Hello, again --

Another thing I noticed at the very beginning of The Odyssey (yes, I'm not far past that -- but hey, the Fagles edition has a *long* introduction, so I'm actually eighty-something pages into the book!) was how many references Homer makes to Greek myths. Just in passing, because he expected his readers to know all about them.

Like when Zeus is

"remembering handsome Aegisthus,
the man Agamemnon's son, renowned Orestes, killed."

In order to get that, you have to know that Aegisthus is the lover of Clytemnestra, Agamemnon's wife. A lot of times, references to them come across like they were just waiting and scheming to get rid of Agamemnon when he came back from the Trojan war because Clyte. was a bad, cheating wife; but she was angry at Ag. for sacrificing their daughter to the gods! And then coming home with gorgeous Cassandra and saying, Hi, honey, make my new girlfriend comfortable, would you? Duh! I think I'd be pretty homicidal, too!

I'll be writing a piece about this, but if you want to know more about this background material, you can get the trilogy of plays called The Oresteia, by the Greek playwright Aeschylus. There's a Fagles translation, woohoo! These three shorties tell about Agamemnon's cursed family (they've been in a bad way, karma-wise, ever since some great ancestor invited the Greek gods to a feast at his house. Wanting to give them the best he had to offer, like a good Greek host, he finally decides to sacrifice his son and make him into a stew. The gods were not pleased, and cursed his family for generations), and go into detail about Agamemnon's murder and what happens to Orestes after he kills the man who killed his dad.

You can also read Euripides' plays about Iphigeneia, the daughter Agamemnon sacrificed, to learn about why he did it and how it was necessary in order for the Greeks to be able to go off and start the Trojan war and rescue Helen.

Or you can wait until I get it together and summarize them and post the piece at Words.

--Deborah

I'm just now getting through the introduction and have found the duty of the host most interesting. Without reading this intro, I would've completely missed the requirement of the parting gift, not recognizing its many forms, treasure, magic, being lastly consumed, or just plain ol' good advice, and would've never realized the significance of the breach of traditional Zeus-enforced hospitality in the end by the Phaecians after Poseidon gets pissed.

Planning on homeschooling my kids halfway around the earth (and oh, by the way, Deborah, in a sorely overdue reply to your email, um, I won't be able to attend your meetings in person, which is too bad because I sure would like to try those brownies) and being limited by overweight baggage charges, I chose to bring a couple anthologies along. The Norton Book of Classical Literature has been a great intro to many Greek masterpieces and a big help in understanding who all the major players are. I also brought W.H. Auden's The Portable Greek Reader for a few more selections and comparison of translations. Both give a little context to each excerpt and might be another option for someone worried about getting in over their head.

For the time being, the kids have been dumped into school and I am the only one enjoying Homer (unless you count Homer Simpson), but with their familiarity of the story, from the movie Clash of the Titans, the cartoon Class of the Titans, and an episode of Wishbone, I may start this as a bedtime read-aloud...

Lynne (SCHOLA)

Hey, Lynne!

I'm glad you're enjoying the book. Are you reading the Fagles translation, too?

Halfway around the world?? Are you in actual Greece, or what? Glad to have you here in some sense, anyway!

Yeah, I only learned about the hospitality thing and some of the specifics of the ins and outs of it pretty recently. It really changes how you look at things as you read the poetry and drama of the time. I think that, in spite of all the gods and goddesses and magic and Cyclopes running around, the human part of the plot feels so immediate and real to modern readers that it's easy (at least for me) to feel that we know this culture very well, and not know that we're missing anything.

We do now have rules of hospitality, but they're almost the reverse of the ancient Greeks'. It's the guest who's expected to give a gift, and though the host will generally give his best for his guests -- the towels nobody else is allowed to touch, the special tablecloths and dishes -- it's almost more a matter of pride than politeness. I think that at least the American attitude is that the host is already doing so much just by having the guest stay that the guest is expected to make his stay as easy as possible for his host. It's the custom, for a visit longer than a day or two, for the guest to take his host out to dinner, or at least cook; and for a very long stay, unless his hosts are wealthy, some sort of chipping in either monetarily or chorewise would be taken as a given. And of course after leaving, a guest would write a profuse letter of thanks.

It's a completely different attitude, and I don't think either is right or wrong, just suited to different places and circumstances. The Greeks would be shocked at the idea of turning away a guest who showed up at your door unexpectedly and assumed he could stay with you for the weekend or whatever; but Miss Manners, the soul of etiquette and hospitality (and a very funny writer, by the way), would advise the would-be host not to let his friends walk all over him in this way. Tell them you're glad to see them, and ask them where they're staying; if they brazen it out and say, "Why, with you!" then put on your tragedy mask and say, "Oh, I wish you'd let me know you were in town! What a shame we can't put you up here! But let me know where you'll be staying, and we'll have to have dinner together!"

(I can hear the ancient Greeks fainting away from here!)

Okay, gotta wrap things up. Unfortunately, I'm transitioning to a new computer and may be out of e-mail touch for a day or two; but I look forward to more Odyssey chatting when I get back.
Oh, and thanks, Lynne, for the tips about the Norton Anthology and the Auden -- I want to look for those now. Anthologies do make packing just a few books easier, don't they? You still have a lot of titles, just under fewer covers.

--Deborah