#even with his vision that Odysseus was trapped in Ogygia
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katerinaaqu · 2 days ago
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Odysseus and Menelaus parallels are scary!
Soooo isn't anyone gonna talk, after all my posts, on how the two very good friends during the Homeric Poems, Odysseus and Menelaus have similarly meaning names? No? Okay then I suppose I have to, then and I will!
Odysseus: => ὀδύσσομαι (odyssomai)= to be angry at, to be bitter against, to hate
Menelaus: => μένος (menos)=anger, fury, vigor + λαός (laos)= people, army
So we have basically:
Odysseus: Anger Bringer, Angry/Furious, Hated
Menelaus: Fury of the People, Anger of the People, Vigor of the Army
So just for your information the two heroes that share so much in common;
their love for their home
the love for their wife (a very beautiful and very intelligent wife!)
agruably both married a princess that was out of their league at that time (Menelaus married Helen who was a princess of a powerful kingdom, arguably a demigoddess while he was an exiled prince once and a second son and Odysseus...yeah come on! The Prince/King from a small kingdom arrived in Sparta without even adequate wedding gifts or no gifts at all and left with a Spartan princess! Way you go champion!)
the love for their only child they left behind (the possibility of both of them having children outside of marriage in post-homeric sources for different reasons to he back of our heads)
their connection to Sparta by marriage
their adventure with being shipwrecked
consequently having to beg for the help of another ruler
coming home several years after the end of the war
the two characters that went to Troy to negotiate
one of them would absolutely be capable of starting a war for the woman he loved, the other one did it
two emotional men who share their sadness and happiness gladly with people they trust and love
both suffered trials and tirbulations (Menelaus was exiled from his own home as a young man, Odysseus wandere all over Mediterannean at his later age)
So the two dudes that share ALL this they also share a similar sounding name that also dictates their position in the war and the importance but also how they also suffer and how much anger they invoked but also felt deep inside!
And these two share such a strong friendship!!!! Suffer with me now!
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