#Odyssey Calypso is an entirely different character

[several-breathing-eyes]

Percy Jackson Calypso: A teenage girl who was stuck (mentally and physically) as a teenage girl for thousands of years. Due to being literally prevented from maturing and having love be used as a punishment for her, love, relationships, and maturity are things she now struggles with.

Odyssey Calypso: ...

[transbutchblues]

could you please elaborate on your feelings on the gods' characterization in the wisdom saga? Not forcing you tho!

sure! keep in mind that i love EPIC and that even if i complain about things here, i totally respect the choices that Jorge makes. it’s his musical and i admire all the work put in the songs.

disclaimer : most of the time i try to dissociate EPIC from the Odyssey in my mind, because thinking of EPIC as an adaptation tends to make me upset due to how different it is. but it’s also amazing on its own! there are creative liberties that i deeply love (like having Odysseus know about Scylla but not telling anyone, and changing the context of the mutiny), others that i don’t like that much but that i can get behind, and others that i really dislike. i understand why everything is done the way it’s done, but i still have opinions.

before talking about the Wisdom Saga i’d like to explain how i felt about the gods in the other sagas. as a classics student and a hellenic polytheist i tend to dislike most modern portrayals of the gods, mostly because they’re usually flat and lack nuance. up until this saga, i had never been disappointed by any choice done regarding the gods in EPIC. they were all so interesting.

i loved Zeus in Thunder Bringer. it’s one of my favorite songs, and i found that Zeus was beautifully portrayed. he’s the villain, sure, he offers an awful choice (for the second time), but the situation was created by Odysseus and his men. i loved the lyrics and their double meaning.

this all fell apart in God Games, for me. it just didn’t feel like the same Zeus anymore. and as much as i try to dissociate EPIC from Homer’s epics, i love the Iliad and the Odyssey too much not to point out that Zeus would never be like that. in the Odyssey, Zeus immediately agrees with Athena on the fact that Odysseus must be freed from Calypso’s island. Poseidon is the only god who really wants to stop Odysseus, Zeus doesn’t exactly care about him. he knows Odysseus’ fate and he won’t go against it. besides, Athena is Zeus’ favorite daughter in Homer’s works. he loves her. he doesn’t like it when she defies her, that’s very clear in the Iliad, he even threatens her when she does that, but he loves her dearly and he gives her nearly everything she asks for. he would simply not strike her down like that. and Zeus has no reason to go against his own word. if he sets a challenge, he respects the terms. he’s a fair god, he’s a ruler, he’s all about divine justice. i don’t mind changes, but i dislike these ones.

and Athena… Athena was always the deity i felt the less sure about in EPIC. don’t get me wrong, i love her in the previous songs. but i never knew where exactly her character arc would bring her and i felt uneasy. now i know i was right to feel this way.

there had to be an explanation to the fact that Athena hadn’t helped Odysseus during the years he was imprisoned by Calypso. i understand why in EPIC, this explanation is that Odysseus and Athena fought and fell apart. in fact, i love My Goodbye. i think the way Odysseus is portrayed in the Cyclops Saga makes him way more of an asshole than he is in the Odyssey (and that’s alright by me!), because he’s stupid and hubristic and he refuses to listen to Athena. in the Odyssey, Athena never abandons Odysseus, she helps him during his entire journey. but if he had talked to her like he does in EPIC, she probably would have left him! i find their fight interesting, how cold Athena can be, how betrayed they both feel.

but! here comes the Wisdom Saga. and i love Athena in Little Wolf. i like her in God Games too. maybe even in Love in Paradise. but i can’t get over We’ll Be Fine, it just doesn’t sound right to me. i like Telemachus. but i hate that this is how Athena suddenly decides to go back to Odysseus. "i could sleep at night", really? why would she feel guilty about leaving a hero who refused to listen to her? i enjoyed how cold she was in My Goodbye, it was an interesting choice, and i would have liked for her to remain this way. or to change more slowly. the loneliness aspect could have been great if it had been explored more in depth (which i know wouldn’t have been possible since she doesn’t have enough songs to allow for slow character development). this just felt rushed and strange.

i would have liked for Athena not to reach out until Odysseus does. the moment where he cries out her name at the end of Love in Paradise is heart-wrenching, i love it. that’s when i would have loved for her to suddenly hear him and go back to him, instead of already being there. that would have been a moment where she could have decided to help him despite what he said and did, because she still cares about him and she sees him being so desperate. that could have been a moment where she feels guilty or lonely.

i know it’s done that way so that Telemachus saves Odysseus’ life by giving advice to Athena. it’s fine, it’s a nice idea. i understand why people like it, and i’m glad they do. it just feels off to me.

regarding the other gods: firstly, Calypso is great and i love her! now, on the other ones: i think instead of all this weird Zeus portrayal in God Games, it would have been nice to mention Poseidon. if there had to be a reason for Zeus not to want to release Odysseus, it could have been something to do with his brother. Apollo’s appearance felt unnecessary, his argument was weak, i’m still glad he was there but i didn’t love his portrayal. my opinion for Hephaestus is similar (though i liked his portrayal better, he just felt unnecessary), with another thought: i’m already starting to see more art of him and i really wish people would depict him as disabled, because not everybody does. i liked Aphrodite’s and Ares’ part, and Hera’s was fun. i don’t necessarily like the overall vibes of God Games but that’s just a matter of my music tastes, there are multiple songs in EPIC that i don’t really listen to because of that while still enjoying their role in the storyline.

obviously most people disagree with me, and i’m glad everyone seems to love that saga. some parts were just really not for me, namely, We’ll Be Fine, the beginning of Love in Paradise, and the end of God Games.

[evilios]

What do you think of the new Epic saga?

Hi, hon! 🌻

I appreciate you letting me Epic rant on the main, I'll keep it under the cut for my dear mutuals and followers' mental stability (some spoilers):

I should say: I separate Epic from Homeric texts. If it was loosely based on the Odyssey back in the Troy Saga, it's entirely its own thing now. Which is not bad! It's just different and it handles its own questions and problems.

