2.6 Alcinous (9:50)

From the "Greek and Roman Mythology" course - https://www.coursera.org/course/mythology - by Professor Peter Struck, University of Pennsylvania

Our hero has made it on to Scheria.
He's on this island far away.

We start to learn now, as he makes his
movement from this, edges of the island

where he meets Nausicaa and her friends.
When he moves from there into the center

of this town this city.
He sees something really amazing.

This place is a little bit strange.
It's not quite like a normal citadel.

That we will hear more about as Odysseus
goes on, on his adventures.

And we've seen now represented.
Presented in Telemachus's journyes as he

goes around and sees Nestor's palace or
Menelaus's palace.

The Phaeacians have a slightly different
kind of reality that they live in.

They are far away and they don't mix all
that well with others we're told.

They're at the world's frontier out of all
human contact.

We're told on page 174 at the bottom in
book seven.

There's plenty of food there.
The crops are irrigated by springs.

There's a kind of natural irrigation
system that's happening.

There's gentle wind.
These that bring ripeness in all seasons?

So that you have these lush, almost
magical orchards that just produce fruit.

It just kind of comes up out of the depths
without extra toil having to be exerted in

order to get the food, to get the food
out.

We'll hear later, at the close of book
eight, of their magic boats.

They have boats that actually steer
themselves.

They don't have steersmen in their boats.
Their boats just kind of know by will

where they're supposed to go.
And then maybe something to focus on in

terms.
Wasn't strangest, the strangest of all is

the idea that the Gods talked to them.
Face to face.

You hear about this on page 186 in book
seven, that the Phoenicians have ability

to talk face to face with the gods.
Usually, they don't disguise themselves

when they come and talk to the
Phoenicians.

This is really weird, when humans have
direct views of gods.

Usually, there's trouble in mind.
There's a story of Zeus and Semele that,

all you all will know, that a young mortal
girl who has a tryst with Zeus convinces

him to show.
Him, to herself in all his full glory and

he says no, please don't make me do that,
when he does, she gets incinerated because

of how amazingly glorious Zeus is.
Similarly, we will hear other kinds of

stories of humans getting in trouble by
getting in too close to gods as the, as

the coarse advances.
Then also remember we made a mention when

we talked about marriage of [inaudible]
that in an earlier mythic time even you

know.
Prior to myth, myth in the beta stage.

There are some tales of just kind of
normal human god interactions.

They went to parties together.
They shared meals together.

We hear about that in the marriage of
Piles and Thetas.

Later on, we're gonna see a really
interesting episode of this portrayed in

Hesiod's Theogony.
That's gonna be the story of Prometheus.

So, you know that things get a little bit
messy when it comes to that interaction as

well.
But for the, the Phoenicians.

They seem to have this easy rapport with
the gods face to face.

They really put them in this mythic space,
that's already kind of Mythic for myth.

It's Proto-mythic, it's beta myth, it's
the early side of things.

So they have this easy back and forth.
They are though while they're removed from

others, they are though extraordinary
sailors.

And this sailing capacity, this sailing
prowess, brings them what sailing prowess

always does.
Extraordinarily rich trade, and tremendous

amounts of wealth.
There are fabulous riches described as

Odysseus approaches, the, the palace of
King [inaudible].

There's amazing stuff that he runs into.
A detailed description and a lavish

description, such as we have not yet seen.
This scene, where the, the wealth of the,

of the palaces is described, gives us a
chance to talk about one of the common

Homeric techniques of telling the story
that are really useful for us to focus on

to get the most we can out of this
tech-myth.

Homer uses a technique called ring
composition.

And in ring composition, some specific
thing.

Here, labelled A is articulated in the
story.

And then there's a long digression.
Here represented with B.

Where we talk about something that is
related to this usually specific physical

thing we just ran into, and then we'll
know that we're done with the digression

when we mention A again.
So sometimes he might say "and then the

general picked up that sword.
That sword which was handed down many

generations earlier to his grandfather and
his grandfather and got passed down to

him.
That sword is the one he picked up now."

So usually we will have an articulation of
the physical object, we'll have long

digression, and then another articulation
of the physical object to finish off the

XXX.
Thought to be a very useful aid for those

that are doing.
In a world of formulaic presentations of

poetry, so if your memorizing something
and you're trying to get it going and then

you want to talk about your digression and
then you want remind yourself and your

audience that you're done with the
digression, just mention that thing that

you did in the beginning.
It tells you that it's the time to get

out.
Now this technique is used in great effect

when Homer is describing the riches at the
palace of King Alkinoos.

So let's just take time to look at a
little bit from book seven using Fagels's

translation.
Now as Odysseus approached Alkinoos's

famous house, a rush of feelings stirred
within his heart, bringing him to a

standstill even before he crossed the
bronze threshold.

A strong radiant.
A radiance strong as the moon or rising

sun came flooding through the high roofed
halls of generous King Alcinous.

Walls plated in bronze crowned with a
circling frieze glazed as blue as lapis

ran to the left and right.
From outer gates to the deepest court

recesses and solid gold doors enclosed the
palace.

Pretty striking the description of what
he's walking in to.

And in fact the description goes on and
lots of details are brought out.

We hear about the threshold that he's
standing on is actually (itself made off).

Bronze.
The door posts and the lintel are made of

silver.
The handles on the door are made of gold.

There are gold and silver dog statues on
either side of the door that were made by

[himself.
They're immortal and never die.

They're guard dogs made of gold and
silver.

There are many thrones in the palace.
One is just not just good enough.

And each of them is decorated and draped
with beautiful fine fabric, that's, of

extraordinarily fine quality.
Then there are golden statues of boys that

are there for torch holders.
There are 50 servant women screwing

around.
And there are magnificent In orchards and

vineyards stretching for acres, that just
fertilized themselves.

So, we hear this long, long digression on
tales of the extraordinary wealth of

Alkinoss's Palace, that's visible to
Odysseus's eyes.

At that point then, at the end of this
digression, bottom of page 183 and 84 in

Fagles, in the middle of book seven, such
were the gifts the glory showered down by

the gods on King Alkinoss's realm.
And there Odysseus stood, gazing at all

this bounty.
A man who borne so much once he had his

fill of marveling at it all, he crossed
the threshold quickly, strode inside the

palace.
So with our ring composition, we have an A

and a B, and an A.
The A is our threshold and the digression

in B is our long and detailed tales of
wealth and A again is our threshold.

The way that Homer uses this, look at what
he's done.

The usefulness of this ring composition
and it's characteristic of the Homeric

technique.
We have Odysseus enter into the palace and

we basically see it through his own eyes.
He walks in, hits the threshold and then

he's just overwhelmed.
And in that marvelous one or two seconds

of Odysseus getting the visual,
overwhelming.

Impression of wealth in Alcinous's Palace.
In that short time Homer goes on and on

and on in narrative description.
And then reminds us at the end of it that

actually what we've just done is paused
with Odysseus for a moment on the

threshold.
But what we've been able to hear is this

giant explosion in Odysseus's mind of
Deep, registering of this powerful,

emotional kind of element, elements of
perception that Odysseus gets.

So, time is able to actually expand and
explode inside of these rings.

We'll have a mention of something, there
may be a long memory that comes back to

us, someone, and a mention of it at the
end.

That memory of course comes back.
In an instant, but the representation of

it in Homer's poetry goes on for some
lavish amount of time.

So Reins provide a way for Homer to dilate
certain very pregnant scenes to let us

pause for a moment usually inside of
someone's head as something grand happens

right before our eyes.
And in this case there's nothing that's

gonna be quite as grand as Alcinous's
Palace.

It's extraordinary.
So Odysseus is entering into a world of,

of tremendous, tremendous wealth.