Classics Book Club, The

[JudeS]

The Book Club Online is  the oldest  book club on the Internet, begun in 1996, open to everyone.  We offer cordial discussions of one book a month,  24/7 and  enjoy the company of readers from all over the world.  Everyone is welcome to join in.

Now reading:

March 4---Book IV: Helen, Proteus and the Trojan Horse  

The procession of the Trojan Horse
Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo
National Gallery

The Abduction of Helen
Guido Reni (1575 - 1642)

  

Discussion Leaders:  Joan K & ginny  

The Trojan Horse
Raoul Lefevre
1464

Useful Links:

1. Critical Analysis: Free SparkNotes background and analysis  on the Odyssey
2. Translations Used in This Discussion So Far:
3. Initial Points to Watch For: submitted by JudeS
4. Maps:
Map of the  Voyages of Odysseus
Map of Voyages in order
Map of Stops Numbered
Our Map Showing Place Names in the Odyssey

Paris leads Helen away
Attic red figure kylix
Makron
480 BC
Antikenmuseen, Berlin

The Horse entering the city of Troy
Unattributed
Early 17th century

   .In the lines 4:635 to 4:639 we find answers to two questions.
1) There are blond Greeks because Rhadamanthys (Son of Zeus  and Europa, brother of Minos, and the justicer who rules the Elysian fields) is described as "gold-haired".
2) Though the Greeks supposedly had no religion the description of Elysian Fields sure sounds very much like a description  of Heaven.  
The Elysian Fields are the distant home of the fortunate after death.
""where life glides on in immortal ease for mortal man:
no snow, no winter onslaught, never a downpour there
but night and day the Ocean River sends up breezes,
singing winds of the West refreshing all mankind."

[JoanK]

The Rosetti picture doesn't do it for me. But ideas of beauty change over time. What do you all think.

I have those thoughts about the bathing scenes too, but I don't think sex is necessarily implied.

Good catch, BABI, the reference to God. Is that the translator or Homer, I wonder.

Yes, Helen is like quicksilver -- keeps slipping away from us. Does anyone remember what she was like in the Iliad?

[ginny]

I do, or do I? And it's funny you mention that because what I  remember most about Helen in the Iliad is her standing there while they were throwing the babies off the wall.  Remember that scene? She seemed to doubt herself? Second guess herself in the face of all that carnage?   Did she blame herself? I can't remember, but that was an horrific scene, the burning and taking of Troy.

All for her, or so it seems. Didn't somebody, an old man, reproach her?

What on earth was she doing going around the  Trojan Horse,  when she knew who was in there?  She had been told they were there.  She took on the various voices of their wives in order to....?

??

And it was Odysseus who stopped the men coming out. If they had been revealed they'd all have been killed, without the gates open to let the main army in. One has to ask what she thought she was doing?

I'm with Deb on this one.

Maybe this is why she didn't walk across the field to her husband and end the war. What a reunion theirs  must have been, when they finally DID get together. I was just reading about that somewhere. Dana, maybe he's not weak but blinded by love? Then she slips the guests a mickey in their drinks. Man o man!

She sure is no prize, to me, to either side.  Somebody who remembers the Iliad better than I do, didn't Paris tire of her?

I've got Menelaus about 50 times as "the red haired king." I wonder what that means, do you all have anything about the color of his hair?

I really saw a lot of parallels in this book to other things in the Odyssey, am I the only one?

Deb, I totally agree with you:

I feel Helen was two faced and am surprised that her family would be happy to have her back.
she blames Aphrodite for her leaving her husband and going to Troy

my heart had changed by now and was for going back home again, and I grieved for the madness that Aphrodite bestowed when she led me there away from my own dear country, forsaking my own daughter, my bedchamber, and my husband.
line 261Lattimore

are they thinking this is a joke --history could have been changed, and this book would not be as long

line 277-Lattimore

Then you came there, Helen; you will have been moved by some divine spirit who wished to grant glory to the Trojans...Three times you walked around the hollow ambush, feeling it, and you called out naming them by name,...and made your voice sound like the voice of the wife of each of the Argives

I cannot believe they are talking so lightly about this situation, or so it seems to me....
[/b]

Are you thinking that when they say Artemis made me do it, that it's like our joke "the devil made me do it," and she seeks or somebody seeks  to slough off responsibility for what she did that way?

That's a super point, I think. I don't know why Menelaus wants her back, either. I wouldn't. Maybe he's thinking poor her she was abducted and what's mine is mine. I never could figure out why she didn't walk across the battlefield TO him and end all the hostility. Stockholm Syndrome? Does anybody remember that in the Iliad? She would have stopped the war, right? Which had gone on for 10 years, if she only went across but apparently it did not occur to her. Didn't somebody suggest it?

Truly to me in this Book IV she seems to have some very undesirable traits. I can't understand her trying to get the men out of the Horse to reveal themselves.

 But here again we've got their gods (religion) entering the lives of man, influencing it.


Jude,  2) Though the Greeks supposedly had no religion the description of Elysian Fields sure sounds very much like a description  of Heaven.


Homer and Hesiod wrote of Elysium, the Islands of the Blest, which was thought by Homer and Hesiod as a place in the far West beyond the stream of Ocean where certain favored heroes are sent by the gods instead of dying, to enjoy a full and pleasant after- life. It has been suspected that this Elysium, at variance with the idea that all the dead dwell together in the Underworld or Hades, is a survival from the Minoan religion. It seems probable that  the attainment of Elysium was promised to the initiates of the mysteries of Eleusis. In later myth Elysium was represented as part of the Underworld ruled over by Rhadamanthys and Cronus. That is where Virgil locates it in Aeneid 6; for him as for Plato is it the place where the good soul temporarily rests before being reborn. (OCCL).

