스크립트
00:00:00Why is the Odyssey such an important story?
00:00:03Well, it's a story that has affected a lot of people.
00:00:08I think because it has all of these really universal themes and problems that it relates to.
00:00:14I mean, any good literature does that, but maybe the Odyssey in particular.
00:00:19I mean, Chris Nolan talks about it as this sort of archetypal story that is somehow in all of the movies that he's done.
00:00:26You know, there's the theme of returning to your home, sacrificing on behalf of the community.
00:00:34One of the things that I think is really timely about the Odyssey, and I don't really know how much the movie is going to get into this,
00:00:41but it's kind of a story about the collapse of the patriarchy and how it gets restored, what it takes to restore that, which maybe is timely for our day.
00:00:56Who wrote it?
00:00:57So Homer is the short answer.
00:01:01Who's Homer?
00:01:02Homer is the author, according to the Greeks, of the Iliad and the Odyssey.
00:01:07These two poems that, you know, modern scholars will kind of quibble about.
00:01:14Was it one guy?
00:01:16Was it two guys?
00:01:16Was it a whole kind of crowd of men working or, you know, people working in this tradition?
00:01:25And we can get into that a little bit.
00:01:27But essentially, Homer is the attributed author who is this semi, a very blessed epic bard.
00:01:36He's an epic poet, and this is a really special type for the Greeks.
00:01:41The epic poet is, I mean, there are other poets that sing other kinds of songs, and poetry and song are very aligned in the Greek mind,
00:01:49and there's a lot of interesting reasons for that.
00:01:51But he's traditionally conceived of as this blind bard who lived maybe in the 8th century BC.
00:02:02And the fascinating thing for me about the Iliad and the Odyssey, which kind of, you know, are in dialogue with each other on some level,
00:02:12is, okay, the Greeks discover writing in the 8th century BC.
00:02:18They sort of steal it from the Phoenicians and modify it a little bit, make some improving tweaks.
00:02:24So the first time that they can really write down their language is, you know, 700s BC.
00:02:31And, you know, out of the blue emerges two of the greatest works of literature ever written.
00:02:39Many people think the greatest, and it's all kind of, maybe not decline from that, but everybody's always...
00:02:46The first album was really difficult to follow up.
00:02:50It's almost like, you know, what if today we were still talking about the first movie ever made?
00:02:56Nobody's ever going to top, you know, Metropolis or Nosferatu, you know, and there's probably still people today that think that.
00:03:06But, you know, most would say that we've developed a little bit as, you know, as the movie culture has gotten somewhat better.
00:03:15But, you know, for the case of Homer, it's kind of amazing that these things kind of emerge, you know, straight from the mind of Zeus almost, fully formed with all these incredibly rich layers.
00:03:26And they're so resonant and they have this depth to them, all these like symbolic aspects of them.
00:03:33And how did that happen, I think, is a really interesting question.
00:03:36Is there any indication that this story existed before him?
00:03:38Is it his story?
00:03:40So, the back story of this is, if you look at Homer and look at his language and look at the themes in it.
00:03:50So, all right, it's in Greek, but Greek is an Indo-European language.
00:03:57All of the Indo-European languages derive from the Indo-Europeans, this steppe people from the Middle Central Asia that went, spread out and conquered all these regions.
00:04:09And, you know, other Indo-European languages include Latin and Celtic and Germanic, also Indian, or Sanskrit, basically.
00:04:19The Indic peoples also are, they have this Indo-European kind of cultural inheritance, especially in Northern India.
00:04:29And it's the people that used to be called the Aryans, and now, you know, Twitter Anons will call them Aryans.
00:04:37But, you know, so, if you look at Homer's language and themes, you can find very striking recognizable patterns in the Vedic epic tradition of the Mahabharata.
00:04:49And there's a kind of common ancestor, a common poetic tradition, so the argument goes, and I think it's really right, that goes back thousands of years.
00:04:58So, Homer's stories are uniquely Greek on some level, but they're also kind of developments that have been around for thousands and thousands of years of oral culture that kind of hits writing right around the 8th century.
00:05:14And it's a kind of distillation of, you know, thousands of years of stories.
00:05:19And, you know, the stories of the Trojan War and the Greek heroes probably go back at least hundreds of years before Homer.
00:05:24Is there anything else to know about Homer?
00:05:26Was he blind?
00:05:27Was he who people think he is?
00:05:30Well, ancient poets, we don't know a lot about their lives, typically, the really ancient Greek ones.
00:05:36And so, people often, like later Greeks, would look at clues to try to figure out who these guys were.
00:05:43And there's actually, one of the reasons people think Homer is considered a blind poet is because there's actually a blind epic bard in the Odyssey that, his name's Demodocus, and he appears in Book Eight.
00:05:57And he seems to be a kind of Homer figure in the Odyssey itself.
00:06:02In the same way as painters in the Renaissance would paint themselves into their works.
00:06:06Yeah, very much that sort of thing.
00:06:08And, you know, the idea is that the gods have robbed him of his sight, but they've given this deeper vision into the mysteries of the universe and human suffering and so forth.
00:06:17All right.
00:06:18Tell me about the story.
00:06:19What happens?
00:06:20So, if, I mean, I want to get into the narrative and the details, but, you know, the story's pretty simple.
00:06:29There's a backstory, you might have heard the Trojan War.
00:06:33So, that happens before the poem begins in the poem's chronology, but, you know, ten years of war at Troy, the cause of war was Helen of Troy or Helen of Sparta was seduced by this playboy Trojan prince, Paris.
00:06:54And he spirited her away to Troy, stole her away from the Greeks, Menelaus of Sparta.
00:07:00And, you know, the Greeks assembled this massive army to go and take her back, essentially, and get some plunder along the way.
00:07:07They, after ten years, they finally end up sacking and destroying the city.
00:07:12And the man responsible for the victory, ultimately, in the Greeks' eyes and certainly in the eyes of the Odyssey, is Odysseus himself, because he came up with the idea of the Trojan horse.
00:07:25Mm-hmm.
00:07:26And that was his idea.
00:07:27What year was this?
00:07:28So, this is, you know, maybe it happened, maybe it didn't.
00:07:33I like to ascribe to the school of higher naivete.
00:07:37If we can't disprove it, like, let's just say, maybe something like that happened.
00:07:42Yeah.
00:07:42And there's a lot of debates about this, but it would have been 1200 BC, roughly.
00:07:46So, there's, it's a combination of maybe some real-world stuff with lots of mythology, trying to sort of root something in reality, but then also build it out into a bigger imagination.
00:07:56Yeah.
00:07:56I think it's better to think of Homer as historical fiction rather than just, like, pure fiction.
00:08:01That's, that's certainly how the Greeks would have thought about it.
00:08:03Like, they believe that the Trojan War happened, for the most part, and none of them are going to say, you know, it happened exactly like Homer told the story.
00:08:11Um, but they, they thought it happened, and Homer's, in the 8th century, imagining this conflict 400 years earlier.
00:08:19Okay, so it's a sequel in kind, it's a, a story sequel to this epic myth that may have, may have happened, may not have happened quite the way that we think it does.
00:08:31So, this is set in about 1200 BC.
00:08:33Right, right.
00:08:34Yeah, and, and it, the, the Odyssey is kind of a sequel to the Iliad, which is a longer, somewhat longer poem, and, uh, you know, this is a story about what happens at Troy itself, and Achilles is the big hero there, and famously, Achilles dies, you know, Paris shoots him in the heel, in his Achilles heel, the only vulnerable spot on him, uh, before the, the city actually gets taken.
00:08:58Um, and so, uh, you know, but Achilles doesn't die in the Iliad, but his death is kind of hinted at, uh, and then the Odyssey kind of picks up a little bit after the, well, 10 years, I guess, after the Iliad would have ended, um, and, and makes the case that Odysseus was actually, there's this kind of dialogue between the Iliad and the Odyssey of who is the best of the Greeks, or the best of the Achaeans, as, as Homer calls them, the Achaeans are.
00:09:24Cause in the first book, it was Achilles, and in the second book, it's Odysseus.
00:09:27Right.
00:09:28Yeah, obviously it's Achilles, because whenever Achilles is there, the Greeks win, win, win, win, win, and whenever Achilles, you know, is, is, is absent from the battle, the Trojans win, win, win, win, win, but, you know, at the end of the day, who was it that was responsible for the victory?
00:09:41Did Homer write these in sequence? Do you write the Iliad first?
00:09:44Well, this, this is what the ancient critics thought. This is the kind of traditional narrative. Homer's one guy, and he wrote the Iliad as a young man, and the kind of vigor of maybe he's 35, and, you know, hanging around guys like you see in, in the Iliad, warriors.
00:10:02He, I mean, he's seeing spears go in and out of faces and just incredibly recent stuff that, that you see in the Iliad and a little bit in the Odyssey, but that he's one of those kind of, um, warrior class people are hanging around those kind of guys, knows people like Achilles and Diomedes.
00:10:20And then in his older age, he, he pens the Odyssey and it's a slower story. It's more kind of, you know, there's a little more digressions. There's more kind of slices of daily life or peace time. And, and so he's kind of writing this in the twilight of his years.
00:10:39And, and, and I, I kind of like that because, you know, the Iliad is just so visceral and, and, um, you know, stark and immediate and violent and glamorous, kind of glamorizes war, not, not uncritically, but then the Odyssey is, um, is kind of, if it's, if it's a poem by an old man, it's, it's also written for a wider audience.
00:11:02I think this has a lot to do with its appeal today to, and kind of in, in modernity, it just, it's incorporates a higher range of human experience.
00:11:13Um, and it's maybe it's for the young, especially like Telemachus, who's this young guy that kicks off the poem.
00:11:19I mean, that, that might be the, the real target audience of, of the Odyssey, just like a, like a broader range of people.
00:11:25And there's also women much more, you know, explored in depth in the Odyssey.
00:11:30Um, so, I don't know if that answers the question.
00:11:34That's the background.
00:11:35That's how we arrive at the beginning of it.
00:11:36Yeah.
00:11:37Yeah.
00:11:38So, uh, all, all the Trojan War has ended.
00:11:41Odysseus has some trouble getting home.
00:11:45It's actually 20 years after the Trojan War started, when the Odyssey timeline begins.
00:11:50And, um, we learn in the first, you know, 100 lines or so of the Odyssey that Odysseus, you know, kind of got, got, got off course, trying to get back from Troy.
00:12:01So, several of the Greeks had this experience.
00:12:04And, um, on his way home, he met these monsters and strange people, and he pissed off the god Poseidon.
00:12:11And for a variety of reasons, many of which are his, his own faults, many of which may be not only his fault.
00:12:18Uh, he is stuck on this island with this divine nymph, a Calypso.
00:12:26And she's, she's, she's, uh, she kind of got him as a prisoner and she wants to make him her husband.
00:12:35And so he's stuck there away from home.
00:12:37And, and then everybody at home back in his homeland, which is an island called Ithaca, is wondering where he is, you know?
00:12:44Uh, did he die?
00:12:45He didn't die at Troy.
00:12:46The stories about the Trojan War, like circulating in, in the kind of world of the poem, people know something of what happened.
00:12:55But there's no, there's no news of Odysseus.
00:12:59What, what happened?
00:13:00Did, did he, did he get lost at sea?
00:13:02Did, you know, that's, did he just abandoned his family?
00:13:04Is he, you know, going to go off and, you know, do more pirate adventures among the Ethiopians or what, what's going on with Odysseus?
00:13:11Nobody knows.
00:13:12And, um, and, and the, the poem kind of starts with this background in place, misadventures, meeting monsters, stuck on, uh, Calypso's Island.
00:13:22Um, and, uh, that's all kind of before the story actually begins.
00:13:26And the story begins when the gods had this meeting and, uh, Poseidon happens to be distracted.
00:13:33He's pissed off at Odysseus and doesn't want him to get home.
00:13:36But, um, Poseidon's off like partying with the Ethiopians.
00:13:40As you do.
00:13:41As, as, as one does, as, as, as the gods often do.
00:13:44I mean, they're, they're, they're a good hang.
00:13:46And the Ethiopians.
00:13:47The Ethiopians, yeah, yeah.
00:13:48They're a good hang.
00:13:49Okay.
00:13:50That's news.
00:13:51That's news to me.
00:13:52Read Herodotus.
00:13:53There's many details.
00:13:54You know, were they Northern?
00:13:55Were they Southern?
00:13:56Who knows?
00:13:57But they were fun and, and, and they're far.
00:13:58So, so Poseidon's distracted.
00:14:00And then Athena says, all right, we can, we're going to do something about Odysseus now.
00:14:04Athena's kind of Odysseus's divine champion.
00:14:08She's, um, his favorite goddess.
00:14:11He's her favorite hero.
00:14:12And she goes to Zeus, the, the, you know, the king of the gods and sort of Lord of the cosmos.
00:14:19And she says, Odysseus was a pious man.
00:14:21He was a good king.
00:14:22He was a good dad.
00:14:23It's just not fair that he just brought away on this island with this nymph.
00:14:27And his son is just, you know, growing up without a father.
00:14:31We got to do something about this.
00:14:32And Zeus says, all right, we'll do something about this.
00:14:35Poseidon will just have to deal with it.
00:14:36And, and that's how the, the action kind of kicks off in, in, in the Odyssey.
00:14:40And long story short, you know, Odysseus gets released from the islands, uh, by the gods will.
00:14:46Telemachus, his son is sent on this kind of vision quest, rite of passage initiation journey.
00:14:53And Athena helps him out with that.
00:14:55Um, Odysseus tells a story at the center of the book.
00:14:59And if you want to just like skip all of the, like not a plus interesting parts of the Odyssey
00:15:07and just get to the kind of the famous monsters and adventures, you can go to book nine through
00:15:1212 where Odysseus basically tells all of the backstory in his own voice to, uh, an audience
00:15:18of people that he's met.
00:15:19So how much, how much of the story is what happens when he gets back and how much is the retelling
00:15:25of what happened before?
00:15:26So the, the first eight books are him and Telemachus.
00:15:33There's 24 books.
00:15:34So the first book, four, four books are Telemachus.
00:15:37Then there's four books about Odysseus getting from Calypso's Island to this sort of intermediary
00:15:42destination.
00:15:43Scaria, it's called the, the Phaeacians or this people that help him get home.
00:15:47He tells them his story.
00:15:49And then from 13 to 24 is like him and Telemachus back on Ithaca and how they solve the big problem
00:15:59that has arisen at home, which we haven't treated yet, which is that his house is infested with
00:16:06suitors trying to woo his wife away, trying to steal his wife away.
00:16:10Uh, 50% of the book is Love Island 50.
00:16:15Right.
00:16:16The original Love Island.
00:16:17Yeah.
00:16:18The Lotus Eaters.
00:16:19Yes.
00:16:20Love Island.
00:16:21Sirens.
00:16:22Yeah.
00:16:23Yeah.
00:16:24Okay.
00:16:25The Phaeacians.
00:16:26Yeah.
00:16:27There's a lot of, there's a lot of kind of sexual tension.
00:16:28Okay.
00:16:29Okay.
00:16:30Uh, especially, you know, Odysseus with the Phaeacians, which we should get to.
00:16:31Okay.
00:16:32So what's the, what's the rite of passage thing?
00:16:33Yeah.
00:16:34So it's good to start with Telemachus probably.
00:16:36So when you, when you start the Odyssey, it's kind of like, wow, I thought this was about
00:16:41Odysseus and we're, you know, page after page, you don't meet the guy really until five.
00:16:44Why is this fucking idiot son in this story so much?
00:16:47He's a weak little, but that's kind of the point, you know, Telemachus is, is stuck there
00:16:51at home.
00:16:52Uh, how old is he?
00:16:53He's 20.
00:16:54So Odysseus left him as a, an infant essentially, and he's never met his dad, only heard about
00:17:00him.
00:17:01Um, and he's kind of grown up in this, in this world of women, you know, his mom and
00:17:06the maid servants who were very loyal.
00:17:08And, you know, there's, there's, uh, you know, loyal servants of Odysseus here and there,
00:17:12but, um, Telemachus, his grandfather is, is kind of, uh, too old to do anything.
00:17:18And he's kind of, kind of shattered by Odysseus's absence.
00:17:21Um, so it's, I think, I think it starts with Telemachus because Homer really wants to get
00:17:29you to feel viscerally what it's like when the father figure is absent, like how bad things
00:17:35get when the leader is gone.
00:17:37And that kind of motivates the rest of the story.
00:17:39Mm-hmm.
00:17:40So, so Telemachus is, um, uh, you know, 20, he's getting bossed around.
00:17:44There's 108 suitors at his house from all over Western Greece, princes and, uh, big shots.
00:17:53Why is Odysseus' wife so desirable?
00:17:55That's a good question.
00:17:57So Penelope is her name, famously.
00:18:01She's, um, right.
00:18:03I mean, late thirties at the youngest, maybe early forties.
00:18:09Um, I mean, why are, why are, why is she the most desirable catch in like all of Greece?
00:18:14Uh, I think it's, I mean, obviously like women can be very attractive and alluring at that
00:18:19age, but you know, for 108 eligible young rich bachelors to come and try to Love Island.
