1. Must a sequel be inferior?Footnote ²

Although it is theoretically possible (and has been asserted) that the Iliad followed the Odyssey, or that the two poems were composed quite independently, with no influence from one to the other,Footnote ³ majority opinion ancient and modern puts the Odyssey later, and assumes it to be in important respects a successor, even a sequel, to the Iliad. This position can be maintained in two main forms: those who believe in a single master-poet as the creator of both epics may assign the Iliad to Homer's youth, the Odyssey to his riper years (a position memorably expressed by Longinus); those who follow the ancient separatists can regard the Odyssey as a rival work, composed by a poet who immensely admired the Iliad but whose own poetic and moral concerns lay elsewhere. This view is now much more common. It may be difficult, however, in a tradition which involved so much use of conventional themes and formulaic material, to decide firmly in favour of common or separate authorship. Whichever view one prefers, the important point seems to be that the Odyssey is later, and that it is conceived as a poem on the same scale as the Iliad, but differing strikingly in content and ethos.

Some of the arguments for that conclusion are based on detailed allusion and apparent verbal reminiscences, which cannot be reviewed here, and which some scholars, doubtful of the possibility of allusion in an oral poetic tradition, would not accept. More substantial points include the following. (1) The scale of the epics seems to mark them out as unusual in the early period; the Cyclic poems, to judge by the figures that have come down to us, were much shorter. (2) The Odyssey adopts a similar technique to the Iliad in selecting a limited period from a much longer tale, while using digressions, recapitulation, and prophecy to bring more of that tale within its scope. Most obviously, Odysseus narrates his previous wanderings to the Phaeacians; Nestor, Menelaus, and Helen also recount some of the hero's earlier exploits. (3) The Odyssey looks like a sequel, in that many of the cast of characters of the Iliad reappear and act in characteristic fashion: Achilles is disillusioned and bitter, Nestor garrulous, Helen enchanting yet rather enigmatic. Moreover, a very efficient job is done of filling in the background, giving the audience at least in summary form some account of the events since the close of the Iliad (Longinus 9.12 makes this point, describing the Odyssey as the ‘epilogue’ to the Iliad). (4) A number of parallels in theme and structure can be detected: in particular, the culmination in the hero's long-delayed but bloodthirsty revenge against his enemy (Hector, the suitors), followed by scenes involving gentler emotions and resolution of tensions (in the Iliad, the funeral games and the encounter with Priam; in the Odyssey, the reunion with Penelope, and perhaps the coming of peace in Ithaca).Footnote ⁴ Other parallels which have been suggested include: (a) the absence of the hero from his proper sphere, and the difficulties this causes for his comrades or family; (b) the hero's rejection of an easier option, choosing instead a life which will fulfil his human potential (Achilles in the end rejects a long but inglorious life; Odysseus rejects immortality with Calypso); (c) the importance of family ties, and especially the father–son relationship, in both epics.

The relationship of the Iliad and the Odyssey can also be seen as an opposition. The former is a poem of warfare and death; the latter describes the aftermath of that war, and presents a society in peacetime, though disrupted by abnormal circumstances. The scene of the Iliad is deliberately restricted; the Odyssey is a poem of wide horizons (1.3, ‘many were the cities of men that he saw, and he learned their minds’). The Iliad ends tragically, with the threat of death hanging over both Achilles and the people of Priam; in the Odyssey, the prospects are brighter, with the reunion of husband and wife and the restoration of order to the community of Ithaca. Above all, there is a strong contrast between the heroes of the two epics. On the one hand, the youthful, outspoken, quick-tempered, and glory-hungry Achilles, the supreme fighter; on the other, the older, cannier Odysseus, devious and subtle, skilled orator and cunning trickster. Many of the differences between the poems arise from the nature of the heroes. It is interesting that they are already seen in the Iliad as potential opposites, even antagonists (note esp. 9.312–3).Footnote ⁵

There is a tendency, already evident in ancient criticism, to devalue the Odyssey in comparison with the Iliad.Footnote ⁶ Socrates in Plato refers to this kind of judgement: ‘I have heard your father say that the Iliad is a finer poem than the Odyssey by as much as Achilles is a better man than Odysseus’ (Hp. mi. 363b). Longinus notoriously thought it showed signs of an old man's weakening powers (9.13–15). But, given the differences already described, it should be clear that it is dangerous to judge the two poems by the same criteria. If the Odyssey follows on from the Iliad while also seeking to achieve something different, if indeed it represents a challenge or a transformation of Iliadic themes, then differences are what we would expect. We do not criticize a comedy because it does not live up to the criteria required of a tragedy. Happily, recent criticism has been much more sensitive to the special qualities of the Odyssey – its subtlety of characterization, the skill with which narrative situations are developed, the extensive use of irony and double meanings. The fascination of the travel books, full of magic, monsters, and mystery, has always captured the imagination. The Odyssey combines what we may call folk tales (not only scenes such as the adventures with a one-eyed giant, but the disguise of Odysseus and the test of the bow) with heroic mythology, and integrates both within a firm and explicit moral framework. The combination is more elaborate than that of the Iliad, where the fixed setting and wartime conditions impose a greater uniformity. Yet, in spite of the complex structure and diverse materials, the poem presents the reader with a vivid and coherent picture of an imagined world.