I don't think anybody is saying the Greeks at the time that Homer wrote of had no religious belief.

Babi that was a good catch, do you have the line number for that handy? I can't seem to find it (it possibly is not in my translation but I'd like to look to see what the others have said. I do remember the bruised thing.)

Joan, thank you, maybe Sally can plot those coordinates and we can add it to our maps here.

Here's one of the maps that Roshanarose mentioned, now is Pilos here the same thing as Pylos in the second one? Or do I have the wrong end of the map?

Here on the left above the yellow circle 15 is Pilos, can you see it?



I want to put it on our map and was confused by this one but the longer I look at it, these are the same thing, aren't they?


Strangely enough in  Book IV we do see that Nestor's Palace is not  IN Pylos. I sure do like maps, for somebody who can't read them.

 Rosemary, I see Helen as a blond, too but not that Rossetti thing. Thinking of the great beauties of our living history (because unlike Cleopatra, Helen  WAS known for her beauty)...who.....do we think of Elizabeth Taylor in her youth? Or maybe Vivian Leigh? Would they be beautiful enough to launch 1000 ships?

Thank you Rosemary and MIppy for identifying the source of that quote as Marlowe in Dr. Faustus! And thank you for the link Mippy.

I just came  in and my son was watching a movie called Falling Down  with Michael Douglas as a laid off engineer in a defense plant shooting up a fast food place and he said, and I nearly fell over, it's a take off on...and he was trying to think of the James Joyce title and I said, of the Odyssey? Ulysses? And he said yes!

Gosh, it's everywhere. I have never seen this movie with Michael Douglas.

Frybabe, what an astute observation,  it will be interesting to see what, if anything, is meant by changing her name, wouldn't it be SOMETHING if it was some kind of symbolic code?

Joan, thank you for the notice of the opening of the Pompeii Exhibit, I can't wait to see it, are you going?

Book IV is FULL of great stuff, what struck YOU? And what do you make of Helen's behavior here?

[ginny]

These were  interesting questions from the Temple U questions and I'm not sure I know the answer to the first one:

Is there anything strange about her marriage? Compare Sparta to Ithaca.


Do you see anything strange about her marriage?


  Do M and H deserve the happy afterlife Proteus predicts?

I think SHE'S strange, period.

[Frybabe]

I think in ordinary circumstances Helen would have been "dead meat". Weren't women punished for adultery? However, since getting her back was the pretext for the whole war, I am guessing taking her back was necessary to save his (Menelaus) reputation. Personally, I doubt I would ever trust her again.

[Dana]

In Greek the words for god and for Zeus are the same....Zeus is the nominative form and the word changes to theos,-ov etc in other cases. (which is the same as the Latin deus of-course)

[roshanarose]

If I can visualise Helen as a movie star of today, I would say that Charlize Theron resembles her most.  Of course, she probably wasn't as tall as Charlize.  I have just started reading "Helen of Troy" by Bettany Hughes, who is a bit of a dish as well.  She starts off by saying that so much has been written about Helen, always by men, and that because there is such an incredible amount of conflicting information that it is well nigh impossible to get a clear picture or true impression of Helen at all.  

Helen was not born from a womb, but from an egg.  Zeus raped Helen's mother Leda while he was disguised as a swan.  Then when Helen was between 10 or 12 she herself was raped by Theseus, a man of about 50 at that stage.  He kidnapped Helen and took her back to Athens, thus outraging her kin.  Her brothers Castor and Pollux (also born from Leda's egg) set out to bring Helen back to Sparta.  The brothers attacked Athens and considerable damage was done to the city.  It is believed that these actions of three men - Theseus, Castor and Pollux - started the ongoing rivalry and enmity between Sparta and Athens.  Thanks guys!  

I have this gut feeling that the story of Helen was borrowed from another older tradition and kind of plonked (with some embellishment) into Homer's epics.  I will check it out.

(Paraphrased)Source:  
"Helen of Troy"
Bettany Hughes
ISBN 0-224-07177-7

[bookad]

Ginny regarding Menelaos
        -from Lattimore--fair-haired Menelaos
        -from Rieu--red-haired Menelaos
*in answer to your question

I have a cute bit of translation that intrigues me
from line 390Lattimore--

and tell you how to make your way home on the sea where the fish swarm

but my favourite is from E. V. Rieu

and direct you home along the highways of the fish

Deb

[BarbStAubrey]

We will have to compare notes roshanarose - I too decided to read what is called a bio of Helen of Troy - I chose the one written by Margaret George - and yes, rape was the name of the game -

Here is a link to her web site - whew does this author do research - http://www.margaretgeorge.com/about-margaret/author-bio

In the Reader's Guide included on the web site for Helen of Troy there is this interesting tid bit.

In book four of the Odyssey, back in Sparta with her husband Menelaus, Helen relates an interesting tale about her colluding with Odysseus during the Trojan horse episode because “my heart had changed by now-/I yearned to sail back home again!”

Another ancient source, Stesichorus, claims that the real Helen never actually went to Troy but was kept in Egypt during the entirety of the war, while a ghostly double took her place in Troy. In his comedy Helen, Euripides draws upon this variation, portraying her as a misunderstood and virtuous woman warding off the advances of Egyptian princes until Menelaus rescues her.

Finally, the second-century A.D. satirist Lucian imagines further trials for Helen in the underworld. After the judge Rhadamanthys awards Helen to Menelaus over Theseus, who had abducted her while she was a child, Helen runs off with another ghost.

