TFBT: By the Way, She Didn’t Promise Eternal Youth

Passing Out Goblets of Nectar 

“Stay here and keep this house with me, and wouldest be immortal,” Calypso to Odysseus in book 5 of his epic 

We know that eternal youth and immortality can’t be generally given without the permission and consensus of the Olympians.[i]  So it is kind of weird that Calypso thinks she can give Odysseus immortality.  I was thinking that Circe, daughter of Aeetes offered him immortality, but that was wrong.  You know who could offer someone immortality?  Medea, Circe’s niece.  There is no indication that the “dice ‘em, throw ‘em in a pot and pluck them out whole and beautiful” stunt that she[ii] and the Fates[iii] pulled off, could not be done over and over again as necessary.   

Oloofrwn 

The thing that Medea, daughter of Aeetes and the goddess Calypso have in common is that Homer calls their immortal fathers Atlas and Aeetes oloofrwn. (Homer, Odyssey 1. 52 and 10.137, respectively.) No one seems to know what that word means; anything from denoting animal savagery, to “malignant” to sorcerer to crooked.  The only other time oloofrwn is used in the Odyssey referring to a being is when Homer sang of Minos, husband of the immortal witch Pasiphae. (Od. 11.322 )  Pasiphae is another daughter of  oloofrwn Aeetes.[iv] 

Updare

During recent discussions at the Kosmos Society 

https://kosmossociety.chs.harvard.edu/?p=39493). Greg Nagy observed that within certain places in a Homeric line of text that “every wizard who is described in the genitive case is always ‘baneful minded’”.  In the Greek “ὀλοόφρονος”.

William Ewart Gladstone (Studies on Homer and the HomericAge) says Homer confides the epithet to those beings that belong to the outer geography of the Odyssey.  

Aiaia

Okay, maybe Calypso has another thing in common with Circe they share epithet of “Aiaia: A surname of Calypso, who was believed to have inhabited a small island of the name of Aeaea” and   “Aiaia. A surname of Circe, the sister of Aeëtes.  Her son Telegonus is likewise mentioned with this surname.[v]  Presumably, Circe gets the title because she is Aeaian, her brother ruling the city of Colchis in the land of Aea at the far eastern end of the Black Sea. 

Guardians of the Galaxy

"Atlas the baleful (oloophron); he knows the depths of all the seas, and he, no other, guards the tall pillars that keep the sky and earth apart." Homer, Odyssey 1.52 (trans. Shewring)

 My friend Maya made the observation that some scholars think Atlas wasn’t condemned to hold up the heavens for all eternity, but rather assigned the honor of guarding the demarcation of the western end of the world or inherited the honor (time) from his father Iapetus.[vi]  This makes a little more sense when you compare Atlas to his brother Prometheus.  Prometheus, called The Titan, was bound to a snow topped crag in the middle of nowhere with an eagle gnawing on his liver daily.  Atlas was stationed in one of the most beautiful gardens in the world, tended by his daughters.   

Another little interesting thing; the line as translated by Shewring doesn’t say the pillars (or Atlas) held up the sky, but rather keep the earth and sky apart.  Presumably so Uranus could be up to his old tricks.    

Here’s the other thing, if we assume that Atlas was not being tormented with his job on the Western edge of the world, but assigned it by lot at Mecone,[vii]  likewise if we acknowledge the Hecatoncheires weren’t sent back by Zeus to Hades or the bottom of the Aegean as a punishment, but rather as guards.  Can’t we assume that Atlas and Aeetes were guarding the western and eastern boundaries of the world and Minos doing something similar in Hades?    

Crooked

Prior to the Hecatoncheires guarding the gates of Tartarus, the jailress was named Campe. [viii]  Robert Graves say the name means “crooked”.  If Minos was one of those who took over the dragoness’ duties it is interesting that Andrew Dalby refers to “fair Ariadne, child of crooked Minos.”[ix]    

Conclusion?

