He is not ‘truly’ dead, since he has not received proper burial rites, and he is clearly suffering, because he makes Odysseus promise to bury him when Odysseus again passes Circe’s island. The first shade to approach Odysseus is one of his companions named Elpenor. In order to control this throng of ghosts, Odysseus must crouch beside the sacrificial pit, with his sword drawn, in order to prevent ghosts from drinking the sacrifice which allows them to speak with their human voice and to once again recognise the living. This is interesting in itself – since, for the Greeks of Homer’s time, there are critical features that distinguish the living from the dead – firstly, a corporeal form, secondly, living flowing blood, and thirdly, the ability to speak. Not just one, or ten or twenty but whole nations of the dead, brides, youths, old men, and wounded soldiers, flocking toward Odysseus, eager to drink the sacrificial blood so that they can converse with him. The land of the dead is a dark and gloomy place and there is no one and nothing there until Odysseus has made preparations, performed libations, sacrificed animals and promised to reward the dead for providing him with certain information. In Book 11 of the Odyssey, Odysseus journeys to the farthest Western edge of the earth, to the kingdom of the dead, in order to consult the blind prophet Tiresias about how he might return home. For those of us who take the Odyssey literally, as a story full of wondrous adventures and traveller’s tales, Odysseus’ visit to the kingdom of the dead is yet another example of Odysseus’ heroism, not in the face of mighty storms or seductresses with evil intent or a race of one-eyed giants but this time in the face of death itself.įor those of us who prefer to read the Odyssey as a psychological drama about the journey of life and learning and psychological development as a person, there is a great deal that is of interest and much that is applicable to our lives today.
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