Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T23:06:32.788Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Seafaring Practice and Narratives in Homer's Odyssey

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 December 2019

Rupert Mann
Rupert Mann*
Affiliation:
Independent Scholar [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

It is intrinsically plausible that the Odyssey, which freely uses realistic details of many aspects of life on and beside the sea, was informed by real seafaring experience. This paper corroborates that hypothesis. The first part catalogues parallels between details of Odyssean and real-world seafaring. Odyssean type-scenes in particular echo real practice. The second part argues that three larger episodes have real-world parallels—the visit to the Lotos Eaters anticipates incidents of sailors deserting in friendly ports; the escape from Skylla and Charybdis demonstrates a safe course through a turbulent strait, and the encounter with Ino / Leukothea foreshadows the contemporary phenomenon of a sensed presence during a crisis. The pattern of coincidence between the Odyssey and the real world of seafaring constitutes a cumulative argument that suggests that those episodes in particular, and the poem as a whole, was informed by that world—a conclusion with consequences both for our understanding of the poem, and for our knowledge of the early Mediterranean maritime.

Keywords

HomerOdysseyseafaringmaritimeLotos EatersSkyllaInoSensed PresenceType-scene
Type
Research Article
Information
Antichthon , Volume 53 , 2019 , pp. 1 - 13
Copyright
Copyright © The Australasian Society for Classical Studies 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Lesser voyages: Telemachos’ journeys from Ithaka to Pylos and back (2.413–3.11; 15.284–300, 495–500); other heroes’ returns from Troy (Nestor: 3.157–184; Menelaos: 3.276–312; 4.351–587: Aias: 4.499–511); the suitor's ambush (4.842–47); the various voyages described in the Cretan tales (13.272–86; 14.245–58, 295–315, 339–59), Eumaios’ arrival on Ithaka (15.474–82). Brief mentions of quotidian trading, travel, and transport, by boat: 1.182–86, 260, 292–93; 3.72; 4.634; 5.249–50; 8.161–64; 9.128–29; 13.272–74; 14.296, 334–35; 19.291–92; 21.18; 24.418–19.

2 On this world in general, see Casson, L., Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World (Princeton 1971)Google Scholar esp. chapters 4, 12, 16; Finkelberg, M. (ed.), The Homer Encyclopedia (Oxford 2011)Google Scholar s.vv. ‘sea’, ‘seafaring’, ‘ship’, and ‘economy’; Mark, S., Homeric Seafaring (College Station 2005)Google Scholar, with review by Casson, L., IJNA 36 (2007) 197–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Seafaring is at the heart of society—‘ein Leben ohne Schifffahrt is unzivilisiert und fast undenkbar’, according to D. Gray, Seewesen (Gottingen 1974) 136.

3 The sailing part of an uneventful journey is covered in a single verse: Arend, W., Die Typische Szenen bei Homer (Berlin 1933) 86Google Scholar.

4 Unpacked in Morrison, J. S. and Williams, R. T., Greek Oared Ships (Cambridge 1968) 47–57Google Scholar; Casson, Ships and Seamanship (n. 2) 43–48; Mark, Seafaring (n. 2) chapters 6, 8—for example (at 129–131) the various lines, sheets, and ropes: προτόνος and ἐπίτονος (forestay and backstay), σπάρτα (perhaps a kind of binding), ὑπέραι (perhaps a bracing line), πόδɛς (sheets, that is, ropes attached at the bottom of the sail), κάλοι (brails, for shortening sail), ὅπλον (a cable), and δɛσμός (mooring cable).

5 Casson, Ships and Seamanship (n. 2) 65.

6 Morton, J., The Role of the Physical Environment of Ancient Greek Seafaring (Leiden 2001) 38–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 48, 81–85, with Engels, D., Roman Corinth (Chicago 1991)Google Scholar 51 with table 6, p.159, and http://www.sailingissues.com/meltemi.html (accessed 30 December 2018). Strabo reports the proverb Μαλέας δὲ κάμψας ἐπιλάθου τῶν οἴκαδɛ (8.6.20).

7 Mark, Seafaring (n. 2) 141; Morton, Physical Environment (n. 6) 38 and fig. 21.

8 Carpenter, Rhys, Folk Tale, Fiction and Saga in the Homeric Epics (Los Angeles and London 1946) 99Google Scholar.

9 Morton, Physical Environment (n. 6) 106 n. 60.

10 For the importance of landfalls in Mediterranean navigation, Morton, Physical Environment (n. 6) 177–85, 188–89; McGrail, S., ‘Navigational Techniques in Homer's Odyssey’, Tropis 4 (1996) 311–20Google Scholar, 314. A neat example of the importance of landfall in later navigation is William Heather's 1804 New and Improved Chart of the Hebrides, which includes sea-level profiles of various islands, with compass bearings: Fleet, C., Wilkes, M., and Withers, C. W. J., Scotland: Mapping the Islands (Edinburgh 2016)Google Scholar figure 4.12.

