previous next

[260] ἐφράσθης ‘hast bethought thee of,’ ‘remembered’: viz. the “ἄεθλος”— the trial that is still to come.

268-284. These lines are repeated from 11. 121-137 (see the note in vol. I), with a few variations due to the change to oratio obliqua. They are designed apparently to give us a glimpse of the fortunes of Ulysses beyond the point at which the narrative of the Odyssey ends. He is to kill the Suitors, and forthwith to set out again (“ἔρχεσθαι δὴ ἔπειτα”, 11. 121) to wander ‘through the cities of men.’ His long and painful wandering (“ἀμέτρητος πόνος . . . πολλὸς καὶ χαλεπός”) is to come to an end with the incident of the oar mistaken for a winnowingshovel; when he will return to Ithaca, reign happily, and at length die by a ‘gentle death.’ Such is the prospect which Ulysses and Penelope have put before them at the moment when their long endurance has been crowned with triumph.

The narrative of the 24th book is quite different. According to it the blood-feud between Ulysses and the kin of the slain men was appeased by agreement, and Ulysses became undisputed master of his kingdom. It seems clear that this was meant to be the closing scene, not merely of the Odyssey, but of the adventures of Ulysses. It leaves no room for the perspective disclosed by Tiresias. Unfortunately, however, this circumstance is indecisive, because (as we shall see) the 24th book itself is probably a later addition.

In the Cyclic epic Telegonia we have a sequel to the Odyssey, which (if we may judge from the brief abstract of Proclus) was at variance with the prophecy of Tiresias, yet showed traces of acquaintance with it. In this version Ulysses goes first to visit Elis. On his return to Ithaca he ‘performs the sacrifices directed by Tiresias’ (Procl. ). Then comes a fresh series of adventures, chiefly in Thesprotia. Once more he comes home to Ithaca, but has hardly landed in the island when it is invaded, in ignorance, by his son Telegonus. Father and son meet, not knowing each other, and Ulysses is slain. In this story it is hard to find a place for the incident of the oar, or for the happy reign and ‘gentle death’ of the prophecy. Yet the injunctions of Tiresias were expressly recognized; and possibly the death at the hands of an invader from the sea was meant as a fulfilment of the mysterious “ἐξ ἁλός” (l. 281).

It is needless to discuss the forms which the story assumed in later times— for example, in the “Ὀδυσσεὺς ἀκανθοπλήξ” of Sophocles. The fragments show, as we should expect, that Sophocles closely followed the indications which the prophecy of Tiresias furnished.

The evidence now set forth can hardly be thought to prove much for or against the genuineness of the passage before us. It is certainly a piece of very ancient poetry. The chief argument against it is the difficulty of supposing that the poet would bring his hero to a triumphant issue from his troubles only to tell us that next day they must begin afresh.

Homer's Odyssey. W. Walter Merry. James Riddell. D. B. Monro. Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1886-1901.

The National Endowment for the Humanities provided support for entering this text.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: