When considering ancient Greek literature, one might naturally think of male protagonists and heroes. The Odyssey is no exception. However, women do make a huge impact upon the journeys of Odysseus. As a matter of fact, the main reason why Odysseus left Ithaca to travel to Troy was to take part in the Trojan War. This war, according to legend, was caused by the beauty of a woman, Helen of Troy, who eloped with Paris.
At the close of the war, Odysseus spent ten years drifting about the ocean and encountering several obstacles to his progress home. Among these incidents, the two strong minded nymphs, Calypso and Circe, detained him the longest.In addition, the female monsters, Charybdis and Scylla, also caused severe losses to Odysseus and his troops. However, the main reason which motivated Odysseus to return to Ithaca was his beloved wife, Penelope. With the motivation of his love and some help from the goddess Athena, Odysseus is able to finally return home.
The two women who were responsible for the beginning and the end of Odysseus’ journey are Helen and Penelope. They both drew Odysseus to Troy and encouraged him to go back to Ithaca. Ironically, Odysseus, from Ithaca, first sought Helen’s hand in marriage as did many, many other men.When she married the Spartan Menelaus, Odysseus married Penelope. Both ladies were queens of their respective countries.
Helen was victimized, in a sense, by the gods due to the contest which demanded that the loveliest woman be chosen. Penelope was also victimized by Athena’s initial and Poseidon’s enduring hatred of Greeks in general and of Odysseus’ specifically. However, due to an oath by all the suitors of Troy, Odysseus had to fight for Menelaus when Helen was seduced and abducted by Paris. While Helen was enamored with Paris, after a time in Troy, she admits that she had learned from her experience and longed to return to her homeland.She says to Telemachus “He [Odysseus] killed many Trojans and got much information before he reached the Argive camp, for all which things the Trojan women made lamentation, but for my own part I was glad, for my heart was beginning to roam after my home, and I was unhappy about wrong that Venus had done me in taking me over there, away from my country, my girl, and my lawful wedded husband, who is indeed by no means deficient either in person or understanding.
” It is she and Menelaus who help Odysseus’ son discover what had become of him. Penelope, however, was Odysseus’ real love.It is said he won her hand in a footrace of the suitors, while others place his marriage upon the deal he arranges with Helen’s father. Either way, she waits for his return despite the odds being that he is dead. When the suitors become more and more demanding for her hand, she cleverly deceives them for a time. Particularly insistent and even nasty is Antinuous, who seems determined to become Penelope’s husband, and thus, the king.
However, she refuses to choose a suitor until she has finished the burial shroud for her husband, but as she makes apparent progress during the day, she unravels her work at night.She tells her servant that “... In that catastrophe no one was dealt a heavier blow than I, who pass my days in mourning for the best of husbands ..
.. ” In the time of arranged marriages, this is a rare love. Both Helen and Penelope were Greek women who held to traditional values while still seeking their own happiness.
Not all women were so interested in seeing Odysseus return to Ithaca. The two strong minded nymphs, Calypso and Circe, each captured Odysseus and kept him captive while trying to convince him to live with her forever.Even though Calypso was beautiful and immortal, he spent his long time in captivity crying bitterly while he was forced to spend every night in her bed. When she was finally ordered by Zeus, who had been convinced by Athena, to release Odysseus, Calypso was outraged. “You gods,” she exclaimed, “need to be ashamed of yourselves.
You are always jealous and hate seeing a goddess take a fancy to a mortal man, and live with him in open matrimony. ” She feels mistreated by the gods, and, trying to assuage her, Odysseus tells her that even though she is beautiful, he truly longs to go home to Penelope.He says “I am quite aware that my wife Penelope is nothing like so tall or so beautiful as yourself. She is only a woman, whereas you are an immortal.
Nevertheless, I want to get home, and can think of nothing else. ” Thus, even though Odysseus played it very safe with Calypso, he was elated to learn that he could leave her clutches. The goddess Circe also falls in love with Odysseus and wants to spend eternity with him. First, though, she captures all his men except one, drugged them so that they would forget their desire to go home, and turns them into swine.Upon advice from the gods, he is able to trick her into releasing his men and not harming him.
She does, however, convince the men to stay with her, eating and drinking and recuperating for an entire year. Finally, Odysseus has to ask her to keep her end of the bargain. She answers quite differently from Calypso; she acquiesces and says “you shall none of you stay here any longer if you do not want to. ” She even gives Odysseus advice for the next leg of his journey. While Calypso had to be forced to release Odysseus by the gods, Circe released him of her own will and gave him helpful information as well.
