The suitors, including Odysseus, swear, and Helen chooses Menelaus. Odysseus proposes that Tyndareus require all the suitors to swear an oath to defend whomever Helen chooses as husband from among the oath-takers. Odysseus promises to solve this dilemma in return for Tyndareus' support for Odysseus' suit for Penelope, daughter of Icarius, and second cousin to Helen. Tyndareus fears the wrath of whomever he does not choose as Helen's husband. Helen and Paris, by Jacques-Louis David, 1788Īccording to Homer, Odysseus is one of many powerful and influential suitors for Tyndareus' daughter Helen, considered the most beautiful woman in the world. In the Odyssey, Book XIX (405-411) we learn that Odysseus' name means "son of pain" (alternative interpretations/translations are "child of anger" or "man of suffering") and his father named him that because his grandfather Autolycus suggested it. Odysseus sometimes receives the epithet Laertiades ( Greek: Λαερτιάδης), son of Laërtes. One may also read the name as "pain," or "the one inflicting/suffering pain." The verb odussomai ( ὀδύσσομαι), meaning "Hate," suggests that the name could be rendered as "the one who is wrathful/hated." This interpretation is reinforced by Odysseus' and Poseidon's mutual wrath for one another. The name has several variants: Olysseus ( Ὀλυσσεύς), Oulixeus ( Οὐλιξεύς), Oulixes ( Οὐλίξης) and he was known as Ulysses in Latin or Ulixes in Roman mythology. They have been told and retold by the great Greek and Roman writers, Medieval and Renaissance poets of the caliber of Dante and Shakespeare, and modern writers such as James Joyce and Nikos Kazantzakis. Odysseus' legendary travels and adventures are among the best known in world literature. Ithaca, an island along the Ionian coastline of Greece, is one of several islands that would have comprised the realm of Odysseus' family, but the true extent of the Cephallenian realm and the actual identities of the islands named in Homer's works are unknown. Most such genealogies aim to link Odysseus with the foundation of many Italic cities of remote antiquity. With Calypso, there was Nausinous and with Callidice, came Polypoetes. With Circe, he fathered Telegonus, Ardeas, and Latinus. According to some late sources, most of them purely genealogical, Odysseus had many children, including, with Penelope, Telemachus and Poliporthes (born after Odysseus' return from Troy). Relatively little is known of Odysseus' background except that his paternal grandfather (or step-grandfather) is Arcesius, son of Cephalus and grandson of Aeolus, while his maternal grandfather is Autolycus, son of Hermes and Chione. King of Ithaca, husband of Penelope, father of Telemachus, and son of Laërtes and Anticlea, Odysseus is renowned for his guile and resourcefulness (known by the epithet Odysseus the Cunning, and said to be third to only Zeus and Athena in wisdom and is most famous for the ten eventful years it took him to return home after the Trojan War. Odysseus also plays a key role in Homer's Iliad. Odysseus or Ulysses ( Greek Ὀδυσσεύς Odysseus Latin: Ulixes), was the mythical Greek king of Ithaca and the main hero in Homer's epic poem, the Odyssey. marble group representing Odysseus blinding Polyphemus, found at the villa of Tiberius at Sperlonga Head of Odysseus from a Greek second century B.C.E.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |