WEBVTT 00:00:04.075 --> 00:00:09.040 As if we needed anymore indication from book one that it was time for Telemachus 00:00:09.040 --> 00:00:13.023 to, to grow up a little. It actually comes out of Athena's mouth in 00:00:13.023 --> 00:00:16.059 her disguise. She's standing next to him on page 87 and 00:00:16.059 --> 00:00:21.001 says you must not cling to your boyhood any longer, it's time you were a man. 00:00:21.001 --> 00:00:25.030 So, Telemachus realizes it's time to change, somethings got to give. 00:00:25.258 --> 00:00:31.008 It spurs him into his action of failed attempt to rile the suitors in his of 00:00:31.008 --> 00:00:34.757 beginning of Book two. And then, he gets ready to haul off on 00:00:34.757 --> 00:00:37.411 this tour with mentor as his guide, Athena. 00:00:37.411 --> 00:00:41.993 And when he does head out on this tour, he's going to learn things. 00:00:42.206 --> 00:00:48.862 Travels a way for him to gain knowledge. And in his tour round these great capitals 00:00:49.094 --> 00:00:54.645 in books three and four, what Telemachus is really going to do is take a journey 00:00:54.645 --> 00:00:58.000 into a past. And this past is already something that 00:00:58.000 --> 00:01:02.034 has a kind of grandeur to it. He'll look at Pylos and this wonderful 00:01:02.034 --> 00:01:05.052 wealthy citadel of, of, of that we see with Nestor. 00:01:05.052 --> 00:01:09.582 And then, we're going to move on to Sparta and see Menelaus and Helen of Troy 00:01:09.582 --> 00:01:12.471 herself. We're going to see grand figures that are 00:01:12.471 --> 00:01:17.764 already a mythic proportion according to how Telemachus marshal his engagement with 00:01:17.764 --> 00:01:20.934 them. I thought in making this turn to this 00:01:20.934 --> 00:01:26.350 grand past such as we're going to see in three and four, I might just toss up here 00:01:26.350 --> 00:01:31.646 a slide of a famous probably our most famous ancient citadel from this time, the 00:01:31.646 --> 00:01:36.827 citadel of Mycenae, Agamemnon's palace This is so-called lion gate and it has an 00:01:36.827 --> 00:01:41.030 air of majesty to it. And, thinking back to the time when this 00:01:41.030 --> 00:01:44.330 was built back in the first early, you know, early, early, early times first 00:01:44.330 --> 00:01:48.484 millennium BCE and even before these citadels emerged up out of the out of the, 00:01:48.625 --> 00:01:54.109 the plain around us and at a time, when there were simple agrarian folk in most 00:01:54.109 --> 00:01:58.053 parts of the world. There would be these grand citadels. 00:01:58.053 --> 00:02:03.795 And in the memory of time as the citadels age and as history builds up around them, 00:02:03.795 --> 00:02:09.094 and events take place that involve these places, eventually people start to think, 00:02:09.094 --> 00:02:15.238 my gosh, how in the world did they build those things, anyway, all those centuries 00:02:15.238 --> 00:02:17.977 ago? And when they did that, they started down 00:02:17.977 --> 00:02:23.023 a path of imaging that their ancestors were greater than they were. 00:02:23.212 --> 00:02:28.059 They even called these stones, Cyclopean stones because they felt there was no way 00:02:28.059 --> 00:02:33.028 a human being could have moved them and they are kind of things that only a 00:02:33.028 --> 00:02:35.938 Cyclops could move. So, there was a, a, a kind of, of mythic 00:02:37.006 --> 00:02:41.099 orientation toward their deep past that the Greeks already had during Homer's 00:02:41.099 --> 00:02:44.273 time. The, the impulse here to look at your 00:02:44.460 --> 00:02:49.655 ancestors as being much greater than you were leads us to our first universal law 00:02:49.655 --> 00:02:52.916 in the course. I'm going to give you a few universal laws 00:02:52.916 --> 00:02:57.567 in the course guarantee to be universal money back guarantee. 00:02:57.716 --> 00:03:00.555 And how much money do we pay for a course there anyway? 