1 00:00:04,083 --> 00:00:10,037 So up to book twenty we've seen Odyssey making his way back into the external area 2 00:00:10,037 --> 00:00:13,083 of his own house. Now he's gonna have to get himself 3 00:00:13,083 --> 00:00:19,030 situated inside of the inner peace of his house and to do that he's gonna require 4 00:00:19,030 --> 00:00:22,083 some violence. Now there's this whole pack of suitors 5 00:00:22,083 --> 00:00:28,030 between him and occupying his rightful place in his own house and his only way to 6 00:00:28,030 --> 00:00:32,043 be able to deal with that is going to be with a bow and arrow. 7 00:00:32,064 --> 00:00:37,077 Penelope has set up things such that Odysseus will have a chance to have his 8 00:00:37,077 --> 00:00:41,078 bow in his hand. The contest is there to get the according 9 00:00:41,078 --> 00:00:46,092 to Penelope's stated purpose to try to see among the suitors who could earn a place 10 00:00:46,092 --> 00:00:51,058 with her, whoever is strong enough to string the bow and send it through the 11 00:00:51,058 --> 00:00:54,046 axis. No one of course is, they go around giving 12 00:00:54,046 --> 00:00:58,099 it a try, they all fail, at the end of book 21 Odysseus is actually able to 13 00:00:58,099 --> 00:01:02,005 string it. He strings it not just like someone who 14 00:01:02,005 --> 00:01:06,077 knows how to use bows well, but like someone who makes bows, his intimacy with 15 00:01:06,077 --> 00:01:11,073 that object is so deep and it's like a creator of the object, rather than just 16 00:01:11,073 --> 00:01:16,099 somebody even who knows how to use it. He then plucks it like a lyre at which 17 00:01:16,099 --> 00:01:21,111 point the suitors start to take note. All the signs that they've missed through 18 00:01:21,111 --> 00:01:25,155 the previous books remember book twenty was coursing with signs. 19 00:01:25,155 --> 00:01:29,480 All the signs that they missed now that you actually start to kind of get it. 20 00:01:29,480 --> 00:01:34,153 Oh my gosh, this guy can string the bow maybe there is something to him. 21 00:01:34,153 --> 00:01:39,254 Odysseus then turns and nods but this time it's not to Athena or to someone or, or, 22 00:01:39,254 --> 00:01:41,671 it's not to Athena, but it's to Telemachus. 23 00:01:41,671 --> 00:01:44,776 Telemachus is now in on this inner circle of knowledge. 24 00:01:44,776 --> 00:01:50,116 He's getting the secret sides from his own father, it's time to pull the trigger and, 25 00:01:50,116 --> 00:01:54,092 and jump into action. When he does Telemachus is there right 26 00:01:54,092 --> 00:01:58,948 next to him and Odysseus, Telemachus, and Eumaeus form a kind of, small army and 27 00:01:58,948 --> 00:02:04,080 they operate just like a hero army should. They're extremely effective, we see them 28 00:02:05,018 --> 00:02:10,394 practice their, you know war skills. The, suitors give us an education in how 29 00:02:10,394 --> 00:02:14,610 not, to fight, in how to lose. The first one to go down is that suitor 30 00:02:14,610 --> 00:02:20,084 Antinous, the biggest of the loudmouths, page 439, or at the beginning of book 22. 31 00:02:20,084 --> 00:02:25,097 He's chugging down a glass of wine in a wonderful poetic piece of justice. 32 00:02:26,015 --> 00:02:31,023 Homer has the arrow, the first thing I'll would go right through that glass of wine, 33 00:02:31,023 --> 00:02:35,918 spilling red, gunk all down his chest, and then cutting into his throat and the, the 34 00:02:35,918 --> 00:02:39,049 blood would spill out and mix with the red wine. 35 00:02:39,066 --> 00:02:43,065 Next step, if you're trying to lose, is to turn a blind eye to trouble. 36 00:02:43,065 --> 00:02:48,027 All the suitors kind of look around and think oh, well that was probably just an 37 00:02:48,027 --> 00:02:52,383 accident, so we're all friends here. Let's just go on with our business. 38 00:02:52,383 --> 00:02:56,786 But, no, of course that's not the case wishful thinking does not make Odysseus go 39 00:02:56,786 --> 00:03:02,019 away, nor does it make it an accident. He turns around and gets ready to fire at 40 00:03:02,019 --> 00:03:04,056 his next victim, Eurymachus. At that point. 41 00:03:04,056 --> 00:03:08,056 Eurymachus gives us a next lesson on how you should turn on your friends. 