Odysseus in the Serpent Maze

WHAT IS TRUE ABOUT THIS STORY?

DID THE HEROIC AGE—the Age of Heroes—really exist?

Yes and no.

No—there was not a time when the gods took part in human battles, nor were there goat-legged men called satyrs or hundred-headed snakes running around the Greek islands. There were no bird-women sirens swimming in the wine-dark sea.

But yes—there was once a rich and powerful civilisation in Greece where, though each city was a separate state with its own kingdom the people were united by a single language. There was also a thriving culture on the island of Crete, and the remains of the great palace at Knossos can still be seen. In that period—we now know from archaeological evidence—there was a real Troy and a real Trojan War, though whether it was fought because of the abduction of the beautiful Helen by a Trojan prince is debatable. That great civilisation was suddenly destroyed around 1200 B.C.

Five hundred years later, the blind poet Homer created the Iliad, a poem about the Trojan War, and the Odyssey, about the wanderings of the hero Odysseus. In fact, all that we know about Odysseus can be found in Homer’s epic poems and a few Greek folktales. We don’t even know whether Odysseus was a real king of Ithaca (or Ithika or Ithaki or Ithikai) or just a made-up legendary hero.

All that is related in those sources about Odysseus’ boyhood is that he was wounded by a boar on the slopes of Mount Parnassus where he was visiting his grandfather, the cattle thief and robber Autolycus.

But a man—even a legendary hero—must have a childhood and adolescence that foretells his future deeds. In the Odyssey and the Iliad we learn that Odysseus is a short, burly redhead who is not only a fine fighter but a grand and eloquent speaker. Like all Greek princes, he would have been trained in public speaking, but Odysseus outshines his contemporaries in storytelling. Known as cunning and crafty, he is in fact the cleverest of the Greeks, and not above playing mad when necessary. He is the one who figures out how to sneak out of the Cyclops’ cave by clinging to the belly of a sheep. He is the one who teaches his men to stopper their ears so that they might pass by the singing sirens safely. He is the one who invents the wooden horse trick that gets the Greeks (including his ally Idomeneus) inside the impregnable walls of Troy.

Fighter, storyteller, the wily Odysseus wanders ten years around the Mediterranean Sea with his men after the Trojan War as a punishment for offending the sea god, Poseidon. His adventures, as detailed in Homer’s epic poem, include gods, monsters, giants, sorceresses, and many a magical happening.

At last Odysseus comes home to his beloved wife, Penelope, and his son, Telemachus, whom he has not seen since the boy was a baby. All those long years her husband has been away, Penelope has kept 108 suitors at bay by her own wits, each night unweaving a piece of cloth she has promised to finish before choosing a new husband. Penelope is aided only by her handmaidens and by her husband’s trusted friend Mentor, and her wits are every bit as sharp as Odysseus’.

We have taken the Odysseus of the Odyssey and the Iliad and projected him backwards, using what archeologists have told us about the civilisation he would have inhabited if he had been a real man.

Or a young hero.