While all these variations on the Helen story-as well as those by later commentators-agree on her powerful erotic appeal and its potential to cause havoc, they differ wildly on questions about the nature of her character and adultery. Was she, like her mother, the victim of a brutal rape? Was she taken to Troy against her will? Did the riches of an eastern kingdom lure her? Had she genuinely fallen in love with Paris or was he a convenient way out of a passionless marriage? Was she somehow deceived by Paris? Was she just the passive instrument for the gods to play out another of their quarrels?

[roshanarose]

Barb - That is super.  If I haven't had enough of Helen after reading Hughes, I will certainly drop in on Margaret George.  Interesting - I had a Margaret George in my Modern Greek class, she is married to a judge.  I looked George up, but they are not the same person. 

Another snippet about Helen - there are many:

Hermione is suggested by one school of Homeric thought to have been the daughter of Theseus and Helen, not Helen and Menelaus.

[Dana]

There's a book which I know some of us here hate , by Colleen Mc Cullough , her own peculiar version of the story of Troy, "The Song of Troy" which I thought was a brilliant example of her ingenious mind and actually better written than some of her books--anyway , her depiction of Helen matches how I feel about Helen, devious, gorgeous, cunning, the match of any man.  I just can't agree with those of you who don't like her.  She's a law unto herself, a force of nature, a powerful woman. I'm glad to see she still has that dominance, so it wasn't all based on looks and youth but also on personality....the more I read of the Odyssey the more I admire Homer's ability to paint character indirectly,ie he doesn't say, "she was like this"--he paints a picture..
 Helen is anything but a passive instrument--look at how she is described, coming down in the midst of the banquet , settling calmly all her accoutriments around her....and...taking over.... (apart from a little pushback by Menelaus)....but who puts the potion in the wine??  Who comes right out and says, I know who you are, Telemachus...not Menelaus...he agrees with her, but she says it first.

[BarbStAubrey]

Interesting Dana, that is how Margaret George describes her - her beauty she says was a powerful force rather than runway good looks. I need to find it again and give the quote - she also saw something in a museum in Greece that showed Helen to have bronze colored hair.

This book starts with Helen a young seven year old girl. The family is on their way to see 'the' or 'an' oracle at Delphi who was to give direction to her father, Tyndareus [she does not know yet that her mother was raped by Zeus] who just regained his throne from a brother who exploited their riches. On the way to the top of the mountain is a Sybil - she is some sort of old crone sitting on a rock who sees the future  - her name is not Sybil it is the word used to describe people like her - she grabs Helen predicting the war, Troy and the men in her life. Helen's two brothers come to her rescue.

She is never allowed to look in a mirror as her mother does and she is not allowed outside the very high walls of their palace. She feels a prisoner. At age 9 she is allowed to accompany her brothers into the Taygetus Mountains behind the palace - Helen is so swift a runner they call her Atalanta.

Later while walking with her mother's friend they discuss Persephone and the special cave where she comes and goes is called Eleusis.

It was on the way to her initiation with her family that includes a time of jeering as they walk past group of rag tag people surrounding the Sybil - Helen did not like the experience and learns from her parents it is to pass through a wall of insults that makes everyone equal and teaches humility so that they know the worst said about them since they are surrounded by flatterers. The father decides the lesson he learns is to call Helen, who all this time walked with a veil covering her face attached to a gold ring on her head, will increase curiosity and drive up her bride-price by the family saying she is the most beautiful woman in the world. After each from the family puts in their two cents it is agreed.

And so that is how she got her reputation...

[kidsal]

I plotted the coordinates on Google Earth and it places it under water.  Of course it might not have been at that time -- remember Atlantis?

[Babi]

 Those repeated descriptions,..like 'red-haired king'...I suspect
are a kind of descriptive nomenclature that becomes part of the
name. Like the Roman names you see with terms like 'Maximus' or
"Africanus".

  Why did Menelaus take Helen back?  Oh, people, look at it!
The Ancient of the sea also re-affirms Menelaos favored position
as Helen’s husband. Aside from the fact that she is one of the
most beautiful women alive, she is also the reason for much of
his success, power and wealth.  "Zeus’ son", indeed! And yes,
since Homer describes her as "straight as a shaft of gold", I
would think she was blond.
 
 My translation does not have numbered lines, unfortunately, but
each double page has the numbers of the lines on those pages. The singular 'God' was spoken by Menelaos in Book 4, describing to
Telemachos the hardships of Odysseus. I would estimate the line
to be about 180. I see that DANA confirms that the Greek for God
and Zeus are the same.

  I liked Menelaos words about Penelope's suitors. “Intolerable--that soft men, as those are, should think to lie in that great captain’s bed.  Fawns in a lion’s lair.”     Actually, I think fawns is not the best choice, as fawns are adorable creatures.  I would think ‘mice’,  or ‘vultures’ would be more appropriate.
 I also checked to see exactly what a hecatomb was. Hecatomb--a sacrifice of 100 cattle.  Wow!  Not many could afford that, I should think.  Menelaos, obviously, could, so the gods apparently expected it
of him.