00:18:27Yeah.
00:18:28It's closer to Bonnie Blue than Love Island, but yeah.
00:18:30Right.
00:18:31That's, that's the counter example.
00:18:32You know, you're, you're always supposed to, you know, how could this go wrong?
00:18:35Yeah.
00:18:36Yeah.
00:18:37Has, has a lot of options.
00:18:38Right.
00:18:39So, so he, uh, she's, she's, I think she's desirable.
00:18:44She's very smart and well-bred, blah, blah, blah.
00:18:48But the real reason I think she's desirable is, you know, it's like mimetic desire.
00:18:53It's the kind of the Gerard.
00:18:54I fucking knew you were going to say, you know?
00:18:55Yeah.
00:18:56I went there.
00:18:57I want the wife of the guy that's a hero, because if I can take her, that means I'm
00:19:01a hero too.
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00:20:07Is there a, is there a mirroring of Helen of Troy being so very desirable, being whisked
00:20:12away, being stolen.
00:20:14And now this is a new version of the same, a similar kind of tension.
00:20:18Yeah, totally.
00:20:19I mean, that's kind of the, the story that there's all these, like Homer lays out all
00:20:24these kind of other versions of women making different choices to sort of highlight what
00:20:31Penelope could do if, if she goes off track and why it's unheard of.
00:20:36No, no.
00:20:37And, and, uh, you know, there's a story that, that he, um, well, we'll, we'll get to in a
00:20:42moment that all the kind of, you know, gruesome counter examples.
00:20:45Um, so, so it is this mimetic thing.
00:20:47I think that's, that's one of the reasons why she's just not impressed by any of these
00:20:50young lads, because she knows what they're trying to do, right?
00:20:53Like they're trying to usurp the status of the greatest hero alive, maybe ever by just,
00:21:00you know, picking off his wife and then I'll have Odysseus's wife.
00:21:03And you know, the Teemu Odysseus.
00:21:06Teemu Odysseus.
00:21:07Teemu Odysseus.
00:21:08Teemu.
00:21:09Yeah.
00:21:10Like the, the, the Chinese knockoff of Odysseus.
00:21:11Right.
00:21:12And, uh, they're like, Hey, she goes, I've got the, I don't need your like Huawei phone.
00:21:17I've got, I've got an iPhone at home.
00:21:18Yeah.
00:21:19And she's like, Oh, they're, they're like, Oh, sweetie, iPhones are dead.
00:21:23And you know, they're never coming back.
00:21:24You gotta, you know.
00:21:25Huawei.
00:21:26Oh, it's just backward.
00:21:27It's backward.
00:21:28I believe, I believe.
00:21:29Yeah.
00:21:30Um, so, so, uh, I think that's why it's, she doesn't want it to have anything to do with
00:21:35any of, any of them, but she's kind of wondering, like, is he actually ever coming back?
00:21:39And so there's, there's a kind of dramatic tension there.
00:21:42What's that like for the son to be around this situation?
00:21:45Well, you know, the suitors have been there for like four years.
00:21:49Um, they haven't been there the whole time, but, uh, you know, he's, he was 16 maybe
00:21:54when they came and he's, um, he's, he's far outnumbered.
00:21:59Uh, he doesn't feel like he's in control of his own house.
00:22:04And in fact, it's kind of anarchy, like anarchy, you know, when, when the patriarchy is removed,
00:22:09you know, Penelope doesn't just like suddenly step in and become the man of the house.
00:22:13It's, it doesn't work like that in Greece, at least it's, it's kind of the rule of the
00:22:17most assertive at the time, which is these suitors.
00:22:20And there's a kind of jockeying for status among them.
00:22:23But certainly Telemachus is the bottom of the food chain as far as they're concerned,
00:22:27because they outnumber him and they're older.
00:22:30And, um, and so he doesn't feel like he can reassert himself.
00:22:34And this is exactly where Athena comes in to try to twist the situation.
00:22:39So, um, she comes down herself.
00:22:42You know, Zeus sends Hermes to go and sort out Odysseus with Calypso.
00:22:47But Athena comes herself in disguise as, uh, as a man, mentees.
00:22:53She takes on this, you know, um, alter ego and shows up at Telemachus' house, at Odysseus' house one day.
00:23:01And, um, you know, she doesn't get greeted at the gates, which is very bad hospitality.
00:23:06So the suitors are, uh, abusing the hospitality of the house.
00:23:11Mm-hmm.
00:23:12And, um, they're actually not doing this whole courtship thing the way you're supposed to.
00:23:15Like, the right thing to do from the Greek perspective would have been to go and talk to Penelope's dad and say,
00:23:23"All right, well, she's eligible now. Like, which one of us do you approve of?"
00:23:26But instead they're just eating away at the cows and enjoying the fruits of the estate of Odysseus' house.
00:23:36They're eating him out of house and home, eating Telemachus out of house and home.
00:23:40They're being bad guests and they're not being good hosts.
00:23:45They're not acting like they own the place on all these levels.
00:23:48So when Athena gets there, she's just sort of, like, left hanging, even though she looks really respectable.
00:23:54And this is just seen as, you know, incredibly a bad faux pas.
00:23:58And Telemachus greets her and he's visibly annoyed that, um, that these people haven't greeted her.
00:24:04And he extends her hospitality, welcomes her in.
00:24:07Mm-hmm.
00:24:08And, uh, and she, you know, long story short, she says, um, you know, he explains the situation.
00:24:14She's like, "You know, my boy, have you heard of the story of what Orestes did?"
00:24:20And Telemachus says, "No, tell me."
00:24:22Well, Orestes was the son of Agamemnon.
00:24:26Agamemnon was the king of the Greeks, the leader of the Greeks at Troy.
00:24:31The, the, the biggest of the kings.
00:24:33He organized the expedition to capture Helen.
00:24:37And they won.
00:24:40And when, when he came back, like, practically upon arrival, he gets murdered by his own wife, who was seduced by his cousin, who wanted to steal the throne from Agamemnon.
00:24:52Mm-hmm.
00:24:53And so, um, Agamemnon's murdered by his cousin and his own, his own lovely wife, Clytemnestra.
00:25:01And then they rule Argos in his absence for a few years.
00:25:05And then Orestes, his son sneaks back in and murders them both, murders his own mother and his uncle and takes back Argos for the bloodline of Agamemnon.
00:25:16Mm-hmm.
00:25:17And then Athena says, "You might have to do just such a thing with these suitors."
00:25:23So she's trying to stir him up by this example of, you know.
00:25:27Is she trying to create a rift between him and his mother?
00:25:30I don't think, I don't think that's what's going on.
00:25:32You could have read it in that way using that example, right?
00:25:34Yeah, but it does kind of point to the issue of, hey, you know, your mom has her own mind and she could go astray.
00:25:43Like, you have to be the man in the situation no matter what.
00:25:45Mm-hmm.
00:25:46Uh, and you have to be dangerous.
00:25:47You have to become a man of violence, potentially.
00:25:50You have to be, you have to be able to scare these guys.
00:25:52Okay, so Athena's come in to cock block 108 suitors.
00:25:55Yeah.
00:25:56Yeah.
00:25:57Yeah, and, and, and to, you know, get, get Telemachus to, to man up finally and, you know, go on his, his quest.
00:26:03And basically she's, she says, here's what you got to do.
00:26:06Confront the suitors, uh, call out their injustice and then get out of town and go and meet some of your dad's friends.
00:26:16Meet some of Odysseus' old buddies on the mainland.
00:26:20And this is what he does in short.
00:26:22And, um, and so he goes and he meets, uh, Nestor, this old guy, one of the wisest of the Greeks, very old, um, very talkative old man.
00:26:31Um, it's kind of funny.
00:26:33Um, and Nestor Pylos tells Telemachus some news.
00:26:39He hasn't heard about Odysseus other than he got, he got, uh, uh, you know, blown by the storm off into oblivion.
00:26:46Nobody knows what happened to him, but, but Nestor tells Telemachus about, um, give some more details about Agamemnon actually, which is interesting for, for the bigger plot.
00:26:58So when Agamemnon, uh, left, uh, to go to Troy, he left.
00:27:06His wife was really good when he left.
00:27:08Clytemnestra is a wise woman.
00:27:09She's well-born.
00:27:10She was actually the sister of Helen who also started off good.
00:27:13You know, this is kind of the threat, you know, good women can go wrong.
00:27:18If the circ, if the circumstances are, are, uh, are wrong.
00:27:22Mm-hmm.
00:27:23What did he do to keep her on the straight and narrow?
00:27:26He left a bard there to, to look after her.
00:27:30So Agamemnon kind of left a Homer there with his wife Clytemnestra to tell her improving stories and tell her stories of what goes wrong when, when women behave badly or whatever it is.
00:27:44But, you know, the poet is sort of seen as this upholder of the moral order.
00:27:48And slightly self-serving by Homer there.
00:27:51You know, you might think of it as a pro bard propaganda.
00:27:54Um, I think that would be fair, but it, it, it, it is not just Homer that thinks this.
00:28:00This is a very deep Greek idea that, you know, go, you could see it in Plato.
00:28:04You could see it in the tragedians.
00:28:06And it's like the poets are kind of, especially in an oral culture, um, poets are the ones who remember the things that need to be passed down from generation to generation, right?
00:28:18So they kind of, they have a lot of moral credibility if they're good ones and, you know, there can be bad ones too.
00:28:24But as soon, so basically just this Agamemnon's cousin knew that he couldn't get to Clytemnestra.
00:28:32He kept kind of making advances at, uh, his, his cousin's wife and she just kept swatting him away.
00:28:39And then he realized, ah, the poet is the problem.
00:28:42So he captures the poet and he sends him off to a desert island.
00:28:45And then Clytemnestra was morally defenseless.
00:28:48And that's when Aegisus swooped in and seduced her because the poet was away.
00:28:53Um, so yeah, there, I think this really does match how, how the Greeks would have thought of like why you need epic, epic poetry.
00:29:04It's like, it is actually a kind of moral pillar of society.
00:29:07Mm-hmm.
00:29:08Um, so anyway, he, you know, Nestor says, that's all I know, but Menelaus is alive.
00:29:15Go talk to Menelaus.
00:29:16Maybe he knows more.
00:29:17Um, you know, another Greek hero from Troy, uh, Telemachus goes to talk to Menelaus and he actually meets Helen of Troy.
00:29:25Well, so she's, she's back to being Helen of Sparta at this point.
00:29:29She's, you know, she's come back and--
00:29:31Repatriated.
00:29:32Repatriated, yeah.
00:29:34Returned to her rightful owner.
00:29:36Um, uh, so, uh, yeah.
00:29:40And Helen, it's a really interesting interaction with Helen.
00:29:43She's still kind of, she's kind of chastened, uh, you know, she's, she's become a matriarch instead of a maiden.
00:29:50But she's still kind of got that spooky allure, femme fatale charm.
00:29:56She gives Telemachus, uh, uh, she slips some, some, some kind of drug into his drink at one point.
00:30:04So he can enjoy himself better at this party that they're at.
00:30:07They're throwing a big feast when he arrives, marrying off their, uh, Menelaus' two kids.
00:30:12And they start to tell stories.
00:30:14And, um, and, and Helen puts a drug in his drink that would make any man forget about all desire of returning home.
00:30:23And even if his parents were slaughtered before his eyes, he would not care until the next day.
00:30:28It's this kind of like, uh, I think it's symbolic of, you know, the, the, the power of the female charms over, over a man.
00:30:38Um.
00:30:39Helen have tried not showering herself in glory across these two books.
00:30:43In fact, definitely rolling some dice into the, into the fray.
00:30:48And, and, and the interesting thing too is she, so I could quibble with Emily Wilson on a translation point here.
00:30:56You know, the more, the more popular Odyssey, uh, translation these days.
00:31:00So Helen says, she's the first person to recognize Telemachus.
00:31:07It's, it's, it's, it's common to not like, to, you welcome in a guest before you ask them who they are.
00:31:12Hmm.
00:31:13Only after you've fed them and, you know, given them some, you know, a nice robe to wear or whatever, then do you ask them who they are.
00:31:21But Helen recognizes Telemachus immediately.
00:31:23And she says, if I'm not mistaken, you are the son of Odysseus, who Odysseus left as a tiny infant.
00:31:31When the Greeks all came to Troy to, um, to take me back the shameless one.
00:31:40And the Greek there actually says, you could be translated as shameless bitch.
00:31:45The Kunops is the, is the Greek word.
00:31:47It means dog face.
00:31:48It's, it's a very rude thing.
00:31:50She calls herself, you know, a bitch or something.
00:31:53Like it's, it's, she kind of insults herself and it's, um, it's really disarming, I think.
00:32:00So, um, Emily Wilson translated that line as something like, um, they came to take me back the, the one who, who hounded them or something.
00:32:14Oh.
00:32:15It, so the hound is kind of a, an allusion to the dog piece, but it kind of softens the fact that Helen is really kind of--
00:32:21Slightly more flattering.
00:32:22Yeah, it, it's more, but the point is she seduces you by saying the bad thing that you had in mind about her.
00:32:28How can this woman just, you know, pretend like we don't all know the terrible things she did.
00:32:34And that's the first thing she names and just like, oh, she knows.
00:32:37You can get away with anything with enough self-awareness.
00:32:39Yeah, yeah.
00:32:40She kind of insults herself to, to, to draw you in.
00:32:43And she does this in the Iliad too.
00:32:45She's, she's a really tricky woman.
00:32:47Um, but you know, she's behaving herself and, um, you know, Menelaus seems happy.
00:32:52There's a little bit of, there's a little bit of tension between the two of them.
00:32:55It's a really interesting scene in book four.
00:32:57Um, but, but the point of this whole quest to sum up the Telemachus piece is he has to prove himself to the peers of his father.
00:33:07When his father's not abs, not, not there.
00:33:11And he does this by, you know, making the journey, asking about his dad and say, I'm, I'm just trying to get my house in order and kind of behaving himself well.
00:33:19He, you know, he's, he acts very tactfully.
00:33:22He's pious and you know, they're always in this, this trip.
00:33:26The, the houses that he meets are all these well-ordered households.
00:33:29There's this great contrast with the chaos at home.
00:33:32And one of the things that signals that they're well-ordered is there's always, there's all these sacrifices to the gods.
00:33:38Like every time before a meal, they pray to the gods, they wash their hands.
00:33:42They have a sacrifice.
00:33:43Never, never do the suitors pray before a meal.
00:33:47You know, it's a sign.
00:33:49They're, uh, they're godless.
00:33:51They're, they're chaotic.
00:33:52They're not doing what they're supposed to be doing.
00:33:54So, um, Homer cares a lot about these things in the, in the, in more in the Odyssey than he does about the Iliad.
00:33:59These are like little things that sort of signal, you know, good order in, in culture and society.
00:34:05Okay.
00:34:06And is that the end of this rite of passage?
00:34:08Yeah.
00:34:09So that's, that's basically the, Menelaus invites Telemachus to stay as long as he wants.
00:34:14And Telemachus says, I got to get back.
00:34:17You've been very kind.
00:34:18I could stay here a whole year.
00:34:20It's, it's so nice.
00:34:21Menelaus is like one of the richest Greeks alive now.
00:34:23Thanks for drugging me.
00:34:24Yes.
00:34:25Uh, I've had a really good time.
00:34:27Let me tell you.
00:34:28Yep.
00:34:29But, uh, I got to get back to, uh, he, Menelaus offers him these horses.
00:34:34It's like really nice.
00:34:35It's, it's like offering a kid a Ferrari, you know?
00:34:37Um, and, and Telemachus says, you know, my islands is not horse country.
00:34:43It's goat country.
00:34:44There's no, no, no place to ride around horses.
00:34:47It's an ugly, scraggly little island.
00:34:49Um, and, but that's home for me.
00:34:52And I don't know, he, he has to, he knows he has to get back and take on the challenge and like suffer to, to become who he is.
00:35:01Uh, but that, that is the kind of end of it.
00:35:03And while he's away, it should be mentioned, the suitors also plan.
00:35:06They find out that he snuck off and they plan to ambush him with a ship, uh, on his way back and murder him.
00:35:13So he's, he's got a target painted on him.
00:35:16What a bunch of bastards.
00:35:17They are again and again, Homer wants you to know these guys are bad.
00:35:21All of them are bad.
00:35:22They deserve everything that's coming to them.
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00:36:18What are they supposed to represent philosophically at this stage?
00:36:22I think, so there's, there's the whole anarchy versus patriarchy going on.
00:36:28There's the kind of usurped glory.
00:36:30I think the oddest.
00:36:31Good men, bad men, absence of good men means that there's a vacuum for bad men to step in.
00:36:36100%.
00:36:37And I think there's a kind of broader arc of the, the odyssey is about the, the clash between order and entropy and, um, and sort of dissolution of complex societies into kind of barbaric or animal, uh, you know, soup.
00:37:03Mm-hmm.
00:37:04And the suitors kind of represent those forces of, of violence and, and turmoil and primordial soup out of which order needs to be established.
00:37:13Sometimes, sometimes violently.
00:37:14Yeah.
00:37:15Okay.
