Godlike Odysseus
Odysseus, son of Laertes, was godlike in many ways, but he also showed some human or mortal characteristics. In The Odyssey by Homer, he shows this in a few ways while on his way home to Ithica from the land of the Lotus-eaters, and also when he is home. Either something upsets him like a human would get upset, or he does something a human would do and normally wouldn't see from a god.
First, I noticed when he was escaping for the Cyclops' cave, he had to get the last word in: " 'If, O Cyclops,/A mortal man shall ever ask you/ How it befell your eye was blinded/ So hideously, then answer thus:/ It was Odysseus blinded you,/ Taker of Troy, Laertes' son, Who dwells in Ithica.' " In ...
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All quivering up to her high crag./ There she devoured them, one and all,/ Before her doorway, while they shrieked/ And still stretched out their hands to me/ In dying agony. that sight/ Was the saddest sight my eyes/ have ever seen, while through sore trials/ I wandered the sea's ways." I interpreted this like it was one of those things a person would tell and cry about, and yet another characteristic of a human.
The last of the few examples I saw Odysseus give in the Odyssey, showing characteristics of a human, was in "Penelope Tests Odysseus." It came about when she tests him to see if the man there really is her husband (Odysseus), by ordering Eurycleia to move his bed outside his room: " 'Now, Eurycleia, and make ready/ His firm-built bed. Make it outside/ The room he built himself. Aye, move/ His firm-built bedstead forth and strew/ Upon it bedding-fleeces, covers,/ And bright-hued rugs.' " Then, Odysseus shows more mortal characteristics: "All this she said/ To try ...
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"Godlike Odysseus." Essayworld.com. October 8, 2006. Accessed April 20, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Godlike-Odysseus/53598.
"Godlike Odysseus." Essayworld.com. October 8, 2006. Accessed April 20, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Godlike-Odysseus/53598.
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