The Odyssey

Odysseus and the Sirens

I am rereading The Odyssey - the TE Lawrence translation - so it is very formal and amusing. But what is interesting is how much my reading of it has changed. First, of course, when I read it, it must have been more than twenty years ago. It was probably in connection with Joyce because at the top of each section I had written Telemachus, Calypso, Nausicaa, etc.

The second thing which has happened is I have taught as a Class Teacher, this means having done lots of background reading into the Greek Mysteries and Initation, as well has having read numerous abridged accounts of the story, like the play by Simon Barnes and a teenager's version of the story. So I know it inside out.

I remember being utterly frustrated and perplexed about why the first third of the story was about Telemachus and then a good fifth about Odysseus crying on Calypso's island. Followed by this really annoying bit about Nausicaa and her white-arms... it wasn't really a story about his adventures at all, and he seemed a minor character when compared to Athene, for example, you turns up for everything.

However, now coming back to it after twenty years, here is what I am getting from this.

It is now very clear to me that this story is the story of the journey of the human being from life before life and into life before death. Pre-life and life. The story of Telemachus and Penelope is about karma - how there is unfinished business and the human being must return to the Earth once again to face their karma. There are things which must be resolved, and things which must be sorted out - the leaving behind of many loose ends which need tying up. What is fascinating though is how they have been able to dove tail this into a story about war as well, which clearly was taking place all over the Mediterranean. Odysseus actually goes to Turkey, which is more or less as far as you could actually get from Greece in the Med Sea.

Anyhow, the Gods decide, it is time for Odysseus to return home. He has spent seven (that mystical number) years with Calypso and is perfectly miserable. Athene, who has taken it upon herself to be his own personal guardian angel, and begins, not by saying Odysseus you need to get going, but telling his son, go and look for your father. You then get the back story of the Trojan War and of course, meet Helen of Troy. You also get this incredible introduction to various kinds of families. The House of Atreus, Meleneus who is clearly suffering from PTSD, Nestor who is at the end of his life... the sorrow and brokenness of human life is everywhere. We are all in this life which is full of horror and bloodshed and sorrow... no one escapes the suffering of life... and yet, yet... here is Odysseus, who despite living on a charmed island is life's longing for itself - as Rumi says. He is not enjoying the joys of of perfection of Calypso's island, but wishing to return to Earth to once more join the adventure of life. He stares out to sea everyday, wishing he could go back.

This is why you cannot read The Odyssey as an adventure story because it makes no sense. It has to be read almost as a fairytale. Calypso is then told by Hermes that she must cast Odysseus out. So she makes preparations for him, in the same way in which we are equipped with a perfect human body she equips him with everything he needs. He then hews his own raft and a lot of detail is spent in the description of the making of this raft. He has to do it himself as well, just as the human soul must choose its own body before birth. When the raft is ready it is set to sea and Odysseus has to steer by the stars.

There is also a huge description about the stars, which is the journey the soul makes on the way BACK to Earth after going to create its body through each constellation. And then, Poseidon, the God of the Waters who hates Odysseus, creates the antipathy which enables him to be born - he his smashed against the rocks of Phonecia, Lybia, where he is washed up naked and empty-handed - just as we arrive into this world.

Interestingly, Nausicaa has a dream that she is going to have to do her washing and there she will meet her bridegroom. I don't think this is literally the man she is to marry, but she symbolises the soul. She is also supposed to do the washing and in many fairytales, washing the linen or clothes or shirts is an important part of the task of the soul. In many stories, the successful bride is the one who washes the impossibly stained shirt perfectly. Nausicaa does this and when her task is over Odysseus who is covered in foam and dirt, and totally naked, appears - not unlike a newborn.

Nausicaa then 'births' him, with clean linen sheets and all.

So I've stopped here, but he is then required to approach his contemporaries, the Queen and King of Phonecia as a supplicant. I see them as his Earthly parents, as they later set him on his way back to Ithaca.

That is as far as I have read so far, but it is fascinating. As with all really good stories it can be read on many different levels. An adventure, a wonderful allegory, a mystery... and as all good stories, it touches us on so many different levels that we don't even know it is doing that. I can't really describe how overwhelmed I am when I read it.