Epic the Musical and The Odyssey

In this episode of Greeks and Geeks, I'll be introducing you to the original sources behind Epic: The Musical and discussing the central character. What is The Odyssey? Who was Odysseus? How does it compare to Epic: The Musical?

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Transcript

Hello and welcome to series 2 of Greeks and Geeks, the podcast where I take us on persnickity but fun journey deep diving into the lore behind our favourite stories. I’m your host Sabrina, a teacher, writer and podcast host, and series 2 is going to be a deep dive into one very heavily requested topic- that of Epic: The Musical. This episode will be an introduction of sorts, letting you in on some important background information which should help you understand the myths the musical is based on in more detail, and then the fun bit can happen- you can reach your own conclusions and interpretations about the characters!

So what is Epic: The Musical? Humour me here as I’m sure many of you know what it is and what it’s about but let’s imagine you don’t for a second here. Let’s shake our minds clean like an etch-a-sketch (god wouldn’t that be amazing?) and if you remember etch-a-sketches please let me know. I’m probably showing my age here but regardless…

Epic: The Musical is a Greek mythology inspired musical concept album told in a series of approximately 9 sagas. Four of which, The Troy Saga, The Cyclops Saga, The Ocean Saga and The Circe Saga, were out at the time of writing this podcast script. The story focuses on Odysseus, the King of Ithica and his long, long, loooooong journey home to his Kingdom, his wife Penelope and son Telemachus. It was composed by Porto-Rican artist, Jorge Rivera-Herrans, nicknamed Jay. He describes it as a loose adaptation of The Odyssey and don’t worry, we’ll get into what the Odyssey is later. There are 40 songs in total and a whole cast of wonderful performers.

In terms of the music, Jay states that he’s inspired by video game music. However there are multiple genres and influences you can hear throughout Epic: The Musical. From the retro-pop sounds of songs like “Wouldn’t You Like?” or “Open Arms” to the bombastic orchestrals of “Storm” or “Ruthlessness” to electronic or classic rock, the musical is broad in its scope. You might even say the broad range of styles are… Epic in scope. I’m sorry. Actually you know what I’m not sorry! I love stupid puns and dad jokes and I won’t apologise for it!

The thing I really like about the musical, and we’ll get into this in other episodes too, is how characters are often associated with their own instruments. Odysseus, for example, is represented by both electric and acoustic guitars. Circe, by cello etc. Some characters also have leitmotifs, which is sort of like a brief recurring musical phrase associated with them. Think of the Shark in Jaws and the “duuun duuun” theme you can hear, telling you that the shark is near even if we haven’t seen the shark or witnessed an attack happen yet. If you listen closely, you can hear these leitmotifs in songs when characters don’t even appear through singing, suggesting they’re quietly watching in the background. Ooooh….spooky! And mysterious!

There’s a lot more to be said about the musical itself, but we’ll go into that more in later episodes as we discuss each saga in more detail. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. If I’m to do this correctly, I ought to introduce you to source material first. So let’s discuss the themes of Homer’s epics.

(MUSIC)

The Themes

Although Epic: The Musical is mainly based on a loose adaptation of the Odyssey, it incorporates elements of Homer’s other epic, the Iliad along with other ancient stories too. So we need to get into the recurring themes and compare them to the themes of Epic: The Musical too. Let’s get into it!

Two relevant types of epics for this episode are kleos epics and nostros epics. Kleos means glory or great deeds. Those who like Percy Jackson are probably familiar with this concept. The Iliad is a kleos epic. Dying in battle is an example of kleos. The great hero Achilles, for example, has a choice. He could either live a long life, full of peace but no kleos, or fight in Troy and live a short life where his kleos will long outlive him. Based on the fact that we’re talking about him can you guess which one he chose? 

Nostros epics are about homecoming. There are a few lost epics (smaller in scale to the Iliad and the Odyssey) which are about the Greeks returning home after the Trojan war. The Odyssey and Epic: The Musical are nostros stories. The whole story revolves around Odysseus’ desperate desire to return home and the musical reflects this, usually in heartbreaking ways.

