Strange Instances of Time and Space in Odysseusâ Return
Although the Odyssey is usually read and studied by well advised readers, who are perfectly aware of the poetâs major device to start the narrative in medias res, the structure of time and space throughout the poem often conveys to the audience subtle and unexpected aspects which speak in favour of this articleâs title. The purpose of this article is, therefore, to focus on some of these aspects which appear to be particularly significant.1
An important one seems to be what I will further call a âcorrupted nostosâ, an idea underlying or parallel to the general narrative of Odysseusâ return. One remembers that four times in the Odyssey Odysseus returns to the same point from which he had departed. The first time occurs at the very beginning of Odysseusâ return and is mentioned by Nestor when Telemachus visits Pylos (3.13â166). The Pylian king tells Telemachus that after the sack of Troy, Odysseus initially sailed with Nestor from Troy up to Tenedos but then he returned back to Troy to join Agamemnon who had stayed there to offer sacrifices to Athena. The second time is Odysseusâ return to the island of Aeolus after Odysseusâ companions thoughtlessly opened the skin bag that Aeolus had offered to Odysseus (10.46â76). The third time is Odysseusâ return to the island of Circe after having visited the Underworld on Circeâs advice (12.1â36). The fourth time is Odysseusâ return to the strait of Skylla and Charybdis after the shipwreck of his ship due to the impious slaughter of Heliosâ cattle by Odysseusâ companions (12.426â446).2 Of these four returns, the first (Tenedos-Troy) and the third (Underworld-Circe) are due to Odysseusâ own intentions and have no negative consequences for him nor is there any differentiation perceived in the circumstances he had already experienced in his first contact with these places. But in the second and the fourth occasion (return to Aeolusâ island and to the strait of Skylla and Charybdis respectively) the situation is totally different. The first time that Odysseus crosses the strait of Skylla and Charybdis he is on his boat, with his companions and the danger he encounters comes from Skylla. The second time Odysseus is without his boat and without his companions; plus, he enters the strait from the opposite edge and the danger he encounters comes from Charybdis. In contrast to Jason, the hero of the pre-homeric Argonautic epic, who crossed the strait of the Clashing Rocks one way only, Odysseus crosses twice and both ways a strait with two different types of danger coming from each one of the straitâs two rocks. Further on, this second crossing is for Odysseus the first danger he experiences alone, after the death of his companions. The circumstances of the second crossing are definitely worse than those of the first. The return to Aeolusâ island leads also to a worse departure, since, instead of being welcomed, hosted and gifted, Odysseus is this time cursed, rejected and expelled.
Where does this theme of reverse nostos or second departure lead us? It seems to me that here we have something more than the occurrence of one of our usual, frequent and well identified tools often registered in Homeric poetry: this is neither a simple narrative doublet nor a narrative retardation of the plot. Actually, these reverse nostoi are highly interesting as to their own content and their own context. First of all, we observe in them the persistence of the number 2 (two departures from the same place, four occurrences of the theme, two crossings from two entries of the strait, two dangers from two rocks), whereas the usual number pertaining to Homeric epics is traditionally stated to be either 3 or some multiple of 3.3 Secondly, one tends to see in these reverse nostoi and repeated departures an ironic undermining of the concept of the nostos itself, by forwarding first a return to the departure instead of an arrival to the end â something that I would tend to call a âcorrupted nostosâ â and then a second departure from the same place under much worse circumstances than those prevailing the first time. Further on, since these corrupted nostoi and their unhappy outcome are always the result of the companionsâ unwise initiative, one wonders whether the purpose of these narratives on Odysseusâ second departure from the same place is not only to echo but actually to enhance and further develop the idea announced in line 5 of the prooimion, where we are told that Odysseus did not finally save his companions, although he very much wished to do so. In other words, these corrupted nostoi could merely illustrate the idea that the companions were not saved, because they simply did not âdeserveâ to be saved; whether this distinction is to be considered against the background of aristocratic values prevailing in the Odyssey is a question to be answered in another paper or in another book, but it certainly has to do with the way the idea of âcollectiveâ and the idea of âindividualâ are perceived in the epic. What these narratives say (which the prooimon does not say) is not only that the companions are ruined by their own áŒÏαÏΞαλ᜷αÎč, but mainly that their existence is ruinous to Odysseusâ own salvation; by the middle of the trip to Ithaca this major incompatibility has already become clear: it is the companionsâ salvation against Odysseusâ salvation, it is them or him, themselves versus himself.
In Odysseusâ return there are not only significant departures and arrivals, there are also significant stays. The longest of these stays is, of course, his sojourn on the island of Calypso, from where the narrative of his return begins. Strangely enough, this idleness of Odysseus on the island of Ogygia allows a remarkable spread of his Trojan kleos. The wreck of Odysseusâ ship after Thrinakia and the loss of his companions is by many aspects an important shift in Odysseusâ return, since the nostos is no longer collective but individual and, consequently, heroic kleos is individually ascribed to him.4 But from that very moment and further on, the nature of the deeds related to his person changes and light is now increasingly shed on his Trojan exploits. Until the arrival to the island of Calypso, Odysseus is active at a present time and this action concerns a collective nostos, his own return, as well as his companionsâ. But with the stay in Ogygia, the prevalence of present time stops. As long as Odysseus remains inactive in Calypsoâs island, witnesses of his Trojan kleos, such as Nestor, Menelaus and Helen, have the time to go home and propagate it, so that the kleos itself precedes Odysseus when he regains his activity and listens to Demodocusâ song on the Wooden Horse. In terms of time and space then, as Odysseusâ nostos brings him from Troy back to Ithaca, the renown of his kleos brings him from Ithaca back to Troy, an achievement of an itinerary which he initially had refused to undertake.
Much has been said about the character complementarity between Odysseus and Penelope, mainly in matters of mental capacity;5 formulaic persistence speaks in favour of this complementarity: ÏΔÏ᜷ÏÏÏÎœ Penelope is the suitable spouse of ÏÎżÎ»áœ»ÎŒÎ·ÏÎčÏ Odysseus. She even manages to fool him when she tests his identity by pretending that his bed, nailed on the root of an olive tree, can be easily removed to another room of the palace. Further formulaic evidence can perhaps strengthen this concept of complementarity also in terms of time. Each time that Odysseusâ trip continues, we read / listen that he and his companions (or he alone when he leaves Calypsoâs island), âraised the mast and fixed the sail on itâ and as long as the sail is raised on the mast, on the histos, it brings him closer to his destination and, then, the course of time is positive for his timely arrival. What happens with Penelope? She also has her own histos, the loom. But as long as the cloth, the shroud for Laertes, is woven on this histos, the course of time is negative for Odysseusâ timely arrival. As he sails for three years and spends other seven waiting in Ogygia, she weaves for three years and spends other seven waiting in Ithaca.6 Finally, when both histoi stop functioning for both characters, the husband and the wife, the course of time seems to lead to an impasse. Penelopeâs trick is revealed and she is now forced to move towards an unwished marital life, while Odysseus is trapped within an unwished substitute of marital life on Calypsoâs island, where he had been brought to grasping to the remains of his broken histos.
The idea presented a...