Singing Homer Podcast A P David

Since I started again after my illness, I’ve now spent two years without performing past Book 4 of the Odyssey. Now, I have translated the whole thing in that time, to be fair; and I am a self-confessed Homerist, so there is endless fascination for me in every part of every line. But this does mean that I have not yet encountered Odysseus himself. Homer does not make you wait two years, but he does make you wait four books, a pretty long time. An ongoing question, raised by modern critics—the ancients seem not to have complained—is does the Telemachy (Books 1-4) cut it? Does Telemachus sustain our interest? Why does Homer delay the introduction of his hero? Or does he in fact? Subscribers, do please respond in comments or over in Chat.
I shall admit it is hard to square the master fabulist of Books 5-12, and the Hollywood storyteller of 16-24—meant in a good way—a novelist who writes a real page-turner—with the relaxed buildup of Telemachus’ situation in Ithaca at the beginning of the Odyssey. There is also an apparent lull when Odysseus first arrives in Ithaca—Books 13-15—filled with conversations, and many lies, in the lowly dwelling of Eumaeus the swineherd. Coming up in Book 3, Nestor will literally talk until the sun goes down. How does one understand these two apparent lulls, one which sets in right at the beginning, and the other which interrupts sequences of (to us) intense mythic and dramatic interest? The Tale of Odysseus’ Wanderings and the Plot Against the Suitors and the Reunion with Penelope?
The oral theory of Homeric composition allows us to shunt all aesthetic questions to a mysterious primitive realm beyond our ken or ability to participate. Let us avoid this ungrounded laziness. Plato’s world was not infected with the fascination for orality. It was, however, keenly insightful into the qualities of poetry and aesthetic craft, and it does not seem to register a problem with any parts of the Odyssey on these grounds. Perhaps occasional doldrums are a part of the rhythm of sea journeys and traveller’s tales? But it may be our own predilections for mythic tales of (super)heroes, or for the dramatic dovetailing of storylines to a climax, which are distorting our sense for those parts of Homer’s art which do not aim to satisfy those kinds of arousal.
I do love the ship cleaving through the water. It is such a release, felt in the rhythms, when the journey finally gets underway. By itself that is a clue to how effectively Homer has conjured the feeling of adolescent inertia and its privileged frustrations, the invisible bonds that tie young men to their dice and tables, and leave the loyal, experienced men, and all the women, with a choice of service also to their appetites, or to a now distant memory of an ideal from their youth which may or may not be dead forever. Bring me a traveller’s wind!
In Greek:



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This episode marks the first—and I believe, only—in-person appearance of Mentor, Odysseus’ appointed estate manager, in the whole Odyssey. But he appears twice in this passage, the second time as Athena’s disguise. She then appears as Mentor on multiple occasions in the course of the telling. Indeed, the line,
Μέντορι ϝεἰδομένη ἠμὲν δέμας ἠδὲ καὶ αὐδήν
Seeming to be Mentor, not just in build but in her voice as well
which appears in this passage before Athena’s speech to Telemachus, is also the last line of the whole poem. Of course in this guise Athena is to be a ‘mentor’ to Telemachus in the first part of the Odyssey. But it almost seems as if the performer hits on an idea here that gives him some flexibility and comic potential. For one thing, the announcement about the voice means he doesn’t have to keep doing Athena’s voice, however that was handled, but the voice of a regular sort of male. And as we shall see, this figure of Mentor allows the performer to engage in some ‘fourth-wall’ comedy. Mentor in this way becomes a very thin mask for the performer himself, who, as a matter of course, has to imitate a variety of people ‘not just in build, but in their voice as well.’
It seems to me to be pointed that the Odyssey ends by pointing to this fourth wall, or rather to the performer himself. The Iliad performer seems rather to aim for transparency, to get out of the way of the simile or the scene. That poem’s last line is an evocation of Hector Horse-Tamer at his funeral, to which we are made witnesses or auditors. Such a name-and-epithet evocation raises the question what Hector has become, now that he has been burnt to ashes and bones. The scene is the thing, not the artist. But throughout the Odyssey, the teller seems to get involved in the telling, trying on his guises with a sense of fun, and participatory fun at that. Let me suggest this as an hypothesis, at any rate, which you are invited to test or try on as we proceed.
Also in Greek:



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Spread the word! We’re editing, translating, and performing Homer’s Odyssey, in English (on the podcast) and Greek (in Substack), all for free! Subscribers and sponsors welcome! We’re now on Book 2, catch up on previous episodes of the Odyssey on Singing Homer with ‘Homer in English’ in the title.
Antinous, the most villainous suitor, openly complains about Penelope’s wiles and duplicity, but wow! What a woman. Neither he nor his fellows had ever seen or heard of her equal:
ἔργα τ’ ἐπίστασθαι περικαλλέα καὶ φρένας ἐσθλάς
κέρδεά θ’, οἷ’ οὔ πώ τιν’ ἀκούομεν οὐδε παλαιῶν,
τάων αἳ πάρος ἦσαν ἐϋπλοκαμῖδες ’Αχαιαί,
Τυρώ τ’ Ἀλκμήνη τε ἐϋστέφανός τε Μυκήνη·.
τάων οὔ τις ὁμοῖα νοϝήματα Πηνελοπείηι
ϝἤιδη ·     2.117-22