42 00:03:08,056 --> 00:03:12,059 Don't stick together, that's how to lose. Eurymachus says oh, well you know, 43 00:03:12,059 --> 00:03:15,066 Antinous is dead. And now that he's dead, well he's the one 44 00:03:15,066 --> 00:03:19,027 that started it none of us really you know, wanted to do this anyway. 45 00:03:19,027 --> 00:03:21,054 So now that he's gone, we'll all be friends. 46 00:03:21,054 --> 00:03:24,088 Ondysseus won't take that for a minute, and down goes Eurymachuss. 47 00:03:24,088 --> 00:03:29,028 And from then on there's just wave after wave of violence as the suitors get taken 48 00:03:29,028 --> 00:03:32,016 out and Odysseus, Telemachus and Eumaeus. Clean house. 49 00:03:32,037 --> 00:03:36,053 It's ugly, it's nasty, the fighting is very violent and brutal. 50 00:03:36,053 --> 00:03:41,058 It's shocking I think for us, for maritimes as representative Iliad, we see 51 00:03:41,058 --> 00:03:44,086 violence like this, this is pretty standard here. 52 00:03:44,086 --> 00:03:49,077 Guerrilla war stuff, it's nasty, it's very gruesome and very, very graphic. 53 00:03:49,097 --> 00:03:55,037 There are a couple of people that get spared, Telemachus urges that Odysseus 54 00:03:55,037 --> 00:04:00,062 should spare Phemius, page 450 and Odysseus relents and say sure I'll let the 55 00:04:00,062 --> 00:04:03,546 poet live. A lot of us look at this as Homer telling 56 00:04:03,546 --> 00:04:07,062 us they ought to be nicer poets. It's a poet saving a poet. 57 00:04:07,062 --> 00:04:12,039 Then Telemachus also urges that Medon, a loyal herald be spared. 58 00:04:12,039 --> 00:04:16,032 He runs out from under a chair and hugs Odysseus. 59 00:04:16,032 --> 00:04:22,000 At that point Odysseus is talked about as being a lion, spattered with gore. 60 00:04:22,023 --> 00:04:25,055 The, the nastiness of this all comes through. 61 00:04:25,078 --> 00:04:31,007 In addition to sparing these couple, Odysseus shows us mostly utter 62 00:04:31,007 --> 00:04:34,013 mercilessness. In one scene in particular I think is 63 00:04:34,013 --> 00:04:37,723 worth calling out, this is that scene with Leodes the seer. 64 00:04:37,723 --> 00:04:40,908 Leodes comes up and gets a hold of Odysseus' knees. 65 00:04:40,908 --> 00:04:45,201 Now from all that we've learned in prior books, and especially through Odysseus 66 00:04:45,201 --> 00:04:49,964 himself, on the island of Phiashia. Getting a person's knees earns you instant 67 00:04:49,964 --> 00:04:53,098 suppling status. It puts you under the protection of Zeus. 68 00:04:53,098 --> 00:04:58,017 And make the other person have an obligation to treat you like a guest in 69 00:04:58,017 --> 00:05:01,006 their home. You should get overwhelming hospitality 70 00:05:01,006 --> 00:05:03,083 once you make contact but, Odysseus does not heed. 71 00:05:03,083 --> 00:05:08,140 Xenia, in this case he takes his weapon and runs Leodes through. 72 00:05:08,140 --> 00:05:12,496 Leodes is sumerily killed. And Xenia is overrun in this episode. 73 00:05:12,496 --> 00:05:17,090 It should be disturbing. Homer spends no time though being 74 00:05:17,090 --> 00:05:21,383 disturbed by it. And from this positioning of events what 75 00:05:21,383 --> 00:05:26,509 we have to conclude, the conclusion we have to draw is that at certain times 76 00:05:26,509 --> 00:05:30,936 there are certain people. So in extreme situations and with great 77 00:05:30,936 --> 00:05:36,704 heroes sometimes pieces of the social code need to give way when other pieces of the 78 00:05:36,704 --> 00:05:41,309 social code that are more important require that we cut corners in order to 79 00:05:41,309 --> 00:05:44,369 meet the end. A justice that's dictated by the 80 00:05:44,369 --> 00:05:48,528 overarching social code. Homer's telling us that there's no way 81 00:05:48,528 --> 00:05:53,706 that Odysseus should have spared Leodes even despite of Leodes getting hold of his 82 00:05:53,706 --> 00:05:56,735 knees. At this point Odysseus's need for revenge 83 00:05:56,735 --> 00:06:00,988 and the crimes of the Suitors are in direct conflict with Xenia. 84 00:06:00,988 --> 00:06:06,333 And at this point the need for revenge and the duty to avenge the wrong that's 85 00:06:06,333 --> 00:06:11,172 happening in his own house overrides even such an important value as Xenia. 