Overall, I think it was good. It has its downsides (a little below on that) but I do like the hard work put into the musical. It's not exactly easy to put events of hundreds upon hundreds lines of an epic poem into five songs, so I'm not harsh on it.

I presume that everything Jorge showed on the livestream is what is more or less firmly canon within his musical (visually and lore wise) so with that in mind:

I think he nailed Telemachus. I love this boy, he's my everything. He's young, sweet, protective, he's just lovely. Legendary was my favorite when it existed in snippets and cut videos, it is still one of my favorite songs. The "I want" songs are always fun and Telemachus is very much a Disney prince singing from his magical tower. It's fun!

I see what Jorge did with Antinous being older than Telemachus in the musical which is, well, he had to sacrifice something. I'm guessing letting a guy around Telemachus' age sing about planning to wife up his mom would be weird. But! The only reason I'm bringing it up is that the potential ship dynamic/chemistry between epic Telemachus and Antinous would have been insane if they were around the same age. But, again, I understand the change.

Antinous' voice is also everything.

I like Telemachus' dynamic with Athena in the musical. It's a little closer than in the epics, a little more lighthearted. He doesn't really know about the weight on her shoulders but he's hospitable, sweet, and kind. We'll be Fine is a good song.

This is overall an "Athena's character development arc" saga to me. I see she's repeatedly mirrored to Odysseus, regretting her decisions/being too harsh and all. Jorge can't stop making parallels but! I'm a slut for parallel plotlines, so I like that. Myth Odysseus' usual mirror is Agamemnon but... he doesn't really fully exist in the realm of the musical so I see why they picked Athena, it's an interesting choice.

I could be Calypso's love in paradise 😔

No like she's so pretty. I know she's morally questionable (modernity-wise) but. She is so pretty. Her hair is so pretty. She's so bubbly, I'm so obsessed with her.

I don't think the clock-reverse thing needed to be in her song, it kind of messes with the tempo. I can see how it will work out on stage if Epic is ever in theater, but I'm still 50/50 about that part. Overall, Love in Paradise is catchy as hell!

From the visuals Jorge showed, I assume Calypso was physically close to Odysseus in this version too. Which, coupled with Athena claiming he never cheated, brings me to two different thoughts: a). They were physically close but he didn't have intimacy with her b). Athena does not consider forced intimacy cheating and I'm definitely for the second one, Odysseus' S/A is important.

God Games... torn on this one. A bit too short to my liking BUT will work out on stage. I can see how you could use stage lights + physical space to reconstruct it. Song length wouldn't matter as much.

I love short haired dark haired Apollo, it's like Jorge requested his version of the God to be distinct. His argument also IS SO UNSERIOUS. Like he's there only because Daddy asked him isn't he.

I'm glad Helios' cattle was not brought up as some people expected (and as I feared), Jorge knows his source material.

Hephaestus is absolutely too sweet for this world. I'm not sure if his bit with loyalty is about Hera myth or Aphrodite myth or something else... but it was sweet.

Aphrodite can have my heart on a plate. Fully. I don't care. Her bit is my favorite + I love that she's more pissed off about Odysseus "betraying" familial love rather than blaming him for, idk, potentially sleeping with Calypso or something.

Ares has an amazing voice though I keep wondering about his point. We know Odysseus didn't fight Scylla because a). There's no point in fighting Scylla b). He was planning to betray his crew. A part of me wants to think Ares is pissed because he sacrificed his comrades instead of fighting for them, it is cowardly.

I like their little fighting sequence, really shows Athena's ready to throw down in a fight if needed.

Hera is gorgeous stunning show stopping etc. I like her bit, it's not really serious, like Apollo's, but I don't see why it would be. Odysseus isn't really her business and he is a notable hero, she doesn't need to test him as one. But she needs to test him as a husband! Which is lovely.

Zeus would never hurt Athena I refuse to believe that part /lh

Overall? It's good. A bit clunky/compressed but good. Thunder one is still my favorite but the Athena Saga was good, gave my girl some more depth.

[writings-of-a-hufflepuff]

Odyssey - an opinion on Odysseus

Tw: reference to sexual assault, coercision, rape in abstract terms as themes.

Currently reading the Odyssey for the first time and there are 2 interpretations it feels like you can make with Odysseus and his intereactions with characters like Calypso.

He's an unloyal twat who willingly sleeps with everyone woman he can (I feel like this seems to be the most popular female oriented take from what I know of a lot of modern retellings)

That actually, Odysseus has very little choice. The women he sleeps with are goddesses who entrap him in someway and the reality is that his one consistent goal is to get back to Penelope, the clever wife he loves. In effect Odysseus pretty much is being coerced and forced into these sexual relationships. Take Calypso for example, he can't kill her, can't leave, can't persuade her to let him go. He spends the years he's there crying, sobbing, desperate to leave but lays in her bed at night when she asks him to. This to me doesn't seem like a man who wants to be doing that, wants to be betraying his wife, but instead a man who has little choice. Admittedly as well, it's made clear that the goddesses (Calypso and Circe) have a sort of magic when it comes to coercing and getting people to do what they want and it's made clear that Calypso's goal is to have Odysseus stay as her husband forever. The moment he has a chance to leave, after Hermes forces Calypso's hand, he does so, refusing to stay and turning down immortality and by all accounts one of the most beautiful creatures on the planet. There are multiple women, mortal and immortal, in the books who are described as desiring Odysseus and as extremely beautiful. The immortal he sleeps with, but the mortal he does not despite the opportunities afforded him. This to me suggests he only sleeps with the immortal ones because he has very little real choice, who is he to go against a goddess? I personally believe that if he had a real choice, he would have been celibate for those 20 years until he returned home.

I think it's really easy to judge Odysseus at face value, that he's a cheat and liar and that he didn't have to do these things. But to me, my personal interpretation (which is what it is, you can have a different one and that's fine!) is that this man, this highly intelligent man, adores his wife, wants to be back home, but has very little choice. That at best he sleeps with these goddesses knowing that it will enable his survival and at worst he's literally forced through the coercive nature that is a goddess and her powers. It doesn't seem to me, especially with Calypso, that he wants to be there, that he really wants her or cares for her or desires her, it seems like a motion, something he has to do because he's forced to. This man spends his entire time crying and I suspect if he could have he would have killed her, but who can kill a goddess? A daughter of Atlas? Certainly not him.

