9.1-46

In the chronology of the story, the adventures he recounts have already happened, but we encounter them here for the first time in the poem. Thus, we see the monster Polyphemus against the background of Proteus, Circe in the shadow of Calypso. Likewise, the longer episodes in Books Nine through Twelve, the Cyclops, Circe, Hades, and—as a shorter coda—the Cattle of the Sun, repeat and enrich motifs and narrative patterns established in the first eight books of the poem. In each case, the poet draws on older mythic and/or folktale story patterns to explore the effects of Odysseus’s arrival in an exotic and threatening milieu. In particular, we see the playing out of a narrative pattern that begins with the Calypso episode: a male traveler’s penetration of a feminized milieu, leading to the release of Odysseus from potential oblivion. Since anonymity is akin to death in the heroic perspective, this release, signaled when Odysseus names himself or is named for the first time, is also a rebirth, one in a continuing series that culminates in Penelope’s recognition of her long-lost husband in Book 23. At the same time, we will see that along the way namelessness can be an advantage for the stranger in certain situations. This paradox is the key to understanding the poem’s layered representation of human experience, articulated through a complex interaction between anonymity and mortality.

Because the adventures in Books 9–12 take us out of ordinary human experience into a fantastic world of fairytale creatures, they have an immediate appeal to our imagination. But the various models for social organization that Odysseus and his crew encounter in these intriguing, non-human venues also offer the opportunity for deeper reflection on the human societies in Ithaka and elsewhere. The heroic return story orchestrated by Athena, with its rigid hierarchies and laser-like focus on restoring Odysseus to his rightful place in the royal palace and the royal bed, plays out against the background of a much wider world, expansive in its understanding of how humans live together and cope with what the gods put in their path.

One issue that will persist throughout Odysseus’s recounting of his adventures is the extent to which we trust him as a reliable narrator. At times, we can see that he may be shaping his narrative so as to burnish his own reputation as a heroic leader, citing the crew’s disastrous lack of self-control. In other situations, he is frank in admitting that it would have been better for him to make another choice. This distinction is mostly a matter of how Odysseus presents and interprets events after the fact. The poet offers little if any independent corroboration in his own voice for what actually happened in between Scheria and Ithaka, beyond what we hear from the hero himself. In the discussions that follow here, we will treat what Odysseus reports as reliable and assume that for the most part, his responses to the events are consistent with the poet’s own perspective on the material. In other words, Odysseus’s role as an embedded narrator within the larger story does not usually add another layer of complexity to our understanding of the poet’s representation of the world and with some exceptions, we will consider his voice to be interchangeable that of the poet’s.

At the end of Book 8, Alcinous, king of the Phaeacians, notices the stranger’s weeping during stories about Troy by the bard Demodocus and shuts down the performance. The host-guest relationship is an important measure of civilized behavior in the poem and has been on display since the poem’s opening scenes, where the suitors show themselves to be terrible guests and Telemachus does his best to receive the disguised Athena. After Nausicaa’s primly proper treatment of the briny stranger on the beach at Scheria, Alcinous gets off to a shaky start as host, slow to attend to Odysseus as he sits huddled in the ashes by the royal hearth, exuberantly offering his daughter to a total stranger. The young men of the island also overstep, aggressively pressing the stranger to participate in competitive games. The king recovers, with some guidance from the queen, and after the social niceties have been observed on both sides, he returns to his questions: Where did the stranger come from? How did he arrive?

Book 9 opens with Odysseus’s response. He begins by polishing his own credentials as a good guest, waxing eloquent about the joys of a good meal accompanied by a godlike singer, lest his host think that his weeping indicated a criticism of the hospitality. Weeping often precedes recognition in the Odyssey, so we are primed for the next moment, when Odysseus reveals his name:

εἴμ᾽ Ὀδυσεὺς Λαερτιάδης, ὃς πᾶσι δόλοισιν 
ἀνθρώποισι μέλω, καί μευ κλέος οὐρανὸν ἵκει. 

I am Odysseus, son of Laertes, known to all 
for my tricks, and my fame reaches the heavens.

Odyssey 9.19–20

The cycle that began with Odysseus struggling ashore on Scheria is now complete. The nameless stranger has worked his way into the good opinion of the locals, charming the princess, humbly abasing himself before the royal couple. With some reluctance, he has allowed the Phaeacians to see his latent strength when throwing the discus, but without appearing to be a threat of any kind. Still just some beat-up sailor—albeit one with some impressive muscles—looking for help. When he is confident that he has won the trust of the royal family, he takes the final step and reveals his identity. He is reborn as Odysseus and soon, he hopes, he will be released from the isolated island of the Phaeacians, on his way back to begin the entire cycle over again on Ithaka.