Finally, Odysseus had to make it safely past the Sirens. According to the helpful Circe, “the sirens enchant all who come near them. If any one unwarily draws in too close and hears the singing of the Sirens, his wife and children will never welcome him home again, for they sit in a green field and warble him to death with the sweetness of their song. ” She warns Odysseus to tie himself to the mast of the ship and to plug all of the men’s ears with wax.
This he does with the help of his men and avoids the fate of countless other dead men, reduced to bones on the field.Later, Circe even gives Odysseus warnings about surviving the two monsters, Scylla and Charybdis. Scylla, according to Circe, is a beast who pretends to be a young, sick animal. …but in truth she is a dreadful monster and no one- not even a god- could face her without being terror-struck. She has twelve mis-shapen feet, and six necks of the most prodigious length; and at the end of each neck she has a frightful head with three rows of teeth in each, all set very close together, so that they would crunch any one to death in a moment, and she sits deep within her shady ell thrusting out her heads and peering all round the rock, fishing for dolphins or dogfish or any larger monster that she can catch, of the thousands with which Amphitrite teems.No ship ever yet got past her without losing some men, for she shoots out all her heads at once, and carries off a man in each mouth.
Unfortunately, in order to avoid this beast and her six heads, Odysseus and his men must pass dangerously close to the swirling vortex of Charbydis who could easily suck down the whole boat.Odysseus took Circe’s advice and sacrificed some of his men to Scylla rather than lose his whole boat to Charbydis. Of course, none of Odysseus clever tricks, and even the advice from Circe, could have ever saved him without the help of the goddess Athena. Ironically, she was the one who asked Poseidon to punish the Greeks, but ten years later, she felt that Odysseus had been through enough torture.
Then, her help was vital in Odysseus’ safe return to Ithaca. First, in helping Odysseus, Athena must then help Odysseus’ son, Telemachus.She disguises herself as an old sailor and encourages him to be strong in his journey for his father. She comforts Penelope in a dream that her son would return unharmed after Penelope learns that the suitors are privy to Telemachus’ plan. She remains near to him throughout his journey, even though she has to be careful of Poseidon’s wrath. Finally, it is Athena who separates the mist and allows Odysseus clear passage to his homeland.
Once in Ithaca, it is Athena who gives Odysseus the details about how to approach his wife and the suitors.He is instructed to disguise himself and to, with his son, to hatch a plan to defeat the rude suitors. She tells him “noble son of Laertes, think how you can lay hands on these disreputable people who have been lording it in your house these three years, courting your wife and making wedding presents to her, while she does nothing but lament your absence, giving hope and sending your encouraging messages to every one of them, but meaning the very opposite of all she says” thus leading him to victory but at the same time reinforcing Penelope’s love for him.Penelope is a huge help in this final victory of Odysseus. As a queen in a matriarchal line, her chosen suitor will become king. With the thought of the king returning slipping lower and lower with each passing years, the suitors are becoming more and more insistent, even threatening her son.
Though, Penelope never gives up on Odysseus, she is finding it more and more difficult to stave off the suitors. Her trick of unweaving the shroud works for a while, but she is later forced to make a choice. Here, the reader finds Penelope being not only realistic, but with cleverness that rivals her husbandsWhen Odysseus arrives and orchestrates, with Telemachus, the slaughter of the suitors, Penelope must determine the veracity of this man who has been much changed in the past two decades. Penelope feels that having her husband back may be too good to be true: “It is some god who is angry with the suitors for their great wickedness, and has made an end of them; for they respected no man in the whole world, neither rich nor poor, who came near them, who came near them, and they have come to a bad end in consequence of their iniquity.She suggests that their bed be moved, and when he notes that it cannot be because it is built into an existing tree, she knows that Odysseus of for real. Thus, with the help of his son and the advice of Athena, Odysseus is able to defeat the suitors and reclaim his love and life in Ithaca.
Women play an important role in Odysseus’ journey, either positively or negatively. While Athena is responsible, initially, for much of Odysseus’ torment, she ultimately helps him return home.The love of two women, Helen and Penelope, striking for their change of heart and faithfulness respectively, begin and end the tale, while monsters mark the middle. Calypso, Circe, the Sirens, Scylla and Charbydis all threaten, but ultimately, the goddess Athena prevails. Even though classic Greek literature seems to feature the exploits and adventures of men, the women are also integral parts of the stories.