00:03:00.555 --> 00:03:03.615 Anyway, universal laws are money back guarantee. 00:03:03.615 --> 00:03:08.589 Universal law number one, nostalgia is the most powerful force in the universe. 00:03:08.798 --> 00:03:14.633 When people are looking back to their past they always imagine that it must have been 00:03:14.633 --> 00:03:17.893 better. Seems to be something that is exhibited 00:03:17.893 --> 00:03:22.748 across time and surely the Greeks are susceptible to this form of nostalgia as 00:03:22.748 --> 00:03:25.763 well. So, Telemachus has his cue, it's time to 00:03:25.763 --> 00:03:29.733 go and off he goes. He's going to visit two amazing places. 00:03:29.923 --> 00:03:34.816 Athena's going to bring him along. He's going to see Nestor's coastal city. 00:03:35.022 --> 00:03:40.843 And when he does, he's going to move from the his edge of his island of Ithaca and 00:03:40.843 --> 00:03:45.698 have a trip down by boat to Pylos. Now remember, when he arrives by boat in 00:03:45.698 --> 00:03:48.828 Pylos, what does he see there on the shore? 00:03:48.828 --> 00:03:54.638 There are nine divisions of 500 people each. 00:03:54.638 --> 00:04:00.854 So, already, we've got 4,500 people on a beach, that's probably going to arrest 00:04:00.854 --> 00:04:05.015 your attention. And now in case, we haven't gotten your 00:04:05.015 --> 00:04:09.068 attention, each of those groups of 500, each of those nine groups of 500 is 00:04:09.068 --> 00:04:13.081 slaughtering nine bulls. So, we've got 81 bulls being slaughtered 00:04:13.081 --> 00:04:18.028 simultaneously on a beach. If that doesn't grab your attention, then 00:04:18.028 --> 00:04:23.094 you probably need some smelling salts. What Telemachus sees there absolutely is 00:04:23.094 --> 00:04:28.055 just extraordinary to him. The grandeur of this scene something 00:04:28.055 --> 00:04:32.008 amazing. And the display of wealth, the conspicuous 00:04:32.008 --> 00:04:36.021 display of wealth. 81 bulls during Telemachus' time is, a, a 00:04:36.021 --> 00:04:42.085 fortune to last, you know the equivalent of a fortune that could last a huge chunk 00:04:42.085 --> 00:04:45.767 of a lifetime. And yet, here they are just being expended 00:04:45.767 --> 00:04:48.078 in this one event on the shores as he goes. 00:04:48.078 --> 00:04:51.067 So, we know we're entering into a world of grandeur. 00:04:51.067 --> 00:04:54.945 And now, keeping in mind that this is a world of grandeur, we're always going to 00:04:54.945 --> 00:04:59.642 be remembering, although it's going to take Telemachus a little while to remember 00:04:59.642 --> 00:05:04.450 himself, that this should be the kind of grandeur that exists in his household. 00:05:04.450 --> 00:05:07.738 And instead, these vagabonds are running riot across it. 00:05:07.884 --> 00:05:10.353 From Pylos and then, we go over land, over to Sparta. 00:05:10.353 --> 00:05:14.953 And at that point, we're going to meet Menelaus, Agamemnon's very brother, and 00:05:14.953 --> 00:05:17.975 Helen of Troy, that face that launched a thousand ships. 00:05:17.975 --> 00:05:22.297 We're going to have a private audience with her through Telemachus' eyes, we're 00:05:22.297 --> 00:05:25.198 going to see Helen. Now, through this trip through this 00:05:25.198 --> 00:05:30.091 traveling that Telemachus is going to do, it's a way for him to gain knowledge. 00:05:30.091 --> 00:05:35.790 And at the same time, he's mirroring in a smaller, more controlled way, the kind of 00:05:36.021 --> 00:05:40.057 adventure that his father is on. For each of them the experiential 00:05:40.057 --> 00:05:45.049 knowledge that's gained through traveling is something that's profound, that's 00:05:45.049 --> 00:05:50.061 powerful, that's life-shaping that gives them tools, and that allows them to 00:05:50.061 --> 00:05:54.941 advance in their own lives. Travel is a deeply powerful tool according 00:05:54.941 --> 00:06:01.035 to the scale of values. So as he gets ready to make his journey, 00:06:01.035 --> 00:06:07.016 makes his connection gears up his boat, gets his provisions, makes his way to 00:06:07.016 --> 00:06:12.059 Pylos, sees this grandeur, he sits down and has his audience with Nestor. 