In some ways the Odyssey is a more self-consciously ‘literary’ poem than the Iliad.Footnote ⁷ Although the Iliad includes invocations of the Muse, Helen's weaving (a figure for the artist at work?), Achilles' solitary singing of the ‘glorious deeds of men’, and the magnificent description of the shield, the Odyssey goes further, including poets among the cast of characters (Phemius in Ithaca, Demodocus at Alcinous' court). In the final book, Agamemnon's ghost remarks that the virtue of Penelope will be acclaimed through the ages, while the treacherous Clytemnestra will be remembered with ignominy. This passage comes very close to self-reference (24.196–202). Moreover, there is storytelling elsewhere, as the heroes reminisce about the Trojan War or recount their experiences to the admiring Telemachus.Footnote ⁸ Odysseus himself is on several occasions compared to a bard (17.518–21; 21.404–9), and once a comparison of this kind includes a reference to the lying tales of strangers (11.364–9); although this is used as a contrast with Odysseus' narrative, it is a two-edged comment, since we see the hero spinning fictitious tales about himself with equal fluency.Footnote ⁹ Some ancient readers even seem to have taken the ‘authentic’ travel narrative, with which Odysseus entertains the Phaeacians, as another lying tale invented by the hero himself,Footnote ¹⁰ though Homer gives us no justification for this.Footnote ¹¹

More specifically, the songs of Demodocus described in Book 8 can be read as each contributing to an allusive commentary on the Iliad.Footnote ¹² The first song refers to a quarrel between two Greek heroes, Achilles and Odysseus, at which Agamemnon rejoices (8.72–82). He reacts in this unexpected way, it seems, because he sees their quarrel as fulfilling a prophecy; but in fact the prophecy referred to his own much deadlier conflict with Achilles, still in the future. The motifs of Agamemnon's error, delusive prophecy, and the will of Zeus all recall important themes of the Iliad. The second song describes the love affair of Ares and Aphrodite and Hephaestus' successful trapping of the adulterous pair: Hephaestus pretends to go away on a journey but lays a snare and returns to find Ares and Aphrodite naked and entrammelled (8.266–366). The sensuous, immoral behaviour of the gods remind us of the love scene of Zeus and Hera on Ida (Il. 14.292–353), and more generally of the conduct of the gods in the Iliad. Moreover, looking beyond the song itself, we can see analogies between the plotting Hephaestus, who deceives others and unexpectedly returns, and the role of Odysseus later in the poem. Yet the contrast between divine and human worlds is equally important: Aphrodite is no Penelope, and the immortal Ares cannot be punished by death but only by ineffectual bargains over compensation.Footnote ¹³ The third song of Demodocus (8.499–520) describes the sack of Troy, so often anticipated in the last part of the Iliad. Here Odysseus breaks down and weeps over the past: the simile which describes his reaction compares him to a wife bereaved of her husband and dragged away by callous soldiers. This passage reminds us of the sympathetic treatment in the Iliad of the women of Troy, above all the widowed Andromache, and of the cruelty that accompanies the sack of a city. All of these scenes play a part in the overall movement of the Phaeacian episode, which helps restore the storm-tossed hero to his full heroic stature;Footnote ¹⁴ but they also suggest new perspectives from which to regard the world of the Iliad.Footnote ¹⁵

All of this presupposes an audience alert to such ingenious allusiveness. Whatever sceptics may maintain for the Iliad, it is hard to deny that the Odyssey is composed with an eye to its predecessors – including the Iliad itself. Misdirection and deviation from predictable story-lines are even more evident than in the earlier poem, and it seems likely that the poet knew other versions of the main plot (perhaps even his own). A tantalizing reference in some manuscripts to a prospective journey by Telemachus to see Idomeneus in Crete is one such indication (1.93a). More significant are the suggestions of versions in which Penelope may have recognized her husband (as Amphimedon wrongly assumes in 24.127 and 147–9). Georg Danek has produced a lengthy and impressive book on this whole area, which through the detail and range of his examples demonstrates the sophistication of the poet and his audience.Footnote ¹⁶ It used to be maintained that arte allusiva was a phenomenon of the Hellenistic era, but more recently ‘Alexandrian’ allusiveness has been traced back as far as Euripides, even to Pindar; perhaps we shall find that Homer was the founding father here as in so much else.Footnote ¹⁷

2. Themes, structure, ethos

The construction of the Odyssey illuminates the character and general interpretation of the poem. First, there is the delay in introducing the hero. Whereas Achilles was named in the first line of the Iliad, was described as summoning the assembly at line 54, and dominated much of the first book, in the proem to the Odyssey the hero is not namedFootnote ¹⁸ but only periphrastically described; he does not appear until well into Book 5. Before that we are introduced to most of the other principal characters of the poem, and hear much about the hero's past prowess; the scenes in Ithaca also make clear the urgent need for his return.

Secondly, the poem falls easily into two halves, the first half ending at 13.92, where the Phaeacian ship speeds across the waves towards Ithaca, carrying the sleeping Odysseus: he is there described in lines which seem to echo the proem of Book 1. At this point we move from seagoing adventures to land; the wanderings are coming to an end, and the remainder of the poem will be principally concerned with the kingdom of Ithaca. The poet is consciously marking the halfway point of his tale. In particular, there are numerous points in which Odysseus' arrival and experiences in Phaeacia anticipate and prepare for the homecoming to Ithaca.Footnote ¹⁹

Thirdly, the poem's narrative technique is throughout more complex than that of the Iliad, especially as regards scene-changing.Footnote ²⁰ The poet has constructed parallel narratives, supposedly beginning at the same point: Athena is sent to Ithaca to despatch Telemachus on his travels in search of his father, and Hermes is to be sent to Calypso's isle, to instruct the nymph to launch Odysseus on his journey home. In fact, the second part of the proposed plan seems to be delayed, and a further divine exchange is required in Book 5 before Hermes sets off. Later, there is a similar blurring of the time-scale when Odysseus is back in Ithaca and Athena needs to bring Telemachus home from Sparta.Footnote ²¹ The poet is attempting something more elaborate than we find in the Iliad,Footnote ²² involving the simultaneous development of events on two fronts; indeed, the return of the narrative to Ithaca during Telemachus' absence introduces a third (4.624–847). Here, as in the lengthy narratives of past events, a technique which can be found on a smaller scale in the earlier epic is extended so ambitiously as to alter its nature.

The first four books of the Odyssey are conventionally known as the ‘Telemachy’, a title which highlights the special role of Odysseus' son in the poem.Footnote ²³ In essence, Athena stirs him from his inertia, forces him to confront the real danger of his situation, and sends him to Pylos and Sparta not because he will find his father there (though he does learn of his present situation), but to ‘win glory’ and learn from his father's peers. The ancient description of the Telemachy as the ‘education’ of Telemachus is suggestive, though not universally accepted by moderns.Footnote ²⁴ By the time Odysseus is back in Ithaca, Telemachus is behaving as a king's son and heir should do, and will be a worthy ally in the final crisis; at the contest of the bow, he shows himself his father's true son by being about to bend the bow successfully, but then holding himself back (21.124–9). The Odyssean qualities of self-discipline and concealment are transferred to Telemachus.

