06 - Night Flight

Episode 6 – Night Flight – Full Transcript

I don't know if you've spent much time on tiny islands. I lived in the West Highlands. Of Scotland for a while. And Rhum, Eigg and Muck. Were the three little islands that were just off the coast. And the island of Rhum is about 40 square miles. And if you live there, you get a square mile per person. There are 40 people living there. 100 years ago there were about 440 people living there, and Ithaca, Odysseus's island, is just about the same size. Historians are pretty sure that the modern island of Ithaca is the same island that Homer had in mind, where Odysseus was king, and that's a grand total of 37 square miles. And one thing about living on a little island like that - Everybody knows everybody's business pretty quick. 

Hello, I'm Tom Lee and this is “The Odyssey Odyssey,” the podcast where I tell the story of The Odyssey and also the stories that surround the main story, and we've just come back from a detour into the curse of the House of Atreus. And I promise you, this week no one gets killed and no one gets eaten. So we can look forward to that. 

There's one section of the Iliad that everybody who reads it pretty much skips over. Those who tell you otherwise I'm not sure I would believe them.  It's early on in the poem, and it's called the Catalogue of the Ships, and it details all of the ships that are arriving from Greece to Troy to try to retrieve Helen, the wife of King Meneleus. You've heard of the face that launched 1000 ships -  well, in fact, the face launched 1186 ships and every single one of them is detailed in book two of the Iliad. The catalog of the ships. It's a little bit like the begats in the Bible. Lists of names that just go on and on, but like the begats, if you can really sort of buckle in and plow your way through it, the catalog of the ships can be kind of fascinating. We learned that Odysseus when he arrived at Troy. He had a total of 12 ships and that's pretty modest. Agamemnon arrived with 100 ships and historians are pretty sure that each ship would have had 50 sailors on it. So 12 ships of 50 is a total of 600 sailors. And that's 600 men who have left their island of Ithaca with their king,  King Odysseus. 

So, it's an interesting lens to look at the story of the Odyssey, just the size of this island and the fact that 600 of its eligible fighting men, probably between the ages of 18 and 40, 600 of them left the island 20 years ago, along with their king, so there's been no king in Ithaca for almost 20 years. And what's interesting is that Odysseus's father, Laertes, he still lives on the island. But he hasn't moved into Odysseus's Palace. He hasn't taken over as king. In fact, he's moved to the outskirts of town. And he's living quite quietly, alone and mourning for the absence of his son. No land in ancient Greece was ruled by a queen. So Odysseus's wife Penelope was not going to take charge, and his son Telemachus was only one year old when he left. So, the island has been without a ruler for almost 20 years, and that's why things have pretty much gone to hell. 