00:06:12.059 --> 00:06:17.580 When he gets to Sparta, he'll sit down and have his audience with Menelaus and with, 00:06:17.772 --> 00:06:21.394 with Helen. Now, at each turn, the, the elders sit 00:06:21.394 --> 00:06:27.666 back and listen to Telemachus' version of events, and the first thing they do, when 00:06:27.666 --> 00:06:33.069 they hear what is happening, is to react the way, presumably, we're being taught a 00:06:33.069 --> 00:06:38.081 person should react, they don't just feel sorry for Telemachus, they don't pat him 00:06:38.081 --> 00:06:42.006 on the head and give him some Kleenex, they're angry. 00:06:42.006 --> 00:06:47.001 They're angry. The constant exhibition of Telemachus's 00:06:47.001 --> 00:06:51.042 elders after he tells them this story is to feel anger. 00:06:51.254 --> 00:06:55.074 We see this multiple times as the story is being told. 00:06:55.315 --> 00:07:02.006 Athena has already shown it page 85, as [unknown] mentor, she is outraged and she 00:07:02.006 --> 00:07:05.057 talks about how shameful this exhibition is. 00:07:05.057 --> 00:07:11.033 On page 134, we hear from Menelaus, we also hear from Nestor, that this is 00:07:11.033 --> 00:07:16.022 shameful what's happening. Anger comes up when they hear this. 00:07:16.252 --> 00:07:21.352 The tour is partly an education for Telemahus to be schooled in how his 00:07:21.352 --> 00:07:24.890 emotions ought to be working. His emotions need some calibration. 00:07:24.890 --> 00:07:29.240 They need some changing. Oftentimes, I think we think that emotions 00:07:29.240 --> 00:07:33.759 are just kind of natural responses to things and that just by nature you are 00:07:33.759 --> 00:07:38.061 going to feel things like embarrassment, or anger, or joy or what, whatever it is. 00:07:38.246 --> 00:07:43.057 But the stance that Homer is taking here in the Odyssey is a little bit different. 00:07:43.057 --> 00:07:47.012 It seems that Telemachus actually needs some schooling in this. 00:07:47.012 --> 00:07:51.074 There's an acculturation that he needs to do to know that it is right now to feel 00:07:51.074 --> 00:07:54.201 anger. That is the kind of emotional response he 00:07:54.201 --> 00:07:57.884 should be having. Each person that he talks to expresses 00:07:57.884 --> 00:08:01.034 that. Then also, at each turn, we hear a 00:08:01.034 --> 00:08:07.085 particular name that's brought up. When we're talking to Nestor on page 113, 00:08:07.085 --> 00:08:14.021 the name Orestes comes up. Athena disguised as mentor on page 115 00:08:14.021 --> 00:08:17.076 talks about Orestes. Menaleus, page 141. 00:08:17.076 --> 00:08:22.052 After hearing the story of what's happening in Telemachus household, talks 00:08:22.052 --> 00:08:27.065 about Orestes, and in fact, casting our mind back for a second, back to book one 00:08:27.066 --> 00:08:31.775 Zeus in his introductory remarks right at the very beginning, talks about Orestes 00:08:32.027 --> 00:08:38.236 right on page 78 in the translation. At each point a person who mentions 00:08:38.236 --> 00:08:43.957 Orestes is an older authority figure. They're reacting to this expression of 00:08:43.957 --> 00:08:47.248 powerlessness. In Zeus' case, it's the idea that people 00:08:47.248 --> 00:08:52.552 just toss up their hands and it just feels like everything is just faded and it's the 00:08:52.552 --> 00:08:55.767 gods fault. Instead, take action like that Orestes 00:08:55.767 --> 00:08:58.910 did. The mentor Nestor and Menelaus each after 00:08:58.910 --> 00:09:03.944 they hear the story that Telemachus tells and of his own pathetic powerlessness in 00:09:03.944 --> 00:09:07.841 the situation say, oh, have you heard the one about Orestes? 00:09:07.841 --> 00:09:12.559 Now, what are they referring to? What is this situation involving Orestes? 