From another viewpoint, the wanderings of Telemachus make it possible for the poet to introduce some of the heroes of the Trojan War, and to show their present situation: Nestor secure and prosperous, though still grieving for his son Antilochus, who died saving his father's life; Menelaus also settled in his kingdom, but still saddened by the loss of so many comrades in the war, and enjoying a somewhat ambiguous and puzzling relationship with the still-beautiful Helen. Although Odysseus is still missing, and his household increasingly fear that he must be dead, we anticipate that he will return at last, later than all the other heroes, and win a greater victory, a more successful homecoming, than any of the others. Here the comparison between Odysseus' household and that of Agamemnon is particularly important:Footnote ²⁵ Agamemnon returned openly, and his rash confidence laid him open to the assassin Aegisthus; his queen was unfaithful, seduced by her lover during his long absence; his son Orestes has had to take revenge. The disastrous history of Agamemnon shows what might have happened in Ithaca, if Odysseus were less prudent and Penelope less faithful.Footnote ²⁶

The punishment of Aegisthus, mentioned in the first divine scene of the poem, sets the moral tone for the epic. In this poem the gods oversee human morality more consistently and austerely than in the Iliad. In general, the Olympians seem more remote from the activities of mankind: there are few scenes in which Zeus and the other gods hold counsel, and several deities prominent in the Iliad never appear (especially Hera, Apollo, and, less surprisingly, Thetis; Aphrodite appears only in Demodocus' song). The main plot really requires only Athena, Odysseus' constant supporter,Footnote ²⁷ Poseidon, his persecutor, and Zeus, who arbitrates between them. Other deities such as Hermes occasionally figure, but the general effect is very different. The Trojan War was a major event which aroused the passionate partisanship of many divinities; Odysseus, a single hero though a pious man, is of little concern to the gods other than his patroness and his arch-enemy.

Nevertheless, the gods are of central importance in that the Odyssey shows us a world governed by an ethical code which the gods endorse. Wrongdoing will be punished; callous and impious deeds do not prosper. Zeus watches over beggars, suppliants, and others in distress; those who mistreat a guest under their roof can expect to suffer for it. These moral principles are commonly cited by the characters, and, in one of the most striking speeches of the poem, Odysseus draws the moral from his success over the suitors, though forbidding the nurse to cry aloud in exultation over the dead:

Here Odysseus speaks as an instrument of divine retribution, rather than as a vengeful hero reclaiming his own property from upstarts. It has been claimed that passages like this show the Odyssey to be the product of a more advanced ethical or religious outlook than the Iliad, but these arguments must be viewed with caution.Footnote ²⁹ The poet of the Iliad knows about gods concerned with justice (see p. 70), and the Odyssey shows a strongly Iliadic divinity in Poseidon, fierce in anger and conscious of his own status. Moreover, although Athena praises Odysseus before Zeus for his piety, she herself loves him for his lies and his deviousness (1.60–2 vs. 13.291–9 and 330–8).Footnote ³⁰ The different emphasis in the Odyssey's presentation of the gods may well result from the different type of story that the later poem has to tell. Both poems use the gods selectively and appropriately.

But the Olympian gods do not exhaust the supernatural elements of the poem. The Odyssey includes cannibal monsters, the bag of winds, the mysterious lotus-flower with its amnesiac effects, the Cyclops, the cattle of the sun, and a visit to the underworld.Footnote ³¹ Most of these magical or monstrous features occur in the narrative of Odysseus, which we have already seen to be less realistic than the other parts of the Odyssey. It is also important that they take place far away, beyond the familiar geography of the Greek mainland and Ionia: Odysseus leaves the known world behind as early as 9.80, and attempts to trace his wanderings on the map are inevitably doomed to failure.Footnote ³²

Given that the Telemachy and the Ithacan narrative are rooted more deeply in heroic society, it is natural to ask how successfully the poet has integrated the more magical adventures with the rest of Odysseus' experience. Perhaps the most striking point is the way in which this very difference of tone is exploited: Odysseus is presented as a man who must gradually learn to cope with unfamiliar challenges, which conventional heroic behaviour cannot overcome.Footnote ³³ The claim to be conqueror of Troy cuts little ice with the Cyclops, and to kill the monster while he lies slumbering would be fatal, since Odysseus and his men have not the strength to shift the stone blocking the cave's mouth. Later, open defiance is useless against the immortal Scylla: Odysseus arms himself in vain, and the loss of six of his comrades to the monstrous creature is described as the most pitiful sight he has witnessed in all his wanderings (12.244–59, see p. 123 below). Odysseus, the untypical hero, must use his wits and cunning; he has the adaptability to deal with these otherworldly horrors. Among other things, he learns to conceal his identity, to observe and wait before risking self-exposure. The trick with the pseudonym ‘No-man’ is the first instance, but this clever stroke is thrown away when Odysseus reveals his identity to the Cyclops once safely out of the cave. In the second half of the poem he will further cultivate anonymity and false identities.

