Tag Archives: Odysseus

The Odyssey

Ancient World Now: The Odyssey

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Click here for direct link to audio Episode #8.

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Narrowly averted a serious computer issue this morning. Fortunately, my amazing husband knows all the tricks and promptly set it right.

This episode is a wee-bit early, as I am off to the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators national convention. I am going with Peter Linenthal, who illustrated our storybook  The Golden Necklace: A Silk Road Tale. Check out his work by clicking on the “Ready-to-go-to-Press” tab at the top of this page. He does wonderful work and is one of the finest human beings I know. Fingers crossed that we locate a publisher this weekend for our beautiful book that needs a “home” (the topic of today’s podcast)!

So…last week we met up with some sirens. Just to give you some idea of how their kind have been interpreted throughout the ages, I’ve included several cool pics. Here you see an ancient vase with flying bird-like creatures holding musical instruments. Great design! See the way Odysseus is tacked up to the mast.

Now take a look at these 19th century visions of sirens. Of course, they are wind-blown and fish-tailed and seem a whole lot more interested in the guys on the boat! Those artsy British men-of-leisure had an awful lot of time on their hands….

Today is the Homecoming of Odysseus. Oh, did I ruin the story for you? He does make it home, incredible as it may

seem, and puts a serious damper on the efforts of the suitors! Check out N.C. Wyeth’s painting below for proof. Enjoy!

Next week: The Aeneid, the story of Prince Aeneas’s back-door escape from the burning flames of Troy! Virgil wrote the epic at the request of Augustus Caesar to link the history of the people of Italy with the legendary heroes of old! Talk about revisionist history!

The Odyssey

Ancient World Now: The Odyssey

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Circe the Sorceress….another painting by J.W.Waterhouse.

It turns out that Jason & Medea (another famous sorceress) visited Circe on their way back from the Black Sea where Jason was looking for that dazzling piece of finery we call The Golden Fleece. Medea worked all kinds of magic for the man she loved. She started killing people for his benefit quite early in their relationship. They stopped off to see Circe who purified them after they killed her brother. They washed up & got on their way. Later, Jason left Medea for a rich (and much younger) princess—so, Medea killed her in a very fiery, burning-flesh kind of way, and then hung up her little ones to dry, so to speak! She knew this would destroy Jason’s spirit! But that is a whole other story that I’d love to get into here, but hope that you will do a little research on your own and find out why Medea is not just famous, but infamous!

And, as usual, I get away from myself. So here is the powerful Circe, who actually does no harm whatsoever to our hero and his companions. And indeed, makes them all taller and more handsome than before. Oh yes, and younger.

Extra credit and a post here on the website to anyone who can paint, draw, or locate a fabulous image of Calypso. I have looked far & wide, but only found this one that just doesn’t do it for me. What fun you could have doing all the details of her magical garden. Or maybe someone could Photoshop this one & put some clothes on her!

Yikes!

Enjoy today’s installment of The Odyssey!

The Odyssey

Ancient World Now: The Odyssey

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Of course, the favorite scene of kids everywhere and throughout the ages, I am sure. Polyphemus the cyclops, one-eyed son of Poseidon, eater of random strays & those washed ashore. Sheep-herder, island-dweller, boulder-thrower, non-drinker but open to it—and lover of Galatea, who did not love him. : (

I have a fondness for this guy. He really was just minding his own business, taking care of his sheep, hanging out in his man-cave. I think it is his role as “shepherd” that always made me feel such affection.  After getting him juiced up, clever Odysseus literally sticks it to him.

What happens to his animals? I’ve always wondered and worried about them….

Find out how the poor monster responds to our hero in today’s podcast. Enjoy!

The Odyssey

Ancient World Now: The Odyssey

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Today you meet Nausicaa, “of the white-arms”. One of my favorites. Referred to as “discreet”, you can see why. This young princess is down by the seashore playing ball & washing clothes, when her handmaids find a naked man washed up on the shore! Yikes! Her ladies try to stop her from going down to see what all the ruckus was about, but she insists—because she is Nausicaa, who knows her own mind. She treats him like any other stranger they might meet along the road, is absolutely unruffled and unmoved, and gets him a tunic & some refreshments from their mule cart. What a queen she will be!

In fact, it is known that Sophocles wrote a play about her. But, alas, as so many things from the ancient world, it is lost…..

I love Homer’s passages about this girl. This one in particular, when Odysseus first sees her and cannot tell whether she is mortal or goddess: “I have never with these eyes seen anything like you, neither man nor woman. Wonder takes me as I look on you. Yet in Delos once I saw such a thing, by Apollo’s altar. I saw the stalk of a young palm shooting up…And as, when I looked upon that tree, my heart admired it long, since such a tree had never yet sprung from the earth, so now, lady, I admire you and wonder, and am terribly afraid to clasp you by the knees.”
From Richmond Lattimore’s translation.

Enjoy the second installment of The Odyssey!

The Odyssey

Ancient World Now: The Odyssey

Click here for direct link to audio Episode #4.

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Aaahhh, Penelope….. Waiting, waiting, waiting. Odysseus’s wife is one of the most memorable female characters in all of ancient story. This was one patient lass—she waited twenty years for her husband to return to her! Now that is faith. Penelope was hounded by suitors for years. Everyone was quite sure that Odysseus had been killed in the battle at Troy and that his lovely wife should take a new husband. Lone women surely can’t take care of themselves—and of course, she had all that property—a kingdom! Let’s get her married off to someone new. To keep these rascals at bay, she said she’d take a new husband when she finished weaving this burial shroud for her father-in-law, Laertes (no relation to Ophelia’s bro). Clever lass that she was, she’d weave by day and when the drunken suitors would nod off, she’d unravel at night. Dumb guys! You can see why Odysseus would choose her for a mate.

Here is John William Waterhouse’s painting of Penelope.  Waterhouse was at the tail-end of the Pre-Raphaelite school of painting, which focused on themes from the classical and Arthurian world….and some Shakespeare stuff, too. Edwardian. Victorian. You may know his painting of Proserpina (Persephone to the Greeks) with the pomegranate. Lots of rich details, deep colors, and dolorous looks! Fabulous!

Enjoy our first installment of The Odyssey!