00:37:16And that's, and that's justice.
00:37:17That's important.
00:37:18To establish that is about justice.
00:37:20Okay.
00:37:21And then we switch and Odysseus wakes up one day on Calypso's Island needs to get home.
00:37:29Staring off into the ocean, sitting there, weeping, um, longing for his homeland.
00:37:36Mm-hmm.
00:37:37Calypso is, you know, this incredibly hot divine goddess who, uh, he's, he's washed up ashore on her Island and she offered him hospitality.
00:37:47And basically they've been sleeping together for the past eight years.
00:37:50Okay.
00:37:51Okay.
00:37:52But Odysseus points out, never did they win the heart within me.
00:37:56So it was kind of my penis, but not my heart.
00:37:59Yeah.
00:38:00Yeah.
00:38:01It was just sex, baby, you know, and I, Homer seems to take this as, as an acceptable explanation.
00:38:09We're going to darken the environment appropriately.
00:38:11It's getting it.
00:38:12It's about to get spooky.
00:38:13Yeah, exactly.
00:38:14Yeah.
00:38:15Okay.
00:38:16Uh, so, so that's, yeah, he wakes up.
00:38:20It's book five.
00:38:21Um, and, and Hermes arrives as, as he was sent from, from Zeus and Hermes goes to Calypso first.
00:38:28Well, first he gets to the Island and he's just stunned.
00:38:33It's so beautiful.
00:38:35It's just lush fruit trees and pleasant breeze and verdant and perfect, not too hot, not too cold.
00:38:44It's not like Houston humid.
00:38:45It's just like, uh.
00:38:47So what people are saying.
00:38:48It's like Hermes arrives and he goes, I'm so glad I'm not in fucking Houston.
00:38:52Yeah.
00:38:53Well, well, you know, Houston is humid, but there's no, there's no place sweeter than one's homeland.
00:38:57Yeah.
00:38:58So, so, uh, the, even the gods are amazed at how, you know, beautiful and how nice of a place this would, this would be to spend eternity, which is precisely what Calypso is promising Odysseus.
00:39:13She says, forget about your wife, forget about your son.
00:39:18Just stay with me forever.
00:39:20I will make you immortal and not just immortal.
00:39:23You'll be young and beautiful the rest of your years.
00:39:26Sometimes goddesses forget to promise the whole youth thing.
00:39:30This, there's a, uh, a bad story about this happening with, um, this guy, Tithonus, who the goddess Dawn, Eos, uh, managed to get it arranged so that he would be immortal, but forgot to ask Zeus that he would be made, uh, youthful forever.
00:39:47And so he just gets older and older and older and never dies.
00:39:50And he kind of shrinks to a little, a little bug.
00:39:53Always got to read the small print.
00:39:54Yeah.
00:39:55Right.
00:39:56And, uh, you know, you never know when you make a deal with a goddess, like there, there might be some loophole that screws you over.
00:40:02Okay.
00:40:03It doesn't always, it's not always bad.
00:40:05Hermes arrives.
00:40:06It's real nice.
00:40:07Uh, Odysseus has been piping Calypso for ages.
00:40:11Yeah.
00:40:12Unwillingly.
00:40:13Yeah.
00:40:14But, um, but Hermes says, you gotta, you gotta let him go.
00:40:19And Calypso, hems and haws.
00:40:21This is not fair.
00:40:22Uh, he's my, he's my boy toy.
00:40:25But she says, all right, I'll, I'll help him get out of here.
00:40:28Is Calypso like a god, Zazz?
00:40:30She, so she's a, she's a nymph, which is, which is a divine.
00:40:33Yeah.
00:40:34She's, she's a goddess basically.
00:40:35Sort of lesser divinity.
00:40:36Right.
00:40:37Um, and, um, uh, to all, to all accounts, very beautiful.
00:40:42I mean, she goes to Odysseus after Hermes gives her the bad news and she says, all right,
00:40:47well, I have to let you go.
00:40:49Zeus told me I have to let you go, but you don't actually have to go.
00:40:53We could still do the whole immortality thing.
00:40:56I mean, what does your wife have that I don't have?
00:40:59And Odysseus says, look, you're right.
00:41:01You are far more beautiful than my own wife.
00:41:04And this place is really nice, but I miss my homeland.
00:41:08I'm, I miss my wife and my kid.
00:41:10And she, um, essentially she's promising him something that like, why is this unsatisfying?
00:41:20And it's kind of like your, your island vacation.
00:41:26It lasts a week.
00:41:27It's nice.
00:41:28I needed that.
00:41:29All right.
00:41:30Time to get back to work.
00:41:31But what if the island vacation lasts weeks and weeks and months and months?
00:41:34We probably all felt that feeling.
00:41:35I think it's, it's easy to understand why this offer is like ultimately not appealing to spend the rest of your eternity on this leisurely vacation with a little umbrella in your drink.
00:41:47Uh, but it's, it's, it's, it's also like particularly, uh, pointed for Odysseus.
00:41:52In the story, Homer, Homer gives these people epithets.
00:41:56He's like recurring adjectives that describe them in the poetry.
00:42:01Odysseus is many turned polytropos.
00:42:05He is much like many crafted, you know, very, very crafty polymatis.
00:42:10He is also much suffering or much enduring polytropos.
00:42:15So all of the things about that kind of make Odysseus what he is, that he's crafty, that he's, um, that he's well traveled, that he's, uh, that he endures and endures.
00:42:24And it's just kind of what makes him special and what makes him who he is.
00:42:28It's like makes up his identity.
00:42:30None of that would be true.
00:42:31If he stayed on that island, you would kind of, it would be kind of like a loss of, of identity.
00:42:35So I, I see why it's not appealing.
00:42:37Um, but she, you know, she says, I'll help you go here.
00:42:42She goes to her tool shed.
00:42:44Chick with a tool shed. That's hot.
00:42:46Chick with a tool shed. That's hot.
00:42:47Yeah. Well, that, that was a vote of confidence for her.
00:42:50Yep.
00:42:51Apparently it's not, not that, not that great a conversation, but, um, practical enough.
00:42:54Wonderful.
00:42:55She brings him an, uh, you know, auger and ax, whatever you need to make a, make a, make a boat.
00:43:00And, uh, she says, all right, here are the tools.
00:43:03There are the trees.
00:43:04Crack them.
00:43:05Are you on your own?
00:43:06So he has to make his own raft.
00:43:08He's here on his own.
00:43:09Yeah.
00:43:10Completely on his own.
00:43:11Totally. Yeah.
00:43:12He's lost all of his comrades at this point.
00:43:13They're all dead.
00:43:14Some, sometimes it's his fault.
00:43:15Sometimes it's their fault.
00:43:16Sometimes both, but they're all gone.
00:43:18Uh, you know, 12 ships, I think is what he took to Troy.
00:43:22So a lot of guys dead and, um, and he has to make his own boat.
00:43:28And that's, that's a really like interesting symbolic moment there.
00:43:32So Odysseus is, um, we talked about Athena being his patron goddess.
00:43:38Athena is the God of craft.
00:43:41She's a kind of warrior goddess.
00:43:42She's a virgin goddess.
00:43:43She's depicted with the spear and the helmet, but she's, she's a warrior goddess in the sense
00:43:48that sometimes you need to win wars through trickery and craft.
00:43:51Hmm.
00:43:52She is also the goddess of like weaving.
00:43:54She's the goddess of the, the olive.
00:43:56Olive tree is a, is a very domestic tree.
00:43:59You know, you have to plant it and wait many years before it ever gives you anything worthwhile.
00:44:05And the older and older it gets, the more and more olives it makes.
00:44:08And so these design of civilization.
00:44:10Athena is this goddess of civilization and also kind of a goddess of technology.
00:44:14So the fact that Odysseus knows how to make his own boat, a sea worthy boat is, is kind of important.
00:44:21It's kind of symbolic that, and, and, and, and he's about to go into sea, which is the realm of Poseidon, who is this God of wild nature.
00:44:32He's the, the God of storms at sea earthquakes, you know, the brute force of nature.
00:44:38And, uh, so Odysseus is going to confront those brute forces, the Poseidon world with the kind of technology of Athena.
00:44:47That's really encapsulated well in that image.
00:44:50Um, and, and this is a really important kind of polarity with, throughout the whole story because.
00:44:58Old run chaos again.
00:44:59Yeah.
00:45:00Yeah.
00:45:01And, and this is actually the Greeks really think of the world in these binaries, you know, there's, uh, um, civilization and barbarism, nature and culture, male and female.
00:45:13Um, there is, uh, cooked and raw, you know, do, do the people here eat?
00:45:20Eat their food cooked or do they eat it raw?
00:45:21That's kind of a dividing point between man and animal or man kind of wild men.
00:45:26So, um, you know, Odysseus is clearly on one side of that through, through, throughout the story.
00:45:33Um, and, uh, and we'll see why it matters in a little bit, but.
00:45:37So he, he, he escapes the island of Calypso has to kind of, and he has to do it nicely too, right?
00:45:42Like he has to have a, an amicable breakup because you don't, you don't want to piss off a goddess if you don't have to.
00:45:49Uh, and then he gets to this island of.
00:45:53He's built the ship.
00:45:54So he's built the boat.
00:45:55Yes.
00:45:56He builds the raft, uh, not a great raft, but it's seaworthy.
00:45:59And he's at sea for, you know, he ends up being at sea for 20 days, sailing, sailing, sailing.
00:46:07And at some point, Poseidon finishes his party with the Ethiopians.
00:46:12And he's like, what the hell?
00:46:14And he smashes Odysseus's raft with a storm.
00:46:17And, uh, Odysseus eventually has to swim to sea, to swim to, to shore.
00:46:22Um, he, Calypso gave him all of these, you know, fine, luxurious robes.
00:46:27It's a parting gift.
00:46:29And he has to take all that off because, because if he keeps it on, he's going to sink and die.
00:46:33So he, he ends up kind of scrambling ashore on this new land, totally naked.
00:46:39Um, which I think is very symbolic.
00:46:41It's a kind of death and rebirth.
00:46:43Rebirth.
00:46:44Yeah.
00:46:45Almost like baptism.
00:46:46And he gets to shore and just collapses underneath an olive bush.
00:46:52And then he wakes up because a ball bounced into the grass next to him.
00:46:58And, uh, he discovers that he's, he's on a civilized place.
00:47:02There are humans there.
00:47:03In fact, a bunch of, you know, attractive, nubile young ladies are washing, washing some clothes.
00:47:10Mm.
00:47:11In this little river.
00:47:12Mm.
00:47:13And, um, and so he, you know, has to come up with a plan at that point.
00:47:17Like, uh, so this is a great scene because he, basically the, the next couple of stages for his journey have to do just like, kind of like treating Calypso well, uh, to, to the extent he could.
00:47:30He has to, he has to really use women's agency to get him what he needs next to get home.
00:47:40Mm.
00:47:41To, to, to accomplish his goal.
00:47:42And the first girl that he, first woman he meets happens to be the princess of the island.
00:47:49She's the, the daughter of the, of the king and queen, as he finds out.
00:47:53Her name is now Sica.
00:47:55There's a lot of, uh, like paintings of this scene.
00:47:58I mean, many scenes of the Odyssey, but this one in particular, um, Odysseus is stark naked and, um, he emerges from his bush and he holds a little like branch in front of his private parts.
00:48:12So that, uh, to, to have a little bit of dignity and, you know, approaches these girls and all of them just like scream and run away because he looks horrific.
00:48:22I mean, he, he probably looks like Tom Hanks from, from Castaway at this point and he's caked in brine.
00:48:27And, uh, you know, they're thinking, is this guy gonna try to savage, savage us, ravage us?
00:48:33Oh, please.
00:48:34No, Mr. Seaman, don't savage me.
00:48:39Yeah.
00:48:40Yeah.
00:48:41And that, that is an aspect of it.
00:48:43There's this kind of like tension.
00:48:44So all the, all the girls run away, except the, the, the princess.
00:48:49Now Sica is like, she's taller than the rest.
00:48:51She's more attractive than the rest.
00:48:53She's clearly like braver than the rest.
00:48:55And she's just like standing there waiting for him to explain himself.
00:49:00And, and she's 20ish, Homer tells us.
00:49:03And she, you know, he tells, he kind of builds up to this.
00:49:06She's actually, she went down to the, to the coast thinking about, you know,
00:49:11marriage with like marriage on her mind.
00:49:12She wants to like clean some clothes and look nice and sort of make an appearance around
00:49:16town and see if, see if any of the young men want to, you know, make a pass at her.
00:49:20She's, she's ready to kind of move on to the next stage.
00:49:23And so, you know, Odysseus addresses her from a few feet off.
00:49:28Uh, wow.
00:49:31Fair maiden, uh, princess.
00:49:34I don't know whether you're a goddess or a mortal.
00:49:37Wow.
00:49:38You are just, I've never seen anything like you.
00:49:39You're so beautiful.
00:49:40One time I saw something that was almost as beautiful as you.
00:49:44It was this little palm tree, uh, that, that grew up by the altar of Apollo at Delos.
00:49:50And I was leading many men there.
00:49:51So, you know, he's kind of giving him, giving her a little backstory about himself as, as
00:49:55a respectable man.
00:49:56And he says, uh, may your parents or your brothers be happy if you're immortal.
00:50:03And may you find a great husband, you know, kind of playing on the tension a little bit.
00:50:08And could you please get me a towel, uh, and show me to the town?
00:50:14And, uh, she's kind of flattered.
00:50:17Like it worked.
00:50:18He's charmed her.
00:50:19He's like already got her charm.
00:50:20And she, and he doesn't refer to the fact that he's got a wife and kid at home.
00:50:24He's just kind of concealing that.
00:50:26And, uh, you know, kind of, you know, luring her in a little bit.
00:50:31And she, you know, long story short, she, she ends up, um, telling him what he needs to do.
00:50:37And that is go talk to my mom, the queen.
00:50:44Not that she totally runs the show, but she's kind of like the back door to get to the king.
00:50:50Her mom is Arete, um, who is the, um, the prince, the queen of the island.
00:50:58And Odysseus makes his way there and he kind of sneaks into the palace alone.
00:51:03Uh, she does give him more than a towel.
00:51:05She actually, you know, her handmaidens like give him some actual clothes and some oil to rub himself.
00:51:11He takes a bath in the river.
00:51:12So he looks a little better, less like a, you know, wild seaman.
00:51:16And he sneaks in and he, and he embraces Arete by the knees and says, oh, lady, I've, I've traveled many days and been shipwrecked.
00:51:25And I just trying to make my way home.
00:51:26I please, I supplicate you as Zeus is the God of suppliance.
00:51:31Would you please help me?
00:51:32Blah, blah, blah.
00:51:33And, uh, he speaks well and, and, and she says, all right, stranger, you seem like a decent noble man.
00:51:40Uh, let me introduce you to my husband.
00:51:43She introduces him to Alcinomas, the king.
00:51:46And Odysseus just like, you know, charisma 11 out of 10.
00:51:51Like he charms his way into the ruling family of, of the island, uh, just with his words.
00:51:57And in fact, before they even know his name, they offer their daughter in marriage to him.
00:52:02It just gives you a sense of, this is what he's famous for, right?
00:52:06Persuasion.
00:52:07Um, but he, you know, if, if he had screwed it up with the princess, if he had screwed it up with her mother, he could have, he could have lost his head, basically.
00:52:18If he had offended him somehow, if he had, you know, savaged or given any hint of savaging, it would have been over for him.
00:52:26So these women have power, but they're dangerous too.
00:52:28You know, they could go either way.
00:52:30And, um, and then, uh, basically, uh, they, they throw a feast for him.
00:52:38They say, we'll, we'll get you home.
00:52:40We're going to send you home.
00:52:41And he declines the, the marriage invitation.
00:52:43Of course, let's, let's get you on one of our magic ships.
00:52:47They have these magic ships, but, um, first let's have a feast for you.
00:52:52And so they throw this big party and they invite all the, all the special people from the town.
00:52:57And that's where he tells his story eventually at that, at that party.
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00:54:12A lot of shrewdness that being upheld.
00:54:16Like the, the canniness of Athena to be able to work around the issues of Poseidon, of Odysseus being able to leave in a, uh, gentle manner that doesn't get him on the bad side of Calypso.
00:54:36Uh, his ability then to cajole and, and play the game when he lands on this new island.
00:54:44So a lot of it is, uh, yeah, an up, an, an upholding of being canny, being like a slick operator.
00:54:49Yeah.
00:54:50Yeah.
00:54:51I mean, would Agamemnon have, have, uh, charmed his way in with this young princess?
00:54:57I don't know.
00:54:58I mean, maybe, uh, but, but this is, this is the arts of Athena.
00:55:04And this is actually, it's actually these, these kind of things, these kind of tricky canny things are what he's going to need to eventually, uh, clean out the suitors and get his, get his home back.
00:55:17So yeah, it's, this is, he is a hero who can't use violence in his great arc, a little bit of violence, but mostly it's, it's like trickery and, um, in places where you just, you just vastly out, out, out matched in force.
00:55:36Um, so there's this, this is the, the, the moment actually, when he's at this party at the Phaeacian's house, um, where we meet Demodocus, the blind bard.
