[MW1] AOdyssey Odyssey Episode 5 – Full Transcript

This episode of “The Odyssey Odyssey” is kind of a doozy. We're going to encounter violence and sexual violence and incest and infanticide and cannibalism. So if you want to switch over to Monty, Don for half an hour, I'm not going to hold that against you. I hope you'll come back and join us next time. Otherwise, come on in. 

So, revenge. I don't know. I find it all incredibly depressing. I lived in London for a long time and I shared a flat for a while with a fellow from Iceland. And by the way, Buzz Sprout tells me that I have one faithful listener in Iceland, and I assume it's you, Pietur. So, hello. And when we went our separate ways after a while, Pietur put a copy of the Penguin Classic edition of the Njáls saga. He sort of pressed it into my hand and looked me in the eye and earnestly told me that this was basically the greatest thing that had ever happened in the history of the world and that I needed to go and read it immediately. And I was thrilled to have this whole world of Viking sagas, the Norse sagas, opening up to me and I thought - as a storyteller - I thought this was going to be a gold mine of material. But I just I can't get past the revenge that is the theme in so many of the stories. Maybe most famously in the Volsung saga. Which is the story that Wagner sort of twisted to make his own mythology in the Ring Cycle. 

So before I get too carried away with myself and my Vikings, let me introduce myself. Hello, I'm Tom Lee, and this is “The Odyssey Odyssey,” the podcast that retells the story of the Odyssey, but also all the stories that surround connect with and evolve from the Odyssey. 

The revenge story in this Volsung saga is just incredible. A woman has seen her father and nine of her ten brothers killed, just horribly murdered, and the brothers are killed slowly, one by one. And all she wants is revenge on her father and brother's killer. And she has children, and her only hope is that her sons will grow up to be powerful enough to revenge the death of their grandfather and their uncles. But each time she puts one of her children to the test, they fail. They reveal themselves to be cowards, not to be brave enough to do this deed. And she has them killed because they're not going to suit her purposes. And then it only becomes obvious to her after a time that the only person that could father the child that she needs to revenge the death of her father, is her last remaining brother. So they have a child - she disguises herself and they have an incestuous affair. And the child that is born from that relationship does go on to avenge the death of her father. I mean, that's a amazing story, but as a reason to be born as a, as a reason to be alive, that you're just an instrument of revenge. I don't know. I find it depressing. I don't tell those stories. 

But I think a lot about revenge, because I think a lot about Charles Darwin, if you know me, you know. I'm a rabid. Darwinist and a lot of evolutionary psychologists have studied this drive for revenge, even sort of fantasizing about getting revenge, which might be something that you do in in traffic. Something we get a dopamine hit every time we get revenge, or even fantasize about revenge. Our primal lizard brains get this little buzz of dopamine. It feels good to get revenge or even fantasizing about revenge. So I do think there's a strong connection between our Darwinian brains and the things that turn up in these myths and stories again and again. 

So we're in the middle of a fairly elaborate digression away from this main story of the Odyssey, telling the story of the ancestors of the ancestors of some of the peripheral characters that are mentioned. By Homer and specifically mentioned by Zeus, who talks about just Aegisthus. This is the man who killed Agamemnon when he returned from the Trojan. War and who was then in turn killed by his son Orestes, and everyone tells Telemachus, who is Odysseus's son. He's constantly told that Orestes needs to be his role model, so we're taking a little time to do a deep dive into this long shadow off Aegysthus who descends from the House of Atreus.  In the last episode we talked about Pelops and Hippodamia, and it's probably worth mentioning (I didn't then) that the characters from that story were depicted on the top of the temple of Zeus on the pediment the East Pediment of the temple of Zeus in Olympia. So, a lot of people don't know the story of Pelops and Hippodamia, but it certainly was very current in ancient Greece that it it was gracing one of the most important temples in Olympia and that temple was destroyed in an earthquake around 500. But we know a lot about the buildings that are long, long gone from a Greek writer named Pausanias. Who wrote a travel guide to Ancient Greece in the year 200 AD and he was eyewitness to many of the structures that have long, long since disappeared. But he describes the sculptures and the decorations, and that's one of the ways that we know these stories were extremely current and on the minds of people in ancient Greece. So, in our last episode you'll remember that Pelops had married the Princess Hippodamia after defeating her father in a chariot race, but only by betraying her father. Only by sabotage. And he was helped by the King's charioteer, who expected a reward. But in turn, Pelop's killed the charioteer, and just before he died, the charioteer Myrtilus laid a curse on Pelopds and all his decendants. So, here come the descendants. 