00:09:12.559 --> 00:09:17.427 Well, it just so happens that the, one of the famous stories of homecoming is 00:09:17.427 --> 00:09:22.450 something that's already percolating in the background of Homer's Odyssey. 00:09:22.643 --> 00:09:27.598 When Agamemnon famously makes his way home, he gets home pretty quickly. 00:09:27.598 --> 00:09:32.918 It's not a struggle for him to get a ship back to his to his citadel. 00:09:32.918 --> 00:09:36.218 But when he does, he sees his wife. Hello and I'm, I'm back home. 00:09:36.218 --> 00:09:41.846 He doesn't realize that his wife has taken up a liaison with a lover and that the two 00:09:41.846 --> 00:09:46.217 of them go ahead and murder Agamemnon shortly after he arrives. 00:09:46.217 --> 00:09:51.711 Now, this is an awful thing, Clytemnestra, Agamemnon's wife, and her lover killed the 00:09:51.711 --> 00:09:56.997 head of household, Agamemnon, her husband. Now, it just so happens that within the 00:09:56.997 --> 00:10:03.170 Greek ethical code, if someone kills your father as a son or a daughter, it is now 00:10:03.170 --> 00:10:07.755 your duty to kill your father's killer. Well now, what happens in Agamemnon's 00:10:07.755 --> 00:10:10.823 family? Agamemnon's own son and daughter are 00:10:10.823 --> 00:10:16.175 responsible now for taking revenge against this killer, which means for them, killing 00:10:16.175 --> 00:10:18.849 their own mother. This is a nasty business. 00:10:18.849 --> 00:10:23.694 This is ugly, and this is awful. In Homer's version of it, the part that's 00:10:23.694 --> 00:10:26.600 really emphasized is the lover part, Aegisthus. 00:10:26.773 --> 00:10:31.022 It's, he's talked about as the one most responsible for the death of Agamemnon. 00:10:31.022 --> 00:10:34.663 So, Orestes goes ahead and takes care of business and kills Aegisthus. 00:10:34.828 --> 00:10:38.527 But it's a messy story. It's already messy in Homer's time. 00:10:38.527 --> 00:10:43.469 And if you get even messier when we concentrate on it in our out weeks of the 00:10:43.469 --> 00:10:48.985 class, we're going to turn to, after we turn to classical Athenian tragedy we're 00:10:48.985 --> 00:10:52.947 going to see the story of Agamemnon told through Aeschylus' eyes. 00:10:52.947 --> 00:10:56.045 My goodness, that's going to make my hairs grow. 00:10:56.543 --> 00:11:03.153 But when Homer focuses on it, what he means to point is, Orestes in a situation 00:11:03.153 --> 00:11:09.573 that was very ugly and very nasty, he had the gumption to do what needed to be done. 00:11:09.573 --> 00:11:16.124 Even in a situation where that was nasty, nasty business, Orestes, did, what needed 00:11:16.124 --> 00:11:19.453 to be done. Orestes and the story of run, cycling 00:11:19.453 --> 00:11:23.192 around Agamemnon show up multiple times in Homer's Odyssey. 00:11:23.192 --> 00:11:28.819 And in relation to Telemachus, they always show up as this kind of coda tom that's 00:11:28.819 --> 00:11:33.461 placed on the end of Telemachus feeling sorry for himself in the code that comes 00:11:33.461 --> 00:11:37.243 from a more, from an older more experienced person saying, you know what, 00:11:37.243 --> 00:11:41.216 even in the nasty business that Orestes had to take care of, his house was all 00:11:41.216 --> 00:11:44.187 messed up and Orestes came in and took care of business. 00:11:44.187 --> 00:11:49.021 So when Telemachus is being schooled on how he should be reacting to the world, 00:11:49.021 --> 00:11:53.520 he's being introduced generally to the grand and aristocratic world that is his 00:11:53.520 --> 00:11:57.651 birthright, that he ought to be enforcing to be his own on the island of Ithaca, 00:11:57.651 --> 00:12:00.515 he's being introduced to an emotional response. 00:12:00.515 --> 00:12:03.978 He's being enculturated to the right emotional response. 00:12:03.978 --> 00:12:08.125 Anger is what the person is supposed to feel when something as nasty as what is 00:12:08.125 --> 00:12:12.011 happening in your house is happening. Not pity , not sorry for yourself. 