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IV. Homer (1967) <<Previous | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 The first wave of the future goes over his head and he finds himself at the island of the Phacacians where he sits, having proved himself, and not giving out his name. In all of the sports (athletics) he excels (after having taken a defeat in dance, because the Phaeacians have such wonderful dancers), and they start to wonder who he is, so they prepare a big table and sit to dine at the table, and in comes a singer. The singer is described like Homer. It is almost (a modern man would say, one great masterpiece of truth). Namely, the author introduces himself into the picture, into the epic. And what does he do? He starts to sing to Odysseus. He is singing of him. He sings about his exploits before Troy, how he suffered, how he endured until Troy fell, and finally we see Odysseus sitting there listening to Homer, because he knows that this is Homer. He is exactly described that way. Homer becomes an actor in his own work of art. Such a sophisticated means that not even a modern artist would invent. And then, Odysseus starts to weep. This man, who has never shed a tear in all of his life, who has always said to himself "endure it my heart, we have endured worse things, endure it, endure it, endure it". A hard man, and Homer looks at him with 'horned rimmed eyes' and says "what is here"? "Why does he weep"? For at that (moment) he gives himself away to the Phaeacians, and he says "that is me". Homer has seduced him to weep, to give himself away, this singer who is Homer. Why? He has made him face himself. He has made him reflect, has shown him what he was, how he suffered in those times, and he cannot (bear) to hear it. As soon as he hears it he breaks into tears, and gives himself away. This is a masterpiece of self revelation; again, caused by art, by the song of this singer. The song weakens his heart and he starts to behave completely humanly. Being up to new tricks, he prepares to go home. The Phaeacians bring him home, but not before Naussica has fallen in love with him. Look at the two pieces. (In the Iliad) Homer describes Achilles mostly in a surrounding of men. It is very rare that a woman says anything about Achilles. His co-heroes speak about him, and the braver they grow, Achilles becomes still braver. He brings him out fully through the witness of heroes that are almost as great. In the Odyssey, there is a different trick. Odysseus is surrounded by women. There is not a single one that doesn't love him. It starts with Athena. Athena says that "I have to love you". "You are the cleverest guy on earth, I am clever on Olympus, I have to love you, I was always with you". His wife, Penelope, waiting for twenty years, and having him come home as a rather middle aged man. Keeping that faith, and living only for him, and her son. Another one who loves him is Calypso. She falls in love with him, and like everybody else, she wants to keep him, to make him immortal. The sorceress [Circe] also is beguiled by him. He had a root (something that evil) and now she loves him and wants him to stay. Finally, Naussica, that young girl, who is so much in love that she wants to marry him, and he is very polite to her. He tells her "I am an old man, and I wish you a good husband". He is surrounded by women and they all admire the guy. That is how Homer mirrors the figure of Odysseus. It comes out clearer and clearer and clearer. His own mother in Hades also describes how she loved him. He is loved by every body, so to speak. And when he finally comes home, even his old dog recognizes him, and then lays down and dies. Before he goes to kill his wife's suitors his old nurse recognizes him by a soar on his [blank in transcript]. How realistic all of that is. All of [the] women, the whole femininity that the Greeks were able to meet and to accept (in Helen, on Olympus) and on earth, surround Odysseus. All in order to bring out the complete portrait of a man, and nothing but common, because Homer has indeed taken somebody out of Greek myth. Achilles was still half the son of a God. That he had to handle. He handled it very subtly. But Odysseus is nothing but a man, a plain man, and he even defeats a God. He comes home in spite of Poseidon. When we first see him, he is sitting in the middle of his space which he has explored, and the space is fixed. Then it starts to run backwards. His time is measured as one lifetime and nothing else. He has no idea of time except the idea of the lifetime of a man that Homer wants to make as a model for all men. He is not only in the middle of his space. He is in the middle of his life. We can easily figure it out. He went away for ten years before Troy, and he spent ten more years coming back from Troy. That's twenty years. If he had been a youngster of eighteen or twenty when he started, then he would be forty now. That means he has become an old man, which was the original prophesy. He is sitting in the middle of his life-time too. That is how the poet renders it, and it is all so visible. Every scene is alive. We see here the foundation of the whole plastic (sculptural) art of the Greeks. The first discovery that a world can be composed (and Homer composes it) out of those few metaphysical assumptions that I have mentioned, and there we can sit and enjoy it. The Hellenes loved it. They accepted death, they accepted the fact of tragedy in human life, because only one meaning was given (to them), and that meaning was that a man can fulfill all his possibilities, and die happily, having fulfilled them. A fulfilled human life was of more importance to Homer and to all Hellenes than any premises of a hereafter, or anything like that. And they stuck, for at least four hundred years, to that world that Homer had created for them. There is again, a symbolic thing in it, and that is Homer, as (a kind of builder), is also the father of Greek architecture. (When the Greeks made their temples) they had to have the perfect equilibrium between the columns and the weight. The perfect equilibrium, it is not stiff, but something that shivers like a muscle a man holds up. This is done by extreme mathematical applications, and then deviating from them slightly. As soon as the thing was mathematically correct, they started to deviate from it. Until then it was not a work of art. Because they created for the eyes. Homer did the same thing. The light of Greece is an illuminating light. <<Previous | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
