Talk:Odyssey

The intended audience of the Odyssey knew what was going to happen. I think calling this a spoiler is like the may contain nuts warning.

Second that. (Modern equivalent is Titanic -- hey, bet the boat sinks.)

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Someone deleted the link to Apollo 13: "...and why would we link to Apollo 13?" Because the command module for the mission was named "Odyssey." However, in the absence of agreement, I'll put the link here instead. - RjLesch.

I believe that this is what sitewide searches are for -- someone who wants to know how the word "Odyssey" is used in Wikipedia will just search for it and will find the Apollo 13 page. Putting an actual link to any kind of thing named "Odyssey" inside the article seems too wasteful (of the reader's attention) to me. --AV

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I'm really tempted to delete the reference to the movie "O Brother, Where Art Thou" as well. It's just too insignificant to appear in an article on the Odyssey. There're dozens of other films and hundreds of books that mimic or parody the plot of the Odyssey; should they all be here? --AV

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Yes, they should all be here, or at least easily reachable from here. This is not a high priority of course (the actual article is higher priority). But if there is actual information available, no matter how apparently trivial, it is in principle suitable for Wikipedia. There is no practical size limit here. --Geronimo Jones.

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The chronology is completely wrong- Odyssey does not unfold over 42 days! Odysseus spends three years drifting about the Mediterranean and then seven more years with Calypso. Chuggedy-Chuggedy Chuggedy. Whooo Whhoo! Edit Coming! adamsan 17:08, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)

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I am not so sure that Penelope was weaving a shroud for Laertes, her husband's father, as modified in a recent edition. Laertes was still alive when Odysseus returned, and Penelope should have known that fact, as he was not living too far! Since she was using the shroud as an excuse to make the suitors wait, it would be more logical to prepare the work for her husband. They pretend that he must be dead after all. However, if Homer has written it that way, I can't alter the plot of his poem. I don't have the reference at hand, but if anyone can check it out...Robin des Bois ♘ ➳ ✉ 03:08, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The shroud is for Laertes. That is stated consistently whenever the story of weaving the shroud is told. This is logical, given that Laertes is old, and since it takes time to weave a shroud it has to be prepared in advance.

Exactly. And as his daughter-in-law living in his son's house, she probably had an obligation to do it. Filiocht 16:08, Dec 22, 2004 (UTC)

Rather than figure out if it makes sense, we can follow the link to wikisource (http://wikisource.org/wiki/The_Odyssey). There we see, in Book II, paragraph 6 [1] (http://wikisource.org/wiki/The_Odyssey#Book_II)

"Sweet hearts," said she, "Ulysses is indeed dead, still do not press me to marry again immediately, wait- for I would not have skill in needlework perish unrecorded- till I have completed a pall for the hero Laertes, to be in readiness against the time when death shall take him. He is very rich, and the women of the place will talk if he is laid out without a pall."

--Chris vLS 19:15, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

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I am unsure about the external link: WHY ODYSSEUS MEANS HATE (http://www.geocities.com/protoillyrian/homer). My concerns:

• It is unsigned; I have no idea who/what is the source.
• It is about many things other than the Odyssey.
• It is original research about the Odyssey -- but there are thousands of other essays about these topics, why include this one?
• It is strangely formatted, and IMHO, a difficult read.

I plan to delete if I don't see compelling objections here in a day or so. Chrisvls 22:02, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

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I agree with Chrisvls. Should this link appear on Wikipedia, it should be on the Homer article. However, since external links are not always reliable and since this one is not a true or an official reference, I would delete it too. Even if it looks exhaustive in the semantics, we should make sure the data is correct before it appears as a link on this site. And also make sure it is indeed a reference that brings relevant and/or missing data on any article. Robin des Bois ♘ ➳ ✉ 00:28, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

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WHY ODYSSEUS MEANS HATE (http://www.geocities.com/protoillyrian/homer) is deleted. Chrisvls 20:06, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

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I can hardly believe that people faithful to the Old Greek Testament of Mythology have the power to maim a profound scientific site like WHY ODYSSEUS MEANS HATE http://www.geocities.com/protoillyrian/homer since the external link is totally reliable and the hypothesis that ODYSSEUS story was based on a Sumerian older myth like the rest of Indo European heritage makes perfect sense.

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(1.68) Odysseus so odious -an effort to translate a pun on Odysseus' name, which means "he who gives or receives pain."

(9.361) my glorious name -in Greek, m'onoma kluton or "my famous name."