Besides the theme of nostros, the massive theme of the Odyssey is xenia- that of guest friendship. We don’t really have an equivalent word in English, especially as what xenia entails is quite far removed from society. The word Xenia, derives from Xenos- which can mean “guest, host, stranger, foreigner and friend.” In equal measure. This is pretty strange for us modern folk as I wouldn’t treat a stranger the way I might a friend, you know? Although I know Americans who do. When I lived out there, I had multiple experiences of people who became friends being all “oh hey! You’re away from home! Why don’t you come to my house for Easter? I’ll make a ham!” and it was REALLY good ham too. I think Americans might be better at xenia than us shy brits…although it could be just ‘cause you liked my British accent.

Anyways the reason why xenos, and xenia is so much more encompassing is because of the mores of the society at the time. If you’re a travelling ancient Greek, there aren’t any hotels. No premier inns or holiday inn expresses or the like. No plazas or ritz’s if I have any rich people listening. I know. The horror. So what do you do? You invoke xenia by knocking on a stranger’s door and having them put you up for the night, give you food and shelter in exchange for something you have to offer in return (if you’re a bard perhaps you might be their evening entertainment, a carpenter might help fix your fence, or you might be a good storyteller). 

Usually you seek someone on the same level as you. So a travelling farmer might aim to stay at another farm, a King aims for another royal house. God forbid the classes mix, even in ancient times, amirite? I’m joking but I cannot stress enough how important the concept of xenia was. Xenia was so important it was considered the domain of Zeus. So if you broke xenia in any way, you offended Zeus himself. It. Was. Important. It can be argued that a break in xenia caused the Trojan war. Paris was staying as a guest at Menelaus’ palace and stole his WIFE. Probably one of the most egregious examples of xenia breaking I can think of. I’d get mad if a guest stole one of my tea mugs, let alone absconded with Dave in the trunk of their car (my fiancé). 

Also, fun fact, xenos is hereditary! So if you met someone who helped your dad, you’d be expected to help them in return if they came knocking on your door. But break xenia and you have a family feud which could span generations.

So why is xenia important for the Odyssey, Epic: The Musical and by extension Odysseus? Well Odysseus on his travels, often relies on the kindness of strangers in order to get by. He relies on xenia multiple times throughout the Odyssey. We see what happens when people break xenia and when they exhibit the golden standards of it, and everything in between. Back home, in Ithica, Odysseus’ home is flooded with guests. Suitors trying to force his wife Penelope into accepting Odysseus is dead and to marry one of them instead. They take, take, take, eating all the farm animals, drinking all the best wine and acting like pigs. But they give nothing in return. They are terrible guests and therefore they are breaking xenia and offending Zeus. But we’ll get to the suitors in the next section.

There are other themes too, which I want to go over in later episodes. But both Epic and The Odyssey touch on topics such as the relationships between father and son, husband and wife, and humanity vs immortality. Epic: The Musical, puts a lot more into the themes of mercy vs ruthlessness, and has Odysseus struggle with his morality and survivors’ guilt more than the Odyssey did.

But now it’s time to move on and summarise the Odyssey for you. We’ll mainly be dissecting the first part of the Odyssey and briefly talking about the latter half as the length of this episode is getting on a bit and the latter half of the Odyssey covers things which I’d like to discuss more once those sagas are released so I guess stay tuned in that regard…

Anyways… let’s get into it! The Odyssey, by Homer…

The Odyssey 

And it’s right here that I’m going to be honest with you and say that I’m like “oh bloody hell where do I even begin to START with explaining the Odyssey?” luckily, I am a fully qualified teacher and have been for a decade. So I’ll down my last dregs of coffee and pray to Athena for guidance here, as well as patting my little Animal Crossing figurine of Blathers the owl for luck. Because honestly there are so many different places I could start from it can be a little overwhelming.

I think the best place to start would be with Homer, the supposed author of the Odyssey and the Iliad. In antiquity Homer was thought to be a blind man from Chios but modern historians disagree with this, as that theory is based on a poem composed a couple of hundred years after the Odyssey and the Iliad were composed. But the image of “the blind bard” has prevailed in popular myth. The short answer really, is that we simply don’t know. Emily Wilson sums this up in her introduction to her translation of the Odyssey. “Everybody in the Greek-speaking world wanted to claim and remake Homer for themselves- a process that continues to this day.”

The Odyssey and the Illiad are two epics written around the late 8th century BCE to late 7th century BCE. This was a time when writing was emerging once again, after a period of “dark ages” from 1100BCE-800BCE when the Mycenaean age ended. We’re more familiar with the medieval dark age after the collapse of the Western Roman empire I know, but this particular dark age followed a similar pattern. A great civilisation collapsed for reasons still discussed, traditional oral storytelling rose and then, eventually, literacy began to develop once more. 

