Week 2 Group A Blog Post on The Odyssey

Discussions earlier in the week with my group pondered what Odysseus’ killing of each and every suitor living on his property says about his sophrosyne. Restraint is something I would categorize under being a part of one’s sophrosyne. From a modern perspective, the massacre of dozens of his people seems to show a lack of restraint on Odysseus’ part, and by consequence a bad sophrosyne. The suitors weren’t all identical in how offensive they were to the man; a lowly priest, pleading for his life finds “his praying head tumbling in the dust” (Book 22, Line 345), banished to the same gruesome fate of the others. However, in the context of the Odyssey, all of this killing is seen as righteous and completely natural. After killing all of the suitors, he is depicted as “some lion that’s devoured some ox of the field and lopes home, covered with blood, his chest streaked, both jaws glistening, dripping red” (Book 22, Lines 428-429). Likening Odysseus’ slaughtering to that of a majestic animal justifies the actions he took as being completely natural and, in a way, innocent. Predators spill the blood of their prey, this is a law of life. And just as predators spill the blood of their prey, Odysseus spills the blood of the suitors. The epic imagery of the blood on the lion further goes on to romanticize the actions Odysseus took against the suitors spills the blood of the suitors, all in a context where what he has done is not seen as wrong in any way. This tells us that this fight is not meant to be a strike against Odysseus’ character, but rather as some sort of positive advancement in how readers are to perceive him. While from a modern perspective I still struggle to see how this scenario feeds into his having a good sophrosyne, Odysseus’ slaughtering of the suitors is supposed to be viewed in as being at the very least respectable in the context of the Odyssey.

Comments

  1. UnknownSeptember 10, 2018 at 9:34 AM

    Agreed. It does seem like Homer thinks slaughtering the suitors is a sense of balance and justice. For us, it's about impossible to wrap our heads around this. I didn't notice the animal analogy before; it really does make it seem like Odysseus is doing what is natural according to the text

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  2. Jordan SilversmithSeptember 16, 2018 at 10:37 AM

    I agree with your point that while it seems odd to kill all of the suitors, Homer felt it was necessary. I feel that this point is further supported by Athena's pacification of the family members of the dead suitors. By metaphorically cleaning up Odysseus's mess, it appears that even the God's approve of Odysseus's actions.

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