00:12:12.011 --> 00:12:16.407 Not powerlessness. He's also being schooled in historical 00:12:16.407 --> 00:12:19.375 lessons. By saying, look, if you're in this 00:12:19.375 --> 00:12:24.919 situation, you think you've got it bad, well, don't overlook what happened in a 00:12:24.919 --> 00:12:29.797 similar, you know, in a, in a situation that was surely as bad as yours, and 00:12:29.797 --> 00:12:34.779 probably much worse. Also, Orestes took care of business in his 00:12:34.779 --> 00:12:38.266 own situation. And you, as the son of a father whose 00:12:38.266 --> 00:12:43.852 being displaced by people that are eating you out of house and home, it's going to 00:12:43.852 --> 00:12:49.041 be incumbent upon you, their hinting, hinting, hinting to take action yourself. 00:12:49.041 --> 00:12:53.078 Go ahead and be the Orestes of your own story and take action. 00:12:53.078 --> 00:12:59.038 Now, in book four, there's a wonderful scene that I just wanted to spend a little 00:12:59.038 --> 00:13:04.643 bit of time with, we get to after we've had a chance to meet Nestor and his 00:13:05.015 --> 00:13:11.899 amazing display of wealth we get a chance to see what's happening, in the, the house 00:13:11.899 --> 00:13:15.920 of house of Menelaus. We also get to see that beautiful woman 00:13:16.099 --> 00:13:21.051 Helen of Troy herself. She comes in and has an entrance into the 00:13:21.051 --> 00:13:24.088 story. We get to hear from her and hear her own 00:13:24.088 --> 00:13:27.537 story. When she does jump into the story there 00:13:27.537 --> 00:13:31.052 are some interesting things for us to recognize. 00:13:31.052 --> 00:13:34.066 First of all, her beauty. Her bewitching guile. 00:13:34.066 --> 00:13:38.046 It's extraordinary. It's, it's obviously overwhelming. 00:13:38.223 --> 00:13:41.079 She is indeed the face that launched a thousand ships. 00:13:41.079 --> 00:13:47.029 When we get to see her she brings in a nice bowl for us to drink from that is 00:13:47.029 --> 00:13:51.081 going to soothe our, our pains or else an, an alcoholic beverage. 00:13:51.081 --> 00:13:55.061 But she also adds to it something extra, something special. 00:13:55.061 --> 00:14:00.790 These are special drugs that she got on her sojourn in Egypt when she and Menelaus 00:14:00.790 --> 00:14:04.998 were blown off course. And these drugs, she can now mix into 00:14:04.998 --> 00:14:10.280 wine, that mix into this wonderful potion, where no one could feel any pain for 00:14:10.280 --> 00:14:14.066 having had it. The narcotic effect of the wine is another 00:14:14.066 --> 00:14:18.527 thing that seems to be hovering around the aura that is Helen. 00:14:18.527 --> 00:14:23.231 So, in the case of Helen, we have beauty, we have magical power, we have 00:14:23.231 --> 00:14:26.129 intoxication. A little bit of danger, as well, because 00:14:26.129 --> 00:14:31.849 she can bring you out of this world. All of these things together showing up in 00:14:31.849 --> 00:14:36.564 the figure of Helen, this is a cluster of ideas that we're going to see visited 00:14:36.745 --> 00:14:40.009 regularly in Homeric epic. Of women who have power. 00:14:40.009 --> 00:14:43.033 Who have very clear erotic dimension to their power. 00:14:43.033 --> 00:14:46.038 Who also are mixed up in the idea of, of, of magic. 00:14:46.245 --> 00:14:51.030 Who have extraordinary beauty. And who when they arrive in a room, turn 00:14:51.030 --> 00:14:54.415 lots of heads. There's a tremendous power that Homer sees 00:14:54.621 --> 00:15:00.448 in, in this cluster of ideas, and we're going to see it represented in multiple 00:15:00.448 --> 00:15:06.212 places as our story moves forward. Not least, when we turn to away from our 00:15:06.212 --> 00:15:11.487 story of Telemachus in the first four books of the Odyssey and move on to meet 00:15:11.669 --> 00:15:23.816 our hero, the man himself the, the, the man the muses are singing of, Odysseus. 00:15:24.583 --> 00:15:33.027 He'll appear in our next lecture.