But just as the story begins. Athena has decided it's time for Telemachus to grow up. So, six years after the Trojan War ended and Odysseus had still not returned, the suitors began taking over his household. His son Telemachus would have been about 16 or 17 years of age at this time. And all of the eligible men, they descend on Odysseus's household. There are 56 men from Ithaca and 52 men from neighbouring islands. A total of 108 suitors who all want to marry Penelope and Penelope, of course, has refused. She will not give up hope that Odysseus is alive and will return, and Telemachus has been visited by Athena, who tells him to do two things. To go in search of news of his father. But before that she tells him to call an assembly on the island of Ithaca and this has not happened for nineteen years. So Telemachus woke the next morning absolutely inspired. He had been visited. By a God or a goddess, he still didn't know the true identity of the immortal who was rooting for him, but he knew that he had at least one God on his side. And when he emerged from the bedroom in the morning, he was glowing with this inspiration that Athena put into him, and he went to the town crier and he said, call an assembly, go all across the island and call all of the men together. And I love this idea that this. This hasn't happened for 19 years. Years and the old men of Ithaca approach and the young men. 600 men of Ithaca are missing and we know from the very first sentences of the poem that they're never coming back. But the people of Ithaca don't know this yet. So, it's a striking. Image of old men and young men coming together to revive the government. In fact, they evoke the goddess famous. She's the goddess of meetings and order and debate and civil discourse. So, we can imagine all of these men coming together and wondering what's going on, who has called this meeting and the first person to speak to sort of call things to order is an old man named Egyptian US. And this is a character I just love. He's very typical of. A character in a  Homeric epic because he just appears this one time. But of course we learned his name and his father's name, and where his father was born, and then we learned that Egyptius has four sons. One of his sons went with Odysseus, and the poem tells us this man was the last sailor to be devoured by the Cyclops in his cave, and Egyptius has been weeping and hoping for the return of his son. But he's never coming back. He was eaten by a one-eyed giant. The second of his sons has become one of the suitors for Penelope's hand, and he's been spending every day for the past four years living in King Odysseus's Hall and slaughtering his oxen and his sheep and drinking his wine. And he has two other sons, and they're staying in the fields, they're plowing the fields, they're taking care of the farm for their father. It's a beautiful little view into this man's life as we're about to see him just for a moment in this poem, Egyptius called the meeting to order and said he couldn't imagine who had done this. What was the news? Had someone heard perhaps that Odysseus was returning home? Was there some terrible problem? Who had called the meeting? And there's a pause and Telemachus stood up. Young Telemachus, that kid, that son of Odysseus, stands up and says to egyptus, it was I who called this. Thinking I need the help of my neighbors. And it's a powerful moment as he steps forward and sits in his father's throne, and he complains about the suitors every day, every night. For years, they have come into our hall. They have slaughtered our cattle, our sheep. They have drunk our wine. They are literally. Eating me out of house and home and my neighbors stand by and let this happen. I know I should fight back. But my friends consider I was a child when they arrived, and the man who should have taught me how to fight the man who should have taught me how to defend my home. The one man who could solve this problem, my father. Is absent. He has been absent for most of my life, and Telemachus took the staff he had been handed, and he threw it down onto the ground and he began quite unabashedly to weep. And there was a stunned silence from all of the men who were overwhelmed with pity, except for the suitors. And the spokesperson of the Suitors, we hear more from Antinous than anyone else, and he stands up, and he throws it right back. It's not our fault - we're doing the right thing. We understand your mother must marry. Long ago her father should have found her a new husband - and your beautiful, kind mother. She's deceptive. She lies. She tricks. A year ago, she told us all that she was about to make her decision. She was ready to decide which of us she would marry, if only we would let her finish her weaving on her great loom. She was making a great piece of cloth that was to be the burial shroud of her father-in-law when his time came to be buried and she begged us, just let me finish this weaving. What would my neighbors say if my own father-in-law had no shroud to be wrapped in on the day of his burial? (Just to be clear. In the time of the poem, you would be wrapped in a shroud and then you would be cremated and your ashes would be interred so it is a burial, but he's not going to be buried in the shroud.) Let me finish the weaving and then I will decide. And so we waited and we waited and we waited. And what did we find out? Because we do have spies in the House, some of the slave women come and tell us what they see and what they know. And one came and told us that yes, your mother wove all day, dutifully bent over her loom almost finished. But what did she do every night? By Torchlight, she began to unweave. She pulled out all the threads she had woven during the day, so the shroud would never be finished. But we caught her in the act, and we forced her to finish. And now there's no more delay. It is time for her to choose a husband. You know that as well as any of us. 

This is such a compelling image of Penelope unweaving at night by Torchlight, the weaving that she's done during the day, and it shows us that Penelope. Really not passively accepting the role that the suitors and society in general are are assigning to her. She's not a passive widow. She's really taking agency in her own life in this, yes, deceptive way. The deceptiveness, the strategizing that comes from Athena. Athena is the goddess of cleverness and myelitis. That's one of the reasons she's so connected to Odysseus. We're always hearing how clever, crafty, wily. Odysseus is, and this is the bond that he has with Athena. Well, Penelope is pretty crafty too. She comes up with this scheme. And Athena, coincidentally, is also the goddess of weaving. Athena is the goddess of all household crafts. Anything that that women would do in the home, Athena would look over them this much later turns up in the story of Arachne, who? Actually has a competition with Athena and Athena is a very sore loser in this weaving competition and she cracks Arachne over the head and Arachne transforms into the very first arachnid, the spider who is perpetually weaving. The thing about this image, is that Penelope in a way is taking control of time by undoing the work of each day. It's almost as if time is not moving ahead, which is certainly where she is. She's not counting the days until Odysseus returns. She's sort of frozen in time. She's refusing to acknowledge that the time is moving forward, and Odysseus is not coming home. It's a. It's a really powerful metaphor. I think that she's controlling time in her own mind, but then the suitors take control and she loses that power. And that's really when the story takes off and the craftiness this deception is key to how the suitors perceive her. Antinous compares her to other deceptive women in mythology. So it's a great example of stories inside the story. He tosses off this comparison to Alcmene and Alcmene was the mortal mother of Heracles. Zeus was in love with Alcmene and had chosen her to be the mother of his final child, but when Heracles was born, Alcmene wanted him to drink the milk of an immortal mother. She wanted Hera to breastfeed this child. And of course, in the story of Heracles, Hera is the baby's greatest enemy. So she arranged a deception with Athena and Alcmene left the baby out in a field as if it had been abandoned, and Athena and Hera were walking along and Athena saw this little baby, which she knew was going to be there. She picked it up and said how sorry she felt for it. And said oh Hera, you have milk in your breasts. Won't you give some milk to this poor little child? And when Hera embraced the baby, the baby sucked so hard at her breast, it caused her terrible pain, and she threw the child down onto the ground. But it was too late because baby Heracles had drunk immortal milk from the breast of the goddess, and Antinous just sort of throws that out. As he's describing Penelope's deception with weaving and I can't resist throwing out my favorite Edward Gorey, Limerick as we're talking about Penelope:

An indefatigable woman named Babel, 

had often occasion to travel.

On the way she would sit and furiously knit. 

And all the way back, she'd unravel. 

So Antinous is completely unapologetic for the actions of the suitors, and tells Telemachus it's time for him to force his mother to marry to send her back to her father, let her father choose the most suitable husband, and make his mother marry, and Telemachus flatly replied that he could never do this. He would not risk his mother's anger, his mother's curse. And he defied the suitors, and in complete frustration at his own weakness, he called out if only Zeus would give you what you deserved. 

And just at that moment, two eagles appeared over the gathering place and they circled around one another, their wings totally outstretched and their wing tips were touching as they arched round and round in a circle. And it must have been a beautiful sight for a moment. But then they swooped down over the heads of the suitors, and they began to attack and fascinating puzzle in the translation of the Odyssey. Some translators are sure that the Eagles attacked the suitors. And some translators are equally sure that the Eagles attacked one another, so it's not known who was being attacked here, but it was a violent, bloody attack. Eyes and faces were being scratched. Whether it was eagle faces or suitor faces, we may never know. But the Eagles flew away as quickly as they had appeared. And this, of course, in ancient Greece, would be understood as a sign from the God. Gods, animals, especially birds, the actions of birds, the flight of birds were closely watched as auguries as omens for what was going to happen. This was a communication directly from the gods. Teiresias was the seer and he stood up and he said anyone could clearly tell you what this means. Let the suitors boast, but we see what will happen. Odysseus will return and there will be a slaughter. You remember my prediction when Odysseus left, I was the one who said Odysseus would be gone. For nineteen years and then return and the time has come. The tide is turning. Odysseus will be back and there will be hell to pay or Hades to pay. But even now, the suitors refused to be humbled. One of them stood up and said. Go tell stories to your children, old man Birds fly through the sky all the time. They're not always messages from Zeus. We will stay in Odysseus's hall. We will eat Odysseus's cattle. We will drink Odysseus's wine until Penelope is married. And at this point, another old man stood up in the crowd, and this was Mentor and Mentor is going to become a very important character in the story. Except that it's not really going to be Mentor. It's going to be Athena. Mentor was a close friend of Odysseus who stayed behind in Ithaca to keep an eye on the household, to keep an eye on the family, and he has served as a mentor to Telemachus -  this is actually where we get the word “mentor”. He served as a mentor to Telemachus, and he stood up and he said, you know, it's a high price to pay for dinner. I almost admire the suitors for putting their lives on the line. There may be a question whether Odysseus will return or not, but there can be no question that if he does return, there will be a slaughter. All of you will die. But that's not what bothers me most. What bothers me most is all the rest of us, the citizens of Ithaca, who are willing to stand by and watch this happen, who give no help to young Telemachus, but the suitors throw this back as well, this time with a sinister twist. They say if Odysseus returns and tries to destroy us, poor Penelope will in fact be very sorry to see her husband again, because that will be the day that he dies. It would be a hundred and eight of us against Odysseus. Here's another person who's never read a good heroic myth. Finally, Telemachus stood up and said I'm done with all of this. I will tell you what I want. I want a ship and I want twenty men, and I will sail to Pylos. I will sail to Sparta. I will find the men who knew my father. And I will learn once and for all if he is dead. If I find proof that my father is dead. I will come home here. I will burn his gear and I will marry off my mother. If there is hope, I will wait one year more. And with that, the meeting broke up. The suitors didn't miss the opportunity to tease Telemachus a little bit about his sailing skills and. Thinking he'd never be brave enough to make the journey, and if he did, he himself might drown at sea. And the suitors returned to Odysseus's Hall, and at once began slaughtering cattle and drinking wine. But Telemachus wandered away, and he walked along the beach, and he reached down into the ocean, and he washed his hands and he prayed. God of yesterday you came to my house. I don't yet know who you were. But I pray to you I have done as you ask. I have called the Assembly and now I'm going to make this journey, but I'm going to need your help and at that moment he looked up and there was old mentor. Walking along the beach. But of course it