What is It Worth?

If the Iliad is a story of the Polis and the Man, the Odyssey is a story of the Man and his Home.

Though this difference may seem negligible, it is actually substantial; one paints with broad strokes the inseparable give-and-take relationship that exists between a community and the individuals that make up that community, while the other offers an intimate look at a need within Man's soul: the need for Home.

The contrast is stark (so much so that some hardly believe the same poet is responsible for both stories), but the lessons from the stories are not necessarily at odds with one another. In many ways, the change is actually natural; only a hero who had endured the hardships of the Trojan battlefield could make the Odyssey Home. Having learned the difficult lessons of Ilium, Odysseus naturally turns to journey Home, and in the process begins the next lesson; not only are we intricately and irreversibly intertwined with our Polis, but our Home is the only thing that completes us, and without it, nothing that we have is worth anything. Odysseus will endure any trial, and literally cross every ocean to get back Home.

If this is the lesson of the Odyssey, why does Odysseus spend so much time along the way home in the (sometimes pleasant) company of various hosts? Whether he is being held against his will by Calypso, or is being hosted in the halls of the Alcinous & his Phaeacians, or if he is skirting death at the hands of the Cyclops, or journeying to Hades itself...sometimes Odysseus seems to take his precious time getting home. My 7th graders recently finished reading Books 5, 6, 7 and are even now working through Book 8. They suspect Homer was filling space, what with the seemingly disconnected account of the Halls of Alcinous; after all, what can be the point of recording all the niceties accorded to Odysseus? One can hardly fault them for this suggestion on their first reading of the text, and in fact their reflections propelled me in turn to reconsider the "why" myself.

Not only is it unwise to assume that Homer was writing to fill a 24 Book quota, but this assumption also robs us of the opportunity to learn from the suffering of the Man of many sorrows. We become so focused on the destination at the end of the road that we miss the necessary lessons of the journey. The story tells us of the journey Home; it is not a story about Home itself.

Yes, Odysseus faces horrors; yes, he endures hardships. On a few occasions, his men all perish, leaving him to journey on alone (which, as we know from the Iliad, is not a good thing...). This makes sense...a story of hardships and adventures makes for exciting reading. Still, Homer also tells us about Odysseus' journey's through pleasures and comfort; and this is because he is emphasizing the value of the prize at the end of the road.

If we brush over the details, and ignore the stops along the way, the end is hardly significant. Odysseus is under-going what amounts to a sanctification process; even as he endures trials, he also relinquishes any inordinate good thing which is not the highest good. As a result, the value of Home grows; not only is Home worth facing the Cyclops for, but Penelope is more worthy of his husbandly affection than the divinely alluring Calypso. Eternal youth on pleasure island cannot compare to the joy and satisfaction of old age with one's wife, the mother of Telemachus (another man searching for his proper place in this life...but that's for a different post). The halls of Alcinous, filled with wealth, mighty people and joy are nothing to the son of rocky Ithica.

All that matters is getting back Home. Home is the prize, higher than any ransom or substitute; and because we see what Odysseus allows to fall by the wayside in his quest to get back Home, we can believe that this is not merely an idolized fancy, or a cultural assertion with little weight to it in reality. By taking us on the journey with Odysseus, Homer is leading us towards a better home, even as his hero strives to return to the one that calls to him, wherever else he might be.