00:55:49So there's some athletic games, you know, the Phaeacians challenge him to show his stuff.
00:55:54And he's like, no, just leave me alone.
00:55:56I'm, I'm, I'm tired.
00:55:57I was 20, 20 days at sea.
00:55:59And they're like, oh, come on.
00:56:00What?
00:56:01You probably can't even throw a discus.
00:56:02And he's like, all right, punks.
00:56:04And he stands up and he, he chucks this giant discus, way bigger than any of the other discuses, way further than any other kids.
00:56:11And he, he shows them up.
00:56:12But then, um, after the meal, they're relaxing and listening to the bard, Phemius.
00:56:17He tells a few stories, some of them famous.
00:56:19He tells the story of Ares and Aphrodite, uh, Ares, you know, stealing Hephaestus' wife away.
00:56:27And he's very pregnant sort of tales of what goes wrong when the husband is away.
00:56:32You know, putting that fear in your mind, like what is going to happen?
00:56:35Uh, but then after the last story, Odysseus himself asks the bard, Demodocus, to tell the story of the Trojan horse.
00:56:46And nobody knows who he is yet.
00:56:48They still don't know.
00:56:49Mm.
00:56:50And Demodocus tells the story.
00:56:52And, you know, everybody knows it, but the Greeks build a horse.
00:56:57They put a bunch of, you know, warriors in there, Odysseus included.
00:57:00It was Odysseus' plan.
00:57:02The other Greeks go off to an island.
00:57:04The Trojans see this horse, and they think it's, uh, some kind of talisman of power.
00:57:09Various versions of like, why did they bring this giant horse into their walls?
00:57:13But they do it, and they bring it up to the citadel.
00:57:16Doors close.
00:57:17At night, the Greeks slip out.
00:57:18Open the gates.
00:57:19The city is sacked.
00:57:20Long story short.
00:57:21But it's interesting.
00:57:23While Demodocus is telling this story, Odysseus, I mean, apparently he's a good bard.
00:57:30You know, tragic.
00:57:31Odysseus just starts crying.
00:57:33And, um, he's trying to be discreet about it.
00:57:38But Homer says he weeps like a woman who's lost her husband at war and whose city has been sacked,
00:57:44and she's been being led away by her captors.
00:57:48Hmm.
00:57:49So it's almost like he's weeping like the victims of the tragedy he inflicted upon Troy.
00:57:56A very kind of poignant moment.
00:57:59Does that mean that he's sort of having sympathy for the people that he destroyed at Troy?
00:58:05Hmm.
00:58:06And Homer kind of leaves it open.
00:58:07But Alcinous can tell the king.
00:58:12Hey, you know, maybe that's enough epic poetry for tonight.
00:58:15Uh, our guest is, uh, very tired.
00:58:18Uh, you can see it.
00:58:20It's hysterical.
00:58:21Yeah.
00:58:22So, um, so he says, um, stranger, I could tell that this story was bothering you.
00:58:29Did you have a brother or a cousin, perhaps a father who went off to fight at Troy?
00:58:34You know, right after they've heard the story of how Odysseus sacked Troy.
00:58:39And Odysseus says, all right, I'll tell you who I am at last.
00:58:44And that's when the great narrative begins in book, book nine.
00:58:47Hmm.
00:58:48Which is, I think, the, the high point, the best part of the story.
00:58:51And, um, and Odysseus is kind of playing the bard here, notably.
00:58:55He's doing, he's basically let, he's allowed to be Homer for four books.
00:59:00Just narrating these amazing tales.
00:59:02Cellating himself.
00:59:03Yeah.
00:59:04Well, I mean, and he doesn't always come off as the best guy in the stories, which is interesting.
00:59:09Uh, but, you know, they do, they do shine a good light on him.
00:59:14He's, he's, he learns from his mistakes.
00:59:16Um, and, um, and, and there's a moment, there's a pause in the, in the storytelling.
00:59:22It's book 11, where everybody's just like, you know, gawking, jaws dropped.
00:59:27And he's, he's enchanted the room, just like Homer enchants the room.
00:59:31What's he telling?
00:59:32He's telling the story of Troy.
00:59:34So his, he, he says, I'm Odysseus.
00:59:39I was kept by Circe and Calypso, but they never, they never, uh, swayed the heart in me.
00:59:45Um, I'm from Ithaca.
00:59:46I'm just trying to make my, my way back to Ithaca.
00:59:49It's a crappy rocky islands.
00:59:51Um, but you know, everyone's homeland is most dear to them, blah, blah, blah.
00:59:55And then he tells the story of right after they left Troy, what happened on the return journey.
01:00:00And, um, you know, some of the familiar faces appear now.
01:00:07They try to have a cattle raid on these Thracians, Kikones, and it goes well for a while.
01:00:14And then the Thracians invite their friends and, you know, basically slaughter and chase all the Greeks back to their ships.
01:00:22And Odysseus has to kind of run tail between his legs back to his ships and they, they go on.
01:00:27So it's the first sign that things aren't, aren't going to go perfectly.
01:00:30Um, and then they, they meet the Lotus eaters.
01:00:35That's the, the next people they meet.
01:00:37Mm-hmm.
01:00:38Um, very, very tempting, uh, um, a very, a very tempting spot, you know, British podcasters who just talk about culture issue all, all day.
01:00:50Mm-hmm.
01:00:51But, uh, no, the Lotus eaters are, are basically like potheads, I think.
01:00:54And, um, the, the Lotus flower just makes you want to forget your return journey home and just sit and eat Lotus until you die.
01:01:02Uh, kind of like opium or they, they were aware of opium, but that, that's the, and then the next monster they meet, you know, it's clear that they're sort of being tempted as they're traveling back.
01:01:17And, um, and they get blown off course to this island of, of the Cyclopses.
01:01:23Mm-hmm.
01:01:24And that's, that's like the, the grand, I think that one of the, the, the best, the best stories of, of this whole journey that, that brings all, a lot of these themes to, to the fore.
01:01:36Um.
01:01:37Why?
01:01:38Well, okay.
01:01:40Cyclopses are, Emily Wilson translates, uh, Cyclopses a couple of places in her translation as Cyclopean people.
01:01:50Like they're, uh.
01:01:51Like people, people of color.
01:01:53Yeah, you know, temporarily, uh, afflicted with being one eyed monsters.
01:01:57I don't know.
01:01:58Her, her take is.
01:01:59It's a very DEI approach to a story from 3000 years ago.
01:02:04Yeah.
01:02:05I know Emily, she's, she's a good scholar.
01:02:06She's, she's good to her people.
01:02:07But I, I, I like to take some pot shots at her translations.
01:02:10Cause I mean, like her take would be the Cyclopses are kind of, uh, you know, Odysseus is this Greek colonizer and he's looking at everything through the kind of, you know, Greek man colonizer lens.
01:02:24And then all of these people that he meets are just, they're just like people and they're strange, but you know, maybe they have their own way of doing things.
01:02:30But, and the Cyclops' way of doing things is to be a giant one eyed monster that eats people.
01:02:35So, um.
01:02:36Okay.
01:02:37So that's the indigenous wisdom of the.
01:02:39Right.
01:02:40Of the Cyclopses.
01:02:41Yeah.
01:02:42Yeah.
01:02:43All right.
01:02:44Um, but, uh, and he plays this trick on the Cyclops, you know, he goes and they go in the cave and, um, the Cyclops, uh, eats, eats some of his men and traps, traps Odysseus and his men with this big rock.
01:02:58So you're watching the, you're watching the troops of Odysseus dwindle after each different stage.
01:03:03Round after round.
01:03:04Yeah.
01:03:05And I think the Cyclops story is really interesting because w w the way that, uh, Odysseus describes it is they are, um, they, they live in little, uh, family units.
01:03:18They do not care about the gods.
01:03:20They, they think Zeus is a chump and, um, every man is a law to his own wife and children.
01:03:27So they're, they're giant forceful men that think law and order is, is, you know, for pussies and, you know, they're kind of like extreme libertarians.
01:03:39You know, they don't have a social order other than the household.
01:03:44And this makes them vulnerable.
01:03:47This makes them underestimate the power of, of trickery.
01:03:51They're not coordinated.
01:03:52They're not unified.
01:03:53Yeah, exactly.
01:03:55And, and they, so the Cyclops himself, Polyphemus is, is the one that Odysseus faces.
01:04:01He had actually heard a prophecy that someday some man named Odysseus would come and blind him.
01:04:08And, and after he gets blinded, he tells the story and he's sort of raging.
01:04:15Uh, he said, I was not a prophet once came and told us that I would get blinded by a man named Odysseus, but I thought he would be a strong man, not some little pipsqueak, you know?
01:04:25Uh, so he was, he was not on guard for craft.
01:04:29They're, they're, they're men of force.
01:04:31Again, this is this binary of like force and wildness versus cleverness and civilization.
01:04:36And Odysseus tricks him, you know, after the trapped in the, in the cave and Cyclops is kind of gradually eating the men that Odysseus brought with him and making him watch.
01:04:45Odysseus gives him some wine, some really good wine.
01:04:51And the Cyclops just doesn't have the cultural antibodies of, of moderation, you know?
01:04:58And he just, it's like giving whiskey to the native Americans or whatever.
01:05:01Exactly what I was thinking.
01:05:02He just, he just slams it.
01:05:05Yep.
01:05:06He gets really drunk and he says, stranger, this is really good stuff.
01:05:10And he says, your gift, your, your, your guest friend gift, Cyclops is a very bad host too.
01:05:16Kind of like the suitors.
01:05:17Your gift is going to be, I'll, I'll eat you last.
01:05:20You know, congratulations.
01:05:23Passes out drunk.
01:05:25And meanwhile, Odysseus has made this, this, um, spear or this kind of like steak, a six foot steak that he's, he's carved, uh, while the Cyclops was away, uh, tending his sheep and hardened with the points and the fire.
01:05:40I mean, it's a very kind of like technological sort of act too.
01:05:44Kind of like building the ship.
01:05:45Yeah, more craft.
01:05:46Yeah.
01:05:47More craft.
01:05:47Yeah.
01:05:47More craft.
01:05:48And they, you know, they stab him when he's drunk in the eye and he's blinded.
01:05:50And, um, so, you know, moving on, you know, that's how he defeats the Cyclops craft.
01:05:57Um, and, oh, and of course that's how he gets cursed in the first place because he makes the mistake as they're kind of sailing away from the Cyclops Island.
01:06:06The Cyclops is foaming at the mouth and raging at them.
01:06:10Where are they?
01:06:11Where are they?
01:06:12Um, Odysseus says, uh, well, he, he told him, I should have probably mentioned the famous trick.
01:06:18Uh, when he introduces himself, he says, my name is nobody.
01:06:22And then when the Cyclops gets stabbed in the eye, he calls out to his fellow Cyclops libertarians in the other household.
01:06:30And he says, nobody is, is hurting me.
01:06:32Nobody is just, you know, uh, forcefully harming me.
01:06:38And they say, well, if nobody's hurting you, then that's just tough luck.
01:06:42You know, maybe you're sick and Zeus just makes people suffer.
01:06:45There's nothing we can do about it.
01:06:46Oh, very funny.
01:06:47So, and there's actually a play on words there.
01:06:50Because, uh, if you get into the, like the Greek, when, when they say, when he says, nobody's hurting me.
01:06:58Uh, it's ootis, nobody is ootis.
01:07:00But if you put the, the no in an if clause, so the Cyclops is, the other Cyclops respond.
01:07:06If nobody is killing you, then the oo, the negative changes to a may.
01:07:11So it's if maytis is killing you.
01:07:13And if trickery is killing you is how it sounds, it's, it's, uh, it's two words in their mouth.
01:07:21But we hear it as one word.
01:07:22Oh, if trickery is killing you.
01:07:23So basically, you know, it's just a very funny, like way of saying trickery killed him and not violence or trickery, you know, blasted his eye.
01:07:33There's a double entendre to it.
01:07:34Yeah.
01:07:35Yeah.
01:07:36How'd he get cursed?
01:07:37Uh, so yeah, he gets cursed by, uh, basically giving the Cyclops his name.
01:07:40He says, if anybody asks you how you got blinded, tell them Odysseus did it.
01:07:44And Polyphemus says, oh, I knew it.
01:07:46I knew it.
01:07:47And then he says, father Poseidon.
01:07:49And Odysseus is like, what?
01:07:50Father Poseidon?
01:07:51Poseidon is the father of Polyphemus, the Cyclops.
01:07:56Little did he know.
01:07:57Oh, he fucked up his son.
01:07:59Little did he know that he was blinding the son of the sea god Poseidon.
01:08:04And so Polyphemus curses him.
01:08:07May he never get home or may he, uh, have a really, really, really, really hard time and lose all of his companions.
01:08:13And Poseidon listened and that's what happened.
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01:09:15Bottoms up.
01:09:16This is locked in on him still telling the story.
01:09:25So everybody sat around.
01:09:26Yeah.
01:09:27Mouths open.
01:09:28Yeah.
01:09:29Holy shit, this is an epic story.
01:09:30Yeah.
01:09:31And, um, time is a, I mean, yeah.
01:09:36This is only one of the, it's like a fourth of the way through his long storytelling.
01:09:40So it's, it's really an epic narrative.
01:09:42Yeah.
01:09:43Uh, maybe a couple more episodes are worth kind of highlighting.
01:09:46So, um, eventually they make their way, their way to this other island, Cersei's Island.
01:09:54And here's another strained woman that he has to deal with.
01:09:57Cersei is, um, a divine witch goddess, sort of like Calypso style, but, but a little bit more,
01:10:06a little bit more kind of dangerous or dark.
01:10:09And the Odysseus sends his men into the islands.
01:10:13They see smoke coming up from this hut.
01:10:16And, um, and the, you know, sends his men end.
01:10:19He waits at the ships.
01:10:20The men go, they find this hut in this clearing.
01:10:24And there are wolves and lions just prowling around like tame animals, strange.
01:10:30And then there's this, you know, enchanting lady bustling around her hut, singing these strange songs.
01:10:38And they, oh, she sees them.
01:10:40Oh, gentlemen, please.
01:10:41Right this way.
01:10:43And they go and, um, accept her hospitality.
01:10:47She feeds them and she whacks them all in the head with a magic wand and turns them into pigs.
01:10:54So one of the men escapes.
01:10:57As a pig.
01:10:58As a human.
01:10:59Right.
01:11:00He doesn't go in.
01:11:01All the other guys are pigs.
01:11:02He just hustles back to Odysseus.
01:11:04Tells them what happened.
01:11:06Fucked in there.
01:11:07There's this chick.
01:11:08She's got a wand.
01:11:09All the guys are pigs.
01:11:10We shouldn't go.
01:11:11Yeah.
01:11:12Yeah.
01:11:13Let's, let's.
01:11:14The nightmare party.
01:11:15Immediately.
01:11:16Go, go to the ship.
01:11:17Yeah.
01:11:18Almost as bad as that Cyclops guy.
01:11:19Yeah.
01:11:20Yeah.
01:11:21And this happens a few times on the journey.
01:11:22People are like, please, Odysseus, can we just leave?
01:11:24He's like, no, I just want to see what, what might be, uh, in store for us here.
01:11:27Maybe they want to give me a present.
01:11:29Yeah.
01:11:30So, um, and then this is another one of those instances, but he, he, he, he draws his sword
01:11:37and he's like, ready for action charges in and Hermes stops him.
01:11:44He says, Odysseus, if you go in there, you're just going to become a pig.
01:11:48She's going to turn you into a pig.
01:11:50Stop.
01:11:51And let me, let me help you.
01:11:53And he pulls out of the ground, this root.
01:11:56And it's, well, this is a plant with black root and a white flower.
01:12:01He says, this is moly.
01:12:03And, uh, this is not where we get the word holy moly, but if that helps you remember.
01:12:07Yeah.
01:12:08I know.
01:12:09I, I looked it up.
01:12:10It's like, that's, that's too good.
01:12:11No, it is too good.
01:12:12But, um, but it is, uh, you know, famous plant.
01:12:16And he, he tells Odysseus the nature of this plant.
01:12:19It's what Homer said.
01:12:20The phusus of this plant.
01:12:21This is the phesis.
01:12:22This is where we get the word physics, you know, nature in Greek.
01:12:25And, uh, a lot of philosophers have made a lot about this.
01:12:28Uh, we could, we could maybe go into it, but this is the first occurrence of the word nature.
01:12:32Like the idea that there is a nature, that things have natures is a sort of like, that's an idea that had to develop.
01:12:40Hmm.
01:12:41But Hermes tells him the secret of this plant.
01:12:43And, um, and Odysseus like, you know, rubs it on himself or eats some, it's not really clear what, but it's a, it's an antidote to her magic.
01:12:51And so he goes in, you know, the, the pigs and the wolves and the lions are there and Cersei beckons him in and she feeds him and he plays dumb.
01:12:58And then when she tries to whack him with the magic wand and turn him into a pig, nothing happens.
01:13:02And she's like, he stands up and he draws a sword.
01:13:05He's like, all right, Cersei, cheek is up.