This is a very, very brief summary I know and I do have to leave it there because the matter of the Odyssey’s composition, the dates and the history are still subject to fierce debates to this day.

So what is the Odyssey about? Well it is essentially a sequel to the Iliad, which is a story set during the last year of the Trojan War. We’ll get into the Trojan War during, funnily enough, the Troy Saga, but if you want a bit of background you can also listen to my episode about one of the key characters of the Iliad, it’s called “The Roast of Agamemnon.” Just bear in mind I’m a little bit more ranty and biased in that episode because sometimes you just have to say “I do not want to look at things with a scholarly lens because this dude sucks and I hate him.” Anyways.

The Odyssey focuses on one of the survivors of the Trojan war on the Greek side, after Troy has fallen. That is the character of Odysseus, the King of Ithica. The Odyssey is about Odysseus journey to get home back to his wife and child. It takes him ten years to do this. Twenty years of being away from home in total.

But here’s where things get interesting. The Odyssey isn’t told in chronological order. In fact, a lot of people (myself included) are often surprised when reading these Epics how seemingly all over the place they are. I was very reassured in my research by the fact that professors often state how surprised their students are about how little of the Trojan war the Iliad covers for example.

The Odyssey is not chronological and it doesn’t always focus on Odysseus. Scholars again have debated furiously over the years as to whether this shows that Homer was a storytelling genius, a master of his craft, or overhyped. I’ll let you be the judge of that. But regardless, EPIC: The Musical has taken a more chronological approach to Odysseus’ story.

The Odyssey is an epic poem composed of twenty-four books and it opens in medias res, in the middle of the story. Much like the Iliad, we essentially jump right into the action. We start on Ithica, where the King Odysseus has been missing for twenty years. Why do we start here? Well this is the time when things are really starting to get desperate on Ithica. Odysseus has been gone for so long and over one hundred greedy suitors have been living in Odysseus’ palace, his home, behaving terribly, eating his food and demanding his wife choose one of them to marry. Odysseus’ wife Penelope and her son Telemachus are facing the crux of this terrible decision. They have not heard from Odysseus, or anyone who left for Troy all those years ago, and don’t know if he is alive or dead. 

This is terrible for a number of reasons. Penelope is in an impossible situation which she has cleverly put off for a years and years. Her most famous trick is that she tells the suitors she cannot marry anyone until she weaves a burial shroud for her father-in-law, Odysseus’ father Laertes, as Odysseus’ was an only child and so she is Laertes only family member left with the ability to weave the shroud for him. Laertes is still alive at this point but, if Penelope remarries and the Laertes dies after the fact, then he will have no family members to make his burial shroud as tradition dictates. The suitors accept this but, as the years go on, they grow more and more frustrated. How long does it take to make a burial shroud? What they eventually discover is that Penelope has been weaving, then undoing her work every night. Eventually she is caught and the pressure is really on. The first few books pick up here, where she is told that she must choose a suitor, she must choose the next King of Ithica.

But how can she? If she chooses a suitor and it turns out Odysseus is alive, then she is an unfaithful wife, the worst kind of shame for a woman of this society to be (we’ll get into the double standards in the episode about the Circe saga). But there is also a strong chance that any choice of suitor she makes would wind up causing a sort-of civil war between the Ithicans. If Odysseus IS truly dead, then Ithica is left without a king. This is absolutely unfathomable in the society which the Odyssey is set. A kingdom must have a monarch or terrible things occur. We see this with the suitors and Telemachus themselves, whose fathers have left them to go to war. They have grown up without the kings of their household, and so they have become boorish, uncultured brutes in the case of the suitors, or not fully grown into their manhood, still acting boyish and immature in the case of Telemachus. Speaking of Telemachus, if Penelope does choose another suitor, then that is Telemachus’ birthright, his inheritance, gone.

So the first four books set up the dire situation in Ithica, why it’s so important for Odysseus to arrive home. Athena helps prod Telemachus on a little journey off Ithica to see if he can discover what happens to his father. Here were find out what happened to some of the other characters from the Iliad in these first four book which I won’t recount here for time reasons. But Telemachus learns from them that Odysseus is alive.