 

[Gumtree]

Ginny regarding Menelaos
        -from Lattimore--fair-haired Menelaos
        -from Rieu--red-haired Menelaos
*in answer to your question

On Menelaos:  Cook gives us  'The Blond Menelaos'

I have a cute bit of translation that intrigues me
from line 390Lattimore--
Quote
and tell you how to make your way home on the sea where the fish swarm

but my favourite is from E. V. Rieu

Quote
and direct you home along the highways of the fish

Line380 in Cook:
And tell about my return, how I may go on the fish laden ocean

and then Line 424 Cook:
And about a return, how you may go on the fish-laden ocean


Doesn't the business about hiding among the seals ready to pounce on the old man of the sea, Proteus, seem very reminiscent of the Trojan Horse. There they are in his territory and covered by sealskins as a kind of disguise -

She (Eidothee), bedded us down in a row and threw a skin over each:
There the ambush would have been most dreadful
Lines 440/441 Cook



Those books about Helen sound intriguing. Might have to see if the library has them. Thanks Barbara and Roshanarose for mentioning them.

Dana: Colleen McCullough - Now there's an Aussie author I just love to hate. butyour description of her as having an inventive mind hitsthe spot and she certainly she can be brilliant at times.

[BarbStAubrey]

The depictions of the Trojan Horse amaze me - I would never imagine a horse built in 900 BC would look so life like - however, the art work is spectacular.

The relationship between gods and men are another - this book is not a whole lot different than these Japanese Fantasy stories - did you see the Japanese film where all the appliances and other contents of our homes are made to look like people and they all higgly piggly in an unorganized mass march down streets. Looks like Homer started all this costuming of folks that in his story is to fool the gods - hmmm is that what kids are doing on Halloween - fooling the gods or maybe the ghosts.

I found a great online site from the University of Utah - I love this quote that starts off the page talking about Ancient Epic Homer and Virgil http://www.usu.edu/markdamen/1320hist&civ/chapters/03epic.htm

History and literature share much in common, not only the written word but the exploration of humanity. If history sets out to tell explicitly what-really-happened-in-the-past, fictional stories do much the same by engaging their readers' imagination and appealing to their sense of logic about what's possible or likely to have happened. That is, to be effective, literary works depend on the readers' ability to see some larger truth behind the façade of made-up characters and situations and to connect fiction with fact because of the story's immediacy and pertinence to the audience's world. Thus, authors hope the reader will connect with their work somehow and see that it's not just a story but, as Vergil puts it, sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt ("there are tears for what's happened and mortal matters touch the mind"). In the end, history and literature have a similar agenda, to reflect truth—however imperfectly—and, in doing so, illuminate the human condition.

Literary and historical styles are not all that different, either, since the principles which drive and govern literature also inform history to some extent. For instance, if a historian's work does not provide some readership with a certain level of reading enjoyment, it tends not to be read, making its impact just that much less widespread and instrumental in the formulation of our understanding the past. Indeed, a good story lies at the heart of every influential historical work, so it behooves historians not only to examine the substance of literature for the history it may contain but also to study the methods used by writers of fiction in advancing their art.

[Gumtree]

Barbara: That looks a great site - have put it in my favourites to read at leisure -thanks!

[JudeS]

While you folk were investigating Helen,I was interested in Proteus, The old man of the sea.
Proteus is an early Sea God..(first appeard in Linear B script) His name suggests first(protos). He became the son of Poseidon and was made the herdsman of his seals. He can foretell  the future , but, in a mytheme ,will change his shape to avoid having to. He will answer only those who those who can capture him.
From this persona comes the adjective Protean, with the meaning of versatile, mutable, and 'cpable of assuming may forms". Protean also has connotations of versatility, flexibility and adaptability.
Proteus of Egypt is the immortal man of the sea who never lies,Poseidon's servant.
Many famous authors, beside Hemingway refer to Proteus. Among them Wordsworth, Asimov, Jung and Shakespeare.  The latter named one of his two men of Verona, Proteus.

[BarbStAubrey]

Interesting isn't it Jude to find out so many have been influenced by Homer and we just went blithely along not realizing the ancient connections.  

This whole idea of hiding oneself in seal skins has caught my fancy - sure enough,  I found theYoutube clip from that Japanese move I earlier refereed to called, Paprika that includes a parade of household appliances and other household items including various pets all looking and acting human - it is a riot -

I am thinking we have Homer to thank for the concept of concealment that has been taken further in the creative mind - this movie is about a scientist who creates a machine that if  you are hooked up with another you can swap dreams and enter the dream of the other person to affect what happens. It goes haywire when one of the techs hooks it up to something that gradually affects dream swapping throughout the nation.

Here is the clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAnSKN9s7eY&NR=1

[ginny]

Oh man, I love coming in here, just look at all the riches here today!

Sally, where do the coordinates put it?  Is it near an island? (Thinking of Santorini destroyed by a volcano during the Minoans). I think that's very romantic, somehow. I just read last week about  a new thought that perhaps the Bay of Naples is itself the caldera of an ancient volcano.

I LOVE all the Helen readings and thoughts, that's three new authors for our incredible list already of adjunct readings. As you all read, will you be on the lookout for an explanation of why she tried to entice the Greeks out of the Trojan Horse?

I really liked this quote from Barbara: While all these variations on the Helen story-as well as those by later commentators-agree on her powerful erotic appeal and its potential to cause havoc, they differ wildly on questions about the nature of her character and adultery. Was she, like her mother, the victim of a brutal rape? Was she taken to Troy against her will? Did the riches of an eastern kingdom lure her? Had she genuinely fallen in love with Paris or was he a convenient way out of a passionless marriage? Was she somehow deceived by Paris? Was she just the passive instrument for the gods to play out another of their quarrels?

(That Paprika is a hoot, my 4 year old John really enjoyed it).

This question is driving me nuts, do ANY of you see anything strange about Menelaus' and Helen's marriage?


Is there anything strange about her marriage?  Is this a hint?  Compare Sparta to Ithaca.