wasn't Mentor at all. It was Athena and another gender bending disguise. She disguised herself as the old man and she came and held Telemachus by the hand and she said my boy, you are your father's son. Not every son is like his father, but you - you might even be a better man one day. I'm going to help you do this. I sailed with Odysseus many times. I'll find you a ship. I'll find you twenty sailors and you and I will travel together and we will find news of your father. Now you go back to the hall. Do not tell your mother of your plans. Go to the store room. We'll need barley. We'll need wine. Enough for 20 men for a long journey. Meet me here at sunset and we will sail through the night and off goes Telemachus. All fired up. And you have the sense that Athena is just having the best time with all of this, and Telemachus returned to the hall and there were the seizures and tenuous among them. And there's this strange moment where they try to make up with him. And you think about the fact that he was 16 or 17 years old when all of this started when these men took over his father's house? That he probably went along with it. He we have the sense that he actually ate with these men many times and Antinous tries to get him to forget all of this nonsense of the morning. But Telemachus clearly has come of age. Overnight, he has found his voice. He has found his place, or he's going to try to do that. He completely rejects the invitation of the suitors. I'll never eat with you again, he says to Antinous. You need to understand this. And he goes to the store room of his father's palace. And this is where the point is really driven home that Odysseus is is loaded. Odysseus is a king and he has a store room filled with gold and bronze. And there are jars and jars of wine lined up against the wall. Wonderful detail for oenophiles. The wine has been aged for 12 years in anticipation of Odysseus's return. And there's an old woman who takes care of the storeroom. She said to be there day and night. But she turns up in lots of other places in the story as well. Her name is Euryclea, and this was telemachus's nurse when he was a little boy and she's looking over the stores. And he went to Euryclea and he told her his plan that he was going off that night. To get news of Odysseus and he needed food and wine for his crew and Euryclea dissolved into tears, she said. What are you thinking? These men will take over the house. You might drown and never return. We've lost your father. Now we are to lose you. And he said, I need the food. I need the wine. And you must keep my secret. Swear that you will not tell my mother. And again, his voice, his manner was commanding in a way that it had not been before your eclair. Since this change in Telemachus, and she agreed. She would prepare the food and she would keep his secret. Meanwhile, Athena is having more fun because now she has transformed herself into Telemachus and she wanders. Through the village. On Ithaca, and she finds young men. Who are able? To sail, and she even rustles up the loan of a ship and in one of my favorite. Details in the. Whole poem, she drags the ship down to the sea. There's no sort of. “I Dream of Jeannie” eye blinking magic to what Athena does. She puts her shoulder to it and she drags the ship down to the edge of the sea. Wonderful little moment - it reminds me of the moment in the Genesis, when God shuts the door of Noah's Ark. I've never been sure if that's supposed to be this magical shutting of the door, or if God. Is out there in the rain, shutting the door. And as a last effort to help Athena goes to the hall invisible and goes amongst the suitors and puts them all into a deep, deep sleep, and Telemachus leaves the hall and comes to the harbor and there's his ship and twenty young men. Waiting to help him and one old man. Mentor who will guide him.  Telemachus is now the captain, and he becomes an authority and he commands the men to go to the hall, bring back the food and they will set sail and just after sunset they row quietly out of the harbour and then Telemachus. Commands that the mast be raised and the sail be hoisted up. One translator talks about the boom in the sail as the wind hits it and they sail off. Into the night. The first thing they do is to make an offering, a libation of wine, and very wisely, they decide to offer this to Athena, and you can just imagine Athena chuckling as she participates in this sacred libation to herself. And then the ship sails through the night. Towards the dawn. Next time we will encounter King Nestor. And his memories of Odysseus. And then we're going to sidetrack again and. recount how it all started from the birth of Helen to the beginning. Of the Trojan War. Keep those cards and letters coming. My web address is www.tomleestoryteller.net and the podcast page has pictures and background information for each episode, and you can also send me an e-mail. Through the link. This is “The Odyssey Odyssey”. I'm Tom Lee. Thank you for listening. See you next time.