The next four books (books 5-8) take us to Odysseus, again twenty years after the fall of Troy. These events are happening roughly concurrent with the first four books. Odysseus is trapped on the island of the goddess Calypso, who loves him and has kept him on her island for seven years. His men are all gone. He is all that is left. Seven years previous, he first met Calypso and he did humour her and sleep with her, but Calypso’s love turned to a deep obsession and she refused to let Odysseus go. This has caused Odysseus to be grief-stricken, distraught, as he desperately wants to go home. The Odysseys first lines about Odysseus and what he's up to in the present moment are this:

“But Hermes did not find Odysseus, since he was sitting by the shore as usual, sobbing in grief and pain; his heart was breaking. In tears he stared across the fruitless sea.”

The nature of the relationship with Calypso is an interesting one. In a tiktok video, I stated that Odysseus might be considered a cheater as he does sleep with Circe and Calypso. There was a lot of pushback to this in regards to Calypso especially, that Odysseus is a victim of Calypso’s assault. Unfortunately, it’s very difficult to discuss such nuances via social media. BUT FORTUNATELY I do have a podcast which I’m typing right now so I can address this haha! 

To those of you who believe that Odysseus is a victim, I agree with you. But to those of you who say he’s a cheater, I also agree with you. The Odyssey presents it as both really. Listen to this passage.

“Calypso found Odysseus on the shore. His eyes were tearful; he wept sweet life away, in longing to go back home, since she no longer pleased him. He had no choice. He spent his nights with her inside her hollow cave, not wanting her though she still wanted him.”

She no longer pleased him. Immediately followed by “he had no choice.” This to me suggests a time when Calypso and Odysseus’ relationship was indeed mutual, that he was pleased by her. However, that time has long since passed and what was once mutual attraction has turned into a goddess exerting her power over a mortal man. Odysseus, in the present moment, is 100% a victim, a shell of the man her once was and it is heartbreaking to see. I particularly like the term “hollow cave” as we can interpret that in the literal sense, that’s just where she lived, and another sense yes but we’re keeping it PG so I’ll leave that one, but also that word “hollow” could be metaphorical. That is what the relationship between Calypso and Odysseus has become. Hollow, empty, devoid of the real and mutual love such as that between Odysseus and his beloved wife.

This would not have been shocking to the readers of Homer’s time. It was common knowledge that men away at war would take mistresses, concubines and slaves to their beds. We see this happening in the Iliad, where a fight over war prizes (women-ick) leads to terrible consequences, and it’s all treated as normal. Again double standards with what Penelope had to put up with but again I have to save that rant for the Circe saga episode.

So Odysseus is trapped on Calyso’s island and, whilst Poseidon is away from Olympus, the goddess Athena uses this opportunity to approach her father Zeus and argue on behalf of Odysseus. He is fated to go home and his fate has been kept from him too long. In the first four books Athena helped Telemachus, in these next few she’s helping Odysseus. We’ll get more into the nature of Athena and Odysseus’ relationship in later episodes but for now, all you need to know is that he is one of Athena’s chosen favourites. Poseidon, however, hates Odysseus (again we’ll get into why later on). Zeus agrees with Athena that it’s high time Odysseus is allowed to go home so he sends Hermes to Calypso’s island to let her know it’s time to let go. She reacts with grief and rage, however she does agree.

Firstly, however, she offers Odysseus a choice. She says he can stay with her and be immortal or return to Ithica and be with his mortal wife. Odysseus does something unexpected here. In a masterfully crafted speech, he chooses mortality, he says that he longs for his home without managing to offend Calypso, so Calypso lets him go.

He builds a raft and is sailing for home when Poseidon returns and realises what’s going on. And whilst Poseidon recognises that Odysseus is fated to go back to Ithica, he still wants to give him as much grief as possible. He sends a storm and Odysseus washes up on the island of the Phaeacian’s. Here he is near death, naked and alone, he cowers under leaves and falls asleep. 