01:13:07And, um, she's like, how did you, how did you, you know, avoid my magic?
01:13:13And, uh, and then she asks him as, as you might expect to go to bed with her.
01:13:20Uh, and Hermes had warned him that this might happen.
01:13:25She, she's going to ask you to go to bed with her.
01:13:28You got to do it.
01:13:30No choice.
01:13:31Take one for the team, dude.
01:13:33Pipe the pig lady.
01:13:34Come on now.
01:13:35She's just grin and bear.
01:13:36Mana.
01:13:37Yeah.
01:13:38And, uh, he says, but she's actually trying to unman you.
01:13:42It's a trick.
01:13:43Maybe who knows, but you got to get her to swear an oath that she's not going to harm you.
01:13:49And Odysseus makes her swear.
01:13:50No, all right.
01:13:51We'll go to bed, but you know, no harm to me or my companions and you got to change them back.
01:13:56And so she says, fine.
01:13:58They still go to bed.
01:13:59And, uh, then she changes his men back.
01:14:02And Odysseus puts a shift in.
01:14:03Yeah.
01:14:04Yeah.
01:14:05The only, the only people that Odysseus hasn't had sex with so far have been Cyclops.
01:14:08Yeah.
01:14:09As far as I can see.
01:14:10Yeah.
01:14:11Well, and who knows?
01:14:12Because he's the one telling the story.
01:14:13It's the Odysseus sex tour thus far.
01:14:16Matt Damon's really got his work cut out for him.
01:14:18Known the minds of many people, many, many men and women.
01:14:21Yeah.
01:14:22Yeah.
01:14:23And, uh, so, you know, he's, he's, he's taking one for the team day after day after day.
01:14:30And it takes about a year.
01:14:32She, she's, she's changed him back into men.
01:14:35And, and, you know, look, it's a nice place, right?
01:14:37They get the food and there's fun little animal pets to play with.
01:14:41But the men are like, all right, Odysseus, it's been a year.
01:14:44You're having a good time.
01:14:46Uh, this is a fine enough place, but we kind of miss our homes.
01:14:49Can we get out of here?
01:14:50And so he makes her, uh, help him get onto the next stage.
01:14:55And the next stage, as she explains is if you really want to get home,
01:15:00you have to go on a deeper, darker quest to the underworld.
01:15:06And, uh, basically he has to go consult this.
01:15:11He has to go consult this prophet Tiresias, who's dead.
01:15:15He's blind.
01:15:16Another blind wise person who's died.
01:15:19Famous Theban Tiresias.
01:15:21And to get to him, you know, you don't go down.
01:15:24To the underworld in the Odyssey, you go out.
01:15:27And so you have to sail many days.
01:15:29And so long story short, he, he sails many days, you know,
01:15:32it gets misty and weird.
01:15:34And, uh, they run aground finally on this strange land.
01:15:38And he has to do this right.
01:15:40Dig a trench with his sword and put honey and milk and barley.
01:15:45And he has to sacrifice some lambs.
01:15:47Drain their blood out into the hole.
01:15:49And, uh, and then the, the ghosts of the dead come.
01:15:52So like you go out and then the underworld comes to you.
01:15:57Um, and this is, I think this is one of the best scenes in the whole book.
01:16:01But, you know, all of these wraiths come, these like gibbering wraiths.
01:16:06And they're, they're not intelligible.
01:16:08Um, and they're kind of, they're not like, they're not like souls.
01:16:13Like your full identity is there.
01:16:15They're sort of, I don't know, insubstantial, uh, remnants of people, you might say.
01:16:21But to basically, to get them to speak to him, he has to let them drink this, you know, concoction in the ditch.
01:16:33Which includes blood.
01:16:34So they get, they get blood and they kind of have a little moment of, of liveliness.
01:16:38So they can actually speak face to face to Odysseus.
01:16:41Hmm.
01:16:42And the first one he talked, well, the first one he talks to is this guy, Elpinor, who fell off the roof and died.
01:16:46And Odysseus, will you bury me?
01:16:47Yes.
01:16:48All right.
01:16:49Next.
01:16:50He talks to Tiresias.
01:16:52Tiresias, um, tells him, you know, you're going to get home fine.
01:16:58If, if you can keep your hands and your mouth off.
01:17:03That's came out wrong off the cows of the sun.
01:17:08And you're going to, you're going to run around on this island, the cattle of the sun.
01:17:12If you can restrain yourself and your men, you'll get home.
01:17:15But if you eat of the cows of the sun, you're going to get blasted and die.
01:17:19So it's going to take more kind of restraint to get home.
01:17:22And he says also, um, you know, you're, he tells him about the suitors who haven't actually arrived on the scene, but he's, he's a prophet.
01:17:31And so it's going to be really, really tough to get back home.
01:17:34And Odysseus says, all right, thank you.
01:17:36And, um, there's also this other prophecy about a quest he has to go on, which we can omit for now.
01:17:42It's a, it's a very strange scene.
01:17:43But, um, after that, he, he meets his mom because his mother has died since he's left.
01:17:49And he meets his mom.
01:17:50He lets her drink the blood.
01:17:51He tries to embrace her.
01:17:53Um, but you know, his hands go right through her and she tells him that's how it is with the dead.
01:17:58You can't, you can't embrace a dead person.
01:18:00And she kind of, you know, explains to him how the whole afterlife thing works.
01:18:05And, um, which I think is important for Homer somehow that, that, that, that the knowledge that upholds civilization includes this kind of metaphysical stuff that's weird afterlife stuff.
01:18:17That's my read at least.
01:18:19And then I think one of the most interesting things that is not often pointed out the first group of the dead.
01:18:25So he meets while he's down there, he meets the ghost of Achilles, ghost of Agamemnon, Hercules, a few other guys.
01:18:32But the first people that he meets are not these heroes, these famous heroes from, from the Iliad.
01:18:39It's these famous women.
01:18:41The mother of Amphion, who built the walls of Thebes.
01:18:45Um, let's see.
01:18:48A few other mortals who had bedded with gods.
01:18:51And, and as he's kind of letting them drink of the blood and conversing with them, it's almost like he's satisfying his curiosity.
01:18:58You know, he's a very like intellectually capacious man.
01:19:02He wants to know everything.
01:19:03He's, he's that kind of guy.
01:19:05And all of these women come and they tell him the stories of their sons or their fathers, their brothers.
01:19:17They, they kind of tell him about these heroes that he wouldn't otherwise have access to.
01:19:23And, um, you know, I had a, I had a friend pass away a long time ago.
01:19:30He was a little older than me.
01:19:32And he was kind of a mentor.
01:19:34And after he died, I think I helped at this, this moment kind of helped me realize this.
01:19:38After he died, I, I was hanging out with his mom after the funeral.
01:19:44And she was just telling me all of these stories about him as a young man that I'd never really understood why he was so impressive or what, what he had to go through.
01:19:53And, um, I think, I think that this is kind of about how, how women fit into the story of the making of a hero.
01:20:00You know, it seems really important to me now.
01:20:03I never noticed it until that happened.
01:20:05Uh, but they're sort of serving that role.
01:20:08Um, narrating the, the deeds of their, of their family, upholding order.
01:20:13Um, all right.
01:20:16And one more person I want to mention while he's down there among the dead is he meets Achilles.
01:20:23And this is, this is the moment where you, you see this tension between the Iliad and the Odyssey, where Homer kind of poses the question, what is worth striving after?
01:20:36Achilles died young.
01:20:38He traded a long life for eternal glory.
01:20:42He may face that choice in the Iliad and he made his choice.
01:20:45And the Iliad says that was the right choice.
01:20:48But when Odysseus meets the ghost of Achilles, he says, wow, uh, you were so glorious in life, Achilles.
01:20:54It's, it's amazing to meet you now that you're dead.
01:20:56We, we, we mourned you very much.
01:20:59And Achilles says to Odysseus, uh, don't, don't make light of death in front of me.
01:21:09Uh, I would rather be a slave, uh, a hire, a hired, a hireling of a man with no land to his name.
01:21:21Uloimein, uh, Keparuroseon, Theetewomenalo, Andri Paraclero, Omebiotos Polusei.
01:21:28I would rather be a hired servant, uh, lowest status person on earth than be king of the dead.
01:21:38So it's, what does that mean?
01:21:41Achilles is telling him maybe, maybe glory isn't all that it's cracked out to be.
01:21:47Hmm.
01:21:48Maybe Odysseus got is getting, or has the potential to get the better thing in life, which is continuation of his line.
01:21:56And the other thing that Achilles says to Odysseus is if I had one more day of life, you know what I would do?
01:22:05I would go to my father's house.
01:22:09Cause I have heard that there are men in my country, insulting my father, and I would go and slaughter all of them.
01:22:16I would avenge my father's name.
01:22:18Hmm.
01:22:19And by the way, have you heard any news about my son?
01:22:22So Achilles, you know, this, this great, brilliant, glamorous warrior from the Iliad, what he cares about in death is his family.
01:22:33You know, this, this is the thing that matters.
01:22:37I think that's one of the big messages of the Odyssey.
01:22:41What really matters in the long run?
01:22:44What, what is permanent?
01:22:45What can you make permanent?
01:22:46Is glory permanent?
01:22:47Is people talking about you far and wide after you died?
01:22:51Is that really permanence?
01:22:53Or is permanence sort of the biological continuation of the household?
01:22:58Yeah.
01:22:59Odysseus is maybe the greatest hero because he manages to get both of them.
01:23:05Which requires cunning and craft and, and force, but also requires luck, you know?
01:23:12Um, so whatever Odysseus thought of that, you know, uh, makes his way back to Circe's island and, and there's more, there's more temptations to, to face.
01:23:26He has to go through the sirens, um, skillet Charybdis.
01:23:31They finally meet the cattle of the sun and Odysseus falls asleep, uh, at some, you know, a God put sleep upon him.
01:23:41Maybe it was faded.
01:23:42And while he's asleep, his men sacrifice and eat all the cattle of the sun.
01:23:46And, uh, but he doesn't, he doesn't eat of the, the cursed beef.
01:23:51Did he warn the men?
01:23:52Yes. Yes. He warned them again and again.
01:23:55And they said, I would rather, uh, one of his, his leaders of his men says, Odysseus is asleep.
01:24:03He's, he's been lying to us this whole time about this and that.
01:24:06But, you know, maybe he's telling the truth about the cows.
01:24:08Look, I'd rather eat and, uh, and die than, than like starve, uh, waste away.
01:24:16Like we're gonna die anyway.
01:24:18We might as well have a good time while we do it.
01:24:20Mm-hmm.
01:24:21Uh, so as soon as they eat the, the cows, the wind starts to blow.
01:24:25They get stuck on this island.
01:24:26That's why they, they get hungrier and hungrier.
01:24:28As soon, as soon as they eat the cows, the winds start to blow.
01:24:32And, you know, they get on the ship, lightning bolts, they all die.
01:24:38Odysseus grabs a board and kind of floats to Circe's island or Calypso's island.
01:24:42Mm-hmm.
01:24:43And, uh, and then he ends his story and the Phaeacians say, wow.
01:24:47Okay.
01:24:48Um, so will you be packing soon?
01:24:51Uh, let, let's get you off to your, to your homeland.
01:24:53And they send him off on, on a ship back to, back to, back to Ithaca.
01:24:57How easy is the journey?
01:24:58That journey is incredibly easy.
01:25:03He sleeps the whole time.
01:25:05He, they put him down on the, on the boat.
01:25:08He falls asleep.
01:25:10They get all the way to Ithaca.
01:25:12They take him off the boat.
01:25:13They take him off the boat.
01:25:14He's still asleep.
01:25:15They stick him on the shore and they stick, they, they loaded him up with gifts.
01:25:19They stick all the gifts there on the shore.
01:25:21And, you know, he wakes up and they're gone.
01:25:24He's like, wow.
01:25:25Uh, those, those bastards, they left me on a, on a, what island is this?
01:25:29This doesn't look like my home.
01:25:31Uh, but eventually it turns out that it is Ithaca that they left him on.
01:25:34It's like he fast traveled in a computer game.
01:25:36Yeah.
01:25:37In a video game.
01:25:38He just pressed a button and moved on the map from one location to another.
01:25:41Yeah, it's, it's, it's really weird.
01:25:43And I think it's, it's kind of like, I don't know.
01:25:46It's like, was it all a dream?
01:25:48I don't know.
01:25:49He was crossing this boundary from the, you know, adventurous mythical world where the, the,
01:25:55and the Phaeacians are kind of close to the gods.
01:25:57They're, they don't have, um, there's no pirates.
01:26:00They have these magical ships.
01:26:01They have maybe these like robot dogs.
01:26:04Um, it's not clear robot golden dogs, um, guarding the palace.
01:26:09Uh, maybe they can move.
01:26:10Maybe they can't.
01:26:11Homer doesn't really specify, but it's, it's an eerie peaceful Shangri-La.
01:26:15Uh, again, it's a kind of a temptation.
01:26:18Like he, he could have stayed there and married that hot young girl.
01:26:22It was a real temptation.
01:26:24And she was, you know, she was like a young Penelope too.
01:26:27Good, good, you know, great catch.
01:26:29But he had suffering to do.
01:26:32He had more suffering to do.
01:26:33Uh, but you know, he, he left that all behind.
01:26:35And I think it's like, he's crossing this metaphysical boundary almost between the world
01:26:38of like monsters and myth to the world of the harsh reality.
01:26:42Where on the hero's journey is he?
01:26:44Is he six o'clock?
01:26:45Is he seven o'clock?
01:26:46Is he seven o'clock?
01:26:47That's a good question.
01:26:49So yeah, he, he, uh, Cersei's a sort of maybe serving that wise counselor role.
01:26:55Maybe Tiresias is.
01:26:56There's a, there's a Katabasis, the descent.
01:26:58Uh, he's, he's come out with the knowledge that he needs to get back.
01:27:02So he's, he's about basically about to face the final boss.
01:27:05Mm-hmm.
01:27:06And it's, it's a very long facing of the final boss.
01:27:09I mean, we're only halfway through the book at this point.
01:27:10Yeah.
01:27:11He gets back.
01:27:12Um, but I think it's, you know, you can, you can dispense with it a lot quicker.
01:27:16Um, so, uh, but you know, he's, he's gotta use all of these stratagems that he's been
01:27:25sort of developing through his sufferings.
01:27:29Cause there's 108 suitors in the house.
01:27:31He has no idea if anybody of his servants are still loyal.
01:27:35He has no idea if one of these guys maybe has seduced his wife and they're gonna, she's
01:27:42gonna play real nice.
01:27:43And when he gets home and then they're gonna stab him in his bed.
01:27:46Yeah.
01:27:47Agamemnon.
01:27:48Right.
01:27:49Um, when does he meet his son?
01:27:50So he, Odysseus makes his way to the swine herds hut, Eumaeus.
01:27:55He's a, you know, pig, pig tender.
01:27:58And, uh, one of Odysseus' slaves, but like, uh, treated him really well.
01:28:04Loved Odysseus, did Eumaeus.
01:28:06And, uh, he, you know, offers him hospitality.
01:28:09You know, the suitors took all the big fat pigs, but I can give you a little, a little
01:28:14kind of porker and we'll have a nice meal.
01:28:16You know, he hosts him for a few days and Odysseus doesn't tell him who he is.
01:28:21He, he spends this kind of cock and bull story about, uh, you know, getting seized by Phoenicians
01:28:31or something.
01:28:32I mean, but he, he, he's, he's keeping his, keeping his cards to his chest.
01:28:37Um, and then it just so happens that Telemachus gets back from his travel.
01:28:42He eludes the, the kind of ambush somehow that the suitors were trying to launch on him.
01:28:48And he, uh, he actually makes his way to this very swine herds hut.
01:28:52And that's where they meet Odysseus in, in disguise at first.
01:28:56And then Eumaeus goes to town.
01:28:58And then while he's away, Odysseus reveals himself to his son.
01:29:01So the first guy that he reveals who he is to is his son because he needs his son to help
01:29:06him launch a plan.
01:29:08And it's like gradually he, every, you know, a couple of people find out here and there.
01:29:13The, um, the nurse Eurycleia figures it out and he makes her swear to not tell anybody.
01:29:20And he eventually tells the swine herd right before they slaughter the suitors.
01:29:25And his wife actually finds out very last, funny enough.
01:29:28Hmm.
01:29:29Um, but he goes in, he goes into this, his palace, you know.
01:29:32How, how does he find out about all of the suitors?
01:29:34Does he see them?
01:29:35Well, Telemachus tells him and Eumaeus tells him what's going on at home.
01:29:40And they say, you know, your wife has been faithful, but he doesn't know, right?
01:29:44He, he still wants to test her.
01:29:46And he does in disguise, uh, eventually dressed as a beggar, you know, famously.
01:29:53And, and he, um, there's one, one or two cool scenes that are worth narrating
01:30:00about this whole arc before the final gratifying blood bath.
01:30:05The, he, he goes in and he wants to kind of test out the suitors himself.
01:30:10He wants to see it.
01:30:11What is the situation in my palace?
01:30:13And so he goes in dressed as a beggar and he gets harassed by some, you know, goat herd
01:30:18along the way that was a slave of his.