It strikes me as well, that if he really were that much of a rake, then the mortal women he comes across who are described as beautiful and desiring him, he would also sleep with or even marry and stay with. But he doesn't.

It may be an unpopular interpretation, but I actually really like Odysseus and I personally believe he has little choice in these flawed actions and that in reality he's a victim, I don't believe Homer puts it forth as some sort of romantic ideal or the hero being rewarded.

Obviously, you don't have to agree. You can have your own opinion and that's fine.

[ssasides205]

hi, we know why u like vd and dislike sa, but what about caleo?

lemme answer like this

did we need all main characters to be paired up anon?

did we need the calypso chapter at all? does it add to the overall story?

because to me, personally, it feels like the biggest wasted opportunity ever. because riordan already had given us the perfect "oath kept with a dying breath" ever.

I've mentioned this before, but let me take the opportunity to finally talk about it in full.

there's a somewhat known comic that does an excellent job of illustrating this, but I can't remember the name of the artist (listen, they are very into the sunshades and I am not). but the absolute insane mirror aesthetic of Percy begging Nico to give him his word, the way Nico begged Percy to keep his, the parallels?

like, there really didn't have to be any death at all, there didn't need to be a different oath. that could've been it!

not only would the fandom have gone insane abt it, let's be honest, it would have also given Nico a part of the prophecy, and, most importantly, it would've made a lot of sense.

one thing about prophecies in Greek mythos, is that they're not very direct. This is brought up several times in cannon during the PJO series, and is actually revealed to have been the entire premise in TLO

so why would this be any different? especially, when there's a perfect candidate for the oath readily available. One that plays well into the overarching plot, and could have been used to give closure to the whole thing between Percy and Nico, giving the scene between them at the end have that extra layer.

although, the whole making Leo parallel Percy in regards to Calypso does give room for discussion for us valdangelo fans, vis a vis Nico's taste in men. but there were other ways.

to me, the Calypso thing always felt off, even when Percy met her. Mainly bc of what little I remembered of her from the Odyssey back when I was reading the books.

the fact that, in both cases, the two people involved knew basically nothing of each other and still fell in love felt very much suss. I theorized it was part of the curse in both occasions, that the curse did more than just bring the heroes, but also, ensured Calypso would love them.

and, also, I totally forgot that they hadn't saved her in the first series, or more like, I assumed they had but in one of the related side-stories. and I wish her freedom didn't come tied to romance.

like, you see how that reads, right?

this got away from me, but my point is, it felt very much like a last thought kind of deal. like you made the prophecy thing, and needed a promise with a dying breath, and needed a reason and a receiver of said promise? when Nico's promise was?? right there????

I don't think I'll ever be over that.

[desos-records]

Everything Mythologically Inaccurate About O Brother Where Art Thou (2000)

For the record. I adore this movie with all my soul and I know it’s loosely based on the Odyssey and this will basically be me pointing out references to the epic, but it’s the only film adaption I’ve ever seen of the Odyssey and that’s what I’m currently reading, so here we go.

Nice beginning quote, also the beginning of the Odyssey, although specific wording varies between translations

I have two copies of the Odyssey, one by Stanley Lombardo and the other by Emily Wilson (highly recommend her translation)

This seems to be from a translation done in 1961 by Robert Fitzgerald

The trouble with the Odyssey, plot wise, is that the majority of the actual monster-fighting, ship-wrecking Odyssey part is told entirely through flashback and it’s only about a third of the whole epic. It’s not a linear story and this movie is, so we’re going to have to accept that everything is out of order

The Odyssey actually starts with Telemachus, Odysseus’ son, and his own journey to learn whether his father is still alive or not

He visits Menelaus and Nestor, both characters from the Iliad and friends of Odysseus. They both make long speeches and there’s lots of ceremonial hospitality and I can understand why they skipped it

But in Book 5, we finally get to Odysseus, who is trapped on Calypso’s island

Odysseus is then freed from Calypso’s island by order of Zeus, so starting with a jailbreak makes sense

Fun Fact: the song here, “Po’ Lazarus,” wasn’t recorded for the film. It’s a recording of real Mississippi prisoners in 1959 made by the Ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax

After sailing away from Calypso’s island, Odysseus is immediately shipwrecked by Poseidon and he washes up on the shores of the Phaeacians and there’s a long, long period of time spent getting him food and clothes and some damn sleep, which again—I understand why they simplified it

I cannot stress enough how amazingly in character Everett is as Odysseus, literally the man never stops talking

Delmar and Pete are also fantastically in line with Odysseus’ men, who are mostly unnamed, but are frequently characterized as stupid, insubordinate, and lacking in self-control

They could also be analogous with Odysseus’ two slaves, Eumaeus and Philoetius, who help him kill the suitors and take back his house

*a reminder that slavery in Ancient Greece wasn’t racially based. It was still terrible, but it could technically happen to anyone*

I have to assume the push-cart is the equivalent of Odysseus’ raft after he leaves Calypso’s island and the old blind man is Tiresias, the blind prophet that Odysseus meets later when he travels the Underworld

Also the blind man’s line “I have no name” might be a reference to Odysseus telling the cyclops Polyphemus that “He is no one”

Odysseus is told a number of times by several different people that he’s fated to return home, but only after great suffering so this prophecy is a good summary thematically speaking

Tiresias also tells Odysseus that after he returns home, in order to appease Poseidon, he will have to travel again until he meets people who have never seen the ocean and then make sacrifices. This is Odysseus’ Lost Adventure, so to speak, because we have no record of it

The ‘cow on top of a cotton house’ is sort of in line with that part of Tiresias’ prophecy, in terms of ‘you’ll know it’s over when you see something weird’

Is Wash’s house supposed to be Circe’s island? Bit of a stretch

There’s a pig. I think that makes it Circe’s island

There’s no police force after them or deadline in the Odyssey, but there is Poseidon actively working against them and, more or less, a desire to get home as soon as possible