11 McGrail, S., Boats of the World (Oxford 2001; 2004) 101–2Google Scholar. McGrail also points out that the recognition of differing qualities in winds from different quarters (12.289–90; 14.458, 475–76) suggests that they too were used as a compass.

12 Morton, Physical Environment (n. 6) 52–53.

13 Morton, Physical Environment (n. 6) 33–34.

14 Morton, Physical Environment (n. 6) 110, 114–16.

15 Fish: caught (12.251–55), speared (10.124), and landed (22.384–89), plus an octopus pulled from its lair (5.432–35); birds: a gull or tern (5.51–53); cormorants (12.418, 14.308); a diving bird (5.337, 352f); a tern (15.479); shipbuilding: drilling (9.384–88). See J. Ziolkowski, R. Faber, and D. Sullivan, Homeric Similes: A Searchable, Interactive Database (http://terpconnect.umd.edu/~sullivan/SimileSearchR3.html).

16 Mynott, J., Birds in the Ancient World (Oxford 2018)Google Scholar 340 n. 1.

17 Casson, Ships and Seamanship (n. 2) 47 n. 30; Mark, Seafaring (n. 2) 124–30.

18 Morton, Physical Environment (n. 6) 78.

19 A pattern of sailing by day and laying up by night is for many voyages a sensible strategy, and not a sign of incompetence: Mark, Seafaring (n. 2) 136–49; Morton, Physical Environment (n. 6) 143–62, 173–77, 234–35, 263–64, countering e.g. Maury, C. A., ‘Maritime Aspects of Homeric Greece’, CJ 14 (1918) 97–102Google Scholar, at 99–100; Seymour, T. D., Life in the Homeric Age (London 1907) 305–6Google Scholar.

20 Arend, Die Typische Szenen (n. 3): departure, 81–85; arrival, 79–81.

21 A method also used in fifth-century Athens: Landels, J. G., Engineering in the Ancient World, rev. ed. (Berkeley and Los Angeles 2000) 141Google Scholar.

22 Similarly, 12.306. All translations of the Odyssey are from Lattimore, R., The Odyssey of Homer (New York 1967; 2007)Google Scholar.

23 Arend, Die Typische Szenen (n. 3) 81; Nicolson, A., The Mighty Dead: Why Homer Matters (London 2014) 30Google Scholar.

24 Cook, J., The Journals, ed. Edwards, P. (London 2003) 261Google Scholar (27, 28 March 1773).

25 Norie, J. W., New Piloting Directions for the Mediterranean Sea … (London 1831)Google Scholar always mentions the local availability of ‘good water’, e.g. at 206, describing Kalamata.

26 Edwards, M. W., ‘Homer and Oral Tradition: The Type-Scene’, Oral Tradition 7/2 (1992) 284–330Google Scholar, at 303–8.

27 A beautiful example is the different treatments of the motif of the Dog at the Door: Reece, S., The Stranger's Welcome: Oral Theory and the Aesthetics of the Homeric Hospitality Scene (Ann Arbor 1992) 14–15Google Scholar.

28 Conveniently illustrated by a letter of Patrick Leigh Fermor in Sisman, A. (ed.), Dashing for the Post: The Letters of Patrick Leigh Fermor (London 2016) 21Google Scholar. He describes a voyage from Patmos to Samos by caïque in late summer 1946, during which the boat was forced by a storm to put in on Arki. He was immediately made welcome at the big house and stayed for four days with other naufragés; their host remarked, ‘one day last year … the sea brought us seventy-two guests’.

29 Ritual as action redirected as communication: Burkert, W., Structure and History in Greek Mythology and Ritual (Berkeley 1979) 35–39Google Scholar.

30 Reece, Stranger's Welcome (n. 27) 39: the Escort to the Visitor's Next Destination, in its weakest form at 10.508–40, 12.25–27; McGrail, ‘Navigational Techniques’ (n. 10) 315.

31 In the folktale that overarches the Odyssey, the tale of the returning husband, the husband's return is frequently swift and magical: see Hansen, W., Ariadne's Thread (New York 2002) 208, 201–11Google Scholar; West, M. L., The Making of the Odyssey (Oxford 2014) 15fCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32 Arend, Die Typische Szenen (n. 3) 80.

33 Hansen, W. F., ‘Odysseus and the Oar: A Folkloric Approach’, in Edmunds, L. (ed.), Approaches to Greek Myth (Johns Hopkins 1990) 241–72Google Scholar.

34 W. F. Hansen, ‘Homer and the Folktale’, in I. Morris and B. Powell (eds.), A New Companion to Homer (Mnemosyne Suppl. 163 1996) 454–55; Page, D., Folktales in Homer's Odyssey (Cambridge, Mass. 1973) 73–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Shaw, M. F., Folksongs and Folklore of South Uist, 2nd ed. (Edinburgh 1986) 7Google Scholar.