Meanwhile Athena sends a dream to the princess of the Phaeacian’s, Nausicca. Because of this, she ends up meeting Odysseus and through some careful, clever dialogue on Odysseus’ part, he manages to convince her that he means her no harm. Athena also helps by giving Nauicca’s heart courage when they meet and he’s able to cover up his nakedness too so he doesn’t disgrace the princess. Nausiacca is a bright, clever and lovely young woman who takes mercy on him and is careful with her words. Because of her, he is taken back to the palace, fed, bathed and treated to bard song. But she is careful to not lead her there herself, as she is a young woman on the verge of marriageable age and that would cause rumours to spread. Games are held, to which Odysseus’ can’t resist a bit of showing off, and songs are sung by a blind bard (self insert perhaps?). Odysseus’ learns through the bard song that his exploits at Troy are remembered, his kleos is a sure thing (it was his idea to build the Trojan horse). He weeps as he hears the song and finally reveals his identity to his enthralled hosts. Thus the xenia relationship is fulfilled on either end as Odysseus beings to tell his tale…

Books 9-12 are perhaps the most iconic and well known of the whole Odyssey. If you know anything of the Odyssey it probably comes from this part. Here, we have a perspective shift AND a flashback. Homer does something really incredible here. For the next 4 books, he switches to speaking in Odysseus point of view, first person, and flashes back to the strange events which happened to Odysseus’ and his men after the sacking of Troy. I’ll cover the most iconic ones here.

The first is the Lotus eaters. Odysseus and his men travel to the land of the lotus-eaters, a race of people who lived on an island and eat the mysterious fruit which makes everyone forget their troubles and their thoughts of home and loved ones. By eating the lotus, they would be forever trapped on the island with no inclinations to return. Odysseus managed to snap his men out of it and get back on their ship.

The second is his journey to the cyclops. Odysseus and twelve of his men travel to the cave of the shepherd cyclops Polythemus with their best wine and offer it to them. When they find the cave empty, his soldiers are tempted to steal Polythemus’ cheeses and animals but Odysseus’ refuses to dishonour Xenia, he will be a good guest. Unfortunately for Oddy, Polythemus wasn’t so generous. He ate two of his men and went to sleep, trapping Oddysseus and his remaining men in the cave with him with a giant stone. It was too heavy for the men to lift. So they needed to come up with a plan. 

After Polythemus ate two more men, he was offered wine by Odysseus, who claimed to Polythemus that his name was “Nobody.” Polythemus got drunk and fell asleep, and Odysseus and his men used the opportunity to blind him with a sharp stake. Polythemus called for help by saying that nobody had hurt him, but the other Cyclopses simply stated that “if nobody is hurting you, be silent.” Next morning, the blinded cyclops opened the cave to release his sheep to graze. Odysseus and his remaining men snuck out by clinging to the bellies of the sheep and legging it at the first chance. However, as they were sailing away, Odysseus couldn’t help himself. In a show of hubris, or a desperate desire for credit (and therefore kleos) he bragged to the Cyclops that it was him, Odysseus, King of Ithica, who blinded him. 

The Cyclops calls on his father Poseidon to curse Odysseus. To which Odysseus does indeed learn “oh yeah! I have to REAP what I sew….oh dangit.”

The next adventure is when Odysseus and crew eventually land at the wind god Aeolus’ island and Odysseus begs him for help. Aeolus takes pity on him and offers him a bag containing all of the winds except the one they need to sail home. This almost, almost works. They get so close to Ithica that Odysseus can see farmers at work. But…torturously…it’s not to last. Odysseus, who at this point has been awake at the helm for nine whole days, succumbs to slumber and his men steal the bag of winds. Side note- I wonder if this is where the term windbag comes from? I have to look that up. Anyways Odysseus men are convinced that the bag has treasure inside and they foolishly open it…

Welp. What happens is all those trapped storm winds get released and they end up right back where they started, at the palace of Aeolus. Aeolus however, refuses to help them again. Because, honestly I don’t blame him for thinking this, he believes that the Olympians must absolutely loathe Odysseus, because no man could possibly be so unlucky. He’s not taking his chances annoying the Olympians so, much like Taylor Swift, Aoelus tells him, “You’re on your, kid!”

After this is the other most iconic moment in the Odyssey. Circe’s island. Odysseus and his men wash up on Circe’s island and he sends a scouting company with Eurylochus to see what’s up. Eventually Eurylochus returns and tells Odysseus about their encounter with the witch Circe. At first she seemed to be welcoming, offering them food, but she turns the men into pigs! Eurylochus (who hung back, suspecting foul play) saw this all go down and rushed back to tell Odysseus. Odysseus goes to help rescue his men.