01:30:20And he's like, all right, remember you.
01:30:22And, um, and he goes around like begging for food as the suitors are all feasting and having
01:30:29a good time, didn't wash their hands, didn't pray before their meal, of course.
01:30:34And he, he goes and he asks each of them for a little bit of a little morsel.
01:30:38And, uh, most of them give him a morsel, but one of them, this guy Antinous is, well,
01:30:45one of the kind of chief suitors of the suitors.
01:30:48And he says, uh, yeah, get out of here.
01:30:52You're, you're just cramping my style.
01:30:54You're, you're ruining the vibe.
01:30:56You may ask, why did you bring this beggar in here?
01:30:59And Odysseus kind of, kind of taunts him, but very, very subtly is, oh, you know, you,
01:31:05you seem like such a lordly Prince Antinous.
01:31:07Um, Zeus brings suffering on us all.
01:31:11You know, you might be down on your luck someday, just like I'm down on my luck.
01:31:14I was once like you.
01:31:15And Antinous is like, shut up and leave.
01:31:18And Odysseus knows what he's doing.
01:31:20He's kind of needling him.
01:31:22And, um, and so eventually, uh, Antinous picks up, uh, uh, like a footstool and he chucks it at Odysseus.
01:31:31And Odysseus has just been prodding him.
01:31:33He's been like riling him up, you know, very politely and very calmly.
01:31:37And Antinous just hurls a bench at him, gets, he gets the kid to lose his cool.
01:31:42And the bench just like, like hits Odysseus and like nothing happens, you know, and he's like, do you feel better now?
01:31:51Yeah.
01:31:53So I think he was, he was sort of testing to see whether these were serious men.
01:32:00Confirmed his hypothesis that these are not serious men.
01:32:02They don't know how to act.
01:32:04A hard killer, like a cold blooded warrior would not throw a bench at a beggar.
01:32:10I mean, it's just, it's ungentlemanly, it's unmanly.
01:32:13I mean, if you want to, if you want to get rid of this guy and you're Odysseus or Agamemnon or Achilles, you're going to like pick him up and throw him outside yourself.
01:32:21You're not going to hurl a bench at him.
01:32:22Mm-hmm .
01:32:23Right?
01:32:24Uh, so, so he, he kind of prods, prods and tests to, to see what's going on in his household so he can come up with a plan.
01:32:34And one, one final moment that really underlines the, um, the endurance that this guy has to take.
01:32:42He, he's, he's been, uh, given a blanket and a little cot by his wife who doesn't know who he is.
01:32:49He's had a conversation with her and he's told her this tale and, um, and they give him a cot and he's, he's lying there stirring in his mind how he's going to pull it all off.
01:33:01And he sees the maids go out because there's like 50 maids and 12 of them have basically been sleeping with the suitors.
01:33:10They've been seduced.
01:33:11Um, maybe it's not their fault, but I mean, Homer really treats it as though it's, it's their fault.
01:33:16Mm-hmm .
01:33:17And Penelope is really pissed.
01:33:18She says, "These are the, the maidens that have been disrespecting me and disrespecting your son.
01:33:24They, they're sleeping with the suitors, uh, and they're like not loyal to the household.
01:33:29They're causing me problems.
01:33:30They're disobedient and, um, you know, they're, they're not on our side, essentially."
01:33:36He sees them going out.
01:33:37He just wants to get them right there.
01:33:40Mm-hmm .
01:33:41It's a violent poem.
01:33:42Mm-hmm .
01:33:43But he says, "Endure my heart.
01:33:46You have endured worse before when the Cyclops was eating your men."
01:33:51Mm-hmm .
01:33:52So he has to use that same restraint that he used.
01:33:54'Cause if he, if he had charged at the Cyclops when the guy was awake, you know, he would have, it would have been over.
01:33:59So this is a skill that he developed?
01:34:01Yeah, it's a skill that he developed.
01:34:02And he's kind of reminding himself, uh, that the same kind of endurance that he had in Cyclops is, is also helping him tolerate all the, you know, righteous indignation that he's feeling.
01:34:15Assholes in his house.
01:34:16Yeah, yeah.
01:34:17No, biding his time, biding his time.
01:34:19Mm-hmm .
01:34:20He's a man of much endurance, right?
01:34:21Mm-hmm .
01:34:22It's a marathon.
01:34:23And, um, and how it eventually all kind of comes, comes to a head is Penelope, um, has this idea.
01:34:33Who knows where she gets it?
01:34:34Why is Penelope in on this?
01:34:36So she's, she's, um, I forgot to mention, she, there's a kind of crisis point that comes about at the beginning of the book.
01:34:45So she's been weaving this funeral shroud for Laertes, Odysseus' dad, who's not dead yet, but will be dead any day now, really.
01:34:54Uh, and she's been telling the suitors, I just want to finish my funeral shroud and then I'll pick one of you.
01:34:59Let me, let me just do my, my wifely duty for my old household and I'll join your household.
01:35:03And of course she's been weaving it during the day and unweaving it at night.
01:35:06Mm.
01:35:07She's tricking them, using the craft of Athena, right?
01:35:10But one of the maidservants actually, one of these bad ones, told the suitors what she was doing.
01:35:17She was tricking them.
01:35:18Mm.
01:35:19So they're like, all right, you have to decide now.
01:35:21We know this is all bullshit about your, you know.
01:35:23Okay, bitch.
01:35:24Yeah.
01:35:25You fucking knitting and unknitting.
01:35:27Yeah.
01:35:28Yeah.
01:35:29They're, they've, they've had enough.
01:35:31And, uh, and so she's basically feeling like she has to, has to pick now.
01:35:39But she comes up with this contest.
01:35:41All right.
01:35:42Maybe Odysseus is coming back.
01:35:44She's getting all these signs.
01:35:45You know, Odysseus in disguise says, I think your husband's coming back.
01:35:48I really think he's coming back and you should just wait another day.
01:35:51And she's like, I have this idea for a contest.
01:35:54And she tells it to him and, and he says, you should do exactly that.
01:35:58That is exactly what you will do, which is get out Odysseus's bow.
01:36:02Right.
01:36:03And, uh, set up these axes that, uh, whoever, whoever strings his bow.
01:36:09It's like a big, hard recurve bow that nobody could string, but him.
01:36:15And they could, if they shoot the arrow through the ax holes, whoever does that first can marry me.
01:36:23And, um, and it, you know, it's a perfect kind of trick.
01:36:28It's a perfect contest because it brings out this memetic rivalry.
01:36:35Like the suitors all go in and start trying to string the bow.
01:36:39And none of them can even get the string on the bow.
01:36:42It's just too big.
01:36:43And, you know, they're just not strong enough.
01:36:45And every, practically every single time they're like, oh, I failed to string the bow of Odysseus.
01:36:52I do not measure up to Odysseus.
01:36:54It kind of underlines the fact that this was what it was all about in the first place.
01:37:00Mm-hmm.
01:37:01Trying to usurp Odysseus's status, credibility, and his wife.
01:37:07And then, of course, you know, he's a beggar still.
01:37:13He's like, oh, let me try it out, young lads.
01:37:16And they're like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
01:37:19Beg, no, this would, no.
01:37:20And they're afraid when they say this.
01:37:22What if, what if, what if he actually strings the bow?
01:37:23What if this, you know, loser from out of town strings the bow?
01:37:26He's going to make us all look bad.
01:37:29And, you know, he manages to get his hands on the bow and, of course, shoots the arrow through.
01:37:35And they're like, shit, well, now we're ashamed.
01:37:40But, of course, by this time, Telemachus has hid all the weapons and the armor.
01:37:44Odysseus has had the swineherd lock the door.
01:37:47He's had Eurycleia bolt the other doors.
01:37:51All the women are out.
01:37:52Penelope's out safe.
01:37:54They're all trapped in this prison.
01:37:57And Odysseus shoots them all down, spears them.
01:38:00Hang on a second.
01:38:01Yeah.
01:38:02So he's closed all of the doors and now it's like, it's killing time.
01:38:09It's killing time.
01:38:10But it's just him.
01:38:11He's not bringing his son in to do it too.
01:38:13So his son is there with him.
01:38:14His son is there with him.
01:38:15And he's got two guys, two other guys.
01:38:17There's basically four of them on 108.
01:38:20Uh, which, you know, it's, it's the goat herd and this, um, is it a cow herd?
01:38:27Philoetius.
01:38:28One other guy.
01:38:29But like, you're not, not like Iliadic warriors.
01:38:32Like just, you know, worker dudes.
01:38:35And his two worker dudes, his son and he himself.
01:38:40And then all these suitors who are, um, not entirely unarmed, but, um, I mean, still 108 guys, you might think they could take him.
01:38:50Hmm.
01:38:51But, but he set it up so well.
01:38:54He had, uh, he had to get them off guard.
01:38:57He had to have the bow, this great deadly bow that only he could use.
01:39:02He had to have the weapons sequestered away and he had, and he kills the leaders first.
01:39:09Antinous, the guy who insulted him with the bench first to get an arrow through the throat.
01:39:14He's, he's like lifting up a cup and then this is doesn't suspect what's going on.
01:39:21Um, and you know, instant death and, and it's a bloodbath.
01:39:27It's really is a bloodbath.
01:39:28It's it's if you've, if you've been an 18 year old kid just waiting for the action scene, it's very satisfying, you know, uh, spears through, through guts and faces and such.
01:39:41Uh, yeah, and, and basically they all die.
01:39:46Every single one of them, even the ones that are arguably less guilty than the others.
01:39:50There's a kind of communal guilt.
01:39:51Yep.
01:39:53Some people think that he, he took it too far.
01:39:56Homer doesn't think that he took it too far.
01:39:58He, uh, the justice of Zeus was coming down upon them.
01:40:02That's how everybody talks about it in the story.
01:40:06Uh, one guy sneaks up to Odysseus and grabs him by the, by the knees.
01:40:13Leodes, the prophet begs for his life.
01:40:16Odysseus, gosh, I was always trying to tell them to, to lay off.
01:40:20You know, I never touched your maidens.
01:40:22Uh, I was always the voice of reason.
01:40:25Odysseus says, well, you're a, you're a prophet.
01:40:31I'm pretty sure that if you were here for four years, you prophesied many things to them about me being dead.
01:40:37And maybe you prophesied to your own heart that you would walk away with my wife.
01:40:41So die.
01:40:42And he, you know, drives a sword through him.
01:40:44Uh, it's just like, it's terrifying.
01:40:47He's become, and there's a, there's a similar scene of failed mercy in the Iliad too, or Achilles kills a young kid.
01:40:55That's, it's really ugly.
01:40:56It's really disturbing.
01:40:58Um, but that's sometimes what it takes, I guess, to reestablish the patriarchy.
01:41:03But one final note on the bow.
01:41:06In the Iliad, the bow is a shameful weapon.
01:41:11It's not honorable to kill somebody with a bow when you could kill him with a spear.
01:41:14It's, you don't face them, you know, head on.
01:41:17You don't, it's not man to man challenging them.
01:41:21The bow is a kind of tricky weapon.
01:41:23Paris uses the bow.
01:41:24He's this unmanly playboy Trojan.
01:41:27Pandarus shoots Menelaus.
01:41:30It's a kind of, it's kind of sucker punch move.
01:41:33And, uh, you know, Odysseus does his dirty work with the bow.
01:41:37And I think that's kind of like, it's a bit, you know, well, it's a weapon of trickery.
01:41:44It doesn't obey the rules of honor.
01:41:47But if you want to win at all costs, if you want to reestablish justice, maybe you need to be willing to use those weapons of trickery.
01:42:00Mm-hmm.
01:42:01To kind of bracket the whole honorable warrior thing.
01:42:03And do what needs to be done.
01:42:06And, and, uh, that's at least one interpretation of how it all ends.
01:42:11Yeah.
01:42:12And that's how the story ends?
01:42:13Well, actually, the story ends with all the suitors dead.
01:42:18And, um, and then immediately, uh, you know, Odysseus, so they, they actually end up hanging the 12 maidens who were sleeping with the suitors.
01:42:27Uh, a couple of other people get punished, but, um, and they, they, they clean the place up, heap up the bodies.
01:42:36And Odysseus tells them, all right, a lot of these guys' dads are near, nearby in the town.
01:42:44Some of them are off, you know, across the seas.
01:42:47We have to throw a party right now and make it sound like we're having a really good time so they don't suspect anything.
01:42:53So they, they, they start cooking up meats and they start playing music and it's really bizarre, just, but they're, they're basically trying to buy time before, um, you know, people find out that there's been a, a slaughter of, you know, some of the most prominent young men on the island.
01:43:12Uh, and my, probably my favorite scene at the end is you actually get a, a, a snapshot of the suitors gibbering wraiths going down into Hades.
01:43:25Mm.
01:43:26And, uh, wailing and Agamemnon and Achilles, the ghosts of Agamemnon and Achilles just talking there, shooting the breeze.
01:43:34And, um, and the suitors come down and they're like, oh, Odysseus slaughtered us.
01:43:40And Agamemnon says, that's my boy.
01:43:43And, uh, you know, um, they had it coming of course, and the suitors complained and, but, um, really interesting, like a final moment there.
01:43:56Agamemnon says, amazing work, Penelope, Penelope, the wife that I didn't have that, uh, it stayed faithful this whole time.
01:44:11And he says, there's a kind of ambiguity in the Greek.
01:44:16He says, the glory of this person will last and be on the lips, uh, because of Penelope's virtue for the rest of time.
01:44:26Who is this person?
01:44:27Most, most translators, I'm paraphrasing, but the most translators say the glory of Penelope will always redound and she will be an honor to women.
01:44:36But one interpretation is that the glory of Odysseus will last forever because of Penelope's virtue, which will be sung among women.
01:44:48And why is that interesting or important?
01:44:51I think, I think the message would be Homer sees Penelope's faithfulness and her trickiness.
01:44:58I mean, this bow scheme was, was really smart on her part, even though she didn't really know, she had this like intuition maybe.
01:45:06Penelope was crucial to the story of the greatest hero that ever lived.
01:45:09He could not have become Odysseus, the great, the best of the Achaeans without Penelope's help.
01:45:14And it was, it was a, it's not like Penelope gets glory and Odysseus get glory.
01:45:18They both get glory cause they were a unit together.
01:45:22And that's, that's kind of the Greek archetype of the matriarch of like what a good, what, what is like happiness for a woman?
01:45:31It's, it's to uphold the glory of a house, of a great household in, in short.
01:45:39But, um, yeah, you know, the, the ending is, is very weird.
01:45:42Uh, the actual ending is like the townspeople form up a posse and Odysseus forms up a posse and they kind of, they start a battle, you know, a revenge battle.
01:45:54And then Athena kind of descends from, from heaven and says, stop.
01:45:58And it's a deus ex machina.
01:46:00It's like the first deus ex machina, you know, the God coming from, from on high and kind of solving this unsolvable problem, uh, in the plot.
01:46:08Um, but you know, the God makes peace and then a couple of people die.
01:46:14Odysseus kills a couple of guys, but then the battle stops and, uh, they all go home and like shake hands and peace is reestablished somehow.
01:46:24So he's got the favor of the gods.
01:46:26It seems like he's had mostly favor of the gods throughout apart from Poseidon.
01:46:30Yeah, he's got the favor of the Olympian gods of order of, of Zeus and, and Athena.
01:46:40He eventually wins over Poseidon.
01:46:42Like after the timeframe of the story, like Tiresias tells him how he's going to, um, like make amends with Poseidon.
01:46:50Mm.
01:46:51He doesn't have the favor.
01:46:52There's a lot of divine forces.
01:46:53He has to struggle with the sirens and Scylla and Charybdis and the sun God kind of spares him Helios, but, but he, he has the favor of the gods because he is pious.
01:47:03And this is pointed out at the very beginning of the poem.
01:47:05He was always very meticulous doing sacrifices.
01:47:08He was always okay.
01:47:09He's a tricky liar, but only to his enemies.
01:47:11You know, he doesn't defraud a friend.
01:47:14Uh, he's a, he's a just man.
01:47:17And, uh, you know, that's part of the lesson of the poem, like the good do win.
01:47:21This is not clear in the Iliad, but there is a kind of, there's two divine, two versions of divine justice.
01:47:29You might say one of them is eye for an eye Hatfield and McCoy.
01:47:33You kill my guy.
01:47:34I kill your guy.
01:47:35And then, then my son's going to kill your son and your son.
01:47:38And it just never stops.
01:47:40That's the kind of uncivilized brute, like furies justice.
01:47:46But Zeus and Athena represent this kind of, uh, the kind of justice that puts quarrels to an end that actually makes a settlement that people can live in peace again.
01:47:58Um, and so that's the kind of justice that, that the Odyssey cares about that, that, that, that Zeus himself, Homer has Zeus himself say that, you know, the world actually is a fair place if you play by the rules.
01:48:12Look, mortals think that we bring suffering upon them, but it's generally they who bring suffering upon themselves.
01:48:18Mm-hmm.
01:48:19Like, the justice is a case in point.
01:48:20The guy who arrested, he's murdered his uncle.
01:48:22He had it coming.
