![]() ![]() Not when it makes its way across the starry heavens, Smothered by clouds and fog not ever on themĭoes the shining sun look down with its rays, Sailing on through the day and into darkness, the Greeks reach the land of the Cimmerians, That seems likely, but our grasp of the poems now, as fixed, written works of art, depends on being able to understand how the artist who created the versions we now have used that repetition to build meaning. Scholars have suggested that the use of repeated forms on various levels, words, phrases, and larger narrative structures, reflects the composition of Homeric epic without the aid of writing. The concentric forms of the story reinforce parallels between characters and situations, building meaning by repetition, a central feature of Homer’s poetic technique. When we look at it from this larger perspective, the disarming of Circe and her transition from dangerous seductress to friendly helpmeet in Book Ten becomes part of the poet’s narrative strategy for a major part of the poem. And the adventures in Books Nine through Twelve are themselves framed in the same way by Odysseus’s encounter with the Phaeacians. ![]() Book Eleven becomes in this perspective an “epyllion,” a miniature epic, framed by encounters with Circe. The resulting structure, usually called “ring form,” is often used by early Greek poets to mark off significant sections of a narrative. Circe will reappear when the Greeks return from the underworld in Book Twelve, telling Odysseus more about how he can reach Ithaka alive and thus framing the entire adventure from the land of the dead. All these figures seem to preside over the boundary between mortals and immortals in the poem, with αὐδήεσσα meaning in this context, “speaking to mortals.” In the background is Siduri, the barkeep who sends Gilgamesh on his way to the Land of Dilmun ( The Epic of Gilgamesh X.iii see the essay on 10.133–177). ![]() The rare epithet is used elsewhere only of Calypso ( 12.449), and Ino, “the White Goddess,” (5.334). True to her word, Circe sends a helping wind to fill the sails. Now the poet will put him next to other illustrious heroes, comparing his character and achievements with theirs. He is a complex figure, articulated through various polarities: sometimes secretive and detached from others, sometimes glorying in heroic renown masculine in his relentless self-control, feminine (as the Greeks saw it) in his wily, subversive behavior fiercely determined to survive and reclaim his rightful place in Ithaka, determined to experience the unknown, sometimes at the expense of his mission and crew. Though probably already known from earlier myths and folktales, the hero who inhabits this poem has been created afresh from his encounters along the way, specific to this story and its rhetorical imperatives. Major themes have surfaced in various forms: the existential choice of Odysseus to forego timeless bliss with Calypso and plunge back into the world of death and change, the evolving threat of suffocating oblivion embodied by Calypso, Nausicaa, Polyphemus, and Circe, the repeated journey of Odysseus from anonymous stranger to glorious hero. The long narrative arc that began with the Calypso episode ends as the Greek sailors sit dutifully in their ship, guided by the gods, heading for the land of the dead. Odysseus and his crew arrive at the entrance to the Underworld and perform animal sacrifices to the dead. ![]()
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