35 Hansen, ‘Homer and the Folktale’ (n. 34) 455f.

36 West, M. L., ‘Odyssey and Argonautica’, CQ 35 (2005) 39–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar = West, M. L., Hellenica vol. 1 (Oxford 2011) 277–312Google Scholar, 292–96.

37 West, ‘Odyssey and Argonautica’ (n. 36) 295.

38 Vansina, J., Oral Tradition as History (Wisconsin 1985), passim and 193–96Google Scholar.

39 Busch, B. C., Whaling Will Never Do for Me: The American Whaleman in the Nineteenth Century (Lexington 1994) 104Google Scholar. As many as two-thirds of a whaler's crew might go missing during a voyage (chapter 6; 92).

40 See Rodger, N. A. M., The Wooden World (London 1988) 188–204Google Scholar, on running and (at 190–91) rambling in the Georgian navy.

41 Frame, D., The Myth of Return in Early Greek Epic (Yale 1978) 35–36Google Scholar.

42 Crane, G., Calypso, Backgrounds and Conventions of the Odyssey (Frankfurt 1988) 44Google Scholar; also 32, 42–44.

43 Page, Folktales (n. 34) 13–14.

44 Hecataeus FGrH 1F 82; Thuc. 4.24; Str. 1.2.16, 6.2.3; Purdy, J., The New Sailing Directory for the Strait of Gibraltar and the Western Division of the Mediterranean Sea (London 1832) 155Google Scholar. The tides: Bignami, F. and Salusti, E., ‘Tidal Currents and Transient Phenomena in the Strait of Messina: A Review’, in Pratt, L. J. (ed.), The Physical Oceanography of Sea Straits (Dordrecht 1990) 95–124CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 97.

45 Cliffs of the ‘plunging’ type drop straight into deep water, with no shore platform, either above or below sea-level: Davidson-Arnott, R., Introduction to Coastal Processes and Geomorphology (Cambridge 2010) 398–400Google Scholar. They are common on the Greek coast (Morton, Physical Environment (n. 6) 21f); indeed, Odysseus encounters one at 5.413.

46 Currents through Mediterranean coastal straits: Morton, Physical Environment (n. 6) 42–45, 85–90. Corryvreckan's situation is conveniently shown in Fleet et al., Scotland (n. 10) 217, fig. 9.8.

47 Haswell-Smith, H., The Scottish Islands, rev. ed. (Edinburgh 2004) 51Google Scholar.

48 Morton suggests Skylla is a ‘generic term for the monsters that symbolised the dangers of rocky coasts, and the dread mariners felt when sailing in their vicinity’ (Physical Environment (n. 6) 70).

49 Mark, S., ‘Odyssey 5.234–53 and Homeric Ship Construction: A Reappraisal’, AJA 95 (1991) 441–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mark, Seafaring (n. 2) 70–96, with McGrail's review (n. 2) and McGrail, S., ‘Sea Transport, Part 1: Ships and Navigation’, in Oleson, J. P. (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Engineering and Technology in the Classical World (Oxford 2009) 608–37Google Scholar, at 617–21.

50 For her story, see Pache, C., Baby and Child Heroes in Ancient Greece (Illinois 2004) 135–68Google Scholar. Dead by drowning after leaping into the sea; she lives with the Nereids; see Pind. Pyth. 11.1.

51 Divine helper giving hero a talisman: Thompson, Stith, A Motif-Index of Folk Literature (Bloomington 1955–58)Google Scholar F340–8 (fairies); N810. Why a κρήδɛμνον? See Kardulias, D. R., ‘Odysseus in Ino's Veil: Feminine Headdress and the Heron in Odyssey 5’, TAPhA 131 (2001) 23–51Google Scholar.

52 Suedfeld, P. and Mocellin, J., ‘The “Sensed Presence” in Unusual Environments’, Environment and Behavior 19.1 (1967) 33–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Geiger, J., The Third Man Factor (Edinburgh 2009)Google Scholar, catalogues many examples from testimonies by sailors, mountaineers, polar explorers, and other adventurers.

53 Geiger, Third Man Factor (n. 52) 222; 223; 50–51.

54 Suedfeld and Mocellin, ‘Sensed Presence’ (n. 52) 38–39, 40–41; Geiger, Third Man Factor (n. 52) chapters 4, 5.

55 Geiger, Third Man Factor (n. 52) chapters 10, 11; 248.

56 The Apologue is of course a first-person narrative, the voice of experience. Beck, D., ‘Odysseus: Narrator, Storyteller, Poet?’ CPh 100 (2015) 213–227Google Scholar argues that Odysseus's narrative techniques are those of the storyteller, not the poet.

57 I would like to thank John Geiger, whose research on the sensed presence was the seed of this paper, and the anonymous readers for this journal; this is a better, shorter, and more readable paper as a result of their generous comments and suggestions.