What does this MEAN?

Driving me nuts.

[ginny]

There are LOTS of other Trojan Horses, I'm glad you like these, here's a page of them which look more like somebody could construct them on a beach out of wood, I like this one:

At the Heinrich  Schliemann Museum in Ankershagen, Germany
http://www.schliemann-museum.de/

Here's a page showing more, although  I can't find the one now IN Troy built as a memorial for children to climb over, it's woodish too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_Horse. (Wikipedia is good for illustrations, you just have to be careful about how they are labeled).


That was very interesting on Proteus, Jude. I liked your list of the other times he's appeared throughout history. I absolutely LOVE the way the descriptions of him are written, they are spectacular, to me, I want to put some of Lombardo's stuff in here.

Babi, thank you for the lines, looking at them in my book I don't have "God," but Zeus is all over the place. I loved your thought: Intolerable--that soft men, as those are, should think to lie in that great captain’s bed.  Fawns in a lion’s lair.”  Wow, I'd hate to be a baby deer lying in the lion's lair, I wonder if this is a foreshadowing of what will happen to them? I didn't even see that, I'll have to go back. Loved your  "hecatomb" info.

Barbara, I love that University of Utah site, it should be required reading, doesn't he write beautifully. I loved this from him on why the gods being so childish and obstructive matters:

An epic is a long, narrative poem in which the central character, usually depicted as a hero of some sort, struggles against great odds—sometimes death literally—to achieve a noble end. Most often, the story involves gods or, at least, the supernatural in some respect, which serves to aggrandize humanity in its all-too-often vain quest for heaven and immortality. The hero's inevitable failure only underscores the tragedy of mortal weakness inherent in us all. In capturing all at once the sense of human grandeur and frailty, Homer's works are unsurpassed.

I also love this explanation: That is, to be effective, literary works depend on the readers' ability to see some larger truth behind the façade of made-up characters and situations and to connect fiction with fact because of the story's immediacy and pertinence to the audience's world. Thus, authors hope the reader will connect with their work somehow and see that it's not just a story but, as Vergil puts it, sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt ("there are tears for what's happened and mortal matters touch the mind"). In the end, history and literature have a similar agenda, to reflect truth—however imperfectly—and, in doing so, illuminate the human condition.


Deb,   I loved that the "highways of the fish."  Murray has "fish-filled sea." Maybe that bit inspired some of the translators, I thought the Proteus part was spectacular.

Gum, Doesn't the business about hiding among the seals ready to pounce on the old man of the sea, Proteus, seem very reminiscent of the Trojan Horse. There they are in his territory and covered by sealskins as a kind of disguise -  Yes, I missed that!! Having read the Odyssey before, it reminded me of the Cyclops. I am wondering  if there are a lot of parallels in the Odyssey, maybe more than we thought.

Here are some more of the Temple U questions  on this section and they cover Proteus, too:

134-43 Menelaus predicts the destruction of the suitors and tells the story of his return, including the encounter with Proteus, who told him of the other homecomings. What do you make of Proteus? What are the functions of this episode? Note the Odyssean elements here. Do M and H deserve the happy afterlife Proteus predicts? In general, so you see any signs that Telemachus is maturing?

I like these questions, as they presuppose that everything is there or in this story for a reason. What is the purpose of the Proteus inclusion, other than the fantastic writing, do you think?

 Stesichorus  (6th c BC) wrote two versions of the Helen story, the one we are familiar with and  that there were two Helens,  and that the real Helen was carried to "King Proteus" of Egypt. There were two Proteuses too, even possibly a third.  I am not sure if our sea god here in the Odyssey  is the same King who received her in Herodotus and  Euripides, who wrote several hundred years later, does anybody know? In Herodotus and Euripides  he is a virtuous king who is Helen's keeper.  So there were at least 2 of the Proteus characters, one a minor sea god and one a king, and in Greek literature, possibly two Helens. Neat way to avoid problems, send a phantom, but it's mythology, they can do anything. I find it fascinating that "Proteus" should appear here. In the later versions of two Helens,   Menelaus went to Egypt and took her home. If he's  the same Proteus it's interesting he should show up here when we meet her for the first time, because she's about as enigmatic and evasive as he is.

I think he's fascinating, because you have to hold him to get him to answer a question, he avoids having to give an answer by the shape shifting.


RR, Charlize Theron would be perfect as Helen!

In the Iliad Helen is a tragic figure, forced to be the wife of Paris and aware of her wrong doing.  I've been rereading the Iliad, she does reproach herself, but the Trojans don't reproach her and neither do Priam or Hector,  so I remembered that incorrectly. Instead,  seeing her on the battlements of the burning Troy, the old men  say her beauty puts her beyond blame. So there's the beauty thing again.  But in the Odyssey she's a puzzle, at least so far, to me, many conflicting elements here.

Oh here's a quote, "Later writers, Greek and  Roman were generally hostile to Helen, and the speeches in her defense composed by  Gorgias and Isocrates are little more than rhetorical demonstrations or how to defend the patently guilty." (OCCL)

I can see why the Romans, particularly the Roman Republican ones,  would not have admired her based only on what we've seen so far about her loyalty to the Greeks. The  Trojan Horse thing is very disturbing,  I sure would like to see somebody's positive spin on it.  But one things for sure, the characters are really  interesting. Heck of a book so far!

What strikes YOU about Book IV?

[PatH]

OK, I have to put in one of my favorite takes on the Trojan Horse:

http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff125/PatriciaFHighet/IMG_1419.jpg

[roshanarose]

Bettany Hughes holds me in her thrall.  Very little is getting done in my humble abode because of her.  I have only read the introduction and various bits and pieces of her "Helen of Troy", but already she has some interesting theories.

