3 Interactive Transcript

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In book eleven we're off to the Underworld. One of the first things, though, that we notice
about Homer's underworld is that he's not really under anywhere. It's far away. Odysseus
and his men go to the place that Circe told him to go. When they do they dig a trench. And
in that trench, they put in some potions of ram's blood and milk and barley and some things
that they are told to put in. And when they do, up out of the earth come these shades. So
Odysseus does not actually spend time going down, down, down, a la Dante. And Dante
modeled himself, of course, on Virgil. Things are a little different in that underworld. For
Odysseus it's a faraway place. Out of contact with you and I, but it's because it's so far
away, not because it's so far down. We've put together some pictures of kind of sulfurous
openings in the earth that might be more reminiscent of what Homer's underworld is than
trying to imagine it as some kind of down cave. Deep beneath the Earth, down beneath the
recesses of things. Now, in order to get these shades, to, to come out and make,
conversation with him, Odysseus has this bait. And inside of the trough, one of
the ingredients in the bait is blood. And, there's a kind of physics, involved here, or biology.
The shades need to get blood. And, why would that be? Well, these shades are just human
beings like you and I who have lost all their blood and their substance, and now they're just
kind of floating around disembodied. If they had more blood in them, life would return to
them. Getting the blood in them allows them to now talk and Odysseus can have
conversations with them. They don't get fully reembodied though, as we learn in that very
famous scene of Odysseus trying to hug his mother; they are insubstantial shades. Being a
shade is not a happy thing to be. The Greeks would much rather be alive than be dead.
Can't quite make a universal law out of this one, but among the Greeks it's surely true, it's
better to be alive than to be dead. The afterlife for them in Homer's time is not a place, for
the most part where ethical scores are settled. It's not as though those who have died in
this underworld are getting judged and punished if they've done bad things and rewarded if
they've done good things. Mostly they're all just kind of floating around in this gray area and
they would all much rather be alive. Even the great ones, don't seem to have a very good
life at all. They, they, they would much rather be, be living. We hear this in this kind of
poignant, piece that we'll close with in thinking about this, about what comes out of Achilles'
mouth, when Odysseus has a chance to talk to him in person. So, the underworld is not a
place where ethical scores are settled. It's a, a holding tank, it's a place you'd rather not be,
it's kind of like being at an eternal layover at an airport. It's not like living. It's not necessarily
actively being punished, but it's just not like living a rich full life. There are of course a few
exceptions to this rule, about the underworld being a place where ethical scores are
not settled, there's one or two where we see very famous sinners down there that
are getting eternal punishment. People like Tantalus and Sysophis, famous ones. But
they're the exception for the most part it is not a place where good and bad. Ends just as
desserts are being meated out. Another exception that some of you all will hear about are
the Islands of the Blessed. This maybe has been something that you've run into in your
own engagement with Greek mythology. It's something that we will see in our, in our story.
Articulated at a few points. But for the most part this is not a fully worked out idea. It's a
smaller piece of the larger set of ideas about what the afterlife is all about. Not necessarily
all that, wide spread of a notion. We will talk about that further, further out of the course.
Now when Odyssey puts out its trough, we do get to see Elpenor poor guy, there he
is. What the heck happened to you, you know where have you been? And he says, well I'm
dead. And Odysseus says, I can't believe it. And what Elpenor gets to do is give us a full-
throated endorsement of the idea that you should be buried. Elpenor tells Odysseus and
his men, please, bury me, it's what we dead want. And a functionalist would come along
again and read this story and say clearly what Homer is doing here is providing a sense of
legitimacy to the social, cultural, religious custom of burying dead bodies. Clearly the dead
want that it comes out of the mouth of Elpenor himself. So we run into this, guy. Look at
him. He's kind of, insubstantial as wonderful, decoration on our Greek pottery. Odysseus
has sacrificed the animals. Hermes is there next to him. Hermes, who has control over
souls on their way to the underworld, guiding Odysseus here and Elpenor who shows up
with his hand raised in a gesture saying oh my gosh Odysseus, if only you had been able to
save me, things would have been much better for me but instead I'm dead. Please bury
me. Then we get, early on, to the point of why we're out in that underworld in the first place.
We get to see this figure Tiresias. He's the whole reason we're there. Tiresias is Apollo's
priest. He has deep wisdom of not only the future remember being a seer in Ancient
Greece is not just about seeing future events, it's also about seeing the present. In a way
that you and I as typical mortals are not able to see details. It's also about seeing the past
in a way that you and I as typical mortals may not have a memory about this past. Well, a
seer is able to see past, present, and future, and it's marvelous that they're able to do any
of these things. So when Odysseus goes to Tiresias to ask him some help, Tiresias
answers back, well, there has indeed been a problem, Odysseus. You have run afoul of
Poseidon. It's here that Odysseus gets the message that it's time for him to make amends.