Are the baptists supposed to be the Lotus Eaters? Because Odysseus’ men do join up with them and he has to basically drag them by their ears back to the ship

I think it’s interesting that they characterize Everett as a non-believer since Odysseus is, actually, a favorite of gods like Athena and is super devout and careful about making proper sacrifices and such

The “you might be square with the Lord, but the state of Mississippi is more hard-nosed” point is funny because that’s honestly how the Odyssey ends. Odysseus has killed all the suitors and fulfilled his fate as decreed by Athena and Zeus, but the families of the murdered young men still chase after him demanding retribution. Athena intervenes at the end

Don’t think Tommy is supposed to be anyone in the Odyssey, maybe the multiple bards who sing stories throughout the epic, but he is based on the legends of Tommy Johnson or Robert Johnson, both black blues musicians who were said to have learned guitar from the Devil

Musicians in the Odyssey are said to be given their gifts by the gods, so that tracks

Okay, is THIS blind guy at the radio station supposed to be Tiresias or are they messing with me

“I am a man of sorrow” is a DIRECT line from the Odyssey (B.19, L.119, Wilson) and I’m SO GLAD they made a song out of it

Wait wait wait governor MENELAUS “pappy” O’Daniel?? Hilarious

“Thank god your mammy died giving birth. If she’da seen ya, she’da died of shame” amazing line. But wait, if you’re King Menelaus, are we talking about HELEN here

*Helen and Menelaus only had one child btw, her name is Hermione, which is the feminine version of Hermes*

There’s just something about the Great Depression Era that tugs on my heart and makes me cry, I love it

Odysseus is firstly a PIRATE and a SACKER OF CITIES which means him stealing treasure and what not is in character

Although the particular treasure he ends up with at the end does not come from The Trojan War, but was gifted to him by the Phaeacians, so

Wait a second. Everett’s name is Ulysses Everett McGill, right? Ulysses is the Latin form of Odysseus

Is all that money in the bag TWO dollar bills?? Fucking fantastic

George “Baby Face” Nelson is also a real person, famous gangster and bank robber. Not sure he lines up with anybody in the Odyssey, but my god did they do an excellent job casting. He killed more FBI agents than any person in history. He also was not executed by electric chair, but was shot to death by the FBI

Ohhh the “not the livestock” thing is a reference to Odysseus’ men eating the Sun Cows when they were specifically told not to and all of them dying as consequence

Hey they’re sitting on old busted Greek columns, that’s cool

HOMER stokes. Nice

I KNEW those little boys carrying ice had to be a reference to something. Eudora Welty’s photograph for WPA of two boys carrying ice

Odysseus IS an excellent storyteller

Alright, alright. A note about Sirens. They are not sexy ladies sitting up on rocks. The Odyssey doesn’t even give a physical description, just that they’re monsters who sing at passing sailors, promising their greatest desire. In Odysseus’ case, that is KNOWLEDGE, specifically about his family and friends

Although, funnily enough, Odysseus does come across young girls doing their laundry in a river after shipwrecking. And he is naked at the time. But there is NO seduction happening. He just politely asks if maybe he can borrow some clothes and also could someone point him in the direction of the nearest town, please and thank you

Obsessed with the idea that you have to get Odysseus black out drunk in order to shut him up

Okay, maybe those ladies were supposed to be Circe too—she turns people into pigs (or frogs, in this case) AND sleeps with Odysseus

I spy a Cyclops. Polyphemus, the bible salesman

Which is funny, btw, because Odysseus basically calls Polyphemus godless for breaking hospitality rules and eating several of his men, which does happen here in a way

There is crying in damn near every single book of the Odyssey and it’s a shame there’s so little of it here

*reference to the Carter family, legends of American Folk music*

Odysseus just has a son, Telemachus, but I think the little girls are supposed to be the Graces? The Muses? idk trios of women are really common

I love this because at first Telemachus doesn’t recognize his father either (partly because he’s never actually met him and partly because Athena’s put him in disguise)

Neither does Penelope until Odysseus proves himself by a) winning the archery contest and b) knowing the secret of their marriage bed 

“Not since you got hit by that train!” perfect

“Odysseus died in the war!” Penelope says. *Odysseus, sitting right in front of his family, looking at Athena like she’s a camera on the Office*

Penelope has, like, thirty suitors who showed up to the house one day and just refused to leave until she picked one of them to marry and she can’t get them to leave until Odysseus returns and kills them all

Oh wait, there’s seven little girls. Right, probably the Muses then. Especially since they sing. That’s cute, I love that

If anyone is as big a liar as Odysseus, it’s definitely Penelope. That’s why he loves her. Totally in character

Penny. Penelope. Close enough.

I think it’s hilarious that Everett can’t fight. Especially since Odysseus just. murders all the suitors without much fuss since he’s so great at everything all the time

“Just a drifter, I guess” she says about Everett, which is great because Odysseus shows up disguised as a beggar at first and it’s unclear if Penelope genuinely can’t recognize him or if she’s playing along with his scheme to get the suitors out of the house

“Don’t trust women” is a BIG thing in the Odyssey, unfortunately, which is a little hypocritical of it since it’s main character is a lying, scheming, murdering, pirate and war criminal who cheats on his wife repeatedly

I don’t CARE if Hermes told you to, Odysseus, it’s still a double standard

The movie theater scene reminds me of the bit in the Odyssey where they travel to the Underworld and talk to some of Odysseus’ friends. Agamemnon tells him not to go home lest he be betrayed by his wife and murdered like he was

THERE’S the crying

I… I can’t explain the Klan scene except for, well, Polyphemus gets blinded by a stick that’s on fire, so. There’s that. Maybe they’re Polyphemus’ sheep? The suitors trying to kill Telemachus?? idk

The whole world is not against Odysseus, he’s just a liar who’s too smart for his own good and occasionally his selfishness makes him a little stupid, that’s all

More disguises! I love it

More Penelope not recognizing Odysseus until he proves himself! Excellent!