I have paraphrased and made point form of what Hughes has to say:

1.  After the dark ages writing was reintroduced about 800 BC.  Helen's epoch was 1300BC.

2.  Helen was worshipped as a demi-godess, a heroine and had shrines all across the Eastern Mediterranean.

3.  Some scholars say Helen never existed, but is the face of an ancient nature goddess....A visceral force that brings with it both life and death.

4.  Also there is the beautiful sex goddess we have come to know, lambasted in theological texts.  Her beauty and sexuality both lusted after and despised.

5. Aristocratic women, written about on broken writing tablets were used as trading chips, highly valued commodities, passed from one state to another.

6.  There is no real evidence that Agamemnon, Menelaus and Achilles were ever at Troy.  What is known is that Troy was burnt and its culture destroyed.  The Hittites, however, did have land bordering Troy.

As you can tell Hughes has some very interesting things to say about Helen and the whole Eastern Mediterranean.  The points made above were made in the Introduction.  I hope that she will expand upon them the further I read.  What do you think about the points Hughes makes?

I note that Linear B was mentioned in one of the posts.  If you have not read about this fascinating script, I strongly recommend that you should.  A search will help.

PatH - your link of the Trojan Horse is absolutely gorgeous.  It made me laugh.  Μου αρέσει πάρα πολύ.  Ευχαριστώ.  

kidsal - Nice thought about Atlantis.  Actually some ancient historians (some more recent ones, too) believed that Santorini/Thera WAS Atlantis.  I have always been a bit leery about this though as Santorini is in the middle of the Aegean Sea, in the Cycladic group, so how could it be called Atlantis?

ginny - My apologies for not answering your question about the map.  Yes.  You have it exactly right.  Ah would be so nice to be there, right now.  Sandy Pylos.  I agree they are beauiful maps.

[Babi]

 The part I liked about being concealed under the seal skins, is
the naiad dabbing ambrosia perfume under their noses to block out the
terrible stink. 

 I was interested in Proteus, too, JUDE. Proteus’ daughter refers
to him as “Proteus of Egypt”,  suggesting that he was originally
an Egyptian sea God. Now he appears to be a lesser  God, under
Poseidon,  charged with the protection of the seals.  Of course,
many foreign gods took on new identities or roles when the Greeks
and their gods were in ascendancy.
 I wonder now, since reading your post, if Shakespeare intended
to suggest that the Proteus in Verona was always truthful.
 
   Pharos…that finally struck the proper chord in my mind.  The lighthouse of Pharos, one of the seven  wonders of the ancient world.  Of course,  Homer’s saga pre-dates this 3rd  century BC wonder.

[ginny]

PatH, hahahaaa, what you wanted it hollow? Love it. hahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

I really think in Book IV we begin to see why this book has stood the test of time. I am not sure I can answer the question of how the marriage of Menelaus and Helen is strange. It's strange to me that she refers to herself as "shameless," and then says her heart had turned homeward and she was glad to see the Greeks hiding in the horse, and then Menelaus puts the issue to a head saying "Some god who favored the Trojans must have lured you on."

Here we seem to have a marriage where the wife's...infidelities of spirit? Could you call them that? Are excused with understanding by the...can we call him cuckolded husband? He can't admit her guilt, as she's just said there was nothing wrong with him or his looks, he believes her.  He needs to believe her because he's lost his best friend and his brother.

When you're reading a ancient book and trying to relate to the characters in 2011, I can see this, apart from all the supernatural interference of the gods, on a modern level. He just can't see her for what she was. Whatever she really was really makes no difference, HE can't see her faults.

The difference is back at Ithaca waits the faithful wife, with plenty of temptations and reasons to stray; she doesn't.

I do have to say that I jumped right up there in the beginning when the horses were being fed:

At the stalls where they threw before them
A mixture of spelt and white barley.

Spelt is  mentioned pretty constantly in Caesar's Gallic Wars and I finally got to taste a sandwich made of it last week, in an organic restaurant,  the sandwich was served on "spelt." Apparently it's getting some fame for being...gluten free? Or lactose free? Or whatever, it tasted not very different, to me. I felt more ancient than I usually do, however, eating it. hahaha



Meanwhile another flashback, Menelaus' return journey, and we really get the first of the fantastic adventures, like a fairy tale, in  Proteus. IF Menelaus can hold him down he will answer, he will  tell the route, and the distance AND what has been happening back at home.

Now Proteus in Lombardo is referred to as "the old god."

So they lie down under the skins just like Odysseus will under the sheep cover with the Cyclops and lay hands on him (which Odysseus didn't).

And the Old One didn't forget his wiles,
Turning first into a bearded lion,
Then a serpent, a leopard, and a huge boar.
He even turned into flowing water,
And into a high, leafy tree. But we
Held on, gritting our teeth, and at last
The wily Old One grew weary, and said to me:


the entire tale of what happened to Ajax, (who boasted, hubris again), and Agamemnon,

So he brought Agamemnon up to the palace
Unaware of his doom and slaughtered him
The way an ox is slaughtered at the stall.
None of Agamemnon's men was left alive,
Nor any of Aegisthus'. All were slain in the hall."

Here's a fabulous work on this slaughter by Thulden, he's got an entire book of these on the Odyssey:

The murder of Agamemnon and his followers
17th century etching
Theodor van Thulden (1606 - 1669)
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

And what happened to Odysseus.

And then he says to T, stay awhile and then set off. (Why? Where is T going now? He's heard of O?) Is he going straight home with his news?

And then he offers T gifts which T refuses. Why?  He does accept the solid silver bowl with the lip in gold.

But at home things are changing fast. What is Penelope's reaction to the news she is told? Who talks her out of it.  Why? I'm not sure I understand the logic here.  Is Eurycleia  sort of dotty?

And in this one we have the first strange thing set off in my book by italics:


Surrounded by men, a lion broods and then panics
When they begin to tighten their crafty ring.  This is Lombardo's 792-824.

What IS this?

This is a book, here, we've got ourselves a book with enough subplots to choke a horse and lots of great imaginative stories for any century, what do you make of any of this?

[rosemarykaye]

Ginny, I thought Telemachus refused some of the gifts because the couldn't lug them around on all his coming travels - also he says he can't accept horses because Ithaca doesn't have any plains for them to graze on  - it's too rocky.

The lines that you quote from Lombardo (about the lion) are translated by Fagles as:

"Her mind in torment, wheeling
like some lion at bay, dreading gangs of hunters
closing their cunning ring around him for the finish"

which I take to mean that Penelope is tossing and turning, trying to think  of ways out of her predicament - each time her thoughts follow one line of action, she realises that it won't work and turns to another, and another.

Penelope thinks she will run off to Odysseus's old father, Laertes, to ask him what she should do about Telemachus having left the palace.  The nurse, Eurycleia, talks her out of it because - she says - Penelope shouldn't bother an old man.  Maybe she thinks Telemachus should be allowed to get on with his voyage?  Or maybe she just knows there's nothing to be done?  I didn't get the impression she was dotty.

Rosemary

[bookad]

Lattimoreline 791

as much as a lion caught in a crowd of men turns around in fear, when they have made a treacherous circle around him, so she was pondering,

[bookad]

you know a couple of years ago, I believe there was a radio announcer  on CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) who had it in mind to read the entire Iliad or perhaps the Odyssey,...anyway he would give commentary where he was in the read thru the summer...I do believe he gave up in his endeavour...

if I could remember who in earth it was I would e-mail him about this group, and the fact he may have been reading a translation that was not very 'today's reader friendly'

Deb

[pedln]

Deb, speaking for myself, I  think it would be very difficult for the uninitiated (without a lot of background) to read The Odyssey by himself.  The comments here, the questions asked and answered, make all the difference in the world. 

For example, I was unfamiliar with Proteus, whom Fagles refers to as the Old Man of the Sea, and was therefore glad to see the input from Jude and Babi.


And for simpler things, --  a bread made without yeast  

Spelt recipes

[pedln]

Having received a "classics" diploma from Exeter, he's hardly uninitiated, but the Aeneid is one of Mark Zuckerberg's favorite books.  This from a New Yorker article --

“ But there are definitely books—like the Aeneid—that I enjoyed reading a lot more.”

He first read the Aeneid while he was studying Latin in high school, and he recounted the story of Aeneas’s quest and his desire to build a city that, he said, quoting the text in English, “knows no boundaries in time and greatness.” Zuckerberg has always had a classical streak, his friends and family told me. (Sean Parker, a close friend of Zuckerberg, who served as Facebook’s president when the company was incorporated, said, “There’s a part of him that—it was present even when he was twenty, twenty-one—this kind of imperial tendency. He was really into Greek odysseys and all that stuff.”) At a product meeting a couple of years ago, Zuckerberg quoted some lines from the Aeneid.

On the phone, Zuckerberg tried to remember the Latin of particular verses. Later that night, he IM’d to tell me two phrases he remembered, giving me the Latin and then the English: “fortune favors the bold” and “a nation/empire without bound.”
Before I could point out how oddly applicable those lines might be to his current ambitions, he typed back:

again though
these are the most famous quotes in the aeneid
not anything particular that i found. ♦

And I would not be surprised if he's also read The Odyssey and the Illiad.

[BarbStAubrey]

wow talk about stacking the decks as a journalist with the New Yorker suggests that because Mark Zuckerberg read the classics he has "this kind of imperial tendency." ??!!??

[JoanK]

ROSEMARY: "Penelope thinks she will run off to Odysseus's old father, Laertes, to ask him what she should do about Telemachus having left the palace.  The nurse, Eurycleia, talks her out of it because - she says - Penelope shouldn't bother an old man."

Strange. Every time there is a suggestion of going outside the circle of the household for help (such as P. going back to her family) it is turned down.  Telemachus does appeal to the villagers, but without success. And T doesn't even ask Nestor or menelaus to send men back with him to fight the suitors. Odysdeus' household seems very isolated.

Thanks, ROSEMARY and BOOKAD for the other translations. I was stumped by the lombardo, also. how good it is to have all these different translations. Lombardo is very good IMO, but even the best is enriched by comparison.

I gather Mark Zuckerberg is the founder of Facebook? I'm way behind on such things. I admit I have mixed feelings about facebook but it is great for people of my kids age (30s-40s) to keep in contact with old friends. I've had less success finding old friends on it, and have stopped going in.

[BarbStAubrey]

all the social contact  media reminds me of when my children were  young teens and we teased they had phones growing out of the ears. They were on the phone all the time - only now the need to talk everything over with a friend or now it is friends seems to have spread to folks beyond their school years. I am shocked at how much Real Estate transactions are discussed with Twitter and face book by mostly the younger agents.

[rosemarykaye]

Barb, that is amazing - I must be old, because I would never even think of discussing any of my clients on any electronic media - the only people i would discuss them with would be colleagues face to face in the office.

