Odyssey Auxiliary: The Ultimate Guide to Homer's The Odyssey

Summary
We start the book with Odysseus praying in the grove while Nausicaa rides back to her mansion. As he turned to the city Athena appeared as a small child and covered Odysseus with mist. She led him to the mansion while Odysseus gawked at the cornucopia and bounty of Lord Alkinoos. Athena left him and he entered Lord Alkinoos’s halls and grasped Queen Arete’s knees, and begged for passage home. After that, he proceeded to sit down amid the ashes. Ekheneos, the old oracle reprimanded Alkinoos for not having courtesy; and in response, Alkinoos gave Odysseus his favorite son’s shining chair and ordered maids to pour water for his hands. Alkinoos speculates if this visitor is a god or mortal. Odysseus assures him that he is indeed mortal. They feast with wine, and Odysseus tells of his story, and how he arrived here and how he received new clothes. The King is disappointed in how his daughter acted, “…my child’s good judgment failed in this-” because she should have brought the guest here. Odysseus replied that it was his own choice to stay at the grove and not Nausicaa’s. Alkinoos then asks him if he wishes to remain here. If Odysseus stays Alkinoos would offer him his daughter for marriage, and if he wants to leave for Ithaca, ship and crew will be prepared. Odysseus praises Alkinoos for all the help, and after some more idle conversation, goes to bed.
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Characters & Their Lessons
Character: Odysseus (meaning son of pain or guide)
Description: Odysseus is the protagonist in the story. He tells of his adventures and how he got here to the king and queen.
Lesson: Odysseus learns nobility in this chapter. He learns that he cannot place the blame of his actions on other people. In fact, it is better at times to take the blame for others. Lines 325-328 state ‘“Sir, as to that, you should not blame the princess. She did tell me to follow with her maids, but I would not. I felt abashed, and feared that at the sight would somehow ruffle or offend you.”’. He also learns that he should be more humble and that he is not the greatest individual, there are others that are of a higher rank than him. One aspect of being humble that is shown, is the fact that he does not tell his identity right away.

Character: Nausikaa
Description: Nausikaa is the white-armed princess of Lord Alkinoos and Queen Arete. She finds Odysseus in Book VI at the river and gave him clothes and a bath. Nausikaa is a beautiful young girl. She is very wise and hospitable.

Character: Alcinoos
Description: Lord Alcinoos is the respected king of the Phaiakians. He is a charismatic leader who is blessed by the gods. He makes rhetorical strategies, appeals to religion, reason, and emotions. He is married to his niece. Alcinoos is prepared to assist Odysseus in his journey home
Lesson: In this bookAlcinoos learns that he cannot trust everybody he meets. Before giving Odysseus passage back to his homeland he gave conveyance to all travelers. Now he has to learn to look deeper into his guests and decide if they are trustworthy in order to save his palace from suffering the wrath of the gods.

Character: Arete
Description: Arete is the wife of Lord Alkinoos, her uncle. She is the daughter of Rhexenor, brother of Alkinoos, and is loved by her own children and her people. She sits and listens to Odysseus.

Character: Ekheneos
Description: Ekheneos breaks silence and states that Odysseus should be treated with more kindness. He is the kind old oracle, and the eldest of the Phaiakians. He is versed in laws and manners of the old times.

Character: Athena
Description: Athena is the goddess of wisdom and strategy. She guides Odysseus throughout the book by creating a mist around Odysseus and leading Odysseus to the palace. She’s too smart to have an affair.

Character: Laodamas
Description: Laodamas is King Alcinous’s

Character: Pontonoos
Description: Pontonoos is one of Alcinous’s servants.

Literary Devices
Simile
“High rooms…as though with lusters of the sun and moon” This compared the height to those of the sun and moon and their lusters.

Metaphor
“…The doors were golden guardians of the great room”. The doors were made out of gold and were the 'guardians' of the estate and protected it.

Parallelism
“…Skillful were the men of Phaiakia…so were these women skilled…”.This paralellism showed that men and women are equally skilled in what they do best.

Motif--Disguise
This concept comes out often during the plot of The Odyssey when a person is trying to help another without the other person knowing.

Motif--Hospitality
People are very welcoming and generous offering a feast to the guest before asking questions.

Motif-- Greetings
Odysseus hugs Aretes knees and he always needs to think of how to greet the people he meets.

Motif-- Feasting/Famine
Characters often were welcomed with a feast after they had been deprived of food.

Motif--Sleeping
People slept a lot in the Odyssey. Sleeping is used to renew oneself.

Symbolism
Tipping Wine
Wine symbolizes the blood of death or fluid of life. People usually tip wine in celebration of an event or honoring a god. For instance, people often have a toast when they get together to celebrate their good lives.

Pouring Water
Water symbolizes life, refreshment, and purification of the soul, but also could be destructive. Pouring water is often a symbol of union and fertility. The water jug itself is a symbol of wealth, social class and family.

Fog
Fog symbolizes can obscurity, indistinction, uncertainty of future, transformation into unreal, the gods, mystery, or approaching isolation or death.

King
A king smbolizes authority and power, and he embodies perfect union.

Palace
A palace symbolizes wealth and social class.

Belly
A belly symbolizes beliefs and food.

Calypso
Calypso symbolizes beliefs.

Bed
A bed symbolizes sleep.

Athena (Also known as Pallas Athene and Minerva)
Athena is a symbol of wisdom and leadership. The icons of civilization are derived from her symbols. Other symbols of Athena include...

Gold and Silver
Gold and silver are considered by many to be incredibly rare metals, worldly wealth. Gold is the symbol of pure light, element of God’s heavens. It can represent divine intelligence (like Athena) and virtue. Silver is symbol of purity and chastity, because it is tested by the fire.