See, at least Everett doesn’t have to kill a room full of people in order to solve his problems

Oh oh oh, wait, is them having to go get the ring like Odysseus’ Lost Adventure to the people who’ve never seen the sea in order to lift Poseidon’s curse?? Or is it like Odysseus proving he knows that his and Penelope’s marriage bed was made out of a living tree and can’t be moved without cutting it??

See? Don’t go after livestock that ain’t yours

I guess this makes Poseidon the Devil here

Orrr this is when the families of the dead suitors try and kill Odysseus?

The flood at the end is definitely Athena’s deus ex machina though

Couldn’t tell an Odyssey story without a little bit a water, could you?

Ending with the little Muse girls singing with the blind prophet?? Amazing, I love it

Hercules (1997)

Clash of the Titans (2010)

[maskedlady]

things people who haven’t read/studied the homeric poems should know

the iliad isn’t about ten years of war. it’s about fifty-one days from the last year of war. more than nine years have passed since the beginning. neither the recruit of achilles or odysseus nor aulis nor the sacrifice of iphigenia nor the trojan horse and not even achilles’ death feature in it. it actually ends with hector’s burial.

similarly, the odyssey starts during the tenth year of odysseus’ travels, when he leaves the island of the nymph calypso who had kept him there for eight years. while the story of his travels is actually there, it’s a massive flashback that odysseus himself narrates.

odysseus actually only travels circa one year, if you subtract the seven years spent on ogigia, the one year with circe, the various months and bits they camped in other places.

part of the odyssey is actually about odysseus’ son, telemachos, and his quest to find his father. also another part is about odysseus returning to ithaca and killing a bunch of princes who were trying to usurp his throne.

the aeneid is not a homeric poem. it’s styled on the homeric model, but it was written in latin by a roman poet, and the protagonist is technically one of the antagonists from the iliad.

homer never existed.

he isn’t a historical figure, he is a name with a legend attached, to whom these poems are attributed. the poems were written—no, not even written, composed orally by a series of unnamed aoidoi (hm... ministrels?) through the ages.

in fact this is quite obvious when you read the iliad. there are a lot of inconsistencies, like frequent style changes, chapters that have nothing to do with anything else and no influence on the story whatsoever, strange time lapses—at some point it’s midday twice the same day

it is thought that all of these separate fragments were then collected and organized by one person, and this version was then handed down, orally, until the first written edition around 520 b.c.

the mycenean civilization that these poems originate from ended in 1200 b.c. circa

the odyssey was initially part of a whole group of nestoi, aka “return poems”, that were basically the tales of the return of each hero from troy. the odyssey is the only one that remains, though we do know something about the others too from other pieces of greek literature

a warning for the interested. these poems are a pain to read. they are delightful but they are a pain. they were composed orally so they are full of epithets, descriptions, metaphors and similitudes. these acted as fillers to help the aedo of turn reach the length of the verse, make the various characters more recognizable, and also make the poems more comprehensible to the general public, composed mostly of common people who had never actually been in a battle—so battles and duels are often compared to more familiar scenes, like fights between animals.

no i’m not joking

there is one in particular where the screeching army of trojans coming down the hill is compared to cranes migrating over the oceans.

also, the duel between hector and patroclus is one of the “compared to animal fights” scene

when odysseus is about to drown, he talks to his own heart. possibly because it sounds slightly less crazy and more Romantic than just directly talking to oneself.

helen insults paris real often. hector berates him both internally and publicly. in fact everyone insults paris. paris is the local coward and scapegoat. deservedly. i rejoice

everybody loves patroclus. all the kings hate each other but everyone loves him—so much so that they risk their lives over his corpse 

which, mind me, wasn’t something that special in and of itself. it was important to retrieve comrades’ corpses because if the enemy got ahold of your body he’d leave it to rot and be devoured by dogs and crows, which was a huge dishonour (and also possibly barred you from entrance to the afterlife)

so much so that the ancient greek version of “go to hell” is eis korakas, “to the crows” (“may you die, lie unburied, and your body be eaten by crows”)

at some point they hold a truce (possibly several times) so they’ll have the time to collect, burn and bury all the fallen soldiers. 

back to patroclus because i got sidetracked: still. this time it is kind of a big deal because the literal centre of the fighting after patroclus dies is all the major greek heroes playing tug-o-war against hector and his brothers with patroclus’ corpse. the centre of the fighting, people, this is no joke

at some point someone is sent to tell achilles that his lover’s body is in danger so he better get out of your sulk, hurry up and come help the rest of us

achilles going armour-less to the battlefield and screaming for patroclus is enough to send the trojans running.

i am sure that all of you know this but the reason achilles doesn’t have armour is that when hector kills patroclus he takes achilles’ armour, that patroclus was wearing, as spoils of war

so an entire book after that is devoted to hephaestus forging achilles new, better armour so he can actually fight again

look, it is not actually stated that they were lovers, but it’s obvious. in greek culture especially. that was the norm and italian school teachers can get over it and stop omitting it from lessons and school books any time now

odysseus isn’t actually an asshole. sure, a lot of his misadventures were caused by him being too curious and disregarding his comrades’ advice *cough*cyclops*cough* but most of the most destructive events were caused by them disregarding his orders.

“do not kill and eat the sacred cows of apollo! he’d kill us.” guess what they did. guess how it ended 

or when they stopped by eolos’ island. eolos, god of the winds, gave odysseus a flask with all the adverse winds imprisoned inside, leaving free only the one that he needed to take him to ithaca. they got so, so very near, and then odysseus fell asleep and the others opened the thing because they thought there was more treasure inside it, and all the winds came out and blew them halfway across the mediterranean

athena often glamours odysseus to look younger and prettier or older and then again younger. it’s amazing because he always looks either like an old beggar (for camouflage) or like a young and handsome man.

do some maths. at the beginning of the war he must’ve been at least twenty. + ten years of war. + ten years of travel. at the end of the odyssey he is at least forty. by ancient standards that was not young.

odysseus’ whole voyage is basically a pissing contest between poseidon and athena. actually between poseidon and the rest of the gods. poseidon hates him and all the other gods take turns helping him.

