The Odyssey

Literary Responses - Elpenor as topic

gathered by John McIlvain

Pre-Trojan War Odysseus Penelope Telemachus Other Women Elpenor Demodocus Argos Bibliography

Image source: http://www.beloit.edu/~classics/main/courses/classics100/museum2/art_museum2.html

From The Strayed Reveller

by Matthew Arnold (1822-1888)

This is taken from the title poem of Arnold's first book of poetry. Elpenor's sentiments seem the reverse of those of Ulysses in Ulysses and the Siren.

THE Gods are happy.
They turn on all sides
Their shining eyes:
And see, below them,
The Earth, and men.

They see Tiresias*
Sitting, staff in hand,
On the warm, grassy
Asopus' bank:
His robe drawn over
His old, sightless head:
Revolving inly
The doom of Thebes.

They see the Centaurs
In the upper glens
Of Pelion*, in the streams,
Where red-berried ashes fringe
The clear-brown shallow pools;
With streaming flanks, and heads
Rear'd proudly, snuffing
The mountain wind. . . .

They see the Heroes
Sitting in the dark ship
On the foamless, long-heaving,
Violet sea:
At sunset nearing
The Happy Islands.

These things, Ulysses,
The wise Bards* also
Behold and sing.
But oh, what labour!
O Prince, what pain!

They too can see
Tiresias:--but the Gods,
Who give them vision,
Added this law:
That they should bear too
His groping blindness,
His dark foreboding,
His scorn'd white hairs;
Bear Hera's anger*
Through a life lenthen'd
To seven ages.

They see the Centaurs
On Pelion:--then they feel,
They too, the maddening wine
Swell their large veins to bursting: in wild pain
They feel the biting spears
Of the grim Lapithae*, and Theseus, drive,
Drive crashing through their bones: they feel
High on a jutting rock in the red stream
Alcmena's dreadful son*
Ply his bow:--such a price
The Gods exact for song;
To become what we sing.

They see the Indian*
On his mountain lake:- but squalls
Make their skiff reel, and worms
In the unkind spring have gnaw'd
Their melon-harvest to the heart: They see
The Scythian:--but long frosts
Parch them in winter-time on the bare Stepp,
Till they too fade like grass: they crawl
Like shadows forth in spring.

They see the Merchants
On the Oxus' stream:--but care
Must visit first them too, and make them pale.
Whether, through whirling sand,
A cloud of desert robber-horse has burst
Upon their caravan: or greedy kings,
In the wall'd cities the way passes through,
Crush'd them with tolls: or fever-airs,
On some great river's marge,
Mown them down, far from home.

They see the Heroes
Near harbour: - but they share
Their lives, and former violent toil, in Thebes,
Seven-gated Thebes, or Troy;
Or where the echoing oars
Of Argo* first
Startled the unknown Sea.

The old Silenus*
Came, lolling in the sunshine,
From the dewy forest coverts,
This way, at noon.
Sitting by me, while his Fauns
Down at the water side
Sprinkled and smooth'd
His drooping garland,
He told me these things.

But I, Ulysses,
Sitting on the warm steps,
Looking over the valley,
All day long, have seen,
Without pain, without labour,
Sometimes a wild-hair'd Maenad*;
Sometimes a Faun with torches;
And sometimes, for a moment,
Passing through the dark stems
Flowing-rob'd--the belov'd,
The desir'd, the divine,
Belov'd Iacchus*.

Ah cool night-wind, tremulous stars!
Ah glimmering water--
Fitful earth-murmur--
Dreaming woods!
Ah golden-hair'd, strangely-smiling Goddess,*
And thou, prov'd, much enduring,
Wave-toss'd Wanderer!
Who can stand still?
Ye fade, ye swim, ye waver before me.
The cup again!

Faster, faster,
O Circe, Goddess,
Let the wild thronging train,
The bright procession
Of eddying forms,
Sweep through my soul!

Notes.

Tiresias - the blind seer of Thebes; in the Odyssey, Odysseus journeys to Hades to learn about his future from Tiresias. He is famous for his knowledge of Oedipus' identity and is a central character in Sophocles' tragedy Oedipus Rex.. His age and decrepitude is noted in Euripides' the Bacchae. The Asopus is the river near Thebes.
Pelion - Mt. Pelion in Thessaly, home of the Centaurs with bodies half-man, half-horse, was the sight of the wedding of the neirad Thetis (Achilles' mother) to Peleus (his father). It was here that Paris gave Aphrodite the golden apple for which his reward was Helen. The apple was an unanticipated treasure provided by Eris, goddess of discord, who had not been invited to the wedding
the Happy Islands -the same isles Tennyson imagines Ulysses finding - suggest an eternal reward for the heroes, who, like the gods, seem better of than Tiresias and the "bards".
The wise bards - presumably including the blind Homer.
Hera's anger - According to one story the blindness of Tiresias was caused by the anger of Hera (Juno).
The Lapithae - they defeated the Centaurs with the help of Theseus.
Alcmena's son - Hercules, one of whose labors was to conquer the Centaurs.
The Indian - The gaze seems to move from the east (India westward through Scythia and past the Oxus River which divides Asia and Europe).
Argo - The mythical ship which carried Jason in his quest of the Golden Fleece.
Iacchus - Bacchus, Roman name for Dionysius, God of wine and revelry
Silenus - A satyr, companion of Bacchus
Mænad - A frenzied follower of Bacchus.
Goddess - Circe

 

Responses to the Odyssey