Cornucopia (corn-horn, copia-plenty)
It is the symbol of harvest, Thanksgiving, and the horn of plenty. The horn was created according to two myths. The first was a competition to see who would marry Dejanira; the suitors were Hercules, and the shape-shifting river god, Achelous. Hercules pulled off Achelous’s horn when he was a bull and the water-nymphs treated it like a sacred object and filled it with flowers. The second one was of Zeus hiding from his father Cronus, who would have eaten him. He was raised by the princesses of Crete and their goat, Amalthea. Zeus eventually broke one of its horns and endowed it with being filled with whatever the possessor desired and gave it to the King’s daughters for thanks. It became a symbol of abundance.

Shining Chair
The shining chair is the symbol of power and royalty. He who has the shiny chair has power. In the Iliad (lines 726-729), Nestor owned a shining chair and leapt up when greeted by a man of greater power, relinquishing his own power.

Ashes/Fireplace
Ashes are a symbol of warmth and hospitality. They are also of a symbol of penitence or remains of the human body after death.

Connections
Pouring Water
Pouring water is often a symbol of union and fertility. For example, in Sri Lanka there is a ritual performed at marriages that involves the father of the bride to pour water on a thread, sealing the marriage. This also applies to baptism, when a ritual performed with water unites you with Christ. A passage in the Bible tells of another incident involving water, this one involving the marriage between Isaac and Rebekah.

Ashes
Just like Odysseus, Cinderella sat in ashes when working for her sisters and mother-in-law before she married the prince and got what she deserved. In Egyptian mythology the phoenix is thought to rise from the ashes in rebirth. Such as the case when Odysseus changed to swallow his hubris. In the Bible, in Esther 4:1 Mordecai put on ashes when he learned that the king was going to kill all the Jews (like the Holocaust). Christians also have Ash Wednesday.

Charisma
There is currently a Senate race held at Maryville, Tennessee. One of the candidates is a charming, charismatic politician, whom even reminded a voter as Bill Clinton. This candidate is Harold Ford Jr. and you can hear his podcasts here. He displays charisma, charm, and appeals not unlike King Alkínoös, who displayed such characteristics with his conversation with Odysseus. Harold Ford Jr. is like the respected and wise man that King Alkinoos is.

Bronza Statue

Book VII of the Odyssey is connected to an article called Odyssey of a Greek Bronze Includes Getty Museum. The article explains that some fishermen were fishing in international waters and discovered a ‘dead man’. When the fishermen took it out of the water and scraped off a barnacle, they discovered that it wasn’t a dead man at all. It was gold; wasn’t it? The Captain of the fishing boat, after having a closer look, determined that it was a bronze statue. They figured that they could sell the statue a split the loot among them. This is illegal in Italy, where they are from. They smuggled it onto land and buried it in a cabbage field for safe keeping. They then contacted Giacomo and Fabio Barbetti, ancient artifact collectors. They sold goods found in fields and waters to wealthy frighteners. The fishermen sold it to him for 5,600 United States dollars. The statue, portraying a young Olympian Athlete, has traveled to many other places and homes throughout the years. It was recently returned to Italy and put on display at a museum for all to admire. It was concluded that the statue was sculpted by Lysippos of Sikyon. He was a well known sculptor of ancient Greece. The statue probably originated in Olympia. The article states ‘The bronze was probably hauled to a Roman transport ship around the time of Christ.’ From there it sank to the bottom of the ocean and was preserve for hundreds of years.

In the Odyssey, Odysseus walks up to the palace and immediately notices that it contains the most gold and bronze that he has seen through out his journey. The statue, called ‘The Getty Bronze’, is a good example of one of the objects that may have been at Alcinous ‘s palace. Fishing was a huge part of ancient life. Fish and sea creatures were a major food source. The gods are said to be from Mount Olympus and Odysseus played in the Olympics with many other athletes. While reading this article, the reader really feels as though scientists have found one of the actual statues that Alcinous had in his palace.

Deities
The motifs and symbolism that have previously been mentioned occur many times throughout The Odyssey. These symbols and motifs can also be found in other cultures mythology. Myths from many if not all cultures contain the idea of deities. For example, in Egyptian mythology they have the idea of deities but what makes this idea specific to their culture is that their gods had five names because they believed that names were a very powerful thing. Other aspects of mythology share the same idea throughout different cultures but they all have something unique about what they believe.

Surprise Visits
In Book VII, Odysseus walks into the palace of Alcinoos and Arete to ask for help. Before he went in Athena told him to be happy and he also had to grab Aretes knees. Similarly, this year President Bush made a surprise visit to Afghanistan. Before he went Bush needed to think about how he was going to arrive there because Afghanistan is a foreign country. When he got there he had Secret Service agents around him just as a precaution. This took planning and so did Odysseus’ entering into the Phiakian palace. The Afghanistan leader greeted Bush with kindness and him and Bush walked down a red carpet, showing that the Afghanistan people were glad that Bush was there. When Odysseus went inside the palace the Phiakians let him feast also showing that they are very hospitable people.

Links & References
Idealized Household
AKA The Perfect Palace

The palace is airy and luminous with high rooms.
There are bronze-paneled walls.
The posts are made of silver.
There are fifty maids-in-waiting.
Outside there are orchards of pears, pomegranates, apples, figs, olives, grapes, and vegetables.
There are fountains throughout these orchards.

For more summaries and some notes, click here. If you would like to do some helpful quizzes, click here. If you need more on Book VII, click here. If you want to learn more about world mythologies, click here.

This Section By: Brittany S., Katie F., Zifan Y.