Pelops and Hippodamia had many children. The two that concern us most today are Atreus and Thyestes, and again, I apologize for all the names, but these are important ones: Atreus and Thyestes are brothers, and they're the children of Pelops. Now, just about the time that Atreus and Thyestes reached maturity, the King of Mycene died, and he left no heir. (Fun footnote all of this story is connected to the story of Heracles. But don't worry, I'm not going to take a detour from the Detour.) So the King of Mycene was dead and there was no ruler. And the people went to the Oracle at Delphi to find out what they should do, and the Oracle said in no uncertain terms that the king of Mycene would be one of the sons of Pelops. Well, this was great, because there they were right there in town, Atreus and Thyestes. But who of the two brothers was going to be king? (This couldn't possibly cause any problems, could it?) 

Now Atreus was the older brother and he also had some friends in high places. Or so he thought. He had promised the goddess Artemis, the goddess of the hunt. He had promised to sacrifice to her the most beautiful lamb in all of his flock. And Lamb was born that actually had a fleece of gold. This magnificent creature, this clearly gift from the gods. A lamb with a golden fleece. And no, this is not the Golden Fleece on your Brooks Brothers polo shirt. That's another myth for another day. But Atreus sacrificed this magnificent golden lamb to the goddess Artemis. Sort of. He sacrificed the flesh, but he didn't sacrifice the fleece. The Golden fleece. And he kept this in his home. He hid it away. This magnificent golden fleece was hidden in his house. Now Atreus's wife was a woman named Europe. And while Atreus was. Involved with his golden lamb, Europe got involved with Atreus's brother, Thyestes. She fell madly in love with him and begged him to take her as her lover, and Thyestes knew about this Golden Fleece. Atreus had been boasting about it everywhere he went. And Thyeste said to Europe, I will take you as my lover. If you steal for me the Golden Fleece and Europe did exactly that. She stole the Golden Fleece, unbeknownst to Atreus, and she gave it to Thyestes, who hid it away in his home. And they continued to carry on their affair. 

Now, the Council of Mycene decided it was time to choose between these two brothers who would be king. And Atreus very confidently stood and said, I am favored by the gods. I possess a golden Fleece sent to me by the goddess Artemis. And surely, who ever possesses a gift from Artemis deserves to be king of Myce. And Thyestes said, will you swear to that, brother of mine? Will you swear that the possessor of this Golden Fleece will be king of my scene? 

Atreus surely should have smelled a rat with a statement like that, but he did not, and he said yes - whoever possesses the Golden Fleece will be king of Mycene and he fully expected to be crowned king. I don't know if they actually crowned their kings in ancient Greece. I don't think they did, but there was a huge celebration prepared in the city of Mycene. They were about to welcome their king. And at the very last instant, Thyestes presented himself carrying the Golden Fleece, and he declared that he was the rightful king of Mycene because he was the holder of the Golden Fleece and there was no denying it. So Thyestes was declared King of Mycene. So Atreus is out of a job, and round one to Thyestes, yes -  however - Zeus (and you will remember Zeus is the God who said that all humans brought their troubles on themselves, but blamed everything on the gods)  Zeus decides to interfere. 

Zeus believes that Atreus should be king of Mycenae, and he sent Hermes with a message directly to Atreus - not through this sort of ambiguous Oracle, but Hermes, the God, the messenger God visited Atreus and Hermes said “Ask your brother - if the sun turns around in its track - if the sun goes backwards in the sky, will he agree that you should be king and nature has made this proposition?”  And Thyestes couldn't imagine that such a thing would ever happen and was quite confident he would keep the kingship, and so he agreed. And the ancient Greek mythographers tell us that was the only time that the son that God Helios turned his chariot around and went backwards - he did not complete his course, but the sun went backwards in the sky.  And everyone witnessed it, of course, and everyone said that Atreus surely should be king. So, round two to Atreus. 

And all this time, don't forget that Thyestes is having an affair with Atreus's wife. But when Atreus discovers that his brother, in addition to stealing the kingdom from him, has been having an affair with his wife, he is absolutely furious beyond fury and he seeks revenge - and his revenge becomes one of the most ghastly episodes in all of mythology. 