86 00:06:11,172 --> 00:06:15,025 And Odysseus. Not done Leodes in. 87 00:06:15,047 --> 00:06:18,079 He would have been doing an even worse wrong. 88 00:06:19,001 --> 00:06:24,687 By giving mercy where it was not due. And therefore he runs Leodes through. 89 00:06:24,687 --> 00:06:30,457 It is still disturbing, it's not meant to be explained away I think, but it is a 90 00:06:30,457 --> 00:06:35,471 marker, not of Odysseus' finality, but of Odysseus recognizing the gravity of his 91 00:06:35,471 --> 00:06:39,755 situation and also not fearing to take the steps to correct it. 92 00:06:39,755 --> 00:06:45,248 He punishes the unfaithful maids in an awful violent scene executed by 93 00:06:45,248 --> 00:06:49,096 Telemachus. They first have to clean up all the dead, 94 00:06:49,096 --> 00:06:52,612 and then they are killed at the end to join them. 95 00:06:52,612 --> 00:06:57,700 Really disturbing, kind of coup de grace, on this scene of carnage and killing. 96 00:06:57,700 --> 00:07:03,116 The, of confusion of the violence represented in this lovely painting this 97 00:07:03,116 --> 00:07:07,839 painting behind me the confusion of the violence is serious. 98 00:07:07,839 --> 00:07:11,538 It's profound. Odysseus and his team are able to keep 99 00:07:11,538 --> 00:07:16,463 things together through their skill and their sticking together through their 100 00:07:16,463 --> 00:07:20,530 ability to use all their crap as well as their joining together. 101 00:07:20,530 --> 00:07:25,374 All this Odysseus has almost like a God. He is like an invisible avenger that 102 00:07:25,374 --> 00:07:31,036 arrives deals out justice of a summary way to these human beings they are all dead in 103 00:07:31,036 --> 00:07:36,420 a way that recalls Apollo in the Iliad for those of you that have read book one of 104 00:07:36,420 --> 00:07:39,568 the Iliad. Mowing down the great warriors with his 105 00:07:39,568 --> 00:07:42,617 arrows. And the sulfur and the fire at the end as 106 00:07:42,617 --> 00:07:47,355 cleansing agents have a kind of further sense of Odysseus as a kinda God. 107 00:07:47,355 --> 00:07:53,077 But he is careful always and also in this case, to separate himself from the Gods. 108 00:07:53,077 --> 00:08:00,382 It's not, the Gods that have [inaudible]. His own to his own credit, that all of 109 00:08:00,382 --> 00:08:05,022 this is being done. It's the will of the gods that needs to 110 00:08:05,022 --> 00:08:09,023 get worked out. So he doesn't stand vaunting on them as a 111 00:08:09,023 --> 00:08:12,051 single individual having killed all these people. 112 00:08:12,051 --> 00:08:17,081 He takes a step back in seriousness. And says, now this is what the divine 113 00:08:17,081 --> 00:08:22,009 required in this particular circumstance. And I'm not a divinity. 114 00:08:22,009 --> 00:08:26,051 I'm a human executing a divine will. This comes out on page 452. 115 00:08:26,051 --> 00:08:32,086 There's also an earlier mention of such a think set of thoughts by Odysseus on page 116 00:08:32,086 --> 00:08:36,084 406 when he's talking to Eurycleia. He talks about himself. 117 00:08:37,069 --> 00:08:44,082 As a hero jumping into these events and you, the Gods will use his hands in order 118 00:08:44,082 --> 00:08:48,031 to execute. Fate, this is what a great hero thinks the 119 00:08:48,031 --> 00:08:52,048 Gods and Fate all work together through human agency to make things work. 120 00:08:52,048 --> 00:08:57,028 A far cry from Telemachus saying if only the God would make me powerful Odysseus 121 00:08:57,028 --> 00:09:02,002 says the Gods have made me powerful and that is why I am executing their will even 122 00:09:02,002 --> 00:09:06,087 in circumstances that are messy and nasty. Now as harsh as this has all been it's not 123 00:09:06,087 --> 00:09:09,050 quite as hard as what Odysseus has to do next. 124 00:09:09,050 --> 00:09:14,007 He has earned his way into the inner courtyard of his house he belongs there. 125 00:09:14,007 --> 00:09:17,055 Now he's got to have to earn his way into the inner rooms. 126 00:09:17,055 --> 00:09:21,020 And eventually into the bedroom and eventually into the bed of his home. 127 00:09:21,020 --> 00:09:25,075 To get to that point it's going to require even more of his skill.