He has to apologize to Poseidon for the awful thing he did to that guy, Polyphemus,
happens to be Poseidon's son and he gets the orders from Tiresius. The punishment
seems to be a little strange at first what Tiresius says is that you have to take an oar. So an
implement of pulling a boat along the water. And bring it so far inland that people don't
recognize it anymore. They can't tell what it is. And once you get there plant the oar in the
ground and build a temple to Poseidon. Now why in the world would Tiresias
want, Telodesias that that's what he should do to make Poseidon fell better. Well gods like
to be worshiped. It's true. The Gods enjoy when we worship them and they like to be
worshipped widely. So Poseidon's temples mostly are nearby the sea. Those that live near
the sea know of Poseidon's powers and worship him. Those that are inland may or may not
have even heard of him. So what Odysseus is doing here is spreading the theme of, of
Poseidon even beyond areas of the landscape that are effected by the sea. Getting so far
inland that people would mistake his oar for a winnowing fan and think of it in another word
as a, as a farming implement. It means that Odysseus is far enough inland that it would be
a great pleasure for Poseidon to receive a temple in that spot. So having gotten those
instructions now Odysseus knows what he's supposed to do. He's got what he needs. But
we're not going to leave the underworld quite yet. There's more stuff for us to learn
down there. We run into others. Among the dead. They come out, drink some blood and
have a conversation with Odysseus. Odysseus gets to learn from all these dead people in
the past. Some amazing stuff. He gets to hear about. He sees, he sees not only his mother,
he has a quick conversation with her. It's also quite sad and poignant because they're
unable to embrace. She's dead. We hear from lots of female heroes and the adventures
they've gone through. Then, at the end of this catalog of, of famous women also, we hear a
voice we haven't heard for a while, Alcinous. We might also be thinking to ourselves,
my goodness. Alcinous down there in the underworld. Well, this is Homer's way of breaking
the flow of the narrative interrupting things to give us a change of pace. Reminding us that
actually hey, guess what. Remember, you are on the island of Scaria and Odysseus is
telling Alcinous and his people the story. Odysseus seems to be quiet tired and
exhausted. Alcinous breaks in and says please Odysseus go on and tell us
more. Odysseus then jumps in carries back on with the narrative and starts to tell us stories
about the heroes of the ancient past. Here I've got a picture of the on the ore that we're
going to mistook for a widowing fan if we bring it far enough inland. Odysseus is going to
start to learn some of the adventures of the great. Male heroes, that he runs into in
the Underworld. He gets to see his dead compatriots. He sees, Agamemnon. And
remember the story of Agamemnon. We've already seen it repeated to us several times as
people are trying to educate Tiresias. They tell him listen, when Agamemnon was killed, his
son came in and righted things in his house. Here we get to meet the real Agamemnon.
Agamemnon has a, a further message for Odysseus, which is be careful when you go
home. You're not going to know what happened. You've been gone for a long time and
look at me. My wife killed me. She took up a relationship with someone else. So when you
go home, be cautious. Now this message is not going to be lost on Odysseus. He's a very
clever and cautious man. Of course, they have a back and forth and talk about well, you
know Penelope's a much better woman than Clytemnestra ever was, etcetera, etcetera,
etcetera. But still, as this message is going to get locked into Odysseus, and he is going
to be cautious when he gets home. Watch out when you get there. We're also going to
meet this wonderful Greek hero Achilles. You see him here lying down on the ground.
Awful scene. Achilles does indeed get killed. Does not happen in the Iliad. Homer, this is
the place where he talks about the killing of Achilles. It doesn't happen in the Iliad. And we
get to hear from Achilles this long poignant conversation with Odysseus, or somewhat long,
intense conversation with Odysseus. That says, you know what all that glory, I opted for a
short glorious life on the battlefield. Well, I would rather be a slave down here in the
Underworld, taking care of other people in the lowliest social position than try to, be sorry. I
would rather be a slave up there and, and, and still alive, taking care of other people's,
menial tasks, than be the grand person that I am, and be locked down here among the
dead. Kim comes out of Achilles mouth at an interesting point in the Illiad, just the opposite
kind of, kind of sentiment, saying no that he, he'd rather live a glorious short life, get killed
but still have a great, powerful social standing and become a hero, than to opt for a life
of leisure and being a, being a servant to other people and not having that grand
and glorious life. He seems to reverse himself, here in book eleven, again, underscoring
just how awful it is to be dead. Well, luckily for us, Odysseus and his men are not
dead. They get to the underworld and getaway. Unlike most of us getting to the Underworld
is something that is sadly easy for fragile organisms such as we are. Getting out is a trick.
Odysseus does indeed get away from this place and he gets out from here. They are going
to have to take care of some business with their friend Elpenor. Gets some clues for what
to do next from their new friend or their friend of just a year Circe and then from there its
going to be off to the land of the sirens.