TFBT: Random Notes on Hour 9

More random notes this time from Hour 9 of The Ancient Greek Hero course I'm taking at Harvard via edX

“honor to the Achaean name, the Achaeans will bear the glory of Orestes in song even to future generations” Odyssey 3:204  At Iliad 20:308 Posedion says, “ and now verily shall the mighty Aeneas be king among the Trojans, and his sons' sons that shall be born in days to come."  Many scholars and the Latin poet Virgil, picked up on this promise of glory (and an epic) for Aeneas in the days to come; hence “The Aeneid”. So, does the line quoted at the start of this paragraph promised a similar epic for Orestes?  Sure he got many tradegies, but a “song”?  It almost seems like self-promotion on Homer’s part as though he had another epic in him to tell.    

“who would go to bed with a sea monster if he could help it?” (Od 4:443)  I know Menelaus speak rhetorically, but the answer to his question is;

·        Phorkys the sea-god who wed and bed Ceto, the literal mother of all sea-monsters (Hesiod 270&332)

·        Typhon who bedded their daughter Echidna, the mother of all monsters (Hesiod 306) and, of course,

·        Heracles who bedded Echidna and produced three sons (Herodotus 4:8-10)

“I should not care how much I suffered before getting home, provided I could be safe when I was once there. I would rather this, than get home quickly, and then be killed in my own house as Agamemnon” Odyssey 3:233 

“Athena thought that he was just and right to have given it to herself first; she accordingly began praying heartily to Poseidon.  “O god,” she cried, “you who encircle the earth, grant the prayers of your servants that call upon you. More especially we pray you send down your grace on Nestor and on his sons; thereafter also make the rest of the Pylian people some handsome return for the goodly hecatomb they are offering you.[60] Lastly, grant Telemakhos and myself a happy issue, in respect of the matter that has brought us in our swift black ship to Pylos.” When she had thus made an end of praying, she handed the cup to dear Telemakhos” Od 3:54 Amazing Athena praying to Poseidon; oh and not using the proper format.

I am no prophet, and know very little about omens, but I speak as it is borne in upon me from the sky and assure you that he will not be away much longer; for he is a man of such resource that even though he were in chains of iron he would find some means of getting home again.“ Od 1:200-205

“Visualizing the right thing, that’s how your “noos” (thoughts) stay in the right place.” Claudia Filos

At Odyssey 8:521, just as the blind poet Demodocus is about to reveal the dastardly deeds Odysseus committed the night that Troy fell, Homer swings the story elsewhere.