I don’t know what to think here.  “Magician” has never looked right to me when reading oloofrwn and the explanation for the other possible definitions of the word are just too complex and unconvincing to a feather-weight intellect like mine.  Here’s what I do all the daemons called oloofrwn are closely related to a powerful witches.  All three are assigned to extreme locations on the earth.  If we conclude that Atlas, Aeetes and Minos were “guards” this might lead to “crooked” being a better meaning of oloofron

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[i] .Apollod. iii. 6. 8, Pseudo-Hyginus, Fabulae 251, Homeric Hymn 5 to Aphrodite 218     

[ii] Pseudo-Hyginus, Fabulae 182 and  Ovid, Metamorphoses 7. 294

[iii] Pindar, Olympian Ode 1. 24  

[iv] I think  Matthews make a mistake in associating Ariadne and Minos In his argurement.  ( Atlas, Aietes, and Minos ΟΛΟΟΦΡΩΝ: An Epic Epithet in the Odyssey)

V. J. Matthews

[v] Both references come from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology.  

[vi] see theoi.com on the elder titans and the four corners of the world.

[vii] “In Homer, Atlas merely guards the pillars…”  History of Ancient Geography by J. Oliver Thomson  “According to some versions Atlas was released from his punishement by Zeus or by Heracles and was required to merely guard the two tall pillars” Enclyopedia of Greek and Roman Mythology by Luke and Monica Roman page 93

[viii] Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 1. 6

[ix] Bacchus: A Biography  By Andrew Dalby

TFBT: Random Notes from Hour Ten

Odyssey 8:1 "Now when the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared, Alkinoos, the hallowed prince, and Odysseus, ransacker of cities, both rose". Third of the way through the story and Odysseus is still a ransacker of cities rather than king of one.

In Chapter Five of the Odyssey, the gods decide to send Odysseus on his way home. They assign Hermes the task of informing the shining goddess Calypso that she must release her mortal lover Odysseus.  She doesn’t take the news well and curses the gods in general for their jealousy of goddesses who take mortal lovers.  Hermes terse response is located at Od 5:145,  “Then again the messenger Argeiphontes answered her: “Even so send him forth now, and beware of the wrath of Zeus, lest haply he wax wroth and visit his anger upon thee hereafter.” Nagy in the sourcebook for The Ancient Greek Hero says of Calypso’s argument,  " For example, the hero Orion is killed off by Artemis because he became the lover of Ēōs, the goddess of the dawn (v 121–124). And the narrative of the Odyssey actually foretells a similar death for Odysseus - if he had continued to be the lover of Calypso "  Silly me!  I assumed Hermes’ was warning Calypso about the wrath of Zeus descending on here.  Just another example of the gods nothing interfering in the business of other gods, but having no qualms about killing other gods’ mortal favorites.

Some pretty lines from the Odyssey;

Od 8:105 “the wood-nymphs, daughters of Aegis-bearing Zeus, take their sport along with her, then is Leto proud at seeing her daughter stand a full head taller than the others, and eclipse the loveliest amid a whole bevy of beauties. “   

Od 6: 41 “Olympus, where, they say, is the abode of the gods that stands fast forever. Neither is it shaken by winds nor ever wet with rain, nor does snow fall upon it, but the air is outspread clear and cloudless, and over it hovers a radiant whiteness. Therein the blessed gods are glad all their days,”  

Od 4:335 “(Ino) had been since raised to the rank of a marine goddess. Seeing in what great distress Odysseus now was, she had compassion upon him, and, rising like a sea-gull from the waves, took her seat upon the raft. “My poor good man,” said she, “why is Poseidon the shaker of the earth so furiously [340] angry with you? He is giving you a great deal of trouble, but for all his bluster he will not kill you. You seem to be a sensible person, do then as I bid you; strip, leave your raft to drive before the wind, and swim”  Admittedly the divine  realm of Ino is  rescuing drowning sailors, still she seem remarkable unworried about the wrath of Poseidon. 

Od 4:355  Odysseus says of  the goddess Ino “Alas,” he said to himself in his dismay, “this is only someone or other of the gods who is luring me to ruin by advising me to quit my raft.  What’s with Odysseus constant worry constantly about being lured to his watery death  by a goddess?  He flat out accuses Calypso of the same at 5:171and deals with the Sirens attempt to beguile him at 12:36 .    It might be this compulsive liar proving the proverb, that “People with trust issues can’t be trusted.  At 10:302 he make Circe swear a great oath not to render him “a weakling and unmanned” after she proposes a romp in the hay.  He even accuses Athena of trying to beguile him on the day of his homecoming at 22:311-329.  Admittedly Hector was “lured” to his death by the same goddess at Il 22:289-306 and Anchises famously worries about being unmanned after bedding Aphrodite, but Odysseus’s worry borders on obsession.