So, Atreus hatches this plot. Thyestes has three sons and one daughter, and they're living at some distance away in Sicyon. But Atreus sends a messenger and says all is forgiven, Brother, come back home. We can patch things up, and bring the family. So Thyestes, leaves his daughter, whose name is Pelopia, named after her grandfather Pelops. He leaves her in Sicyon to become a priestess - and we're going to come back to her - and he takes his three sons back to my scene, to their uncle. And when the three sons enter the temple of Zeus to make an offering of Thanksgiving, Atreus has these three boys killed. He has them murdered. And that's nothing, because he then has them cooked into a Stew. He cuts off their heads and their hands, and he puts the rest of their bodies into this Stew. And then he invites his brother to a feast and this ghastly scene plays itself out as Thyestes eats the bodies of his own children, completely ignorant, he's actually having a magnificent time at this feast. The Roman playwright Seneca - whose plays are being performed about 100 AD  - he got a hold of this story and there's just this absolutely horrifying scene where Thyestes is at this feast and he's just having a magnificent time. He loves the food. Give me more. And at the climax of the feast, Atreus brings in the heads and hands of Thyestes children, and Thyestes doesn't quite get it. He understands that Atreus has killed his sons, but he doesn't yet know that he has eaten them. And he says to his brother. Let me bury them. Let them be cremated -  and Atreus says you have here all that remains of your children. Thyestes asks if the children's bodies were left for vultures to eat or beasts of prey. And Atreus says you are the one who feasted on your sons. And it gets even wilder. 

I'm going to read just a few lines of Emily Wilson's 2010. Translation of Seneca's plague Thyestes, Atreus says to his brother. “Even this is too little for me. I should have poured hot blood into your mouth, direct from their wounds to make you drink them alive!” I mean, come on, HBO has nothing on this, and he goes on to give a minutely detailed description of how he killed and butchered the children before preparing them into this. And, gentle listener, I will spare you and I will spare myself that description. And none other than William Shakespeare took this play from Seneca, the play Thyestes, and he used it as the basis for his play Titus Andronicus. A very early play, a play that you very seldom hear about. It's wacky. It's crazy - and the climax is the feast where Titus feeds the children of Tamora to his arch enemy, the woman who has been responsible for the rape of his daughter just. Crazy stuff. And if you remember from the start of the previous episode, I talked about the Grimm fairy tale, The Juniper Tree, where the same theme, I'm absolutely sure that it's this myth - that trickled down either in writing or in the oral tradition, but it came to the Grimms via the painter Otto Runge, and he told them the story of the Juniper Tree, which is the father feasting on his own children and weirdly, in that story he says how delicious it tastes. And he won't let anyone else have any of the food, he said. This is all for me, 

So, Thyestes understandably takes off. He leaves the horrors of my scene behind him. And they all lived happily ever after. Well, no. 

Because now it's time for Thyestes to seek revenge on Atreus. It just doesn't stop, and Thyestes goes to the Oracle to find out how he can do this, how he can revenge himself finally on Atreus for this horrific crime. And the message that comes back is disturbing. The only person that can kill Atreus is a child that Thyestes will have with his own daughter. You remember Pelopia, who was left behind and she is a priestess in a temple in Sicyon. And Thyestes is determined - he goes to the temple in the dark of night. He hides himself in a bush. There's a sacrifice going on the story very specifically says that Pelopia sacrifices a bull and then slips on the blood from the sacrifice and lands in this bush. And Thyestes, who was masked, raped his own daughter. And in the process of this, she had the presence of mind to steal his sword. 

Now, you might have heard of Chekov's gun. Anton Chekov had a principle that he shared with many young writers in letters several times, and the principle was if you hang a rifle on the wall in act one, the rifle has to go off by the end of the play. And I will say that if a sword is stolen in the course of an act of sexual violence, that sword is going to turn up in a paternity case. For sure. There's a fantastic example of this in the Bible in Genesis, Judah. Had three sons and his oldest son was married to a woman named Tamar, and the oldest son died. And so it was the duty of the second son to marry Tamar. Which he did. But then he died, and Judah presumably is a little nervous about the fate of his third son, so he doesn't. He delays and delays it according to the law. The third son should marry Tamar, but Judah will not give his son to this woman and she resorts to an incredible subtrefuge. She disguises herself as a prostitute. And Judah comes and sees her and says, what did it cost? And she said, well, if you give me a lamb, you can enjoy my favors. And he says, well, I don't have a lamb with me, but I'll send you one. And she asks for some collateral, and she takes his staff. And later, hen she gives birth to a child out of wedlock, everyone thinks she should be stoned because she's committed this terrible sin. And then she reveals that the father is actually her father-in-law, and she has his staff to prove it. 

