Homeric Lockdowns

Mr J R B Scragg (CR, Deputy Head Co-Curriculum and Outreach)

As we live through what has become widely known in the press as Lockdown 3.0, that term alone reminds us that there has been a wide variety of lockdowns over the past year. Not only have we had the initial, UK-wide lockdown, but we have also had the English ‘lockdown-lite’ of November, not to mention various Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish (but not Kentish or South African) variants. Which, when the call to HATA arms came, led me to ponder the variety of lockdowns, of one form or another, which Odysseus experiences in the Homeric poems. Many of these can be seen to illustrate a moral of one form or another. So, whilst we should be wary of superimposing modern value systems onto ancient cultures, it is tempting to think that perhaps these lockdowns, or periods of isolation, were conceived as a means of illustrating lessons which listeners might take away from our bard’s song. After all, in a society which lacked formal education, and where the ability to recite thousands of lines of poetry to a musical accompaniment (albeit one that probably sounded like a slashed set of bagpipes or an errant pupil twanging their ruler on the desk) was highly prized, it is tempting to think that those who sat round to listen were also looking to learn. Or at least it is for a schoolmaster . . .

Lockdown 1, or, Home is Where the Heart is Part 1 – Calypso

The longest enduring of Odysseus’ lockdowns is the seven years he spends on the island of Ogygia with the nymph Calypso. This is where we first encounter him in the Odyssey (in Book V, but the first four books centre on Athena trying to make a man out of Telemachus), even though it is late in his travels. The vast majority of his story will be told in flashback to the people of Phaeacia, the land where he washes up, furry and brine-encrusted, to startle Nausicaa and her maidservants, who are playing ball after doing the family laundry, an episode which, to the bemusement of all, appears locked down in the OCR cycle of GCSE set texts . . . Odysseus is in a similarly sorry state when he lands on Ogygia: his men are all now lost (owing to an unfortunate barbecue involving the Sun God’s cattle, and his ensuing aquatic revenge) and he himself is shipwrecked. In such a state he is not entirely unresistant to Calypso’s advances, although it has to be said that he would be powerless to resist the enchantments of this minor deity, even should he so choose. Seven years down the line, however, and the enchantments have worn thin, and it takes the prompting of Hermes, sent by Athene, to persuade Calypso to send him on his way.

Lockdown 2, or, Home is Where the Heart is Part 2 – Curiosity killed the cat 1 Circe

Not entirely dissimilar to Odysseus’ stay with Calypso is his time on Aeaea with Circe (Book X, and also the rather excellent novel by Madeline Miller). At this point, Odysseus’ is the last remaining ship. He and his men have come tantalisingly close to making it home, for King Aeolus (i/c winds), having welcomed them after their retreat from the Cyclops, has sent them on their way with all the unfavourable winds tied up in a bag. Assisted in this way, they are within sight of Ithaca when Odysseus’ men, believing the bag to be full of treasure, succumb to avarice and curiosity and open it, when Odysseus is having forty winks, having stayed awake for the previous nine days. Outcome the hostile winds, blowing them back to Aeolia, whence they are sent packing (for the gods clearly hate them), landing on the isle of the peckish Laestrygonians, who smash up all the ships, bar Odysseus’ and make dinner of their men. Upon landing on Aeaea, Odysseus’ men divide in two, with half exploring the island under Eurylochus’ leadership, while Odysseus’ half remain by the ship on the shore. Eurylochus’ men happen upon Circe, who welcomes them and offers them a curious brew which turns them into swine (a moral for the modern world perhaps: ‘always make sure you know what you are drinking’). Also curiously, Eurylochus is rewarded for his hesitancy at this point, for he has hung back, and is able to return to tell Odysseus what has happened. Odysseus heads inland, determined to rescue his men, and would be destined for a porky end, were it not for the happy intervention of Hermes, who offers him moly root, as an antidote to Circe’s enchantment, and tells him to rush her with his sword. Her response to this, obviously enough, will be to suggest that they go to bed, and at this point he should require her to swear that she will never harm him, which she does, before they repair to her bed. The following day Odysseus, refusing all hospitality, persuades the now enamoured Circe to release his men and,

restored to human form, they enjoy a happy year of feasting, bathing, and more besides for Odysseus before his men (note not Odysseus, husband of the ever-faithful Penelope) begin to pine for home and persuade Odysseus that it is time to leave. Circe concedes, but reveals that it is necessary for them to travel to the Underworld . . .

Lockdown 3, or, Curiosity Killed the Cat Part 2 – Pride comes before a fall 1 – Cyclops

If Odysseus’ crew were reluctant to explore Circe’s island, then they had good reason. Not long before (Book IX) they had landed on an uninhabited island, just out from the Cyclops’ coast, with wild goats ‘by the hundred’. The perfect place, in other words, for Odysseus’ men to rest and refuel after the perils of the Cicones and the Lotus-eaters. Odysseus, however, noticing smoke rising from the nearby island, decides to take his own ship to explore. The rest, as they say, is history (or myth, at any rate). One of the most famous lockdowns of all, with Odysseus needing all his wiles to determine how they might escape the Cyclops, and not be condemned to die shut in a cave whose entrance is blocked by a boulder such that only a Cyclops might move it.

