Family Flashcards
Telemachus’ hopes his father will return and save him
1 - ‘imagining how his noble father might come back out of the blue, drive the suitors headlong from the house, and so regain his loyal honours’
Penelope has to listen to Telemachus’ orders in public
‘Go to your quarters now and tend to your own work… making decisions must be men’s concern’
Penelope fuels Odysseus longing for home & nostos
Calypso ‘you would stay here and share this home with me, and take on immortality’
Odysseus ‘I know too well enough that my wise Penelope’s looks and stature are insignificant compared to yours… nevertheless I long to reach my home’
Does family always drive nostos?
On Aeaea (with Circe) the crew say: ‘what possesses you to stay on here? It’s time you thought of Ithaca.’
When Alcinous and Arete question why Nausicaa didn’t personally bring Odysseus to the palace
Odysseus ‘do not rebuke your peerless daughter… she did tell me to follow along with the servants… but in my modesty I shrank from doing so…. fearing you might be indignant at the sight’
Weird family of Aeolus
‘Aeolus shares his house with his family of twelve, six daughters and six grown up sons; and he has given his daughters to his sons in marriage’
Telemachus questions if Odysseus is his father when he reveals himself in book 16 (proving similarities in terms of metis)
‘You are not my father, you are not Odysseus; some divine power is playing a trick’
Intense pathos of Odysseus seeing his mother (Anticleia) in the underworld
‘No, it was my heartache for you, my glorious Odysseus, and for your wise and gentle ways, that brought my life with all its sweetness to an end’