On his way, he encounters Hermes who offers him advice on how to defeat the witch. He is supposed to take a herb (moly) to counteract any spells Circe throws at him. Then he’s meant to rush at her with his sword, as though he means to kill her. She will be frightened and offer to spend the night with him. Hermes suggests Odysseus goes through with this and also get Circe to promise to no longer harm him and his men.

He follows through with this plan and it works completely…perhaps a little too well. Because not only does Circe change his men back into humans, not only do they end up going to bed with each other, but Odysseus ends up staying for an entire year. It’s only when his men reminded Odysseus that it was time go that he realised it was indeed, time to get going. He speaks to Circe and she immediately agrees to let him go and gives him advice on how to get home. He’ll need to journey to the underworld to find a dead prophet. He will know how to get him home.

I’ve already written an episode on Circe and I’ll go into the nature of the Circe and Odysseus relationship in the Circe saga episode but I’ll just say it seems really interesting how Circe and Calypso are quite opposites of each other!

Then Odysseus and his men travel to the underworld and talk to a whole host of ghosts. From Achilles, to Agamemnon, to his own mother. Most of these he doesn’t realise are dead because he’s been separated from them for so long. Agamemnon warns his that his own wife Clytemnestra killed him and warns Odysseus not to treat Penelope too well- which…I mean- just go to my Agamemnon roast for that one I can’t get mad at that right now but I am ok let’s breathe annnnd….back to it.

Odysseus also does indeed talk to the prophet Teiresias, who fortells of many of his difficulties ahead. He warns Odysseus that he needs to control his men when they arrive at an island of cows sacred to the sun god Helios. Like he cannot stress enough. DO. NOT. EAT. THE. SACRED. COWS. But if his men do eat them, then Odysseus will still be able to get home, but he will be alone and it will be even later than he wants. Basically Teiresias kinda spoils the whole second half of the Odyssey here, pretty much… not all of it but mainly all of it. Prophets, eh?

Book 12 ends Odysseus’ first person narrative. And yep Teiresias was correct. They land on the island with the sun god’s sacred cows and, after Odysseus falls asleep, his men kill and eat them. Despite Odysseus telling him exactly not to. At this point I feel like Odysseus’ men are like my students on a bad day “Don’t run through the halls or you’ll trip!” “don’t tip your chair because you might fall and hurt yourself.” I SWEAR I USED TO BE A NON-BELIEVER WHEN I WAS A STUDENT BUT IT’S TRUE GUYS I SWEAR. I’VE SEEN IT. Granted Odysseus’ men were half starved so I get it but STILL. Anyways, they eat the sacred cows and Zeus yeets them all off the face of the planet except Odysseus the second they sail away. It’s at this point that Odysseus, completely alone, ships destroyed, washes up on Calypso’s island. This ends Odyssey’s tale.

And now we’re back with Phaeacians and this is really getting on a bit for what was supposed to be a summary. So we’ll do the short version of the second half of the Odyssey. Maybe once the whole Epic: Saga is out I’ll do another episode which summarises the rest of the books in detail again. But we’ve covered all of the Odyssey moments that have appeared in Epic: The Musical so far.

So the Phaeicians send Odysseus on his way with a bunch of gifts and a boat. Athena disguises him as a beggar and at last he’s back on Ithica. But it’s not all smooth sailing from here (sorry). He reunites with his faithful, very old doggy, and eventually his son Telemachus. When he arrives at his palace, still in disguise as a beggar, Penelope treats him with kindness but the suitors abuse and deride him. Penelope also organises a competition with Odysseus’ old bow, which is an impossible task for anyone but Odysseus. Another clever way to hold off her choice. In disguise, Odysseus talks to Penelope and many, many scholars have debated if Penelope realises the beggar is Odysseus and, if she does, when does she?

After the competition, which Odysseus wins, he reveals his identity and slaughters the boorish suitors. Which really, I know it probably says a lot about me, but I am REALLY looking forward to this part in Epic: The Musical. Hehehe that’s what you get for messing with Penelope!

Unfortunately, the suitors aren’t the only ones who get got though. The slave women who decided to have relationships with the suitors? Telemachus and Odysseus decide to hang them for the perceived treachery which… I cannot get into that now. But rest assured, mentally, I’m lying in the middle of the road in the pouring rain listening to Alanis Morissette.