The eleventh book illuminates Odysseus' character and the meaning of the poem through the encounter with Odysseus' past. Homer uses the supernatural setting of the underworld for other purposes beyond the ostensible motive of seeking directions from Tiresias. Besides the moving exchange between the hero and his dead mother, a memorable scene introduces the ghosts of three heroes who perished at Troy or after returning from the war – Agamemnon, Achilles, and Ajax.Footnote ³⁴ In ways none the less important for being implicit, these three men are contrasted with the living Odysseus, the survivor, who will go on to find his way home and reclaim wife, family, and kingdom. Particularly effective in this episode is the dialogue with Achilles: nowhere else in Homer is the contrast between their characters clearer, and yet here Achilles has moved closer to the viewpoint of Odysseus, for whom heroic achievement is not the only precious thing in life. For all the disillusionment expressed in Book 24 of the Iliad, Achilles' bitterness at his present state sounds a note of realism unheard in the earlier poem.Footnote ³⁵ Book 11 is also of great importance in that it makes clear, through Tiresias' prophecy, that Odysseus' wanderings will not be ended when he reaches Ithaca: he has ‘immeasurable toil, long and hard’ still to come (23.248–50; cf. 11.119–37). The end of the Odyssey does not leave the couple to live ‘happily ever after’.Footnote ³⁶

Another aspect of the wanderings may be described in cultural or anthropological terms.Footnote ³⁷ The different beings and communities among whom Odysseus finds himself are characterized by strange practices and behaviour in comparison with ‘normal’ human society. The Laestrygonians do not farm (10.98); Calypso's island is wooded, and has a vine, but is not cultivated (5.63–74). The lotus-eaters do not have to farm or work, and they do not cook or eat bread, only the lotus-flower; the food they offer Odysseus' companions deprives them of an essential aspect of their humanity, memory (9.84, 94–7). The Cyclopes, as Odysseus explicitly comments, have no assembly place or laws and do not combine as a community (9.112, with context). In Polyphemus' cave other divergences from human social and ethical codes become manifest. Instead of feeding his guests, he eats them, and his offer of a ‘guest-gift’ is a grotesque parody of the institution: he will eat Odysseus last. Odysseus' wanderings are not just a series of randomly combined adventures but are subordinate to an overall conception, whether fully articulated or not, of the nature of human life; through his encounters with superhuman and subhuman creatures and their mores, Odysseus defines the limits and nature of the human condition. On this argument it is appropriate that the Phaeacians should represent his final port of call before his homecoming. They are human, but not wholly of our world: isolated from humankind, they enjoy an existence close to the gods, and sail magical ships. But in other respects they seem less than fully human, for their society is protected from war and they enjoy a carefree, hedonistic existence.Footnote ³⁸

The folk-tale element is not confined to Books 9–12, however. The themes of the wanderer's return and the woman perpetually weaving are both found in folklore; the contest of the bow has been paralleled in Indian epic.Footnote ³⁹ As for the supernatural aspect, Menelaus in Book 4 describes how, near Egypt, he was obliged to ambush and capture the shape-changing prophet, Proteus; again, the remote and exotic setting makes this kind of tale more acceptable. Even in Ithaca Odysseus is magically transformed by Athena (‘I shall make you unrecognizable to all men’, 13.397), though the nature and degree of his transformation remain ambiguous.Footnote ⁴⁰ This seems to be an example of a general tendency in the Odyssey: comparison with parallel versions suggests that Homer has somewhat reduced or underplayed the magical aspects, in order to preserve the sense that this is above all a human drama. Thus in Book 10 the magical plant moly, introduced as a protective charm against Circe's enchantment, is forgotten after Odysseus has received it from Hermes, and it is Odysseus' own strength of will that frustrates Circe (10.327, 329).Footnote ⁴¹

Some reference has already been made to the importance of disguise and concealment,Footnote ⁴² and many of the Odyssey's most striking episodes depend on a contrast between appearance and actuality. This has two major aspects: the failure to recognize a stranger or new arrival, and the concealment or suppression of one's true feelings, whether out of caution or to delay a moment of emotional outpouring. The first book already introduces this type of effect: Athena comes to visit Telemachus in disguise as a mortal trader; only gradually does she reveal some (false) information about herself; and only on her miraculous departure does he realize that she must be a divinity. Thereafter he must conceal this insight and her advice, revealing nothing to the suitors about his plans and new hopes. The poet is fascinated by the notion of the unrecognized stranger, the disguised guest whose identity is relevant, even crucial to the conversation going on around him. This typical Odyssean situation is used with Telemachus at Sparta, with Odysseus in Alcinous' court, in the hut of the swineherd, and above all in his own palace. Multiple ironies result: while Athena in disguise talks with Telemachus of his father's return, Phemius has been singing to the suitors of the homecoming of the Greeks from Troy, and of the part which Athena played in that voyage. In the palace of Menelaus, the subject of Odysseus comes up even before Telemachus has been identified as the hero's son, and the young man is overcome by emotion: recognition soon follows. While Odysseus sits unrecognized in the halls of the Phaeacians, the minstrel sings of the quarrel between Achilles and Odysseus. In Eumaeus' hut, he hears talk of himself and his estates. Delayed recognition and ironic double meanings are typical of the Odyssey, and especially of its second half, once Odysseus is back among his own people.

Other aspects of these scenes are of equal interest. We see a king in beggar's clothes, kindly treated by poorer folk but spurned and mocked by the aristocrats of the kingdom, who should respect him. The sympathetic treatment of humbler and less heroic characters is another point in which the Odyssey offers something new and different from the Iliad (though it is true that common people and their lives do figure in similes and on Achilles' shield). The poet of the Odyssey does not confine himself to the situation in the royal household; he clearly takes pleasure in portraying his hero spending time in a simple rural settlement, sharing the life of his own herdsmen.Footnote ⁴³ He also hints at the unhappiness and resentment of the Ithacan population. Eumaeus complains of the reduction of his master's property (14.91–108); Philoetius is so discontented that he is considering emigrating (20.209–25). Most touching of all is the little episode in which Odysseus, lying awake in the palace just before dawn, hears one of the women of the house, ‘the weakest of them’, struggling to finish her stint of grinding corn and cursing the suitors (‘may this very day be the last and final time that the suitors eat their sumptuous meal in Odysseus’ halls, those men who have worn my knees away with the wretched drudgery of this grinding!'). Odysseus rejoices at the prayer as a good omen; the passage makes clear that his victory will be a victory for the Ithacan people as well (20.110–21).

The disguised Odysseus is in a position of unsuspected superiority over those around him: he can question and test them, sounding them out about their feelings towards himself and the prospect of his return. This testing procedure is applied not only to Eumaeus and the suitors, but to Penelope herself. It is in the scenes with her (as earlier, before he reveals himself to Telemachus) that he must work hardest to govern his own feelings.