Rosemary

[pedln]

wow talk about stacking the decks as a journalist with the New Yorker suggests that because Mark Zuckerberg read the classics he has "this kind of imperial tendency." ??!!??

Barb, I should have included the link to the much longer article.  The "imperial tendency" is not because he read the classics, but because of the risks he took when establishing his business.  Sorry to be off topic.

But, since I am, we are, there was a Wall Street Journal article last week about another film that made me think of The Odyssey.  The reporter likened Winter's Bone's Ree Dolly's search for her meth-making father as a QUEST, and I would agree.  But what really caught my attention were her words to her undernourished, hungry little brother -- referring  to food she said, "Never ask for what should be offered."  There's the hospitality (or lack of it) turning up again.

[BarbStAubrey]

Yes, I thought it had to do with his start up style and yet, to me that is saying it as if not honoring him - golly he was a kid - and  yes, he holds his head way up high - but have you noticed all these super smart geeks have a similar posture - they are all in their head with few social skills except to talk some sort of strange language with other Geeks - he like so many with a vision and fast brain just barrel ahead like a whale opening their jaws and taking everything from the sea into their mouths - I guess I have a problem with folks saying that is an Imperial characteristic and that I am sure is because most of us do not take that word to be a complement.

Interesting - I did not see the movie Winter's Bone's but that reminds me I am anxious to read James Joyce's Ulysses - have the book and just never got past the first page assuming it would be difficult.

[Dana]

I have to make a comment about the simile describing Penelope as like a lion at bay with the hunters circling.  I think its so interesting that Homer compares her to a lion (ie no deer in the ancient Greek headlights here!) -its obviously meant to build up our image of her, even although every time we've seen her so far she's weeping (not very lion like to me)--I have no feeling for Penelope yet (what I mean is, no positive feeling, but also no sense of what she's like as a person);I realise she's loyal and smart, she's kept all the suitors around, but at bay, ensuring that no one takes over, but I don't really know what she's like in the way I feel I do  Helen and Telmachus and Nestor and Menelaus.  We'll see I guess

[Babi]

 I like your comparison of Helen and the faithful Penelope, GINNY.
I definitely prefer Penelope, and would love to be her friend. I
would be very much on my guard around Helen.
  Telemachus does explain why he refused the first gifts offered.
He very courteously declines, explaining that he cannot take the
horses on his ship, and besides, stony Ithaca has no fields for
them. Only herds and flocks thrive there. He accepts the bowl; a
parting gift to a guest is traditioal and it would be offensive
to refuse all that is offered.
 AHH, reading on, I see that ROSEMARY has made much the same
comment.

 A line that raised my eyebrows was the phantom's answer to Penelope's request for information about Odysseus.  She said she could
not say,  and that "empty words are evil".   Evil?  That's a strong word.
What, precisely, did she mean by 'empty' words?
  I checked some other translations on-line (none of which seemed to
identify the translator) and found these:
  ‘there is no use in idle conversation."

 .."it is wrong to utter words idle as the wind."
  There's a big difference between evil and idle.  And it would be wrong
to speak carelessly on something that is so important to the hearer.
I think these translations are more likely than the one in my copy.

[ginny]

This is VERY intersting!

Dana, I liked your use of "simile" here.

Lombardo sets it off with no mention of Penelope:

Surrounded by men, a lion broods and then panics
When they begin to tighten their crafty ring.

This is set off in italics and even indented.  He did this in the Iliad too.

This is called something, anybody remember what? These extended similes?

Murray in his more literal translation says:

In line 789: And just as a lion is seized with fear and broods among a throng  of men, they they draw their crafty ring about him....

Fagles has made the leap to comparing Penelope to the lion, which of course is the intent. I think, for my own part, when you remove the sort of set off simile (it's not set off in the Greek physically)  (a simile is  comparison in literature using the words like or as...that's a pitiful explanation I'm sure somebody can find a better one), you sort of diminish the intent.

Pope has sort of a compromise:

So when the woodsman's toil her cave surrounds
with grief and rage the mother-lion stung
Fearless herself, yet trembles for her young...

hmmmm So he also takes it a bit further.

What do the other translations say?

[ginny]

Rosemary, good points on why T refused the gifts. I am wondering tho what this does to the notion of hospitality? 

My book says the initial section of the Odyssey, the first 4 of its 24 books, is called the "Telemachy," the story of T. Didn't we just see the Temple questions saying we wouldn't see him for a while?

I think that Odysseus appears at last in Book V, and the poem begins again, what a BOOK!  You can see this style in modern authors, too, some books go quite a while without the protagonist actually appearing.

Good point also on the nurse. I am wondering what mysterious troubles Laertes has that he can't protect his grandson or DIL, and I agree with Joan K, it does seem odd that whenever outside help is called everybody shrinks off.

What do your books have for the nurse's  explanation of why not to bother Laertes?

The nurse may not be dotty but she sure is bossy and self assured and I'm not really sure that I'd listen to her that much.


Deb! Write him!!!! Wouldn't that be fabulous, I'm sure he would be thrilled you remembered him!

Spelt, looks awful, tastes pretty good, like flatbread. Thank you Pedln for that recipe! And for the Mark Zuckerberg info.

Babi, what a good question: A line that raised my eyebrows was the phantom's answer to Penelope's request for information about Odysseus.  She said she could
not say,  and that "empty words are evil".   Evil?  That's a strong word.
What, precisely, did she mean by 'empty' words?

Lombardo has Empty words are ill spoken.

What DOES she mean by "empty words," and what do your books say about this or any of the issues here today? I think these similes are important, I'm going to keep trying to find something about them.