So poor Pelopia is raped and abandoned and pregnant. And just at this moment Atreus appears in Sypylos. Atreus is on the hunt for his brother Thyestes, but he meets a beautiful young woman. And he has no idea (even though she's named after his father) he has no idea that this is his brother's daughter. And to make it intensely complicated story short, he marries her. He takes her back to his palace because he's king of Mycene. And he marries Pelopia and she has a child. But of course. It's not his child, it's his brother's child. And this is Aegisthus . And so it was that Aegisthus grew up in the palace of King Atreus, never knowing that his true father was, in fact, his grandfather. And he lived there with his older brothers,, Agamemnon and Menelaus for seven years. And on his 7th birthday, his mother Pelopia presented him with a gift. She gave him a sword. The very sword that she had stolen from the man who raped her. And she told Aegisthus to keep this sword with him always, and he soon had occasion to use it. Atreus sent his two older sons, the twin brothers Agamemnon and Menelaus. He sent them out to find Thyestes after seven years, and they did. They found him and they dragged him back to the palace at Mycene where he was thrown into the dungeon. And then. King Atreus called Young Aegisthus at the tender age of 6. And he said there's something I want you to do for me, my son. Go into the dungeon and kill the man who is imprisoned there. And Aegisthus was eager to please his father. So he took his sword and he went to the dungeon. And as Thyestes was sleeping, the boy approached him and raised the sword to stab it through him. And just at that moment, Thyestes opened his eyes. And what does he see before him? But his very own sword in the hands of a 7 year old boy. He reached out, he grabbed the boys arm. He stopped him from killing him and he said, tell me, where did you get this sword? And the boy responded. My mother gave me this sword. My mother, queen Pelopia. This is one of the great recognition scenes in Greek mythology. This happens again and again. There's a big recognition scene coming up much later in the Odyssey itself. And Thyestes told the boy, Aegisthus to go and bring his mother to the dungeon, which he dutifully did. And when Pelopia came before her father, the whole horrible, tragic story was revealed. And Pelopia does what - if you know this kind of story - you might not be shocked, but it's still painful to narrate - the only course Pelopia knows available to her at this point. Confronted with her rapist and with the certain knowledge that her rapist all these years later, she learns it was her. Father, this is an Oedipus story sort of backwards through a mirror. The only course is to kill herself. This happens many times throughout these myths and stories. And she stabs herself with the sword and dies. And of course, poor Aegisthus has no idea what's happening. But the prisoner says I am your true father. If you want another Star Wars moment. Here we are. I am your true father. And there is something you must do for me. Take this sword covered in blood. Bring it back to King Atreus and tell him you have done what he told you to do. Tell him that I am dead. And then my son, I want you to kill the king. Aegisthus does this. It's his first murder. He'll have another one much later, but he goes to King Atreus. He shows him the sword and then he kills him and his nurse whisks him away out of danger into a far off land so he can return to the story much, much later. And meanwhile, Agamemnon and Menelaus, the twin brothers, are left to rule over my scene, and Menelaus doesn't know it yet. But he's going to go on to marry. Helen and Agamemnon is going to marry Clytemnestra, but all of that. For another day. 

And with that, we conclude the curse of the House of Atreus. Any questions? Next week we will be back to Telemachus and his search for his father Odysseus. Thank you so much for listening and a reminder that “The Odyssey Odyssey” is brought to you by me. I'm producing this program to let people know that I am available for residencies and museums visits to schools. I work with everybody from K through college, although of course I don't tell stories like this to younger children. If you would like to know more about the stories in today's program, you can visit my website, www.tomleestoryteller.net, and there you'll find links to some of the artwork and historical documents that I reference in the program. And you can also send me a note from my website. Www.tomleestoryteller.net from the contact page. I'd love to know what you're thinking. It's great fun to follow along with my data and see that people are consistently listening to various episodes, but as a storyteller, this is a bit like shouting into the dark. I have no idea who's listening or what they think. Except when people drop a line, which I love. So that's today's episode. I'm Tom Lee. Thank you very much for listening. See you next time.

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