Once Odysseus has identified himself to Telemachus, the young man must show the same self-control and avoid any outbursts of rage at the way the suitors treat his father. The fidelity and caution of Penelope, who will hardly believe that her husband is really home even after the slaughter, show that she too has the self-discipline appropriate to the wife of Odysseus.

In the Iliad, ‘recognition scenes’ are not needed: the heroes generally seem to have no difficulty identifying one another, and, if uncertainty exists, an enquiry swiftly yields a frank answer (as with Glaucus and Diomedes). Men in the Iliad deal with one another openly and in full awareness of each other's status and strength: even in the dubious Doloneia, Odysseus and Diomedes have no need to ask the spy who he is, but know him already (Il. 10.447). It is the gods who deceive, as when Athena tempts Pandarus to break the truce, or Zeus sends a lying dream to Agamemnon. In the Odyssey, where the mortals do not deal so honestly with one another, the characters dwell in a state of uncertainty. The suitors speak hypocritically to Penelope and Telemachus, and plan an ambush against the latter; Telemachus deceives his mother and steals away by night; Eumaeus was abducted by his nurse and sold into slavery; Troy was taken by a treacherous device, the Wooden Horse, to which the Iliad never refers. So too with the gods: even Athena normally disguises herself when visiting Telemachus or Odysseus, and in Book 13 she tests the hero's prowess before revealing herself. The world of the Odyssey has a devious and deceptive atmosphere which matches the wily personality of the hero, and with which he is uniquely suited to cope. We come to relish his deceptions and his fluent lying, to delight in the irony as he extracts praise of himself from the wretched Eumaeus or provokes the hubristic suitors on to further crimes.

After deception, recognition.Footnote ⁴⁴ Telemachus is recognized by Helen in Book 4; she also recalls how she once identified Odysseus when he entered Troy in disguise during the siege (4.240–56), an episode that seems to anticipate the scene in Book 19 with Eurycleia and the scar. In Phaeacia Odysseus finally reveals his identity at the opening of Book 9. But it is in the second half that the motif becomes more frequent: after the encounter with Athena in Book 13, there are recognition scenes with Telemachus, the dog Argus, Eurycleia, Eumaeus and Philoetius together, the revelation scene with the suitors, and the climactic scene in which Odysseus and Penelope are re-united, followed by a final pendant in Book 24, the encounter with his father. These episodes are not randomly distributed. There is a clear contrast between the scenes in which the hero deliberately reveals his identity (e.g. to Telemachus), and those in which he is accidentally exposed (especially with Eurycleia). On the one hand we see and share the hero's superior knowledge; on the other we feel that he is not infallible, but can make mistakes.

There is also a significant relationship between the scene in Book 13, in which Athena tries to make Odysseus give himself away, but unsuccessfully, and the later scene in which Penelope succeeds in upsetting and exposing her husband. Athena, though she deceived Odysseus, was unable to make him lower his guard. Only in Book 23, in the second encounter with his wife, is the hero finally and incontrovertibly out-tested and outwitted. Here it is Penelope, in her uncertainty and doubt, who conceives a test to see whether Odysseus is truly her husband (23.108–110, 113–14). Once before, in Book 19, she had attempted to do so (19.215), but Odysseus had side-stepped. In Book 23 we see the tables turned, the biter bit, when Penelope asks the old nurse to bring out their marital bed for Odysseus to sleep in that night. ‘Thus she spoke, testing her husband’ (23.181). At the thought of anyone having tampered with the immovable bed, around which he had built the palace, Odysseus bursts out with open indignation: his famous caution and self-control vanish. The scene thus trumps all Odysseus' previous testing and reverses Penelope's earlier failure. Her success surpasses even the wiles of Athena, the only other female who matches the hero in cleverness and guile.

Finally, the medium of recognition is appropriate in most cases. The scar is apt for Eurycleia and the other servants, since they were present when Odysseus came home with that wound; it represents their ties with Odysseus' youth. With Laertes, Odysseus appeals not only to the evidence of the scar but also to his patrimony, the trees in the orchard where they stand (24.336–44). With Penelope, it is fitting and symbolic that the crucial sign, the proof of Odysseus' return, should be his knowledge of their bed, a shared secret: like their marriage, it is deep-rooted, immovably set, unchanged by time.Footnote ⁴⁵

Although the Odyssey also has a public dimension, in its presentation of Odysseus as the ideal king and of Ithaca as a society disrupted because of his absence,Footnote ⁴⁶ it is arguable that the central family relationships are more important, and that the sensitive presentation of human feelings, both masculine and feminine, goes beyond anything we find in the Iliad. This is one reason why many readers have found it an astonishingly modern work, a distant ancestor of the novel.Footnote ⁴⁷

3. Men, women, and goddessesFootnote ⁴⁸

One of the most notorious pronouncements in Homeric studies was the suggestion by Samuel Butler that the Odyssey was composed by a woman.Footnote ⁴⁹ Whatever one thinks of the theory itself, it is certainly obvious that female characters are more prominent in the Odyssey than in the Iliad, where they figure principally as victims of the war, often passive and unspeaking. Chryseis has no opportunity to speak for herself, and Briseis speaks only once, and among her fellow captives, when she mourns the dead Patroclus, unheeded by Achilles (Il. 19.282–300).Footnote ⁵⁰ It is of course true that the goddesses of the poem play a more active part: it would seem that the gulf between mortal and immortal is more important than that between man and woman – though we may ask whether this is equally the case in both epics. But in the Odyssey female characters are numerous among both mortals and immortals, and are important in both worlds. In some cases, indeed, the women are cleverer and more effective agents than the men: Helen is shrewder than Menelaus and quicker at recognizing Telemachus; Arete is in some ways more influential in Scheria than Alcinous (6.303–15; 7.53–77). Even on the divine level, Athena's quick-witted appeal to Zeus frustrates her absent uncle Poseidon.Footnote ⁵¹