01:48:23You know, we told him, we told him not to murder his own cousin and seduce his cousin's wife, but he did it anyway.
01:48:29And so, what do you know?
01:48:31He got what was coming.
01:48:33So revenge, another big thing.
01:48:35Yeah, yeah.
01:48:35Or justice.
01:48:36Very much revenge.
01:48:37Revenge is, is absolutely a part of justice, but you, but it like, can't go on forever.
01:48:42Maybe that's what the end of the poem is, is kind of about like, you know, there's a danger there at the end that it's going to keep spiraling and spiraling and spiraling, uh, never end.
01:48:51But I don't know, the gods intervene to make sure that doesn't happen.
01:48:54Mm-hmm.
01:48:55And it's somehow, it's important to get to that point somehow as a, as a civilization after something bad has happened.
01:49:01Now that we know what the story is, are there any other elements of the writing process or Homer, Homer's role, how it was written, the history of this thing coming to light that are interesting?
01:49:11Yeah, I think that this, this oral poetry thing is really interesting.
01:49:17So, so Nolan, uh, is apparently casted this rapper, Travis Scott, I think, I think he's from Houston.
01:49:26I should know him better.
01:49:27But anyway, as home, as a bar, as Demonicus, I think maybe, maybe as Femius, because, hey, Homer is oral poetry, rap is oral poetry.
01:49:38Um, so maybe there's something to that.
01:49:42But, you know, I think that one of the differences between what we think, think of as like slam poetry or oral poetry or rap, is that a kind of pillar of the moral universe?
01:49:56And the way that Homer is a pillar of the moral universe, the way these bars kind of--
01:49:59Pious.
01:50:00Is it pious?
01:50:01When I think rap, I don't usually think pious.
01:50:03Would, would you, would you have left, uh, if you were going off to the Trojan,
01:50:08the Trojan War, you know, would you have left your wife with--
01:50:12My wife would chance the rapper.
01:50:13Yes.
01:50:14Or even--
01:50:15Or P Diddy.
01:50:16Or even Bob Dylan, for that matter.
01:50:18I mean, Allen Ginsberg, I don't know.
01:50:20Lord Byron, would you have left your wife with Lord Byron?
01:50:23You know, I mean, it's, it's a different mindset.
01:50:27But there are, you know, there's, there's some parallels.
01:50:29The, the, the really interesting thing about, about oral poetry, and the oral, like, mental model of the universe, or the kind of mental universe of cultures that don't have writing, you know, if you, um, if you go to an oral culture and you tell somebody, here's what I want done.
01:50:52Like, you know, detailed list of instructions.
01:50:57They'll be like, all right.
01:50:59And they'll go and do exactly what you told them to do.
01:51:02And then when they come back, they'll say, here's what you told me to do.
01:51:05They'll say verbatim what you told them to do.
01:51:08Because the brain has just been so trained to, to store oral information.
01:51:13When, um, when the pilgrims came to, uh, Massachusetts in the, you know, 1600s, they, they were shocked at the Native Americans' ability to just repeat verbatim.
01:51:29Like, you know, these, these, uh, Indian tribes, whatever, they, they didn't speak English.
01:51:34Like, you could say a sentence to them and they would repeat the exact sentence back to you, like, perfectly verbatim, without understanding a word.
01:51:42It was just, that was part of what you get when you don't have writing, is you have to really have this high fidelity, oral brain.
01:51:51Mm-hmm. And when, when, when oral poetry encounters a written paradigm, when writing starts to be the way you store knowledge, you, uh, you sort of lose that ability.
01:52:04It's like Google Maps, you know. Now I, I don't know my way around my own town.
01:52:08Mm-hmm.
01:52:09Some, something just gets, like, offloaded cognitively.
01:52:12And that's, I think, one of the reasons why Homer is this, is this glimpse of the way that people think in this world that is lost to us.
01:52:23We can't really go back. Once you have writing, it's, I mean, it's too, too advantageous to, to ignore.
01:52:30You know, your enemies are gonna beat you if you try to not have a, a written culture. It's just so powerful.
01:52:36You need, you know, you need writing to have science and philosophy and all kinds of stuff, record keeping.
01:52:41Um, but something is also lost.
01:52:43Yeah. Yeah. Something is profoundly lost. This tradition of, uh, storytelling and, um, and also like the role of the storytellers shifts.
01:52:54Like it, I don't know, the storyteller doesn't, isn't like the, the pillar of society that he is in Homer.
01:53:01And I think you have to understand that to understand like why Homer has so much probarred propaganda in the Iliad, for example.
01:53:09Um, but I, I do think it's still, these things still matter. The stories that we tell still really matter a lot for people's, you know, ability to face their own problems and happiness and confidence in life.
01:53:22Uh, but it's not so visceral for us.
01:53:24How are you feeling in advance of the movie coming out?
01:53:27I, I'm gonna see it as soon as I can. I mean, you know, it, it looks pretty awesome. Uh, people have complained about some casting choices.
01:53:36Um, let's say, uh, you know, Helen of Troy seems to be an Ethiopian if by the Greek.
01:53:42Great at parting stands. Yes. Which, which are great at parting. So maybe there's, maybe there's a logic to it.
01:53:47Um, but I, you know, people complain about the Lystragonians. So I didn't mention, I don't think I mentioned the Lystragonians.
01:53:55This is one of these monstrous people that Homer eats. Like after he meets the Cyclops, uh, there are these giant people.
01:54:03They're not like super giants, but they're giant enough. And, uh, they try to, you know, see if they can get a gift from the Lystragonians or maybe make a little alliance and his men meet them and they just get eaten.
01:54:16So, um, the Lystragonians just charge out in force and slaughter the Greeks. They, they're the ones that are depicted with this sort of futuristic steel armor, plate mail armor.
01:54:26Uh, people complained about that. Oh, it's not historically accurate. Eh, I think, I think that, uh, it's really cool.
01:54:32Even, even if I don't like the way that Nolan tells the story, which I don't know, I, I think he's a great director.
01:54:38He's, he's, um, he's filmed the whole thing on IMAX. The first time it's ever been done. It's almost three hours. It's gonna be, it's gonna be a great.
01:54:45It's gonna be a good thing to watch. I'm really excited about how we're talking about the Odyssey and we're debating about it. Like just having the debate about what does this mean?
01:54:54I think, I think it, it tells you something about what's going on in culture that people care about this a lot that, that, that, that Nolan would get so much criticism and so much attention on from either direction.
01:55:06I think it shows that we sort of need this story somehow. Um, so you're gonna see it.
01:55:13I will absolutely go and see it. Uh, I also have an admission to make, which is for the first time in history, I've decided to put my, uh, like personal burnout health ahead of the podcast.
01:55:26Uh, we had the offer to do half an hour with half the cast and half an hour with the other half of the cast all on a single round table in New York in 10 days time.
01:55:39And I'm like, yeah, I've already booked to go and take like the one digital detox week that I've ever done. So I'd already booked this meditation retreat and I'd been working up to it. And it's something that I really needed. And I promised myself in January that I was gonna take this time off and manana, manana, manana for like, you know, 150 days or whatever, like 25 weeks until I get to this.
01:55:57I've got this thing booked. And then it was like, yeah, sure. Like, of course, I love Nolan. I love, I love the odyssey that it's gonna be exciting. My Damon's a legend. I get it. You know, when, when it happens or the media week is precisely at the back end of when you're supposed to be doing this thing. And I tossed and turned last week about it. And, uh, just the coin fell on the side of, I've made way too many sacrifices for like eight years.
01:56:10Of doing the show, 1,100 episodes. And I was like, I think it's going to be kind of a, I really hope that I don't fucking regret it. Um, but it feels like a symbolic decision, uh, to do something that helps my peace of mind and my longevity, as opposed to like fire up the fucking engine.
01:56:39Fire up the fucking engines again. Let's do it. Let's spin up this huge production in New York, as opposed to this one thing that was supposed to be for me. So anyway, all that being said, I'm going to have, I'll be conflicted watching it. Cause I'll be thinking fuck like that. The one of the big moments of the movies promo could have been, or two of the big moments, right. Tom Holland, Zendaya, um, would have been on the show, but I'm pretty excited for it. It looks pretty cool. I'm not so excited for what might
01:57:08Tom Holland might end up being another culture war flashpoint, you know, Nolan, the stories that he puts out are controversial because of what happens inside of the movie is inception. At the end of inception, is he in a dreamer? Is he in reality?
01:57:26Um, um, that's cool. Um, that's cool. Casting choices. Is this some sort of cultural commentary? That's less cool. So I'm kind of not, I hope that that doesn't happen because I'm a massive fan of everything that Nolan's done.
01:57:48I wouldn't want it to be tarnished by that, but yeah, I'd be, I'll be excited by that. I guess, do you know if he's used the Emily Wilson translation as the source material?
01:57:56He's, he's talked about that. Yeah. Uh, how do you feel about that?
01:57:59Uh, well, he's, he's commented on, uh, you know, her calling Odysseus a complicated man.
01:58:04Um, I think, um, yeah, this is like the first line of the poem, tell me muse of a complicated man.
01:58:11It's how she translates this polytropos, many turned. And, uh, to me, that sounds like he's a man of many issues. You know, uh, I think that this is a guy that divine nymphs fall in love with, you know, he's like the most badass of all the Greeks that got back from Troy.
01:58:31It's not the kind of guy that you would call complicated, probably. Complicated just seems a little bit like, uh, how would you translate him? What's many tons to you in that?
01:58:39Well, that's the kind of almost, you know, uh, somebody might say, well, that's a failure to translate. It's just, you know, you have to interpret it to translate it.
01:58:47Oh, polytropos. Tropos is this really multivalent word. It means turn, like he could be turning around in various places, kind of spinning about the seas.
01:59:00A turn is like a trick. There's many, many tricks. Or, um, at least in later Greek, it's a character. It's a character.
01:59:09It's like a kind of, uh, uh, tropo is like your, your character. He could be a man of many sort of guises, many,
01:59:17many sort of personas that he can inhabit. Uh, so I think that the word is about alluding to his, to his master of craft and trickery,
01:59:30not to his moral ambiguity. I think, I think this is, this would be my main, I wonder how, how Nolan's going to deal with this because, um,
01:59:38um, and he said something about, you know, Homer says, uh, um, lying Odysseus said to her, I will tell you the truth,
01:59:48my lady, you know, there is, he is a liar strategically, but I don't think that I, my sense is that Wilson suspects Homer is,
02:00:00is, is, is feels ambiguously about Odysseus. Like, is he really a hero worth emulating?
02:00:05What do you think Homer feels about Odysseus?
02:00:07100% worth emulating, but that doesn't mean he's perfect. Like you can be the greatest hero and somebody to admire,
02:00:15but you can also make mistakes, but is, you know, like giving your name to the Cyclops, uh, falling asleep when your comrades try to,
02:00:27um, you know, are, are, are at risk of opening up the bag of the winds or eating the cattle of the sun or, or even,
02:00:34you know, being a little too curious. Like curiosity is a vice in, in some Greek philosophy, like wanting to know too much
02:00:42without necessarily having an end in mind. And this is, this curiosity is brought up by the sirens example,
02:00:47um, where he, he wants to know and, uh, what the sirens say, um, plugs up his companion's ear with the wax
02:00:56and doesn't plug up his, but he sort of gets, gets himself tied to the mast. Um, maybe that was playing with the line.
02:01:05He ended up fine from it, but I don't think that, I don't think that Homer questions Odysseus' values,
02:01:14which is civilization over barbarism, you know, order over chaos, patriarchy over anarchy.
02:01:21That doesn't seem complicated. That part doesn't seem complicated to me.
02:01:25How long has it been since we've had a movie that was a relatively simplistic hero?
02:01:30I mean, the closest thing has been fucking top gun too. And like, even in that Tom Cruise is trying to do this
02:01:39retcon, make your, the son of my ex flight partner feel okay about me.
02:01:46There's this like supplanted patriarch thing that's going on where the parental figure comes back into his life.
02:01:52And it's the redemption of the son through the success of the new father,
02:01:57which is the old father's, like that, I guess.
02:02:01Um, I remember looking at this, uh, video essay that explained how the world of the hero is just unsatisfactory anymore.
02:02:14For some reason has removed from movies that it's no longer enough for protagonist who wants to make the world a better place
02:02:25to work real hard, overcome challenges, be flawed, but, but get through.
02:02:32Now it has to be somebody who has a dark streak and needs a kind of redemption.
02:02:37That's not quite there. And then you get to come full circle all the way back around to something that's more like suicide squad.
02:02:44Which is the bad guys are actually the good guys.
02:02:48But the only way that they can be the good guys is if they are their bad guy self and their badness is the virtue in their badness is closer to congruence than it is to actual virtue.
02:02:59It's like, they just know who they are and they are who they are and they're deployed.
02:03:02And all of the, uh, motivations for why they do these things, they're pulled around.
02:03:08And then Loki is Loki in Avengers.
02:03:10Is he really part of the hero?
02:03:12He flip flops back and forth so much.
02:03:13You don't really land in a satisfying place with him.
02:03:15He's more a question mark, even though he ends up being unbelievably powerful and fucking Captain Marvel.
02:03:21Who's the most powerful person in the universe appears to be fucking off.
02:03:24Just like doing bullshit all the time.
02:03:25Like, why are you not?
02:03:26Anyway, um, I get the sense that that like complicated hero thing is kind of more.
02:03:35So I obviously it's in some ways is richer, right?
02:03:38Because there's conflict and there's tension.
02:03:41Um, but I would, I think it would be cool to just see what an uncomplicated virtuous hero that's flawed and overcomes his flaws.
02:03:51What that would look like, like, just follow me the fucking hero's journey, please.
02:03:57Like, just follow me some Campbell shit from 12 to 12.
02:04:02And let's see, let's see how that feels in 2026.
02:04:07Um, I don't want that to have to be an asterisk after, after every hero of good, but let's not forget.
02:04:14Let's not forget when he, you know, let's, and I, I, I've got it in my head that, um, part of the reason what I'm doing with the show at the moment.
02:04:26Spending time doing more stories, which you're just the fucking best at it.
02:04:31So your storytelling ability is like out of this world.
02:04:35Learn from the best.
02:04:36Um, also doing episodes where it's just me and the boys hanging, just chilling out, talking about what we've got going on.
02:04:45Uh, more, um, that storytelling from, uh, other areas of life too.
02:04:52Like, uh, uh, war stories and things like that from, from special forces guys.
02:04:56A big part of that is I think people have got a degree of exhaustion with overthinking.
02:05:00Yeah.
02:05:01Um, I think there's a big anti, anti optimization trend at the moment that we're, we're feeling.
02:05:04And it's not necessarily people being against optimization.
02:05:08I think it's people being against the fatigue of trying to be perfect.
02:05:11Mm hmm.
02:05:12And that is at least in part fed into by the fact that they're overwhelmed with information.
02:05:17And they feel like there is more input than they have time to be able to metabolize it.
02:05:20So this line that I came up with last year that most people consume information the same way that they consume calories and too high of a dosage to be able to metabolize.
02:05:29And that was great 500 years ago when there was like three books that you could read, uh, and almost everybody in the village couldn't read.
02:05:37Uh, and maybe there wasn't a printing press.
02:05:39I don't know.
02:05:4014 hundreds.
02:05:41I think something like that.
02:05:42Um, not so good now when there's an abundance, we've gone from scarcity problem to an abundance problem.
02:05:47Same thing.
02:05:48Calorie sparse to calorie dense information sparse to information dense.
02:05:52People are sort of like, oh, fuck.
02:05:54Like, I'm just a little overwhelmed with all of this.
02:05:57I don't want everything to feel like homework.
02:05:59I don't want everything to feel like there needs to be a decision that's made to it.
02:06:03You know, we're going through a bunch of big business decisions on the show.
02:06:06And like some of the guys that I'm dealing with, I'm seeing in them, even these.
02:06:10Very, very impressive business people who were at the forefront of what they do.
02:06:14There is a sense when I'm speaking to them of dude, just fucking tell me what I want.
02:06:18Like, can you not, can you just fucking tell me what I want, please?
02:06:23Can you just give me a thing that you are high conviction in and just deliver that?
02:06:29I'm like, I get it.
02:06:31I get it.
02:06:32That there is a, a, a fatigue and exhaustion that a lot of people have.
02:06:37And I wonder, very long-winded way of saying, I wonder whether or not movies are going to start
02:06:43to mirror that with simplicity in the heroes.
02:06:45Mm.
02:06:46Again, complexity in the story, simplicity in the hero.
02:06:49Um, you know, we had adolescence, that thing on Netflix that was about, um, young boys in the UK.
02:06:54And one of the reasons kind of, you know, pretty majestically that the, the series made such an impact was that it did not really tell you what to think.
02:07:09Mm-hmm.
02:07:10There was a lot of question at the end.
02:07:13What, how much was the young boy actually impacted by what he'd seen on the internet?
02:07:17How much was he a disciple of the manosphere and like an incel?
02:07:22Uh, how much was he to blame versus the lack of supervision that had come from his parents?
02:07:29How much did the parents blame themselves?
02:07:31Was this a righteous comment on overreaches of the internet or just male loneliness?
