Homeric Society
| yet rulers are close to their people |
| timê 'honor' with a material component: 'prizes' |
| a dispute over timê drives the Iliad |
| philotes 'friendship' and xeinie: 'guest friendship' |
| mutual help relationships |
| no emotional component needed |
| characteristic of relations among Greek aristocrats |
| lines 359-60 in Bk. I of the Odyssey: |
| "The kind of gift / a host will give a stranger, friend to friend." (hoia philoi xeinoi xeinoisi didousi.) |
| arete: 'virtue', excellence |
| in the Iliad: courage-and-physical-prowess-and-social-position-and-fame |
| What does it consist of in the Odyssey? |
| a person who possesses arete is agathos |
| who is aristos akhaiôn, the "best of the Achaeans" |
| kleos 'what is heard; fame, glory' |
| role of the Muses, the "Reminders" |
| daughters of Mnemosyne, "Memory" |
| kleos aphthiton "undying glory" |
Nostoi 'return' vs. wanderings |
| return-songs found in the repertoire of 20th century Serbo-Croatian poets |
| the poem is about Odysseus' return |
| wanderings are merely a series of episodes (3 books) narrated by Odysseus to the Phaiacians |
| Nature of the threats faced by Odysseus and his men |
| 1) Cicones: desire to linger & feast |
| results in a pitched battle; many dead |
| "all memory of the journey home/ dissolved forever." (9.109-10) |
| 4) Aeolus: after loss of winds & destination, Odysseus tempted to kill himself |
| --death by water, dissolution of identity |
| 5) Laestrygonians: cannibalism again |
| "to wipe from their memories any thought of home." (10.260) |
| 7) Visit to the underworld: face to face w/ the insubstantiality of the dead |
| "those creatures who spellbind any man alive, . . . no sailing home for him" (12.45-48) |
| 9) Scylla and Charybdis: death; 'between a rock and a hard place' |
| 10) The Cattle of the sun: violation of a divine prerogative |
| 11) Shipwrecked in punishment: |
| 12) Calypso 'the concealer' |
| offer of immortality; loss of humanity |
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