Special interest attaches to Odysseus' dealings and relationships with women. Two of these are divine, Circe and Calypso.Footnote ⁵² It seems that the poet has done his best to differentiate these. Circe, probably the older figure, is a sorceress and a mysterious being, who cannot be fully trusted and with whom the hero forms no real attachment in a year's sojourn. She turns swiftly from threatening witch to generous hostess, but when Odysseus declares that he must leave she raises no objection. Calypso is a more sympathetic and affectionate figure, devoted to Odysseus and anxious to keep him with her. Her emotions are more human: outrage at the import of Hermes' message, pique at Odysseus' preference for a mortal woman. The scene in which she tries for the last time to prevail on him to stay and accept a life of immortal ease is important in establishing Odysseus' heroic status, but is also a touching and delicate interchange, rich in understated pathos.Footnote ⁵³ The gulf between humanity and divinity, tragically exploited in the Iliad (especially in the relationship of Achilles and Thetis), here becomes a source of personal sadness, as Calypso accepts abandonment with reluctance but nevertheless gives Odysseus the help he must have to depart. It is a pleasing touch that she does not reveal to him the command of Zeus, but leaves him to suppose that she has decided to let him go of her own accord. The theme of dissimulation, ubiquitous in the Odyssey, here enables Calypso to preserve her dignity.

There remains Nausicaa, the only human female with whom Odysseus has the opportunity for dalliance (in fact he behaves with perfect propriety).Footnote ⁵⁴ Here again the proximity of the Odyssey to ‘folk tale’ is evident: a wanderer appears in a strange land, excels in contests, impresses the people of the country, and wins the king's daughter.Footnote ⁵⁵ Of course, Odysseus tactfully evades the offer of Nausicaa's hand, though the reader is left in no doubt that she is attracted to him (6.244–6; 7.311–16). Some critics regret that the poet has denied us so charming a romance, but an erotic encounter with Nausicaa would have been a shocking and culpable misdemeanour on Odysseus' part,Footnote ⁵⁶ on quite a different plane from the infidelities with Circe and Calypso: it is rash to deny a deity who offers such favours. The Odyssey poet is prepared to hint that Calypso was not an altogether uncongenial companion in the early years, and we must grant that the epic, like later Greek society, accepts a double standard for the sexual behaviour of men and women, but the importance of fidelity and family ties in this poem have their effect on the hero's character. There is some evidence that Odysseus' amours were more numerous in other sources.Footnote ⁵⁷

The character of Penelope is essential to the plot of the Odyssey, and she is clearly the most intriguing female figure in the poem: older descriptions of her as ‘a healthy well-nourished lady…without any gift of intellect or strength of character’ now arouse incredulity and outrage.Footnote ⁵⁸ More recent discussions have laid much more stress on her devotion to her husband, her intelligence, the intensity of her grief, pathetically described in many passages, her attempts to assert her authority, and particularly her satisfying success in outwitting her husband.Footnote ⁵⁹ Recognizing the constraints on her behaviour, as a woman in a male-dominated society, some critics see her as manipulating the men she encounters, using what tools she has and exploiting her very limited range of choices.Footnote ⁶⁰ She can even be seen as enduring in her own sphere sufferings such as heroes undergo: in a simile at 4.791–3, she is compared to a lion, a comparison normally confined to male characters.Footnote ⁶¹ Whereas the analysts complained that Penelope's behaviour was inconsistent or inexplicable, readers now admit greater subtleties and see some of the more puzzling scenes as ‘provocatively enigmatic’.Footnote ⁶² A more sophisticated model of the poet's allusive technique also helps the interpreter: traditional analysis detected an unhappy conflation of a version in which Penelope did recognize her husband with one in which she did not, but it is perfectly possible that the poet is consistently following one version while playing on his audience's awareness of another. This seems plausible in Book 19, where the poet, having brought husband and wife together in a secluded spot at night, seems to be leading us to expect a recognition (as in previous versions of the tale?); but, although a recognition does take place in this scene, it is inadvertent, and involves not the queen but the old nurse Eurycleia.

Problematic scenes remain, which cannot be discussed in detail here. Particularly prominent in discussion are the scene in which Penelope extorts gifts from the suitors, the episode in which she converses with the beggar Odysseus but (as is now rightly accepted) fails to recognize her husband (Book 19), the passage in which she narrates a dream that foreshadows the doom of the suitors (19.535–58), the proposal to hold the contest of the bow, initiated by Penelope with Odysseus' encouragement (572–81), and the final sequence in which she is awakened by the nurse and after initial disbelief eventually accepts that Odysseus has indeed returned (Book 23). Other puzzling passages include the lines in which one suitor is said to be ‘the one who appealed most to Penelope’ (16.397–8) and the speech in which she compares herself, in opaque and elliptical terms, to Helen.Footnote ⁶³ All of these shed light on Penelope's personality and emotions: although in some passages we may be surprised or forced to modify our earlier impressions, the fundamental premises of the story – that Penelope is a faithful wife and will re-marry only with deep reluctance, in order to protect Telemachus and his patrimony – should not be questioned.Footnote ⁶⁴ The homecoming of Odysseus would be hollow if that were not so: he has sacrificed even immortality in order to come home to his wife, one who is ‘like-minded’. Odysseus himself describes the ideal, in a much earlier passage which sums up several of the poem's fundamental assumptions: ‘there is nothing nobler, nothing better, than when man and wife dwell together with their thoughts in common: that brings much grief to their enemies, joy to their friends; and they themselves know it best of all’ (6.182–5). Their eventual embrace is marked by a simile which is applied to both parties: it starts from Odysseus and finishes with Penelope, and describes their joy in terms of the experiences of a shipwrecked sailor finding his way at last to shore:

The linking of Penelope with Odysseus' sufferings stresses not only their reunion but also the parallels between their different ordeals and achievements – both alone, both enduring, planning, and hoping. Penelope's exceptional qualities are further shown by the calmness with which she accepts that Odysseus must undertake a further journey to placate Poseidon. Past suffering and future parting serve to set their present joy in sharper relief.