odysseus is not an asshole, but the greeks probably considered him a shitty character, because he was clever, shrewd, and the only survivor of his community. the greeks really insisted on the concept of community, the individual doesn’t have worth in and of themself but as a part of society. this is particularly evident when he gets to the cyclops, who are the very antithesis of the greek man, described as uncivilized and living in isolation without assemblies or laws. a lot of emphasis is put on the fact that they live outside of a community.

alternatively, the difference between the iliad and the odyssey (and their respective heroes) signifies the change in greek culture, from the warrior myceneans to commerce and voyage: odysseus represents the victory of intelligence over force, and his qualities are the characteristics, for example, of a merchant

i should perhaps point out that the odyssey was composed much later than the iliad, which is also the reason it has a more complex structure (begins with the gods + telemachos’ quest, we first see odysseus on ogigia, then he recounts his whole voyage in a long flashback triggered by a bard at a feast singing about the trojan war)

oh look i got sidetracked again

back to the trivia!

do not be fooled by madeline miller. patroclus was indeed a warrior, and a very good one at that. and briseis was indeed achilles’ lover, and loved him (that is explicitly stated).

odysseus might have loved penelope but that does not mean he did not sleep around with every woman he met

circe. calypso (by whom he is imprisoned for seven years). and nausicaa princess of the phaeacians falls in love with him. this is engineered by athena 

i don’t think he actually sleeps with her but athena does make him look younger and prettier so she’ll be smitten and welcome him at the palace and give him a bunch of gifts and eventually a ship to take him back to ithaca

in the poem named after him, his own poem, odysseus is always the stranger, the guest, or the beggar.

or all three.

or all three, but it’s a lie and he’s actually at home, the king returned.

despite the iliad being about one and a half months and the odyssey being more than a year + more time taken up by other characters, the iliad is about one and a half times the odyssey.

more to come (maybe)

[womenintranslation]

In looking at other translations of the Odyssey, I’m certainly struck that there are certain highly debatable interpretations that seem to be pretty common in English versions by men (although not universal), such as presenting Calypso as a sex-crazed hysterical “nymph,” or having Telemachus call the women raped by/who slept with the suitors “sluts” or “whores,” when the original does not do these things. I don’t do those things, but is that entirely because I’m female? I suspect there’s more to it than that. I do tend to assume that female characters are not inherently less interesting than male ones, and I do want to be as clear-minded as possible about gender roles and inequalities in all their complexity and contradiction, in this or any text, as well as other social roles. But I’m not sure that even that necessarily follows from being female. I also think it’s possible, in theory, for a male translator to bring a different perspective to a canonical text, including a perspective informed by a more critical set of ideas about modern and ancient gender assumptions.

Emily Wilson interviewed in Words Without Borders.

[didanawisgi]

The Odyssey is about a man. It says so right at the beginning — in Robert Fagles’s 1996 translation, for example, the poem opens with the line, “Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns.”

In the course of the poem, that man plots his return home after fighting the Trojan War, slaughters the suitors vying to marry his wife Penelope, and reestablishes himself as the head of his household.

But the Odyssey is also about other people: Penelope, the nymph Calypso, the witch Circe, the princess Nausicaa; Odysseus’s many shipmates who died before they could make it home; the countless slaves in Odysseus’s house, many of whom are never named.

Emily Wilson, the first woman to translate the Odyssey into English, is as concerned with these surrounding characters as she is with Odysseus himself. Written in plain, contemporary language and released earlier this month to much fanfare, her translationlays bare some of the inequalities between characters that other translations have elided. It offers not just a new version of the poem, but a new way of thinking about it in the context of gender and power relationships today. As Wilson puts it, “the question of who matters is actually central to what the text is about.”

Why it matters for a woman to translate the Odyssey

Composed around the 8th century BC, the Odyssey is one of the oldest works of literature typically read by an American audience; for comparison, it’s almost 2,000 years older than Beowulf. While the Iliad tells the story of the Trojan War, the Odyssey picks up after the war is over, when Odysseus, the king of Ithaca, is trying to make his way home.

Both poems are traditionally attributed to the Greek poet Homer, but since they almost certainly originated as oral performances and not written texts, it’s hard to tell whether a single person composed them, or whether they are the result of many different creators and performers refining and contributing to a story over a period of time. (The introduction to Wilson’s translation includes a longer discussion of the question of who “Homer” was.)

Wilson, a professor of classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania, has also translated plays by the ancient Greek playwright Euripides and the Roman philosopher Seneca. Her translation of the Odyssey is one of many in English (though the others have been by men), including versions by Fagles, Robert Fitzgerald, Richmond Lattimore, and more. Translating the long-dead language Homer used — a variant of ancient Greek called Homeric Greek — into contemporary English is no easy task, and translators bring their own skills, opinions, and stylistic sensibilities to the text. The result is that every translation is different, almost a new poem in itself.

A battlefield epic, the Iliad has very few major female characters. The Odyssey, however, devotes significant time to the life (and even the dreams) of Penelope. Circe, Calypso, and the goddess Athena all play important roles. This was one of the reasons I was drawn to the Odyssey as a teenager, and why I’ve returned to it many times over the years.

But the Odyssey is hardly a feminist text. Odysseus may have trouble getting home, but at least he gets to travel the world and have sex with beautiful women like Calypso and Circe. Penelope, meanwhile, has to wait around while boorish suitors drink and carouse in her family’s home, pressuring her to marry one of them. To buy time, she says she can’t marry until she finishes weaving a funeral shroud for her father-in-law, but every night she undoes the day’s work, making the task last as long as she can. “His work always gets him somewhere,” Wilson told me. “Her work is all about undoing. It’s all about hiding herself, hiding her desires, and creating something whose only purpose is to get nowhere.”

Some feminist readings of the Odyssey have tried to cast Penelope as heroic in her own way, sometimes by comparing her to Odysseus. “I think there’s so many things wrong with that,” Wilson said. “She’s constantly still being judged by, is she like him.” What’s more, the heroic-Penelope reading focuses on a wealthy woman at the expense of the many enslaved women in the poem, some of whom meet an untimely and brutal end. When Odysseus returns home and kills all the suitors, he also tells his son Telemachus to kill the slave women who had sex with (or were raped by) the suitors. “Hack at them with long swords, eradicate / all life from them,” Odysseus says in Wilson’s translation. “They will forget the things / the suitors made them do with them in secret.”