(9.364) Noman = Outis = "no man" or "no one" in Greek. When the other Cyclopes say, "Is some man is rustling your flocks" and "If no man is hurting you" (9.404, 9.409), they use another Greek form of the negative, mê tis, which means "no one" or "no man." This word sounds very much like another Greek word -mêtis- which means "cunning intelligence," and which forms part of Odysseus's usual epithet polymêtis, or "much cunning intelligence." Odysseus himself exacerbates the pun at 9.411-12, which might be more literally translated as: "my heart within laughed / at how my name and faultless cunning [mêtis] had fooled him." (9.402) Polyphemus -In Greek, "much telling" or "much fame"-in other words, a braggart ?however, his name might be linked to the complaint of his relatives who came to rescue him but were stunned by gibberish talk of Polyphemus mumbling the name of Ulysses. Note that we learn the Cyclops' name only now, and that Odysseus, too, both hides his own name and talks a lot about his fame.

(19.199) My name is Aethon which means, "red," or "ruddy." Another form, aithomenos, means "burning, to kindle, set alight." Dimock suggests that in this passage Odysseus' fiery lies melt and dissolve Penelope to tears (see lines 19.219-225). Clearly Odysseus emplyed many names in Iliad but -the hateful one- survived as his main appellation.

(19.440-48) Odysseus' name is related to the Greek verb odussomai, which usually means "to be angry at," "to hate," or "to be grieved." However, as George Dimock points out, in Homer's Odyssey the verb usually means "to cause pain" or "to bear a grudge against." Thus, Odysseus' name means "he who causes pain or makes others angry." Hence when he names Odysseus, Autolycus associates that name with his own tricky behavior: "odious, yes, / Hateful to many for the pain I have caused" (19.445-46). In addition, the verb associated with Odysseus' name can also mean "to suffer or receive pain." Lombardo translates this meaning (ôdinô, ôdusato) as "odious to" (1.68, 5.341, 5.425) and "hit him hard" (19.303). (In what ways does Odysseus cause pain, and in what ways is he grieving or long-suffering? Should a hero cause pain?) See the introduction, "The Man of Pain" (xvii-xxvii).

In addition, the theme of the name is immensely complicated by the meanings of the pseudonym that Odysseus uses to trick the Cyclops. Odysseus is a "no man" or "nobody" (ou tis), an "any man" (mê tis) who is also famous for being extremely clever (mêtis). Could a hero be a NOBODY? Instead a hero must make his name glorious and famous by doing great deeds. If he dies unknown, as could have happened to the archetypal anonymous Elpenor, his name and fame die with him. Yet Odysseus did not become -the one who caused pain- in order to be celebrated by poets and future generations.

(24.313-15) Alybas . . . Apheidas . . . Polypemon -These names that Odysseus tries to pawn off on his father are translated by Robert Fagles as "Roamer-Town," "Unsparing" and "old King Pain" respectively. According to Georg Autenrieth, Polypemon means "A great possessor or sufferer."

(24.315) Eperitus, Odysseus' last pseudonym, is translated by Fagles as "Man of Strife." George Dimock says the name sounds similar to peiretizon, "to put to the test" (328), precisely what Odysseus is doing to his father. (See lines 24.225 and 24.245-47.) However, Eperitus seems closest to eperetos, "at the oar," or "furnished with oars." Despite the effort to make Odysseus to look younger than Iliad, the evidence of Sumerian mythology shows that the insult of Odysseus to Poseidon is nothing else but the repetition of the Adapa's myth. Adapa insulted the gods and brought the curse of death on earth. Hebrews transformed the myth of Adapa into the myth of Adam who insulted the Jewish gods = plural Elohim. As usual Greeks tried to manipulate the ignorant readers after translating Sumerian myths into Greek. Since Homer was an inhabitant of an Etruscan city the myth he translated from Etruscan was earlier translated from Phoenician to Etruscan. Obviously Greeks were the last people in the ancient world to discover the myth of Adapa. Greek translators tried to make Iliad look older than Odysseus and they succeeded doing that partly because Greek translators were very skillful at adapting other myths and make them seem original. But when the mud bricks with the ancient Sumerian script were discovered in Iraq the deception became clear. The importance of Odysseus is extraordinary. Its archaic traits prove that Greek Homer was a translator - also a deceiver in other terms and Greek people have to agree with this conclusion instead of deleting websites related to the discovery of the truth. Illyrianka 20:50, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)