The other important female in Odysseus' life is of course the goddess Athena. Theirs was already regarded as a special relationship in the Iliad (see especially 23.782–3), but in that epic she also befriends other heroes (Achilles and Diomedes). In the Odyssey her attention is focused on a single favourite, and the poet expands this conception to create something almost unique: a close friendship between man and deity. Sometimes she aids him without his knowledge, sometimes more openly; on the whole her interventions become more frequent in the second half. Her interaction with others, even with Telemachus, is more distant, often deceptive: thus in Book 15 she misleads Telemachus with tales of his mother's eagerness to marry, playing on the young man's fears. In Book 18 she puts an impulse in Penelope's mind, and the queen responds without really understanding what she is doing and why. But with Odysseus she is affectionate and reassuring, even teasing, as shown above all in Book 13, where the basis of their relationship is most explicitly defined. She cares for him because they are alike:

Although there is doubtless an extra frisson to their relationship because they are male and female, the respect with which Odysseus always speaks to her and the traditional chastity of Athena reduce the significance of this factor: this is a partnership based on intellectual equality. We may contrast both the relationship between Aphrodite and Paris in the Iliad, where there is no common ground other than their sensual natures, and the moving portrayal of Hippolytus’ devotion to Artemis in the Hippolytus, where there is no physical or even visual contact, and indeed no equality: favoured for a time, Hippolytus is left behind to die.Footnote ⁶⁶

It has sometimes been felt that the constant support and advice of Athena, especially in the second half of the poem, diminishes the triumph of the hero.Footnote ⁶⁷ Even with her encouragement, however, he has still to execute his intentions, and it is notable that, although she promises her support against the suitors, she gives him no guidance as to how he should win a position of advantage over them. His fluent lying and clever coaxing of help or comforts out of Eumaeus and others need no divine backing. Moreover, in the actual slaughter she abstains from intervention until it is no longer needed: withdrawing from the battle, she observes it from the roof of the hall (22.236–8). In the end she holds up the aegis and sends the suitors running in panic, but by that point the hero and his allies have already gained the upper hand. This is consistent with the practice of the Iliad and with later Greek attitudes: the gods help those who are prepared to help themselves.Footnote ⁶⁸

In one notable respect Athena has the advantage over Penelope: as a goddess, she can take any form she wishes, and in masculine disguise as Mentes or Mentor can play a part in the affairs of Ithaca, organizing a ship for Telemachus and performing other tasks where a woman would be ignored or sent back to her home.Footnote ⁶⁹ As in Aeschylus' Oresteia, the goddess who favours the male in all things restores order to a patriarchal society: ‘the king's in his palace, all's right with the world’. The masculine personality of the warrior-goddess means that she is even at home in war. Although such qualities were attributed to the Amazons, who figured in the epic Aethiopis, the conventions of Greek family life make it impossible for Penelope to participate in the governing of Ithaca or in state affairs: the most that is possible is for her husband to compare her ‘renown’Footnote ⁷⁰ with that of a virtuous king whose land is prosperous and governed justly (19.108–14).Footnote ⁷¹ It is striking that the word kleos, so closely associated with heroic prowess, should be used to describe the passive and domestic virtue of Penelope; but her virtue is still assimilated to, and subordinate to, that of a man, ultimately her husband. Hence for Penelope to have her husband home and her long years of fidelity rewarded means the end of the story. Whether the passage in which husband and wife retire to bed together also marks the end of the epic will be discussed in the next section.

4. Endings

For the most part it has been assumed above that we are considering a poem which draws upon older sources and traditional material but which is itself shaped by a single mind, a ‘monumental poet’ who may or may not also be the composer of the Iliad. Minor interpolations, sometimes identified by awkwardness or by poor manuscript attestation, do certainly occur, but these are normally a matter of a few lines at most. Far more significant and disquieting are the doubts which have overshadowed the conclusion of the Odyssey, from 23.297 to the end of Book 24, ever since antiquity.Footnote ⁷² This section embraces the conversation which husband and wife hold in bed together (including an account of his travels); the descent of the suitors to the underworld, where they find Agamemnon and Achilles in conversation, and where the scene ends with Agamemnon congratulating the absent Odysseus on his good fortune, and praising Penelope; the episode in which Odysseus visits his aged father Laertes, tests him in the by now familiar manner, and eventually reveals himself once Laertes is helpless with grief; and, finally, the brief and abortive attempt of the suitors' kinsmen to retaliate against Odysseus and his followers. In the last episode of the poem, in a strangely accelerated narrative, Athena and Zeus impose peace on Ithaca. A full review of the problems cannot be given here, but the main issues and their implications should be aired.

The Alexandrian scholars Aristophanes and Aristarchus judged 23.296 to be the ‘end’ (telos) or ‘limit’ (peras) of the Odyssey.Footnote ⁷³ Arguments that they meant by this not the textual conclusion but the climax or ‘goal’ of the action are more persuasive with telos than with peras, and should probably be abandoned.Footnote ⁷⁴ It is much less clear whether they judged the remainder of the poem spurious on textual or internal grounds.Footnote ⁷⁵ Internal difficulties certainly exist, though one does sometimes wonder if modern scholarship would have pursued these with the same ruthlessness if the ancient testimonies had not given them this lead. Further complexities are introduced by modern critical studies of closure, the ways in which literary works reach their conclusion.Footnote ⁷⁶ Comparative study strongly suggests differences between ancient and modern taste in these matters; and we must also ask whether the same criteria should be applied to works intended for oral performance.Footnote ⁷⁷

The arguments for condemning the section are of different kinds. First there is linguistic usage: the last part of the poem contains many odd forms or unique and difficult expressions which cast doubt on its being authentic work of the main Odyssey poet. Page's exposition of these was severely criticized by Erbse, but Stephanie West, in an important study, has shown that some recalcitrant cases still lack justification and that certain phrases are hard even to understand. Secondly, there are arguments from religious belief, especially about the underworld and the afterlife. The debate here is closely related to discussion of Book 11, Odysseus' own visit to the land of the dead, which has itself been found controversial.Footnote ⁷⁸ Are the dead conscious or not? Can they converse with one another? Can a dead man enter the underworld before being buried, as the suitors seem to? How coherent is Homer's picture of the afterlife? How consistent should we expect it to be, given that this is imaginative literature and that we find inconsistencies elsewhere in the religious ‘system’ of the epics? After over-rigid analyses in the past, the recent tendency has been to allow for much more variety and flexibility in Homer's conception of Hades,Footnote ⁷⁹ but Sourvinou-Inwood has thoroughly re-examined the question and insists that the picture in Book 24 must derive from a later period than that of Book 11 and the rest of the Odyssey.Footnote ⁸⁰ This conclusion may be contested, but her argument needs to be confronted. Some would no doubt wish to reply that inconsistency and vagueness of conception are what we would expect when the poet is dealing with the mysteries of life after death.

