Epic tale
Well, you see, there’s a port on a western bay, and it serves a hundred ships a day. Lonely sailors pass the time away and talk about their homes
Had to read The Odyssey in HS.
No way i could do it....skipped it and took the D.
...And i was a big book reader at the time.
So far, I'm not loving it.
But the only book I've ever started and never finished was Finnegan's Wake. Just awful.
One thing right off the bat!
“In the seventh century BCE, the Greek poet Homer wrote the Odyssey.”
Poets didn’t write, back then it was all told from memory.
Somebody later on wrote it down and as was tradition attributed the writings to the original story teller.
Not to themselves.
I love these stories and they inspired generations of people.
I checked my library and I still have the Iliad and the Odyssey.
Right next to Moby Dick!
I worked I Tunisia in early 1970s and we were told the island of Djerba was the Ilead’s Isle of the Lotus Eaters.
If I remember correctly, 7 of the 10 years after the fall of Troy were spent on Calypso's island--she wouldn't let him leave.
Its not BCE. There is no “common era”. Its Before Christ.
This Agnostic will happily tell everyone so.
Change in western terminology rejected.
The real literary question is whether or not Odysseus actually went to any of these places or did any of these things.
The ‘travels’ portion of the Odyssey is only four books out of twenty-four. Odysseus, a known liar, is telling this story to the gullible Phaiakians, who aren’t really the brightest bulbs in Greece. None is this journey stuff is narrated in third person.
Odysseus is like “Well I’m about to get home; I’ve got to get my story straight about how I left Ithaca with all its best men and ten warships, and yet they’re all dead, and I, their commander, am the only one left alive.”
It is impossible to use “BCE” and be taken seriously.
If anyone thinks they can take such a person seriously, it’s because they are themselves not a serious thinker.
FIFY
In college, I read The Odyssey twice.
Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale,
A tale of a fateful trip
That started from this tropic port
Aboard this tiny ship.
The mate was a mighty sailing man,
The skipper brave and sure.
Five passengers set sail that day
For a three hour tour, a three hour tour...........
A few years ago, I decided my education was deficient because I had not read the Iliad.
I found it to be fascinating reading, with all kinds if interesting information.
Odysseus was trying to get home but was in no hurry. He was fascinated by the world he was discovering. That’s why he listened to the song of the sirens, dallied long with Circe, etc. That’s why he refused to eat the lotuses. He did not want to forget.
🎶“A three-hour tour. A three-hour tour…”🎶
Cleveland.
He went to Cleveland.
CC
Maybe if he had asked for some directions???
But then the Odyssey would be a slim pamphlet..