the goat herd who

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is giving Odysseus a hard time at the
time.

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And, and he hauls off and kicks Odysseus,
you know, really hard right in the hip.

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And the, the kick, though, doesn't leave
any mark.

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It just kind of bounces off.
If you went ahead and kicked someone in

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the hip, you would think that it would
destabilize them, but Odysseus is so

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strong that the kick basically just
bounces off.

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He is impervious to that blow.
No one around seems to notice that, that

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just happened.
The suitors are not good at drawing

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conclusions from the signs around them.
Then we have Antinous, who is this lead

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suitor, this aw, the most awful of the
awful suitors.

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Antinous on page 369 picks up a stool and
hurls it at Odysseus.

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Well, this just bounces off of him.
Again, doesn't leave a mark, and the

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suitors don't draw the right conclusion
that there is probably someone other than

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just a wayward beggar here.
We have in his fight with Iris on page

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377, we see Odysseus you know, Picking up
the rags that are forming his garment.

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And we see huge thigh muscles rippling.
The suitors take note of this, but they

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don't draw any conclusions from it.
That, hey, this guy might not be, the guy

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we think it is.
So there are signs coursing around in

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these events.
Some of them are purposeful and

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intentional.
Like when Athena gives the wink to

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Odysseus, and Odysseus is ready to give a
wink back.

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Telemachus gets in on these kind of signs,
eventually.

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There are the signs, that are being
registered in the events around us.

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Like, Odysseus' body, and it's sort of
revealing itself, if you know how to draw

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the conclusion.
But I wanted to close this consideration

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of signs by looking at what the Greeks
would have thought of as the most

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important of the signs, and those are the
ones thought to come from the gods.

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We see an example of a portent when
Theoclymenus just jumps into the,

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basically almost interrupting a
conversation with Penelope, on page 359,

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book seventeen.
Theoclymenus jumps in and gives a kind of

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portentous statement to Penelope.
And says, he swears by Zeus that Odysseus

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is already here.
Remember Theoclymenus.

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He's this person who's come with us,
escaping a blood guilt, links up with

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Telemachus in Pylos and comes back to us
Ithaca.

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A kind of stranger in our midst who's good
at reading divine signs.

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When he lays down this remark we take
note.

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We Greeks notice that some slightly spooky
stranger, whose name means the one who can

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hear the gods or the one who hears the
gods, when that kind of a person says

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something like Odysseus is already here,
well, gosh, we're going to take note.

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The sign that we see on book, signs that
we see in book seventeen also show up when

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we hear the statement made that if only
Odysseus would come back that would be you

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know, a grand thing.
We miss Odysseus.

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At that point we get a sneeze from
Telemachus, right at the end, as a

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punctuation mark to that statement.
This comes on page 372.

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Now a sneeze in classical Greek times was
thought to be a divine sign and it was

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thought to be, a punctuation mark that
said that what was just said was indeed

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true.
So, when the sneeze comes, whatever was

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just said just before is marked as being a
sign from the Gods and as being indeed

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true.
So when Telemachus on page 372 sneezes

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right after the statement, if only
Odysseus would come back, that's a divine

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sign, telling us oh my gosh, that's about
to happen.

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There's something, something powerful in
that remark and the Gods are under,

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underlining it.
Now in case we missed that connection

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between sneezes and divine signs, Homer
adds another one for us because the sneeze

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of Telemachus is like a thunder clap.
It's compared, in other words, to the

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most, well known sign from Zeus, the
thunderbolt.

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This is how Zeus sends us messages.
Sadly the thunderbolt is not too,

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semantically complicated.
It doesn't say you should choose green

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instead of purple.
It says instead, thrum, so what's, you

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know, it gives a strong sense of
meaningfulness to whatever is happening,

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or just happened or is about to happen,
but it doesn't exactly tell you what the

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meaning is.
But in any case, this authorization that

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Telemachus gives to his sneeze is
underlined by having it being compared to,

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assigned from Zeus, a thunder clap.
In book eighteen, there is a strong speech

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that comes after Odysseus beats the other
beggar, and he speaks in a full-throated

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ominous way to the suitors, on page 380.
Roar, roar, roar, roar, roar.

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He's gotten his, his gumption up, because
he's bested the other beggar in a contest,

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a fighting contest.
So now he got, feels, he's feeling his

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oats.
He's got, sort of, his energy is coursing

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through his body.
But when he lays down that to the Suitors.

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Now just how awful they'll be and the
trouble that they're about to face, it has

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a kind of heir of a, of a divine
pronouncement almost.

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Because it's so strongly worded it's not
normal.

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It sounds almost like something
Theoclymenus would say, doesn't it?

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It has that kind of tone to it and that
tonality.

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Odysseus is becoming that kind of seer now
and reading the right act to the, to the

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to the suitors.
Again, they don't notice.

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So we've got example of examples of
thunder.

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That shows up itself on page 413.
Then we have the overheard words.

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The, the example that we mentioned.
Plus also another example on page 413.

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We see birds being talked about in, on
page 418.

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And then Theoclymenus has this really
spooky direct vision, page 422.

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You know, blood, blood, you're all washed
in blood.

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You suitors here in huge trouble.
When he says that the suitors are like.

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Yeah, I can't quite understand what that's
suppose to mean.

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Bring out some more wine.
Bring out another goat.

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Every time these signs come to the
suitors, they just brush them off.

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Odysseus' inner circle sees what's
happening.

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They feel what's happening.
They see the coursing of the energy

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building toward the, the sense that you
know the suitors' days are numbered.

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The only ones that don't see it are the
suitors themselves.

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They're just blind to this.
They can't read these signs.

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They're out of the circle of knowledge.
The most important one of these signs, I

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think, and the most lengthy and detailed
one comes in book nineteen.

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I wanna talk about a couple of other
things before we close our discussion of

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seventeen through twenty, with a careful
consideration of what goes on in book

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nineteen.
Lots of moving parts to that book.

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A few other preliminaries I wanna look at,
but in closing off our remarks in a couple

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of lectures, we're gonna return to
Penelope's dream in book nineteen.

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But before we do, there's a couple of
other things I wanna make sure we cover