Thirdly, and perhaps most important for non-specialists, there is the question of poetic quality. Here of course there is much scope for disagreement. Most people would agree that the scene in the underworld (leaving aside the eschatological difficulties) is a valuable episode: it shows us Odysseus' fellow-heroes once more, and emphasizes their miserable state, whether their deaths were glorious (Achilles) or humiliating (Agamemnon): death is the same for all. Their misfortune is contrasted with Odysseus' triumph, now reunited with wife and son and victorious over his foes. The episode also enables Penelope to be given her due. As for the scene with Laertes, frequent references earlier in the poem have led us to expect an appearance of Odysseus' father,Footnote ⁸¹ and this is reinforced both by the importance of the father–son theme in the poem and by the potential contrast with the Iliad, in which Achilles will never again see his old father and must be content with the momentary union with Priam, an enemy but a mirror image of Peleus.Footnote ⁸² The way in which Odysseus tests and plays games with his wretched father has outraged many critics, but it should not surprise those who recognize that the hero is not simply a paragon of gentlemanly virtues.Footnote ⁸³ By now deception has become second nature to him; nevertheless, as he observes Laertes from a distance he does hesitate, as he never has before, and considers a more open approach. It is consistent with both his character and the thematic tendencies of the poem that he should choose the more devious and potentially more painful option.Footnote ⁸⁴

The first and last of the four sections are the least satisfactory. Of these the first, in which Odysseus and Penelope recount their stories to one another, is a natural and fitting consequence of their reunion (and storytelling is, of course, one of the recurring activities of the poem), but the way in which it is narrated is somewhat banal.Footnote ⁸⁵ Far more serious are the charges brought against the conclusion, in which the suitors' relatives summon an assembly, seeking to arouse the community to outrage over the slaughter. Medon and Halitherses warn them not to challenge Odysseus, and they proceed to battle despite this warning. A brief moment of tension is followed by the miraculous charge of Laertes, momentarily restored to youthful strength; in a few more lines the conflict comes to an end, much to Odysseus' satisfaction, and Athena brings harmony to the community. What is peculiar here is that all of the elements seem appropriate and potentially interesting: it is the cursory and over-hasty execution that fails to satisfy, particularly after so leisurely an episode at Laertes' farm. It is almost as though this last section, and in particular the last sixty lines, were a rough sketch which was awaiting further elaboration. Neither the supporters nor the opponents of the Continuation have adequately explained this strange unevenness of style.

Two passages earlier in the Odyssey seem to prepare for the events of Book 24, making reference to the danger from the suitors' kinsmen and the prospect of Odysseus visiting his father (20.41–3: 23.137–8). Those who see the Continuation as a later composition must argue that these lines too are interpolated, or that they refer to an earlier version which also contained these events. Defenders of the Continuation often claim that it picks up ideas or develops themes present in the earlier part of the epic, but analysts can dispose of this argument with ease, by maintaining that this is obviously what an imitator would do. Thus the scene in the Ithacan assembly clearly builds on Book 2 (where Halitherses also appeared), but that does not guarantee the authenticity of Book 24. Similarly, the second underworld scene develops themes of Book 11 (especially the superiority of Odysseus' career to that of Achilles), but that need not mean they are by the same hand.Footnote ⁸⁶

Perhaps the most substantial question arising from this debate is whether the Odyssey originally ended with Odysseus and Penelope in bed together, in which case the poet is treating the continuity of their marriage as all-important, or with the aftermath of the slaughter, with potential civil war in Ithaca averted – clearly a more public and political finale. The answer will be different depending on which passages the critic selects and emphasizes from the earlier stages of the poem. But it is hard to believe that nothing was said about the reclaiming of the kingdom, though some have maintained that epic values would not necessarily require an avenging hero to give any justification for his actions, and that it was only in the later stages of the tradition, when kingship was giving way to aristocratic government, that the need was felt to provide some statement of how the community of Ithaca reacted to the extermination of 110 suitors. In the past I have generally felt that the good parts of the Continuation outweighed the bad, but some of the recent discussions have made me feel that it is more likely to be the work of a later poet. Nevertheless, I continue to think that the tale is unlikely to have ended as Aristarchus and Aristophanes maintained, and that, since it is necessary to take their statement seriously, we should allow that something has gone wrong in the tradition and that an older conclusion has been either lost or reworked, perhaps abbreviated in its final stages. The exact process involved is of course beyond us, but there has clearly been some thought given to the integration of the ending, in view of the anticipatory passages already cited. Hence the tenth book of the Iliad is not truly parallel,Footnote ⁸⁷ for the most striking fact about that book is that it can be removed with no adjustment to the surrounding text.

If the Continuation is rejected, then the ‘authentic’ Odyssey reaches its climax with the violent revenge of the hero, at his most Iliadic, upon his enemies and on those who have betrayed him;Footnote ⁸⁸ it then proceeds to a conclusion in a gentler and more subtle style, with dialogue more significant than action, in the recognition and reunion of husband and wife. It thus shows Odysseus supreme in battle but also successful in peace. Although Penelope would be denied the words of commendation which she receives from Agamemnon in Book 24, the sequence of recognitions would end with hers, in which she emerges as the ‘victor’, and the poem would end with celebration of their marital union. Debate over the merits and status of the existing conclusion will no doubt continue, but 23.296 is an ending we may be able to learn to live with.