To know how to make gorgeous works, and excellent brains
To profit by them, the like of no other woman we hear about—
not even among the ancients,
Those women who once upon a time were the Fair-Tresses,
Achaean alumnae,
Tyro and Alcmene, and Mycene of the beautiful coronal:
None of these knew thoughts like those Penelope
Knows.
The accentuation of the sequence κέρδεά θ’, οἷ’ οὔ πώ τιν’, in the new technical parlance, follows a short oxytone released by an elided enclitic with a circumflex and two long oxytones. Never mind the jargon; if you inspect the Greek text, you will notice the phrase with bolded syllables contains consecutive pitch accent marks, unlike most of the rest of Homer’s phrases (or the stress patterns in English poetry). Most likely this sequence climaxed at a peak of pitch. As genuinely bitter as Antinous seems to be about Penelope’s behaviour, the thought of her bursts in on him and sends him into a reverie about the skilful intelligences of the past, to whom she seems, to him, superior—the women Antinous had heard about from story and song. That there is such evident transport in the feeling of Antinous, conveyed by the harmony and rhythm of his poetry, seems to me to do essential work for Homer, who by the mere letter of his poem could be thought to present a barely two-dimensional character in Antinous, and almost comic villains in the suitors generally. The musical breakout transforms a moment with a lasting effect outside the work done by words and dramatic premises: there is, it seems, a real longing in these villains, and with this apparent outburst of harmonic energy, which seemingly escapes the speaker’s mouth, through Antinous’ eyes Penelope is shown to be a real and worthy object for such longing. This is an instance where the prosodic transport cuts through any poses or rhetorical hypocrisy on the part of the speaker, to project an immediacy of awareness and feeling. Penelope is evidently far more a causal agent, an αἴτιον, in the speaker’s consciousness, than the object of blame Antinous is attempting to make of her.
In Greek (only on Substack):



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What are Telemachus’ redeeming qualities? Let me know in chat about the way he treats his mother.
We have already seen Telemachus daydreaming when he first appears in the Odyssey. He is seeing his absent father in his ‘mind’s eye’, as Shakespeare famously put it. Homer seems interested in what we think of as a psychological space, and one part of his depiction of the gods seems to be as an internal, psychological phenomenon. Telemachus’ experience in the aftermath of his encounter with Athena, in disguise as a mentor named Mentes, seems to speak to a kind of encounter that seems familiar in life, the way one remembers a conversation that somehow changed everything. Only in retrospect do we realise that something inexplicable has happened; the world doesn’t look the same any more, that particular conversation brought something home that forever changed us. That couldn’t have just been who it seemed to be, talking to us or playing that song: that was a god!
In Greek:



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One of the reasons I included Samuel Butler’s translation in earlier posts, is that he alone, I feel, has captured the comic tone of the Odyssey. There is something deadpan about his Victorian prose and sensibility that reveals something real about the Odyssey, cutting through all the trappings of the hexameter rhythm and epic expectations. I also have translated into prose but I’ve done it line for line, to be a helpful prompt to students of the Greek. I am painfully conscious that there is something about what Butler renders that is beyond the scope of my attempt. Sometimes translators can be revelatory; there is more to the business than decoding. Once in a while there is a translation of souls, so that you feel the Greek author is behind the English author’s eyes, anticipating his phrases. I could never manage the denser parts of Thucydides without the help of Thomas Hobbes’ English. There was a real meeting of souls. I feel something only slightly less extraordinary in the meeting of Samuel Butler with the composer of the Odyssey.
Try listening to the Odyssey as if it were playing as a comedy. I think you will find the experience transformative. Think of the performer, having to pretend to be Athena, having to pretend be some Mentes or other, a ‘king’ among Taphian pirates. It’s almost as if she’s making it up as she goes along. Wait a minute, what about my ship … oh let’s just say we parked it so far away that you can’t see it, off in the country. I’m a Lord!
In Greek:



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We begin the great tale of the Odyssey again, with articulated breath. All recordings will be free, but let me encourage subscribers to become paid members to support my work. I would like to offer paid subscribers the opportunity to participate in a chat about the passages I cover in each instalment. I shall begin the chat with a question, which will always be a question which is alive to me. I like leading seminars, and prefer that my own plentiful opinions earn their way into a conversation, rather than I privilege them by delivering them from a lecturer’s podium. I also only like real questions, not leading ones, so don’t expect in me a ready-made answer man for my own questions; I hope that subscribers will react and interact, and that I shall learn something on the way. Look for a chat notification at some point after each post. I also hope that participants will have helpful and critical things to say about the translation, my English impression in linear prose. I do hope to improve it as a result, and perhaps see if someone would like to publish it. The Greek text is my own, based on the edition by M. L. West. It has been published in six volumes on Amazon, complete with my translation on the facing page. They are available at these links, for $9.99 each:
https://a.co/d/gdd3Hm2
https://a.co/d/b1HL789
https://a.co/d/0cqP26l
https://a.co/d/dtveMin
https://a.co/d/j7cb0uf
https://a.co/d/j61s9Ug
Needless to say, purchasing any of these volumes would also be an excellent way to support my work. If you are interested in the Greek performance, they will give you a complete text to follow along. I shall send along the whole set by mail to founding members. If you are a student, e-mail me and I can arrange to ship them to you at cost.
I am disabled but recovering from a transplant, and am grateful that there’s still air enough in my lungs to sing Homer. Aside from my disability, my findings have proved too controversial for me to be licensed to teach in professional Classics. Hence any financial support for my efforts is deeply appreciated.
Below is my recording of the Greek for Homer’s Odyssey, 1.1-135:




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