When morning comes, Odysseus is luckily still alive.
That ember that fire brand that's tucked underneath the ashes in our simile really
does survive until the next morning and the fire gets going.
Odysseus is off. He comes up out of his leaves and when he
does, he sees this scene in front of amazing beauty.
These young women washing laundry at nearby edge of the river.
And, if you've ever been looking for or, or, in the, in your wider experience run
across a situation where young women are characterized as being exciting, in an
erotic way, around a pond or a river or a spring, this is the archetypical example
of such a thing in western literature. There they are, these beautiful young
girls busy with their laundry during the day and here's this grizzled man who sees
what's happening and is, you know, in congruent situation with them, the flower
of their youth and his own near death kind of situation.
And the transition between Book five and six, we make an important change where,
where we've seen Odysseus suffering through Book five.
We're going to see him through Book six and beyond endure.
There are trials and tribulations that he has been subject to and really the
bottoming hell point is where we just ended in Book five.
This is of a long series of not just what happened on Ogygia or sorry, on yeah, on
Ogygia with Callypso and not just what happened with Poseidon and the storm and
him washing up on the shore of the Island of Scheria.
But, of all the things that happened before that.
It's been, it's been a long, long period of suffering.
Now, Odysseus is going to, we're going to see him endure, bear up from that
suffering, put things back together and then get ready to take back his own
kingdom and take his own rightful place. Well, we got a lot to do before then.
Through Book six, which we're going to have a look at now, he's going to find his
first footing back in human society. In Books seven and eight, he's going to
find his footing more stably in more complex human society.
And then, from Book nine and forward, we're going to see him take the reins and
display his hero-ness in lots of different lots of different ways.
So here, Odysseus has got his life thank goodness, he's made it through the night.
Now, he has to figure out what to do next. Remember, that he is without clothes, he's
got to figure out a way to get clothes and that's going to mean also, he's going to
have to regain his speech. He finds near by him that these young
women are doing laundry, he's in an embarrassing state, I'm actually standing
in between Nausicaa, Odysseus and Nausicaa and in between here's Athena.
Oh, Athena, thanks for keeping an eye on our hero.
And Odysseus is now utterly bereft of everything, including clothes.
And the embarrassment of the situation and the abject position that Odysseus is in,
bedraggled, starving, hungry, pummeled. He, he has nothing.
He's, he's lost everything including his own clothes, now he has to figure out a
way back in. Well, first step is going to be, to find
some clothing to cover himself so he's ready to join human society.
And, in order to do that, he's going to have to have resort to and find back again
his way with words. Words are Odysseus's friend.
He is a master of persuasion. He is able to get people to do things for
him and he's able to make good alliances. Odysseus is extremely capable in the arts
of language. So, when he gets started there in, in Book
five, sorry, in Book six, he's got a couple tasks.
First of all, make sure to make a connection with this group of young girls
because he's going to need an ally, someone to help him.
He, in, in this abject position has no way to rejoin human society.
He needs to find a way and needs some help to be able to do that.
The first thing that he's going to need is clothes, in order to get those, he needs
to use his words. So, he for, for, in both of these
situations, it's through Nausicaa and her, her acolytes around her that he's going to
be able to, to get it done. So, she sets a stage for him to regain his
speech and, and is a crucial sort of, first connection with the rest of human
society. Now, he needs to then persuade her.
And this leads us to our second universal law, universal law number two, if you want
to persuade people, you should know your audience.
You got to know your audience. You can't just say all the stuff you might
want to say example, a person who was who went through terrible suffering, probably
just wants to say, oh, my gosh, I'm so glad I saw you, I can't wait, you know,
let me tell you all my stuff. Let me unburden you with all the awful
things that I've been through. But Odysseus knows not to do that.