02:07:36Like both sides kind of Rorschach test it to see it as the, their own propaganda to some degree.
02:07:41Um, is this kid a psychopath?
02:07:44Did he, at what point does a boy become a man and then therefore become culpable for his own actions?
02:07:51And what that resulted in was just this fucking furor of people debating what this means.
02:07:57Mm-hmm.
02:07:58How important, what, what, what, what, what should we take away from this?
02:08:00Like just tell him that how many times do people want to find out, um, ask Nolan.
02:08:06Like Nolan, well, is, uh, can't remember the, the guy that Leonardo,
02:08:13is Leonardo DiCaprio's characters in the dream world or is he alive?
02:08:17Mm-hmm.
02:08:18It's like, in some ways that's not even Nolan's decision to make.
02:08:21Mm-hmm.
02:08:22After you get to that stage of a story, it's almost on you.
02:08:25But because of the lack of conclusion, it sucks in speculation.
02:08:29And that's what drives a lot of the conversation about this stuff.
02:08:32Um, I just generally get the sense and sort of making a bet at the moment that I like telling people what to think,
02:08:41but just a little bit more simplicity.
02:08:44Mm-hmm.
02:08:45I think, uh, the opportunity to, uh, sort of sit back in your own mind and just observe things as they go
02:08:51and not feel like this is another fucking decision I need to make.
02:08:54Oh, there's more like work that I've got to do.
02:08:56I'm kind of exhausted by all of this stuff.
02:08:58Like my future is AI going to take my job in 10 years time.
02:09:01I don't know.
02:09:02What about the Middle East?
02:09:03Apparently I should be worried about that.
02:09:04There's like some problems with gas prices.
02:09:05I hear are inflation or like Taiwan do something with computer chips.
02:09:08And I don't really know what I'm supposed to do.
02:09:10All of that together is making people fucking exhausted.
02:09:13Mm-hmm.
02:09:14And if you're not careful, people are going to find escapes that are way more destructive than just being able to relinquish,
02:09:24listen to an awesome historian, tell a story for a couple of hours, the oldest story that's ever been written.
02:09:29And, oh, okay.
02:09:31That, I've had a bit of a reprieve.
02:09:34Mm-hmm.
02:09:35Isn't that nice?
02:09:36And I, you can't iterate movies as quickly.
02:09:40I can iterate this podcast three times a week.
02:09:42And I have done for, you know, a very long time.
02:09:44And I can lick my finger and sort of tell where the cultural winds are going.
02:09:50And also, most of this is just me doing it for me.
02:09:52Mm-hmm.
02:09:53Like I don't want to leave and feel like I've got this big laundry list of things to do.
02:09:56I'm just left with like interesting philosophical questions and insights about the virtue of loyalty and justice and revenge.
02:10:06And when you're supposed to apply aggression.
02:10:08And when you're supposed to sit back.
02:10:09And when you're supposed to be diplomatic.
02:10:10And when you can be crafty.
02:10:11And whether lying is justified.
02:10:13And all of that stuff's just nice.
02:10:14I don't feel burdened by it.
02:10:16I don't feel burdened by learning about the story of the Odyssey.
02:10:19In the same way as I feel burdened.
02:10:22If it's some very prescriptive new life direction that I need to take.
02:10:30And here is a huge big list of all of these things.
02:10:32But actually there's not that much conclusion.
02:10:34Because maybe veganism might not be the.
02:10:36Dude, just fucking.
02:10:37Like either make it simple and direct.
02:10:42Or just give me a little bit of chance to breathe.
02:10:45And I think at the moment at least I'm feeling in me.
02:10:48That's a motivation that I'm enjoying.
02:10:55That's a sense.
02:10:56That's a tether that I'm being pulled forward through.
02:11:00And yeah.
02:11:02Maybe we'll see that crossover into.
02:11:05Into other.
02:11:06Other mediums as well.
02:11:08This is a.
02:11:10A good time for Homer to come back.
02:11:12For that reason.
02:11:13I think.
02:11:14Because.
02:11:15I think that this is.
02:11:16Yeah.
02:11:17There is a sim.
02:11:18There's a kind of moral simplicity.
02:11:19In a lot of ways to Homer.
02:11:21But.
02:11:22He.
02:11:23He tells the story from multiple perspectives.
02:11:26Partly because he's.
02:11:27Just like Nolan.
02:11:28You know.
02:11:29He's got.
02:11:30A wide audience.
02:11:31Homer is.
02:11:32You know.
02:11:33These epic poets travel from city to city.
02:11:36They're going from.
02:11:37Aeolus.
02:11:38To Sparta.
02:11:39To wherever.
02:11:40Ithaca.
02:11:41They have different people.
02:11:42Of different classes.
02:11:43And different tastes.
02:11:44Everywhere.
02:11:45And this.
02:11:46That story about.
02:11:47Odysseus.
02:11:48To work.
02:11:49For a lot of different people.
02:11:50Some people are going to want.
02:11:51To take the side of.
02:11:52Of.
02:11:53Of.
02:11:54Of.
02:11:55Of Odysseus.
02:11:56Or some people are going to see themselves.
02:11:57And the suitors.
02:11:58Or.
02:11:59Maybe that's not a great example.
02:12:00But.
02:12:01You know.
02:12:02Some people are going to say.
02:12:03Hey.
02:12:04This is a lying bastard.
02:12:05And other people are going to say.
02:12:06No.
02:12:07He did what he had to do.
02:12:08And.
02:12:09And that's kind of.
02:12:10That's on you.
02:12:11Like.
02:12:12To draw out the message.
02:12:13Is.
02:12:14Is to help you.
02:12:17Get.
02:12:18Charmed.
02:12:19Get.
02:12:20Disengaged.
02:12:21Like.
02:12:22Odysseus.
02:12:23Does for the Phaeacians.
02:12:24Like the bards.
02:12:25Do in the story.
02:12:26And I think.
02:12:27Also.
02:12:28If I could kind of.
02:12:29Allegorize a little bit.
02:12:30The sirens in particular.
02:12:31That we didn't go into too much.
02:12:32I think they're really.
02:12:34It's a timely image.
02:12:36Because.
02:12:37You know.
02:12:38For me.
02:12:39I kind of.
02:12:40Autobiographize.
02:12:41Odysseus.
02:12:42Going to the sirens.
02:12:43The sirens are these.
02:12:45Divine.
02:12:46They're kind of like.
02:12:47Bad bards.
02:12:48They're these women.
02:12:49Who sing.
02:12:50Whatever.
02:12:51They sing.
02:12:52And they.
02:12:53They make you just want to.
02:12:54Go and listen to them.
02:12:55And.
02:12:56Piled up in front of the sirens island.
02:12:58Is just.
02:12:59Rotting bones.
02:13:00Of people who.
02:13:01Who started listening.
02:13:02And they could just never leave.
02:13:03And they starved and died.
02:13:05And.
02:13:06I think the reason that Odysseus.
02:13:08Wants to hear.
02:13:09Is because he's this man of great curiosity.
02:13:11And when they actually speak to him.
02:13:12Hunger.
02:13:13No.
02:13:14Odysseus tells them.
02:13:15The Phaeacians.
02:13:16He tells.
02:13:17What the sirens told him.
02:13:18And the sirens say.
02:13:20We.
02:13:21Can tell you.
02:13:22The story.
02:13:23Of.
02:13:24Everything.
02:13:25That happened to Troy.
02:13:26All the things that you didn't know.
02:13:28And.
02:13:29I'm paraphrasing.
02:13:30All the things you didn't know.
02:13:31About the backstory.
02:13:32What was going on at Troy.
02:13:33All of the different.
02:13:34You know.
02:13:35Perspectives.
02:13:36Generals.
02:13:37That you were trying to guess at.
02:13:38But you just couldn't know.
02:13:39Well.
02:13:40We know him.
02:13:41We know everything.
02:13:42That happens on earth.
02:13:43We.
02:13:44They can give him.
02:13:45Infinite knowledge.
02:13:46That.
02:13:47Whether or not.
02:13:48They would say the same thing.
02:13:49To his crew.
02:13:50That's what they're saying to him.
02:13:51And this is the thing.
02:13:53That a man of those kind of.
02:13:55Proclivities.
02:13:56Wants most in life.
02:13:57Or at least.
02:13:58He knows the power.
02:13:59That insider knowledge.
02:14:00That special.
02:14:01Insight.
02:14:02Into the universe.
02:14:03The.
02:14:03The mole.
02:14:04He's seen.
02:14:05How.
02:14:06Powerful it is.
02:14:07To know the secrets.
02:14:08Of a little plant.
02:14:09The kind of power.
02:14:10Can you.
02:14:11What if I could find out something.
02:14:12Interesting.
02:14:13That I could apply.
02:14:14To my morning routine.
02:14:15From the sirens.
02:14:16And it.
02:14:17You know.
02:14:18For me.
02:14:19I think it's also the temptation.
02:14:20Of being an academic.
02:14:21Is one of the reasons.
02:14:22I left academia.
02:14:23Because.
02:14:24Well it's one of the reasons.
02:14:25I was in it.
02:14:26Because I had this.
02:14:27Tell me more.
02:14:27Tell me more.
02:14:28A story.
02:14:29Or.
02:14:30Oh geez.
02:14:31Five more books.
02:14:32I need to read.
02:14:33And.
02:14:34And that.
02:14:35Can.
02:14:36If you.
02:14:37If you follow that.
02:14:38Too far.
02:14:39You end up.
02:14:40Potentially.
02:14:41A rotting.
02:14:42Pile of bones.
02:14:43At the feet.
02:14:44Of the sirens.
02:14:45And never getting home.
02:14:46And never doing.
02:14:47What you need to do.
02:14:48It's a kind of temptation.
02:14:49Of knowledge.
02:14:50And.
02:14:51You know.
02:14:52Maybe there's a person.
02:14:53Or two.
02:14:54In your audience.
02:14:55That can relate.
02:14:56To the.
02:14:57To the.
02:14:58And.
02:14:59To the.
02:15:00To the.
02:15:00To the.
02:15:01Scroll.
02:15:01Like.
02:15:02And it's often.
02:15:03It's not.
02:15:04Just like.
02:15:04It's not stupid.
02:15:05Humor.
02:15:05All the time.
02:15:06A lot of it is.
02:15:07You're.
02:15:08You're.
02:15:08You're.
02:15:09You tell yourself.
02:15:10Oh.
02:15:11How can I ignore.
02:15:12That.
02:15:13Blah.
02:15:14Blah.
02:15:15Blah.
02:15:15Blah.
02:15:16And it's.
02:15:17It's all.
02:15:18It all seems actionable.
02:15:19It's.
02:15:20It's.
02:15:21It feels important.
02:15:22It's designed to feel important.
02:15:23Yeah.
02:15:24Because it's risen up in the algorithm.
02:15:25Yeah.
02:15:26A profound.
02:15:27Uh.
02:15:28Inclination that people have.
02:15:29A temptation that people face.
02:15:31That leads in.
02:15:32Not just to inaction.
02:15:33Is.
02:15:34You know.
02:15:35But.
02:15:36But to.
02:15:37Unreflection.
02:15:38To.
02:15:39If you're.
02:15:40Permanently on absorb.
02:15:41You have very little time.
02:15:42To do reflect.
02:15:43You know.
02:15:44If the.
02:15:45Firehose of.
02:15:46New information.
02:15:47Is.
02:15:48Bukkaking you in the face.
02:15:49You don't have that much time.
02:15:50To think about what you've already ingested.
02:15:52Said Bonnie.
02:15:53And.
02:15:54When.
02:15:55At wise age.
02:15:56Yeah.
02:15:57Yeah.
02:15:58Yeah.
02:15:59Yeah.
02:16:00The philosopher.
02:16:01B. Blue.
02:16:02That.
02:16:03That sense of.
02:16:07I'm drowning in information.
02:16:08I don't know what to do about it.
02:16:10This was a line that.
02:16:11I had a.
02:16:12A.
02:16:13Bill Thompson.
02:16:14This.
02:16:15This.
02:16:16Old.
02:16:17Informations.
02:16:18Expert.
02:16:19From.
02:16:20Worked at three letter agencies.
02:16:21U.S.
02:16:22Like.
02:16:23Army.
02:16:24He was basically.
02:16:25The special forces.
02:16:26Q.
02:16:27From James Bond.
02:16:28And.
02:16:29He would help them.
02:16:30To get to where they needed to.
02:16:31He would.
02:16:32Take phones apart.
02:16:33Do all this sort of stuff.
02:16:34And I was asking him.
02:16:35My current working theory.
02:16:36Is.
02:16:37That.
02:16:38Most of the propaganda.
02:16:39And.
02:16:40Most of it.
02:16:41Even the information online.
02:16:42Is trying to make people convinced.
02:16:43Of any one narrative.
02:16:44It's to drown them in so much information.
02:16:46That they become.
02:16:47Apathetic.
02:16:48And they just sort of.
02:16:49Give up entirely.
02:16:50Now.
02:16:51That might be that.
02:16:52At some point in future.
02:16:53That apathy.
02:16:54Can be.
02:16:55Formed into something useful.
02:16:57And sort of.
02:16:58Thrust forward.
02:16:59In like some vector.
02:17:00But.
02:17:01For the most part.
02:17:02I think.
02:17:03When you.
02:17:04When you firehose people.
02:17:05With information.
02:17:06After long enough.
02:17:07They just go.
02:17:08Dude.
02:17:09I'm.
02:17:10Fucking.
02:17:11I have no idea.
02:17:12If you try and go down.
02:17:13Any rabbit hole.
02:17:14Any conspiracy rabbit hole.
02:17:15For every one.
02:17:16That you find out.
02:17:17There is an equal and opposite.
02:17:18Conspiracy.
02:17:19There is an equal and opposite.
02:17:20Conspiracy.
02:17:21Which is even deeper.
02:17:22And then there's an equal and opposite.
02:17:23One.
02:17:24The iceberg never stops.
02:17:25It just comes out.
02:17:26The other side of the planet.
02:17:27And that's the tip of the other side.
02:17:28Of the iceberg.
02:17:29So.
02:17:30Yeah.
02:17:31This endless.
02:17:32Ouroboros.
02:17:33Of just looking at.
02:17:34Uncertainty.
02:17:35And information.
02:17:36And.
02:17:37Yeah.
02:17:38I think.
02:17:39I'm certainly feeling.
02:17:40I'm feeling detox.
02:17:41I'm feeling somewhat.
02:17:42Salved.
02:17:43After.
02:17:44Getting in touch.
02:17:45With something.
02:17:46That's got a bit more.
02:17:47Firm foundation.
02:17:48So.
02:17:49And this is what you got to think.
02:17:50Is so appealing.
02:17:51To.
02:17:52Uh.
02:17:53A person like Alcinous.
02:17:54Maybe.
02:17:55Or a person like Odysseus.
02:17:56Or like.
02:17:57A guy like Julius Caesar.
02:17:58About.
02:17:59A great story like that.
02:18:00Because they've just got information.
02:18:02Coming in them.
02:18:03And decisions to make.
02:18:04And all the time.
02:18:05And a long narrative.
02:18:06Is a way of.
02:18:07Is a way of slowing down your brain.
02:18:09And reflecting.
02:18:10It's.
02:18:11It's.
02:18:12But it's not just.
02:18:13Entertainment.
02:18:14It has.
02:18:15It has something useful in there.
02:18:16that narrative structure, we're like programs to ingest and process information in that way
02:18:26much more effectively in long form when it's put into a story. Because we can remember it and we
02:18:34can actually store that framework of here's what happened with Odysseus. And then we can draw
02:18:40lessons out of it years and years later that we need because we have that archetypal narrative
02:18:47within us. And I think this is one of the reasons why an oral culture like the Greeks spent so much
02:18:53time on these kinds of stories about heroes, about somebody to emulate. And mind you, they're not
02:19:01simplistic. I mean, like the Odyssey doesn't, you know, he makes a lot of mistakes. You can debate
02:19:09about his actions. The Greeks would debate about his actions. I mean, a lot of the later Greeks
02:19:12thought he was a bad guy. He was, he was a liar. He's a cheater. A lot of the later Greeks thought
02:19:18he was the greatest hero. I mean, there's, it admits of debate. And if you brought back
02:19:24real hero stories that didn't always have them having a meth addiction on the side or, you know,
02:19:32banging their secretary in secret, you could still have complexity. You don't have to undermine
02:19:38everybody with a kind of secret mob story or a very open mob story. I think we need more of that
02:19:44to get through what we're, what we're facing. A lot of us at least.
02:19:47Yeah. Alex Petkus, ladies and gentlemen, dude, you're the best. Where should people go to check out all the
02:19:52amazing things you do?
02:19:53Cost of glory podcast available on YouTube, Spotify, Apple at cost of glory on X cost of glory.com cost of
02:20:00glory, cost of glory, cost of glory. Pretty easy to find for me, dude. Until next time,
02:20:06let's come up with something else to talk about. Do it. All right. Goodbye. My beauties. See you next time.
02:20:09Dude. Yeah. Fucking the man. Thank you very much for tuning in. If you enjoyed that episode,
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