Odysseus’ wiles in the cave have re-echoed through time, allowing him to escape one of the most famous literary lockdowns, but his self-satisfaction and his boastfulness cause his men to pay the ultimate price, far beyond the half dozen who were eaten by Polyphemus in the cave as a result of his curiosity and determination to explore. For Odysseus, having previously tricked the Cyclops into believing that his name is ‘No-man’ is guilty of hybris, or arrogant effrontery, on his departure. He reveals his real name as he gloats over the now blinded Cyclops, allowing Polyphemus to invoke his father, Poseidon, to exact revenge. As Odysseus is on a ship, and Poseidon has total control of the sea, this is bad news, costing the lives of all Odysseus’ remaining men, and nine years of his life.

Lockdown 4, or, Pride Comes Before a Fall 2 – Achilles

We might well wonder at Odysseus’ failing in succumbing to hybris at the end of Odyssey Book IX, for has seen the dreadful impact of a lockdown born of pride. Whilst we could not level a charge of hybris for Achilles’ behaviour in the Iliad, there is a proud stubbornness to his behaviour which ultimately causes him ill.

At the opening of the poem, the Greeks are beset by a plague of arrows, sent from Apollo. This has been summoned, by Chryses, a priest of the god, in retribution for Agamemnon carrying off his daughter as a prize. The Greeks have no choice but to release her, and so Agamemnon insists that Achilles give him Briseis, his own maidservant and prize. In a society where honour in war was inextricably bound up with the award of material plunder, it is unthinkable to Agamemnon, as commander-in-chief, that he should not receive recompense; it is also unconscionable to Achilles that he should be dishonoured in this way.

Achilles therefore withdraws from the fighting, with the sympathy of many of the other Greek heroes. By the close of Book VIII the Greeks, without their champion, are penned back by their ships on the shore, surrounded by the Trojans countless watch fires – a terrifying lockdown, for all that it is brief.

Agamemnon, seeing the folly of his ways, sends an embassy to Achilles, consisting of Odysseus, Phoenix and Ajax, offering enormous recompense to Achilles if he rejoined the fighting. The make up the embassy is telling: the wily Odysseus, most persuasive speaker of the Greeks, the sage old Phoenix, almost a second father to Achilles, with a deep understanding of the ethics of heroism, and Ajax, the straight-talking ‘hero’s hero’ and strongest of all the Greeks. However, not even this embassy can succeed. Achilles rejects all three of their invocations in turn, refusing to return to the fight and thus setting in train the sequence of events which will lead to the death of his beloved lieutenant Patroclus. With the Greeks still suffering at the hands of the Trojans (Book XVI), Patroclus, pointing out that his ‘pride is ruinous’, pleads with Achilles to allow him to don his armour and lead the Myrmidons into battle once more. Achilles agrees, and Patroclus will go on to ignore his clear instructions (yes, it is another moral tale) and end his days facing Hector in single combat.

If Odysseus’ behaviour has been a little suspect with the likes of Calypso and Circe, his wife Penelope has, all this time, been beyond reproach. Beset by a horde of suitors in her own house, she has endured a lockdown in her own home to keep them all waiting for nigh on 20 years. One of the more intriguing female figures in Classical literature, she is her husband’s equal in her wiles. To him still disguised as a beggar (Book XIX) she recounts how she has been weaving her robe, a funeral shroud for her surely dead husband, during the day, only to unpick it at night. Even Odysseus’ dog, Argus, has remained faithful. Cast out on the dung heap outside the halls, yet clinging still to life, he is the first to recognise his master, in Book XVII.

If loyalty has its rewards (the safe return of Odysseus), then coveting another man’s wife, and abusing his hospitality, most certainly does not. The suitors, whilst imposing their lockdown on Penelope, have steadily been eating Odysseus out of house and home. In a land which is largely inhospitable, the laws of xenia (guestfriendship or hospitality) were sacrosanct, watched over by none other than Zeus himself.

After Athena has inspired Penelope to set up the contest of the bow (Book XXI), agreeing to marry whichever of them can string Odysseus’ bow and shoot an arrow through a line of axe heads, the suitors (having all tried and failed) agree to allow the beggar to try, thinking it will be good sport. This, it transpires, is a very bad choice. For the suitors are now all, quite literally, locked down. The faithful nurse Eurycleia (having recognised Odysseus from an infant scar, and also standing by her man) and the trusty cowherd Philoitios have barred the hall and the yard. A bloodbath ensues, something Hollywood still hasn’t quite worked out how to cope with…

November 2020 by Mr E.F.J. Twohig