7.108-152

We then pass outside the palace to the king’s flourishing, fertile gardens, blooming all year round, pear upon pear, grape upon grape, fig upon fig. The natural setting of a society in the Odyssey often reflects the character of its people. Calypso’s magical landscape reflects her powers, lush with vegetation and filled with fertile energy, seemingly responding to her beguiling voice, ordered but not by human intelligence (see essay on Book 5.43–91). Later, we will hear about the cave of Polyphemus, closed off from the other inhabitants of an asocial, atomized society (see essay on Book 9.161–192) and the home of Aeolus, who controls the winds for the gods, a floating island surrounded by sheer cliffs and bronze ramparts (see essay on Book 10.1–45), a suitable venue for rigid control. Eumaeus’s outpost is a microcosmic version of what Odysseus’s palace must have been before the suitors arrived, carefully ordered, productive but not flashy (14.5–28). The last gardens we will see are those kept by Laertes in the Ithakan countryside, a hardscrabble plot reflecting the deprivation created by Odysseus’s absence (24.226–31).

The orchards of Alkinous tell us much about the king and his society. Flourishing in a gentle climate, they offer sustenance without apparently requiring hard labor. This abundance, Homer tells us, is a gift from the gods. The poet’s description recalls a common paradigm in the myths of the ancient Mediterranean, of a Golden Age when humans lived a carefree existence alongside the gods, in a landscape where food grew spontaneously without the need for human husbandry or the skills that inform it. This kind of effortless fecundity fits with the general tenor of Phaeacian civilization, which seems highly sophisticated but lacking in the kind of heroic striving that would usually produce such an existence. The Phaeacians, we will learn, do not like violent conflicts such as boxing or wrestling (let alone war), but prefer singing and dancing and warm baths. Theirs is the kind of society that the Greeks of the 8^th century might see as insufficiently tough. Another parallel from Telemachus’ visit to Sparta suggests a more focused version of this critique (see essay on Book 6.239–88.)

After dinner in the royal palace, Menelaus tells his guest the story of how he was becalmed in Egypt after leaving Troy. Eidothea, a friendly sea nymph, befriended the Greek commander and advised him to consult her father Proteus about how to escape. Proteus, a prophetic shapeshifter, could change form at will and would only yield up his prophecies if confined and unable to transform himself. With the nymph’s help, the Greeks captured her father and extracted information about how they might get home. They also learned about the fates of his comrades who fought at Troy, including Odysseus, still held captive by Calypso. Finally, the old man revealed how Menelaus’s own life would end:

σοι δ᾽ οὐ θέσφατόν ἐστι, διοτρεφὲς ὦ Μενέλαε,
Ἄργει ἐν ἱπποβότῳ θανέειν καὶ πότμον ἐπισπεῖν,
ἀλλά σ᾽ ἐς Ἠλύσιον πεδίον καὶ πείρατα γαίης
ἀθάνατοι πέμψουσιν, ὅθι ξανθὸς Ῥαδάμανθυς,
τῇ περ ῥηίστη βιοτὴ πέλει ἀνθρώποισιν:
οὐ νιφετός, οὔτ᾽ ἂρ χειμὼν πολὺς οὔτε ποτ᾽ ὄμβρος,
ἀλλ᾽ αἰεὶ Ζεφύροιο λιγὺ πνείοντος ἀήτας
Ὠκεανὸς ἀνίησιν ἀναψύχειν ἀνθρώπους:
οὕνεκ᾽ ἔχεις Ἑλένην καί σφιν γαμβρὸς Διός ἐσσι.

But for you it is not fated, Zeus-nourished Menelaus,
to die and meet your fate in horse-pasturing Argos,
but to the Elysian fields at the ends of the earth
will the immortal gods send you, where sandy-haired Rhadymanthus
is, and where life is made easiest for mortals.
No snowstorms there, nor harsh winter, nor even much rain,
but always the streams of the Ocean send forth fresh
breezes from the west wind to refresh the lives of mortals.
This will be yours because you have Helen and are son-in-law to Zeus.

Odyssey 4.561–69

This blissful existence foreshadows the unending life of pleasure that Calypso will offer Odysseus if he will only stay with her (5.135–36). The hero’s preference for a perilous and uncertain future with Penelope is definitive for our understanding of his character: an anonymous immortality, no matter how attractive, would keep him from the heroic striving—and thus, heroic glory—that defines who he is in an existential sense. The implied contrast between Menelaus’s afterlife, a divine gift he has not earned, and the heroic glory that Odysseus must win through constant exertion, could not be stronger.

The gardens of Alkinous, bathed in the breezes of the Zephyr, sending forth crops unceasingly (7.118–19), are the Phaeacian king’s version of Elysium. Like the opulent milieu of the royal palace, with its golden torchbearers and mysterious robot guard dogs, this landscape seems to rest closer to the carefree existence of the gods than the grittier, conflict-ridden reality Odysseus will return to in Ithaka. And like the mysterious, fecund world of Calypso, the entire benign realm of Alkinous is a gift from the gods not won through striving, not an appropriate place for Odysseus to spend the rest of his life.

Homer has prepared the scene carefully, setting the Phaeacian royal family and their home in evocative surroundings. Now it’s time for the hero to get moving again. He steps briskly into the palace to find a scene that both Nausicaa and Athena have already described to him (6.303–9; 7.75–76). Athena’s mist keeps him invisible right up to the moment he kneels before Arete, making for a dramatic epiphany. His short speech follows a familiar pattern for suppliants, offering hope for the queen’s prosperity and continued honor for the assembled local citizens in return for help getting home. His plea brings, however, no response from Arete for almost eighty verses. Instead, the poet’s attention turns to Alkinous and his clumsy debut as a host. This curious delay has generated much interest among classical scholars, but as we will see, the poet has his reasons.

Meanwhile, we note that Odysseus’s speech, like much of what happens in Book 7, points both backward and forward. His kneeling before Arete echoes his more elaborate supplication of Nausicaa (6.149–85; see essay for Book 6.127–61) and contributes to the impression that the hero’s approach to the Phaeacians comes in waves, beginning on the beach, eddying for a time, then surging forward again. This section of the poem is, as we have said, marked as especially significant by its scale, with the hero making his way inexorably toward the palace with repeated movements. The tide will continue to roll in right up through the hero’s arrival in Ithaka when he must again win over the queen to arrive safely home.

Further Reading

Dimock, G. 1989. The Unity of the Odyssey, 86-89. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press.

Segal, C. 1962. “The Phaeacians and the Symbolism of Odysseus’ Return.” Arion 1: 17–64.