After the crazy show of violence, Athena helps postpone the Ithicans realising that a hundred of their sons have been murdered. Meanwhile Odysseus and Penelope have their long-awaited, tearful reunion. However. Not before Penelope tests Odysseus. She asks her maid to move her bed (an impossible feat as Odysseus crafted it himself as a wedding present for Penelope). Odysseus is horrified and explains how he created the bed, something only he would know. Finally, all truths are revealed, finally they can reunite.

The ending of the Odyssey is the reunion between Odysseus and his father Laertes. But when the families of the slaughtered suitors find out, it looks like all out war is about to happen. Athena, however, tells them all to knock it off and that Odysseus should reclaim his throne. And that’s it. That’s the end of the Odyssey!

Thanks for sticking with me through this summary (heavy air quotes). I wanted to give you this context so that, when I refer to moments in the Odyssey in comparison to Epic later on, you’re more aware without me going into too much detail.

The final thing I want to discuss in this Odyssey 101 is the actual character of Odysseus himself. Who is he? Let’s find out together!

(MUSIC)

Odysseus

So we already know that Odysseus is the king of Ithica. But his ancestry is quite interesting depending on what history you look at. The author pseudo-Apollodorus wrote a compendium around the first century CE which suggest that he has divine status on both sides of his family. On his paternal side, the wind god Aeolus is his great-great-great something grandfather. On his mothers side, Odysseus’ grandfather is the famous thief Autoclyus, who was the son of Hermes. So Hermes is Odysseus’ great-grandfather. 

This lineage is interesting and kind of fits nicely into Homer’s descriptions of Odysseus. He is described by Homer as “a man of many turns.” Translators have interpreted this in various ways but the most common translation is “a man of twists and turns.” Like the way the wind twists and turns, or Hermes is a trickster god, perhaps this nature was in Odysseus’ very genetics. There have been debates about this. Does this mean Odysseus is a man of twists and turns in his mind, in his emotions or in a literal sense, his adventures. I think you can argue for all of these. Odysseus is known to be crafty and clever, he’s the idea guys (remember the Trojan horse was his plan). Circe even chides him for his mind always turning to thoughts of war. Alternatively, his moods are constantly turning, from rage, to grief, to calm composure. And of course, on his journey, he makes many turns on his way home. Much to his own frustration.

I’ve mentioned intelligence but lets really get into that now. Odysseus’ main trait is his wit and cleverness, his ability to twist his words to suit the situation. Take for example, the way he ensures to Nausicaa that he is no threat to her when he’s an almost naked stranger. He compliments her and compares her to Artemis in terms of her beauty. The maiden Goddess, the one who treats mortal men VERY harshly if they impose on her (even unwillingly). He is also able to get off of Calypso’s island, rejecting her offer of immortality without it seemingly like he’s rejecting Calypso in favour of his mortal wife (something she would find greatly offensive). 

But then we have to question those 4 books told from his perspective. How much is fact and how much is fiction? We know that Odysseus can lie, that he’s a known trickster. Again. Trojan horse. He’s even, in an act of revenge, set someone up as a traitor so they would be killed.

Odysseus can also be quite callous and cruel, and is known for violent outbursts of temper. The treatment of the slave girls is always something which springs to mind. How the maids were treated as traitors for being with the suitors, when they may not have had a choice in the matter. In one part of the Iliad, he captures a spy and says that he’ll spare the man if he tells him what he knows, then immediately has him killed, reneging the promise almost immediately. He sometimes shows a callous indifference to the deaths of his men, or want to murder them for the tiniest bit of doubt or fear, but other times they’re his dear friends, his compatriots and he must do the honourable thing and save them (such as on Circe’s island).

But Odysseus at his neutral state is generally good natured, calm, courageous crafty and witty and a confidence in his own abilities. He’s a natural leader but whether or not he is a GOOD leader is something that, once again say it with me, has been debated furiously by scholars over the ages.

So that is Odessey Odysseus. As we go through the next few episodes, I’ll be using this episode to compare his personality in Homer, to Jorge’s Odysseus in Epic: The Musical. I find them to be quite different but equally fascinating characters.

Thank you for listening to the The Odyssey 101. I hope you’ve had a lot of fun listening. If you have please do consider giving me a follow and rating as that really helps me out! Did you know that the number 1 way to grow a podcast is through word of mouth? So tell all your friends too! Stay tuned as next week I’ll be tackling Epic: The Troy Saga. I’m your host Sabrina and I’m Geeking Out! See you next time! Bye!