Chapter 5. Minos Another significant detail of the Third Cretan Lie is the famous and remarkably obscure description of Aithon’s supposed ancestor, Minos, the king at Knossos: τῇσι δ’ ἐνὶ Κνωσός, μεγάλη πόλις, ἔνθα τε Μίνωςἐννέωρος βασίλευε Διὸς μεγάλου ὀαριστής. (Odyssey 19.178–179) And among them there is Knossos, a great […]
Chapter 4. Younger Brother One of the unexplained features of the Third Cretan Lie is Odysseus’ self-characterization as Idomeneus’ younger brother. By claiming to be a brother of Idomeneus he inserts himself into the Cretan royal family, but what is achieved by specifying that he is the younger one? Further, Odysseus adds that Idomeneus is not only […]
Chapter 3. Zeus and the King Odysseus appears before Penelope as a long-suffering wanderer, and his rhetoric, including his assumed name, underscores his displacement from the aristocratic position in life that he once occupied. And yet Aithon’s biography also serves to emphasize just how aristocratic, or, more precisely, how king-like that position actually was. The […]
Chapter 2. The Name The name Aithon by which Odysseus introduces himself to Penelope is significant, just as his other assumed names in the Odyssey are. The word itself, αἴθων, is a nasal derivative from the root of αἴθομαι/αἴθω, ‘to burn’, and its essential meaning is ‘burning’ or ‘fiery’. Although it is often […]
Part 1. Odysseus Chapter 1. Beginning of the Dialogue: Setting up the Third Cretan Lie The dialogue in Book 19 stands out among the conversations in the Odyssey not only because of its length, but also because it is attempted, announced, and prepared so far in advance of the event. Not even the preliminaries of Odysseus’ supplication of Arete, […]
Introduction [In this on-line version, the page-numbers of the printed version are indicated within braces (“{” and “}”). For example, “{69|70}” indicates where p. 69 of the printed version ends and p. 70 begins. These indications will be useful to readers who need to look up references made elsewhere to the printed […]
Dedication To the memory of my grandparents, Maria and Mendel. Acknowledgments A fellowship from the Loeb Library Foundation in 2005 gave me time to imagine the overall shape of the book so that writing could begin in earnest. The Department of Classics at the University of Washington has been a […]
Bibliography Alden, M. J. 2000. Homer beside Himself: Para-Narratives in the Iliad. Oxford. Allione, L. 1963. Telemaco e Penelope nell’ ‘Odissea’. Turin. Antonaccio, C. 1993. “The Archaeology of Ancestors.” Cultural Poetics in Archaic Greece: Cult, Performance, Politics (eds. C. Dougherty and L. Kurke) 46–70. Cambridge. […]
Appendices Appendix I Ethnographically speaking, the relation of a rumor to an eyewitness account is not generally straightforward, as J. Vansina observes: “Very often, one can no longer ascertain whether the rumor derives from an eyewitness account or not. In most cases internal evidence itself will have to guide us . […]
6. The End of the Telemachy The Culmination of Extinction? “ . . . Time past and time futureWhat might have been and what has beenPoint to one end, which is always present.” T. S. Eliot “Burnt Norton” (No. 1 of Four Quartets) If much of the […]