He needs to get inside of the head of his audience, which is this young woman
Nausicaa. And what he does is look for ways to make
her feel good. So, flattery is a great way to start a
persuasive speech, charm. Express yourself in a way that's honest to
your own situation. So, Odysseus doesn't come in with a kind
of swaggering well, you know, hello, I'm this grand guy and maybe you don't believe
me, but I really am. That kind of thing's not going to work,
right? So, he comes in and, and knows this
audiences, this Odysseus learning people's minds and he sets right up with a speech
that he knows is going to help soften her with respect to her ability to make a
connection with him. So, he jumps in with flattery, and an
honest appraisal of his own situation without overplaying what's already a very
weak hand. In our translation pages 173 and 74, here
I am at your mercy, princess. Are you a goddess or a mortal?
If one of the gods who rule the skies up there, you're Artemis to the life, the
daughter of mighty Zeus. I see her now.
Just look at your build, your bearing, your lithe flowing grace.
He goes round the speech gets from the flattery to positioning himself, talking
about what a lowly person he is. And then, kinda drops a little hint at the
end of his speech. I hope you get everything you want in
life, and may the gods bring you a husband, a house, and lasting harmony.
Hint, hint. Now, I'm, of course, Odysseus is thinking
no one to be starting making overtures to this young woman.
But, he right away talks to her in ways that in Greek society at the time, Homer
would have assumed a young woman wants to be addressed.
You're beautiful, you must be a goddess, your parents must be very proud, soon
enough you're going to be having a husband.
And, well, you know, I'm this eligible guy, just washed up on shore and let me
just speak to you about all those things that some foreign man like me sees in this
beautiful young person like you, and goes to that long list.
And he instantly wins over some affection from her where her guard is dropped a
little. She wants to help him, she's ready to give
him some clothes. And notice that he doesn't come on real
strong, he just does it in a kind of meek way, playing his weak hand in a way that's
appropriate to that weak hand. And interestingly, that last little hint
that he tossed in on the marriage. Remember, Athena herself, had planted a
seed of marriage in Nausicaa's mind when he stirs her up to go wash her clothes,
page 196 in our translation. Time for you to go out there, bring your,
bring your handmaids and go wash those clothes, you're going to need them you
know, weddings around here. We need to make sure we have clean
clothes. So, the idea is already to plant Athena's
planting in Nausicaa's mind the idea that, you know, some eligible man may someday
wash up on shore, that softens her heart and makes her to ready to receive
Odysseus. Now, when she does, this is the crucial
first step in Odysseus's design. He needs to make an alliance to get
himself in to human society. But that first alliance is itself a
microcosm of what human society's all about.
We need people to need things. As a great leader, as a great hero, the
hero provides those things to the people that, that the hero meets.
And in doing so, carrying other people's water that hero gets a chance to do other
kinds of things, to work themselves into the kind of position of exultation in the
society that a hero should actually receive.
But it's only because the hero earns it by performing in a social situation the way
the hero is supposed to. So, using his words, he's on his way
getting something back, he's been able to clothe himself now with rudimentary
clothes. He's made a quick alliance with, with
Nausicaa in such a way that will help her, and now he's going to be on his way to his
next stages on his journey. The scene that we have just witnessed with
Odysseus washing up on shore is one that we're going to learn as something that is
common in Odysseus's experience. When we go and hear the back story, all
the adventures he's already been through by the time he makes it to Nausicaa, a
very standard part of this is Odysseus washing up on an unknown shore.
And, he may well wash up on that shore in a terrible situation with no, almost no
life left in him. He may wash up with a scout boat, he may
wash up with a whole tribe of men trying to conquer a land.
But Odysseus arriving on an unknown shore is a way that many of his, his adventures
are going to start. And then, the next piece we are going to
see in looking forward to Book seven, Odysseus is going to now make his journey
from the far reaches, far away from a city center, he's going to make his journey
into a city center. Another standard and type of the kind of
action we see Odysseus undertake. Movement from the periphery into the
center. That's something that we'll see in our
next lecture and I look forward to talking with you about it at that time.