The onlookers ashore immediately recognize the consummation of the prophecy and resolve to abandon their custom of helping wayward travelers. At first, he curses the Phaeacians, whom he thinks have duped him and left him in some unknown land. But Athena, disguised as a shepherd, meets him and tells him that he is indeed in Ithaca. With characteristic cunning, Odysseus acts to conceal his identity from her until she reveals hers.
She tells him to hide out in the hut of his swineherd, Eumaeus. She informs him that Telemachus has gone in search of news of him and gives him the appearance of an old vagabond so that no one will recognize him.
Odysseus finds Eumaeus outside his hut. There Odysseus has a hearty meal of pork and listens as Eumaeus heaps praise upon the memory of his former master, whom he fears is lost for good, and scorn upon the behavior of his new masters, the vile suitors.
Odysseus predicts that Eumaeus will see his master again quite soon, but Eumaeus will hear none of it—he has encountered too many vagabonds looking for a handout from Penelope in return for fabricated news of Odysseus. Still, Eumaeus takes a liking to his guest. He puts him up for the night and even lets him borrow a cloak to keep out the cold. When Eumaeus asks Odysseus about his origins, Odysseus lies that he is from Crete. He fought with Odysseus at Troy and made it home safely, he claims, but a trip that he made later to Egypt went awry, and he was reduced to poverty.
It was during this trip, he says, that he heard that Odysseus was still alive. Like much of The Odyssey , Book 12 generates excitement through the tension between goals and obstacles. Some of these obstacles are simply unpleasant: Odysseus would rather avoid Scylla and Charybdis altogether, but he cannot—they stand in his way, leaving him no choice but to navigate a path through them. But many of these obstacles are temptations. Unlike Scylla and Charybdis, the island of Thrinacia poses no immediate threat to Odysseus or his men.
Some scholars believe that the straits between Scylla and Charybdis represent the Straits of Messina, which lie between Sicily and mainland Italy, as these straits are a prominent geographical feature and indeed treacherous to navigate.
But Homeric geography is notoriously problematic. Things become convoluted even on mainland Greece, as Homer often misjudges distances and even invents geographical features. Book 13 picks up where Book 4 left off: the setting quickly shifts back to Ithaca and the suitors again dominate the background of the story. No sooner does Odysseus forget the Phaeacians than he and Athena are conspiring to destroy the mob that has taken over his house, refocusing the poem from stories of misadventure in the past to the central tension in the present.
She is more interested in how performing great deeds in faraway lands will elevate his reputation than in his inner, more personal growth. Throughout The Odyssey , Athena shows a steadfast devotion to Odysseus and the traits that he embodies; in risking his life to find his father, Telemachus stands to gain a measure of that same renown for which Odysseus and other Greek heroes risked their lives at Troy.
The destruction of the Phaeacian vessel raises an exception to xenia , the Homeric code of hospitality. When Odysseus and his companions left Troy, they sacked the Thracian city of Ismarus, or Ismaros, sparing the priest of Apollo, Maron, who gave them twelve jars of wine. The Lotus-Eaters. Then the Greeks sailed to the land of the lotus-eaters, where whoever ate of the fruit of the lotus forgot everything else and only wished to stay, eating lotus-fruit.
Yet Odysseus managed to leave with his men. The Cyclopes and Polyphemus. Then, while Polyphemus lay in a drunken sleep, Odysseus and his companions drove a heated wooden pole into his eye. Next morning Odysseus tied each man to the undersides of three sheep and himself clung to the belly of the biggest ram. Thus, as the blinded Cyclops felt the sheep when he let them out of the cave having removed the rock , he could not discover the men, and so they escaped and went back to their ship.
As they sailed away, Odysseus shouted out his real name, and Polyphemus tore off part of a mountain and threw it, nearly wrecking the ship.
This was the source of the anger of Poseidon, who granted his son's prayer. But just as he was in sight of Ithaca, he fell asleep, and his men opened the bag. All the winds rushed out and blew them back to Aeolus, who refused to help them any more. The Laestrygonians.
Circe eventually let him go, and he sailed to the Underworld, to consult Tiresias. The Book of the Dead. The Book of the Dead Book 11 of the Odyssey tells how Odysseus went to the entrance to the Underworld and there talked with many spirits of the dead, primarily with Tiresias, who foretold the difficulties yet remaining on his journey and at his return, and foretold also the events of the rest of his life and the manner of his death.
The Sirens. Having returned to Aeaea, Odysseus sailed to meet the dangers of which Circe warned him. The Planctae and Scylla and Charybdis. The Cattle of Helius. Odysseus next sailed to Thrinacia, where Helius pastured his cattle. Again he fell asleep, and his men disobeyed his orders not to touch the cattle and killed some of them for food. Once again escaping the dangers of Charybdis, Odysseus drifted to Ogygia.
The Phaeacians Bring Odysseus to Ithaca. After he had related his adventures to the Phaeacians, Odysseus was conveyed by them to Ithaca, where they put him on shore asleep, with the gifts they had given him. To punish the Phaeacians for helping Odysseus, Poseidon turned their ship into stone as it entered the harbor at Scheria.
The first is that Poseidon can always change his mind. When Alcinous first told of the prophecy, he mentioned that the sea god could follow through with the vengeance or leave it undone, "whatever warms his heart" 8.
As soon as Poseidon turns the ship to stone, the Phaeacians do decide to appease him before he closes their port forever. Alcinous quickly promises to stop the trips home for castaways and calls for the sacrifice of a dozen of the finest bulls in hopes of appeasing Poseidon. The other hope for the Phaeacians is textual and was first advocated by the ancient editor Aristophanes of Byzantium.
He pointed out that a slight alteration in the Greek changing three letters has Zeus telling Poseidon to turn the ship to stone but not to close the harbor.
This interpretation seems more consistent with the rest of the epic and with the reputation of Zeus. Unfortunately, we never find out what happens. Homer leaves the Phaeacians' fate to our imaginations. Now in Ithaca, Odysseus needs protection.
He slept for most of the journey from Phaeacia and is unable to recognize Ithaca when he awakes. Athena has provided a mist to cover the land so that she can privately alter Odysseus' appearance and help him hide his treasure.
Athena turns the hero into an old beggar, even going so far as to shrivel his skin, remove the "russet curls" As he did successfully in The Iliad , Odysseus poses as a beggar to gather information. Odysseus' first human contact is with his swineherd,Eumaeus, the epitome of loyalty and hospitality.
Eumaeus repeatedly praises his old king but insists that his master must be dead despite the beggar's promise that Odysseus will soon return.
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