A Long and Difficult Journey, or The Odyssey: Crash Course Literature 201

Magical Women He almost marries an island princess, but claims that he has always been loyal to his wife in his heart. This is cute, but it would have been better if he had been faithful to his wife with his pants down. Stan, who has always been a stickler for historical accuracy, wants you to recognize that Odysseus did not wear pants, because they were not common in Greece at the time, so he was not being faithful to his wife with his tunic, apron, or anything else. stuff. how that. Even when Odysseus was cheating on her wife, he was very concerned about whether Penelope was chaste or not, and if he wasn't, he would most likely kill her.

In the end he executed all the maids because they had sexual relations with his suitors and they were not even his wives. The epic seems to be setting the stage for a scene in which Odysseus will test Penelope's devotion, but it is Penelope who tests Odysseus. When he reveals himself to her, she does not recognize him and forces him to prove his identity by revealing to her the secret of their marital bed, and only then does she embrace him in one of the most beautiful verses in all of Homer's works: “And then she too she was glad, and her husband fixed his gaze,” and her white arms surrounded him tightly as if they were not arms.

They will be dissolved forever.” Some ancient commentators believe that the poem should end there, like any beautiful romance, with Odysseus. and Penelope are happily reunited, but it doesn't end there. Odysseus and some of his friends, with great help from Athena, massacre all the suitors and maidens, and this is a problem because this is not the Iliad, it is not about war. The Iliad is a war poem, and its main concern is kleos, which is an ancient Greek word meaning glory or fame achieved on the battlefield that guarantees immortality in some way because the deeds are so great that everyone will sing about them forever.

Achilles could not return home. He had two options: he could stay and fight and win glory, or he could return home and live a

long

and peaceful life. In the Iliad, Achilles chose glory, but the Odyssey is about the alternative. It's about what we will do in the next war and how to get out of the war. Odysseus is not good at this, he is an ancient example of PTSD. He has been through so much that he doesn't know how to adapt to a period of peace. His response to the young men taking over his dining room and roasting all his pigs is a mass slaughter.

The slaughter of the suitors leads to their relatives coming to try to massacre Odysseus, and if Athena had not properly descended from Mount Olympus and put an end to it, no one in Ithaca would have been left alive. Here's one last wise thought; Without divine intervention, the humans in this story could have continued this cycle of violence forever. The Odyssey is a poem set in a time of peace, but it reminds us that humans have never been good at leaving war behind. Next week we will talk about another story that contains a lot of sex, violence and the Greeks: Oedipus.

Thanks for watching, see you then. Crash Course is being created with the help of all these lovely people, and today's episode is brought to you by Crash Course viewer and Subbable subscriber Damian Shaw. Damian would like to thank Briony, Stu, Peter, Morgan and Maureen for all their support. Today's video was co-sponsored by Max Lautzenheiser and Kathy Cuoco. Thank you so much for subscribing to Subbable and supporting Crash Course so we can continue to keep it available for free to everyone forever. You can help the program continue and grow at Subbable.com. Thanks for watching, and as we say in my hometown: don't forget to be awesome.