Manliness in Homer's Odyssey

 

 Odysseus definitely is presented as an idealised image of Greek masculinity. In ancient Greek thinking a man should be measured by his Physical and mental resilience, his courage, his physical strength, how brave he is, how attractive women find him, his skills as a warrior, his skills as a leader and his intelligence. I believe Homer’s Odysseus excels in all these areas. I will now explain why I believe this to be the case. I will do so by looking at a few extracts within the Odyssey and comparing Odysseus with other characters within this epic.

 

There are few places in the Odyssey where Odysseus’s physical strength is illustrated in book 8, The book about the Phaeacian games. In this book we can clearly see Odysseus outdoing the Phaeacian athletes by far:

         White this he leapt to his feet and, not even troubling to remove his cloak, picked up the             biggest discus of all, a huge weight, more massive by far than the Phaeacians normally             used. With one swing he launched it from his mighty hands and the stone hummed on its             course. The Phaeacians, lords of the sea and champions of the long oars, cowered down             as it hurtled through the air; and flying smoothly from his hand it overshot the marks of all         the other throwers. Athena pretending to be one of the   crowed marked the distance, and             spoke out. ‘Look sir,’ she called, ‘even a blind man could pick out your peg, by feeling with         his hands. The others are all in a bunch, but yours stands right out in front. In this event at         any rate you have nothing to fear.   None of the Phaeacians will make as good a throw, let         alone any better.’ Hom.Od 8.186-198

This extract defiantly illustrates Odysseus’s physical strength as being above that of other men. Just the previous day Odysseus had arrived at the island after having swum three days on end. This not only is an example of Odysseus’s endurance, but also shows us that the Odysseus we see at the Phaeacian games is not in the best physical shape he can possibly be. He would be extremely tired after such a long swim. We would expect that he would be to weak even to stand up after such a feat and yet here we see him participating in an athletic competition and winning. This makes us think about what Odysseus could possibly do if he was in his best physical shape. The fact that Odysseus did not participate in the Phaeacian games until he was challenged shows us another aspect of Odysseus. He clearly knew that he could best the other athletes and yet he did not participate. One could argue that Odysseus does not have the need to prove himself as a man and that this is the reason why he did not participate in the games. If this be the case we can deduce that Odysseus is confident in his own strength and abilities. We also see Odysseus confidence in the way Odysseus accepts Euryalus’s challenge. We all know that a man does not back away from a challenge and Odysseus is no different. He does not merely accept Euryalus’s, challenge, throws the discus and returns back to his seat. After proving that he is in fact a better athlete than all the Phaeacians he gives a boastful speech clearly stating exactly to which extent his skills in each event would stretch. This shows us that he is very confidence and he knows precisely to which extent his abilities stretch.

 

It is unquestionable that Odysseus a tenacious character. We can see dozens of examples to prove this throughout the Odyssey. To me this is never proven more clearly than in book 12, in the incident with the cattle of the sun. Erwin F. Cook (1995) says that Odysseus’s crew only decides to go against his orders once he is not present. This presents the image of a very disloyal crew. Now you can argue that this not only shows that crew is disloyal, but also that Odysseus is a weak leader. I believe this not to be the case. The reason for this being in the words of Odysseus to his crew at Trinakie:

 

            “I call on every man of you to give his solemn promise that if we came across a herd of                 cattle or a flock of sheep, he will not kill a single ox or sheep in a wanton fit of                             recklessness. Just sit peacefully and eat the food that the goddess Circe has provided”                 Hom.Od 12.298-302

 

            “My friends,” I said “Since we have plenty of food and drink on board, let us keep our              hands off these cattle, or we shall come to grief. For the cows and the fine sheep you             have seen belong to the formidable god, the sun, whose eyes and ears miss                                     nothing.” Hom.Od 12.320-324

 

Here we see Odysseus explicitly telling his crew not to kill the cattle. He even told them more than once and exactly what would happen if they should kill the cattle. I therefor say that Odysseus skills as a leader is not to be questioned in this instance. Then again maybe I am being a bit harsh on the crew. I think that I would also then have to point out that the crew did have a very good reason for being disloyal:

            My strong-willed compony accepted this. And now for a whole month the South Wind                 blew without pause, and after that we had nothing but the West winds. The men, so                     long as the bread and red wine lasted, kept their hands off the cattle as they value                     their lives. But when the provisions in the ship gave out and pangs of hunger sent them              wandering with barbed hooks in quest for any game fish or birds. Hom Od 12.  324-331

 

This shows us that the crew really did try their best to best to obey Odysseus’s orders. They only killed and ate the cattle at what they saw as a last resort. The extreme extents Odysseus’s crew was willing to go for him tells us that he was in fact a very good leader. Then we come to the final and most important point I want to make about this episode in the Odyssey. Odysseus was the only one whom did not consent to eating the cattle. This shows us that he is more tenacious than his crew. We must take in consideration that his crew has undergone all the same adventures he has and passed through them alive. They therefor are very tenacious men seeing as they could go through all that without ever giving up. Odysseus however is more tenacious than even they are.

