10\u00a731. After his sojourn in H\u0101d\u0113s, which is narrated in Odyssey<\/em> xi, Odysseus finally emerges from this realm of darkness and death at the beginning of Odyssey<\/em> xii. But the island of Circe is no longer in the Far West. When Odysseus returns from H\u0101d\u0113s, crossing again the circular cosmic stream of Okeanos (xii 1\u20132) and coming back to his point of departure, that is, to the island of the goddess Circe (xii 3), we find that this island is no longer in the Far West: instead, it is now in the Far East, where H\u0113lios the god of the sun has his \u2018sunrises\u2019[…] Before the hero\u2019s descent into the realm of darkness and death, we saw the Okeanos as the absolute marker of the Far West; after his ascent into the realm of light and life, we see it as the absolute marker of the Far East.[29<\/a>] In returning to the island of Circe by crossing the circular cosmic river Okeanos for the second time, the hero has come full circle, experiencing sunrise after having experienced sunset<\/em>.[30<\/a>] Even the name of Circe may be relevant, since the form Kirk\u0113<\/em> may be cognate with the form kirkos<\/em>, a variant of the noun krikos<\/em>, meaning \u2018circle, ring\u2019.[31<\/a>] As we will now see, this experience of coming full circle is a mental experience – or, to put it another way, it is a psychic experience.<\/p>Hour 10. The mind of Odysseus in the Homeric Odyssey<\/em> – Nagy, Gregory. The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours<\/em>. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013.<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
BOOK 12: Difficult choices<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
pp. 301-315<\/em><\/h6>\n\n\n\n
Odysseus<\/a> and the Sirens<\/em>, an 1891 painting by John William Waterhouse<\/a>, Google Art Project<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n And so Odysseus’ tale continues: of the return to Circe’s island; of the funeral rites due, and promised, to the young Elpenor, and now fulfilled; of Circe’s precise instructions of “what to do next” in their homeward quest. The crew with ears deafened by wax and Odysseus tied firm to the mast, do not succumb to the tempting sounds of the Sirens. But, then, six men fall to Scylla; for Odysseus must choose the lesser of two evils, either confront that gruesome monster or face certain death in the whirlpool of Charybdis; and the lesser claims her tribute as Circe had prophesied and Odysseus reckoned with. Says Odysseus to his Phaecian audience: “That was the most heartrending sight I saw \/ in all the time I suffered on the sea.” [lines 258-259]<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Reaching the island of the Sun God, Helius, and mindful of the warnings of Tiresias and Circe, Odysseus had tried to convince his crew of the foolhardiness of landing on the island. Alas, in vain, for angry and tired and hungry they want only to rest upon this island – and Odysseus in the end cedes to their wishes, demanding only that they feed not from the grazing cattle so prized by Helius. Later Odysseus learns from Calypso, as told by Hermes, that whilst Odysseus slept, his men, persuaded by Eurylochus, slaughter and feast upon the meats, and that on hearing of this a furious Helius pleads with Zeus to redress the situation. And this he does, for once on open sea, Zeus retaliates with all his might and the remaining crew were swept away, depriving them of a homecoming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Alone now, Odysseus was swept back towards the dangerous waters of Charybdis and Scylla’s rocky home. Only by the will of Zeus did he survive this ordeal, and after ten days adrift reach Calypso’s island. So Odysseus tells it. And so his narration comes a full circle, and the Apologoi<\/em> that began in Book 9 concludes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Circle of Life The way to true light is not always clear, obscured as one may be by dark and murky waters and disoriented by an expectation of the lineal course of things, and getting something else instead. What goes around comes around. I take the opportunity here to refer to (and give a … Continue reading “The Odyssey (7): Book 12”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[13],"tags":[129],"class_list":["post-4165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-odyssey","tag-the-odyssey"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stolb01web.ddns.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stolb01web.ddns.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stolb01web.ddns.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stolb01web.ddns.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stolb01web.ddns.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4165"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/stolb01web.ddns.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6885,"href":"https:\/\/stolb01web.ddns.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4165\/revisions\/6885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stolb01web.ddns.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stolb01web.ddns.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stolb01web.ddns.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/stolb01web.ddns.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/1280px-WATERHOUSE_-_Ulises_y_las_Sirenas_National_Gallery_of_Victoria_Melbourne_1891._\u00d3leo_sobre_lienzo_100.6_x_202_cm-1024x502.jpg\")