The division of each of the Homeric epics into twenty-four books apparently came some centuries after the first versions of the poems were composed. The reasons for the divisions we now have between books do not seem to reflect any consistent pattern. Sometimes the setting and rising of the sun provides a natural break, but in other cases, two books span a single scene. The break between Books 8 and 9 falls into the latter category. Though we cannot know at this point what the original poet’s intentions were, the present arrangement does have the effect of beginning Odysseus’s stories at a high point, adding to his authority as narrator. In Books 9–12, Odysseus makes his case for why he deserves a ride home from his hosts, even though, as we have heard from Alcinous in Book 8, the mission will involve risk for the Phaeacian sailors. He begins from a position of strength, bolstered by his kleos (fame, renown, glory).

Now comes a description of his homeland, surrounded by other islands:

αὐτὴ δὲ χθαμαλὴ πανυπερτάτη εἰν ἁλὶ κεῖται 
πρὸς ζόφον, αἱ δέ τ᾽ ἄνευθε πρὸς ἠῶ τ᾽ ἠέλιόν τε, 
τρηχεῖ᾽, ἀλλ᾽ ἀγαθὴ κουροτρόφος;

Ithaka herself lies low in the sea and furthest away, 
facing the dark, while the other islands look to the eastern sun, 
a rugged place, but good for nurturing young men.

Odyssey 9.25–27

Ithaka mirrors its king: keeping a low profile, often wreathed in darkness, tough but also able to nourish and protect. Where people live in the Odyssey and how they interact with their surroundings usually tells us something about their character. The easy opulence of Sparta fits with the outward complacency of the king and queen. Ogygia reflects Calypso’s magical control over nature, the vegetation lush but somehow responding to the nymph’s eerie singing. The Phaeacians, with their over-refined culture of warm baths and dancing, averse to conflict except in the safe confines of the athletic field, represent a mediated relationship to the natural world, softer than the rugged proving-ground of Ithaka. Books Nine through Twelve will continue to offer diverse models for how to live, all resonating in one way or another with Ithaka.

Perhaps to solidify his persona as a man driven by a single-minded desire for home and family, Odysseus now touches briefly on his encounters with Calypso and Circe. Each “wanted [him] for her husband” (9.29–32) holding him against his will. This description fits Calypso, as we have seen, but not the Circe we will meet in Book 10 and the differences will be important to the ongoing characterization of Penelope. For now, it serves Odysseus’s purposes to portray these two seductresses as interchangeable, bent on keeping the hero from his mission.

Odysseus launches his tale with the Cicones, the first civilization he and his crew reach after leaving Troy. The emphasis here is not so much on the unique qualities of the new place as with the ongoing problem of the crew’s lack of self-control. The operation begins straightforwardly, the Greeks killing the men and enslaving the women, gathering plunder for the long voyage. Once the larders are full, Odysseus wants a quick exit to avoid further hostilities, but the crew cannot restrain themselves, eating the locals’ cattle and drinking their wine, with the result that six crew members from each ship die. The message is clear: the casualties are not the fault of the leader, but his weak-willed sailors. This pattern will surface again at the end of the adventures, but we will see that in other places the responsibility for losses in the crew is not always theirs.

Further Reading

Edwards, M.W. 2002. Sound, Sense, and Rhythm: Listening to Greek and Latin Poetry, 45–51. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Heubeck, A. and A. Hoekstra. 1989. A Commentary on Homer’s Odyssey, vol. II, Books IX–XVI, 3–11. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Morrison, J. 2003. A Companion to Homer’s Odyssey, 8–10; 89–90. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

Pedrick, V. 1988. “The Hospitality of Noble Women in the Odyssey. Helios 15: 85–104.

Reece, S. 1993. The Stranger’s Welcome: Oral Theory and the Aesthetics of the Homeric Hospitality Scene. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Thalmann, W. 1992. The Odyssey: An Epic of Return, 61–66. New York: Twayne Publishers.

Tracy, S. 1990. The Story of the Odyssey, 51–59. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Van Nortwick, T. 2008. The Unknown Odysseus: Alternate Worlds in Homer’s Odyssey,      49–50. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.​​​​​​