The Odyssesy

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Do gods and goddesses need to intervene for Odysseus or anyone? The gods and goddesses in the Odyssesy intervene often like a human parent on a child's life. The immortals intervened when sending Odysseus home, quenching the wrath of Poseidon, and settling the suitors' xenia abuse on Odysseus' house. Maybe it is the hamartia of humanity to have the gods and goddesses to show our own hubris.

The gods and goddesses oftenly intervened in getting Odysseus home. Matthew Bolton points in a article to Great Neck Publishing that Athena petitions to Zeus in setting Odysseus free from the island nymph goddess Calypso. Calypso has been holding Odysseus captivated for marriage. She goes so far as to offer him immortality and ageless-ness. When Hermes is sent to deliver Zeus' order to Calypso over the release of Odysseus, Calypso retell the tragedic tales of the lovers: Dawn, Orion, Artemis, Demeter and Iasion. Dawn's lover, Orion, was attacked by Artemis in Ortygie with gentle arrows and left for dead. Demeter gave into her desire and made love to Iasion in the three ploughed fields, and Zeus struck him dead with a blinding thunderbolt. She supply the tools to Odyssesus such as a boring-tool, dowels, gunwales, and sheets for a mast. Odysseus design the retst of his raft through his own engineering. Calypso bathed and dressed him on the fifth day. She provided the following provisions in two skins: one bottle of wine, larger bottle of water, leather sack of grain and quantities of meats. She does call up a gentle breeze to push Odysseus on his raft away from the island. According to Bolton, Odysseus and his mean earlier encounter Aeolus, who given them a bagful of vexed winds to journey home. His men thought the bag contained treasures a...

... middle of paper ...

...the xenia of the suitors amongst the house of Odysseus, Telemachus would receive godly persuasion through the goddess Athena. Athena would later unveil Odysseus to help punish the ruiners of his house. The gods and goddesses do help in telling the downfall of a human against their own hamartia.

Works Cited
Homer. The Odyssey. Trans. D.C.H. Rieu. New York: Penguin Books, 1991.

Bolton, Matthew J. “Literary Contexts in Poetry: Homer’s Odyssey”. Literary Contexts in Poetry: Homer’s Odyssesy. Great Neck Publishing. 2007 Literary Reference Center. Ebscohost. Chipola Lib., Marianna, FL. 2 February, 2010. http://web.ebscohost.com/

Bowra, C.M. and Bloom, Harold. “C.M. Bowra on the Monsters in the Odyssey”. Bloom’s Notes: Homer’s Odyssesy. Infobase Publishing. 1988 Literary Reference Center. Ebscohost. Chipola Lib., Marianna, FL. 2 February, 2010. http://web.ebscohost.com/

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