As a woman, Wilson believes she comes to the Odyssey with a different perspective than translators who have gone before her. “Female translators often stand at a critical distance when approaching authors who are not only male, but also deeply embedded in a canon that has for many centuries been imagined as belonging to men,” she wrote in a recent essay at the Guardian. She called translating Homer as a woman an experience of “intimate alienation.”

“Earlier translators are not as uncomfortable with the text as I am,” she explained to me, “and I like that I’m uncomfortable.” Part of her goal with the translation was to make readers uncomfortable too — with the fact that Odysseus owns slaves, and with the inequities in his marriage to Penelope. Making these aspects of the poem visible, rather than glossing over them, “makes it a more interesting text,” she said.

Wilson’s translation is different from its predecessors in subtle — and not so subtle — ways

Part of the way Wilson challenges previous readings of the Odyssey is with style. Her translation made a splash months before it was published, when an excerpt ran in the summer 2017 issue of the Paris Review. I and other Odyssey fans were excited by Wilson’s opening line: “Tell me about a complicated man.” In its matter-of-fact language, it’s worlds different from Fagles’s “Sing to me of the man, Muse,” or Robert Fitzgerald’s 1961 version, “Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story / of that man skilled in all ways of contending.” Wilson chose to use plain, relatively contemporary language in part to “invite readers to respond more actively with the text,” she writes in a translator’s note. “Impressive displays of rhetoric and linguistic force are a good way to seem important and invite a particular kind of admiration, but they tend to silence dissent and discourage deeper modes of engagement.”

“There’s an idea that Homer has to sound heroic and ancient,” Wilson told me, but that idea comes with a value system attached, one that includes “endorsing this very hierarchical kind of society as if that’s what heroism is.” Telling the story in plainer language allows readers to see Odysseus and his society in another light.

There are flashes of beauty in Wilson’s Odyssey. “The early Dawn was born,” she writes in Book 2; “her fingers bloomed.” Of the forest on Calypso’s island, where many birds nest, she writes, “It was full of wings.” But throughout the book, there’s a frankness to Wilson’s language around work and the people who do it. Of Eurymedusa, a slave in the house of princess Nausicaa, she writes, “She used to babysit young Nausicaa / and now she lit her fire and cooked her meal.”

The slaves in older translations of the Odyssey do not “babysit” — often, they’re not identified as slaves at all. Fagles, for instance, calls Eurymedusa a “chambermaid.” Fitzgerald calls her a “nurse.” “It sort of stuns me when I look at other translations,” Wilson said, “how much work seems to go into making slavery invisible.”

Wilson, by contrast, uses the word “slave” for Eurymedusa and many other enslaved characters, even when the original uses a more specific term. The Homeric Greek dmoe, or “female-house-slave,” Wilson writes in her translator’s note, could be translated as “maid” or “domestic servant,” but those terms would imply that the woman was free. “The need to acknowledge the fact and the horror of slavery,” she writes, “and to mark the fact that the idealized society depicted in the poem is one where slavery is shockingly taken for granted, seems to me to outweigh the need to specify, in every instance, the type of slave.”

While Wilson’s language is often plain, it’s also carefully chosen. She told Wyatt Mason at the New York Times magazine she could have begun the poem with the line “Tell me about a straying husband,” an even more radical choice that would still have been “a viable translation.” But, she said, “it would give an entirely different perspective and an entirely different setup for the poem.” She spoke, Mason noted, with “the firmness of someone making hard choices she believes in.”

Those choices show up clearly in her treatment of Penelope. Penelope is a frustrating character — it’s not entirely clear why she doesn’t simply send the suitors away or marry one of them, and the poem offers limited access to her thoughts and feelings. Wilson didn’t try to make Penelope easier to understand — “the opacity of Penelope,” as she puts it, is one of the aspects of the poem she wants to trouble readers and make them uncomfortable.

But small details can tell us something about even the most frustrating of characters. At one point in Book 21, Penelope unlocks the storeroom where Odysseus keeps his weapons — as Wilson writes in her translator’s note, this act sets in motion the slaughter of the suitors and the resolution of the poem. As she picks up the key, Homer describes her hand as pachus, or “thick.” “There is a problem here,” Wilson writes, “since in our culture, women are not supposed to have big, thick, or fat hands.” Translators have usually solved the problem by skipping the adjective, or putting in something more traditional — Fagles mentions Penelope’s “steady hand.” Wilson, however, renders the moment this way: “Her muscular, firm hand/ picked up the ivory handle of the key.”

“Weaving does in fact make a person’s hands more muscular,” she writes. “I wanted to ensure that my translation, like the original, underlines Penelope’s physical competence, which marks her as a character who plays a crucial part in the action — whether or not she knows what she is doing.”

Wilson does not give Penelope more agency or power than she has in the original poem, but she also does not take any of the queen’s original power away by making descriptions of her conform to modern gender stereotypes.

“Part of fighting misogyny in the current world is having a really clear sense of what the structures of thought and the structures of society are that have enabled androcentrism in different cultures, including our own,” Wilson said, and the Odyssey, looked at in the right way, can help readers understand those structures more clearly. The poem offers a “defense of a male dominant society, a defense of its own hero and his triumph over everybody else,” she said, “but it also seems to provide these avenues for realizing what’s so horrible about this narrative, what’s missing about this narrative.”

Recent events have led to a widespread debate over how audiences should consume the work of people we know to be abusers of women. This is intertwined with the question of how we should consume art that has racist, sexist, or otherwise bigoted elements. Often elided from this conversation is the fact that people of color and women of all races have been consuming racist and sexist art in America for generations (in many classes on Western literature, for instance, they have had little choice), and developing their own responses to it, responses that are often deeply nuanced.

Conservative talk of “special snowflakes” demanding trigger warnings ignores the fact that people marginalized in the Western canon have long read literature from it in exactly the way Wilson describes: both as an endorsement of its author’s values, and as evidence of how horrible those values can be, and whom they leave out.

Wilson’s translation, then, is not a feminist version of the Odyssey. It is a version of the Odyssey that lays bare the morals of its time and place, and invites us to consider how different they are from our own, and how similar.

[janiedean]

Pareri? Posso creare un tag per "omero discourse"? www(.)vox(.)com/identities/2017/11/20/16651634/odyssey-emily-wilson-translation-first-woman-english

............................

But the Odyssey is hardly a feminist text. Odysseus may have trouble getting home, but at least he gets to travel the world and have sex with beautiful women like Calypso and Circe. Penelope, meanwhile, has to wait around while boorish suitors drink and carouse in her family’s home, pressuring her to marry one of them. To buy time, she says she can’t marry until she finishes weaving a funeral shroud for her father-in-law, but every night she undoes the day’s work, making the task last as long as she can. “His work always gets him somewhere,” Wilson told me. “Her work is all about undoing. It’s all about hiding herself, hiding her desires, and creating something whose only purpose is to get nowhere.”

MA CHI CAZZO SI ASPETTA UN TESTO FEMMINISTA DA ANTICHI GRECI CAMPATI MILLENNI FA MA BASTA

As a woman, Wilson believes she comes to the Odyssey with a different perspective than translators who have gone before her. “Female translators often stand at a critical distance when approaching authors who are not only male, but also deeply embedded in a canon that has for many centuries been imagined as belonging to men,” she wrote in a recent essay at the Guardian. She called translating Homer as a woman an experience of “intimate alienation.”

SOLO PER STA OPINIONE NON GLIELO FACEVO TRADURRE

“Earlier translators are not as uncomfortable with the text as I am,” she explained to me, “and I like that I’m uncomfortable.” Part of her goal with the translation was to make readers uncomfortable too — with the fact that Odysseus owns slaves, and with the inequities in his marriage to Penelope. Making these aspects of the poem visible, rather than glossing over them, “makes it a more interesting text,” she said.

.... ???? MA E’ SCEMA????

MA POI CANTAMI O MUSA E’ FONDAMENTALE, che cazzo traduci tell me of a complicated man?? Polytropos = MULTIFORME, MICA COMPLICATO. NON E’ LA STESSA COSAAA

Wilson, by contrast, uses the word “slave” for Eurymedusa and many other enslaved characters, even when the original uses a more specific term.

MA STA MALE??????

“The need to acknowledge the fact and the horror of slavery,” she writes, “and to mark the fact that the idealized society depicted in the poem is one where slavery is shockingly taken for granted, seems to me to outweigh the need to specify, in every instance, the type of slave.”

shockingly? ma in che mondo vive? nell’antica grecia non era shocking, non puoi fare omero portavoce dei tuoi discorsi politici cazzo

Those choices show up clearly in her treatment of Penelope. Penelope is a frustrating character — it’s not entirely clear why she doesn’t simply send the suitors away or marry one of them, and the poem offers limited access to her thoughts and feelings.

.... perché in quanto donna non poteva??? e se il marito non era ufficialmente morto aveva scuse per non sposarli?? ma il punto è che avrebbe potuto sposarsene uno e non lo fa per fedeltà coniugale?? santoddio

comunque il mio unico commento è:

e basta. se so così retrogradi che lì una donna che traduce omero fa notizia e qui la traduzione della calzecchi onesti ce l’ho avuta alle medie, al liceo e alle elementari so cazzi loro, porcamiserialadra.

[the-almighty-aphrodite]

Linnea is doing a character change to Calypso. Please adjust her traits.

Calypso is a figure from Greek mythology that has very unclear origins. While it’s not completely clear exactly who or what she is, she is perhaps most famous for her role in Homer’s Odyssey. Her role in that tale composes one of the more important movements in the book, and is her biggest appearance in mythology.

Who is Calypso?

Calypso’s origins are very confusing in Greek mythology. According to Homer, Calypso was a nymph, a kind of minor female goddess that is deeply connected to a specific place. In his account of her past, she is the daughter of the Titan Atlas and she takes order directly from the Olympian gods.

According to Hesiod, though, Calypso is the daughter of Tethys and Oceanus. In this telling, she is one of the Oceanids, a kind of sea nymph. There is some discussion that this might be an entirely different Calypso from the one found in Homer’s tale.

Finally, Apollodorus gives her an entirely different parentage. She is the daughter of Nereus and Doris according to him, and is thus one of the Nereids. In this form, she would be more closely connected to POSEIDON.

The Odyssey

Regardless of her origin, Calypso is best remembered for her appearance in Homer’s Odyssey. In that tale, she lived on the island of Ogygia. When Odysseus’ journey took him there, she kept him prisoner. As with most things that concern Calypso, there’s some disagreement as to how long ODYSSEUS was there. What is known, though, is that Calypso wanted to keep him for her husband.

Calypso fell in love with Odysseus, much as GREEK GODS tended to do with Greek women. She used her powers to enchant him as she wove, keeping under her spell for most of the time he was on the island. While Odysseus may have wanted to go home, he certainly didn’t make much of an effort to leave on his own.

Eventually, Odysseus would get Athena to intervene on his behalf. She was ordered to let Odysseus go by the Olympians, though she wasn’t particularly happy about that fact. Fortunately for Odysseus, she was relatively kind to him – not only did she let him go, but she also gave him supplies so he could complete his journey home. Not only was Calypso expected to act differently than the male Greek gods, but she also went out of her way to be kind when she was forced to let her prisoner go.

Children

There’s some disagreement as to whether Calypso and Odysseus had children while he was on the island. In some tales, Calypso is the mother of the Etruscan ruler Latinus. In other stories, Odysseus and Calypso have two sons named either Nausithous and Nausinous or Nausithous and Hyginus.

There is are also a few classical sources that say that Calypso and Odysseus had an unnamed daughter. This girl would go on to marry her half-brother Telemachus, the son of Odysseus and Penelope. While this is not found in the Odyssey, it is a fairly common note in folk mythology