“...[B]ecause mythology was historically the mother of the arts and yet, like so many mythological mothers, the daughter, equally of her own birth. Mythology is not invented rationally; mythology cannot be rationally understood. Theological interpreters render it ridiculous. Literary criticism reduces it to metaphor. A new and very promising approach is opened, however, when it is viewed in the light of biological psychology as a function of the human nervous system, precisely homologous tot he innate and learned sign stimuli that release and direct the energies of nature-of which our brain itself is but the amazing flower.” -Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God, Primitive Mythology

People say of the Iliad and the Odyssey that Homer was saying life is either a battle or a journey. If that is true Homer believed life was a battle. Only about a third of the Odyssey is Odysseus' journey, it is the most fascinating part. The rest is about Telemachus, Penelope, and at least a third is dealing with the suitors. All people in ancient Greece are subject tot he whims of the gods and the plans of destiny but none more than the women. Just as I never believed the war was about Helen I don't believe that the fault lied in the suitors. They complain many times that Penelope gave them all words and signs that their presence was wanted. Of course men can say that but it because they interpreted her words and movements to suit his own desires. Penelope though laments, when she learns that the suitors are plotting to kill her son, that she hadn't kicked them all out long ago, that tells me she had the choice to do so. Hospitality is very important to the Homeric people, that is the great moral lesson that seems to preoccupy the Odyssey the most, how to be a good host and a good guest. If you are not it can warrant death as the suitors learn. Just as many people read the meeting of Telemachus and Helen, where she says that just as Menelaus was sacking Troy she had had a change of heart and that the only reason she went with Paris in the first place was because she had been tricked by Aphrodite, and smile knowingly, that is how I read Penelope and the suitors. The Iliad and the Odyssey would be more interesting from the female perspective. Helen, Penelope, and Briseis are by far the more interesting characters.

The events that you would expect at the ending of the Iliad, the Trojan horse, the death of Paris and Achilles (remember his heel), and the sacking or Troy, are briefly mentioned in the Odyssey. I suppose that the stories were so well known to Homers audience he spent his time detailing other the other aspects but for me it was a shame. I would have preferred hearing about those things than many of the other scenes. A particularly fascinating scene of the Odyssey is when Odysseus goes to the gates of Hades. I read this part very closely because it is from Greece that we get our Western concepts of the soul and the after life, though it is till too soon for the happy side. The golden resurrection god, Dionysus, wouldn't be born into Greek mythology for some time.

To my mind the Odyssey is really the dreams of a child about his absent father. The ideal. When a child grows up missing a parent he concocts fairy tales about that parent, “He didn't abandon me, he's really an international spy, brave handsome and rich, and he left to protect me, but he'll come back and we'll have adventures together.” Perhaps this interpretation says more about me. Perhaps it says something about Homer.