 

Arguably the most important aspect of ancient Greek manliness is being a great warrior. The only part we really see Odysseus’s skill as a warrior being depicted in the Odyssey is in book 22 where he kills the suiters. I therefor feel that this book must be discussed when looking at Odysseus’s masculinity. Odysseus is faced with an overwhelming number of foes and he overcomes them mainly by using his skills as a warrior:

                      The suiters were scared out of their senses. They scattered through the hall like a    herd of                      cattle that a darting gadfly has attacked and stampeded, in the spring-time when the long                      days come. But the others swooped down on them just as vultures from the hills with                             curved claws and crooked beaks, swoop down upon the small birds, who thought they shun                     the upper     air and hug the ground find no help there and no escape. The vultures pounced                      on them and killed, and men enjoy the hunting. So did Odysseus party chase the suiters                         headlong through the hall and hack them down. Ghastly screams rose up as men’s heads                         were smashed in and the whole floor ran with blood. Hom.Od 22.299-309

In this extract, the suiters are clearly depicted as being terrified by Odysseus despite their overwhelming numbers. It seems that at this point the suiters are thinking of nothing more than escape. They no longer think that they stand a chance at being victorious. The fact that Odysseus is willing to take on such a greatly overwhelming force undoubtedly portrays him as brave and bravery most certainly is a manly attribute. We can however also deduce from this that he is an excellent warrior because he did manage to stand triumphant in the end despite the overwhelming odds stacked against him. When looking at book 22 of Odyssey you must also look at book 13 to book 21 to get the full picture of this episode in the Odyssey. Odysseus takes a completely different approach to getting rid of the suitors than we would expect anyone ells would. We would expect that the first thing Odysseus would do as soon as he arrives on Ithaca is to go rushing back to his palace and his wife. We have to remember that Odysseus has been trying to get back to his home land for twenty years. He must be overwhelmed with joy at being back on his native soil. What he does in this part of the Odyssey is the clearest representation of Odysseus cunning and resourcefulness in the Odyssey by far: Odysseus disguises himself as a beggar. There are three reasons why I think this part of the Odyssey represents his intelligence best. One of them is the sheer ingenuity of his disguise. Odysseus could have disguised himself as any number of things, but he chose to disguise himself as something not resembling himself at all. No one would think that some lowly beggar would turn out to be a great man like Odysseus. The second reason being that he first tried observed everyone in the palace to see who were his enemies and who were his allies. This gave him two additional allies which most certainly gave him an edge in the final confrontation. The third reason is the exact moment he chooses to reveal himself. When he finally dose reveal himself, he is the one with the bow in his hands thus making the only one in the room whom possesses a weapon.

 

 Women in the most certainly find Odysseus irresistible. Calypso, Circe and Naursicaa all want Odysseus as lovers. Two of these women are goddess and one of them is a princess: meaning that they most certainly won’t settle for second best. Penelope’s willingness to wait for him as long as she did also tells us a great deal about Odysseus’s attractiveness. Athena must also be mentioned when discussing Odysseus. It is never mentioned that she wants to have a physical relationship with him, but she does however find him irresistible. She keeps insisting to Zeus that he should help Odysseus and goes to extreme lengths to help him herself. Athena appears to think very highly of Odysseus:

        ‘You really are incorrigible!’ exclaimed the bright-eyed goddess. ‘Most people are                           content to put their trust in far inferior allies, mere mortals entirely devoid of                                 cunning such as mine. But I who have never ceased to watch over you in all your                         adventures am a goddess. I will make my meaning plain: you and I could be  surrounded by           fifty companies of men-at-arms all thirsty for your blood, but you will still drive away their             cows and sheep.’ Hom.Od 20.44-51

This exactly alone tells what Athena thinks of Odysseus and she seems have very high expectations of him. Odysseus must surely have been a great man in Homers view if a goddess were to side with him.

 

I think I can safely conclude that Odysseus dose pose an idealised idea of Ancient Greek manliness. I think that it would be very hard if not imposable to prove this wrong, because Odysseus dose indeed possess all the characteristics which would have made an ancient Greek man manly to an unbelievable extent.

Refrences

Cook, E.F 1995. The Odyssey in Athens. Ithaca: Cornell University Press

Rieu, E.V. 1946 Homer the Odyssey. London: Penguin Books

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