Today in class, referencing the Phaeacians, we raised
the question of the morality of the gods which I’ve been thinking about since.
Since we started discussing the Odyssey, we have been observing how the gods interact with mortals, such as Odysseus and Telemachus, and whether their role is closer to audience member, author, or ally. Throughout the wanderings chapters there was also a lot of discussion of godly intervention and how it could be used for good or bad.
In chapter 13, after Odysseus tells his story to the Phaeacians, they help his reach his home land of Ithaca, giving him treasure and facilitating his journey back. Odysseus reaches home successfully, but this angers Poseidon who holds a grudge against Odysseus. He ends up cursing the Phaeacians as retaliation. Although the initial urge to punish the Phaeacians was Poseidon’s, he was encouraged by Zeus who said “I suggest that while the people in the city watch, you turn the ship arriving to stone (…) then you can surround their town with a huge mountain” (13, 155-59). As we talked about in class, it was a little shocking that Zeus would suggest such harsh punishment towards a kingdom who exemplified Xenia towards Odysseus. It suggested that Zeus didn’t really care about mortals, or being morally just to them, as long as the other gods were happy.
With this in mind, I reconsidered other events in the book where the gods intervened. From the very beginning of the book, we learn that “Lord Poseidon rages, unrelenting, because Odysseus destroyed the eye of godlike Polyphemus, his own son” (1. 68-70). Poseidon thus has cast suffering upon Odysseus by greatly prolonging his journey home from Troy. This also raises the question of Odysseus’s morality, because as we learn later the way in which he engaged with Polyphemus was unnecessarily reckless.
However, on the long journey home the people around Odysseus are often punished much more greatly than he is. We see that Odysseus is suffering, because he is described as “His eyes were always tearful; he wept sweet life away, in longing to go back home” (5. 151-53). While Odysseus suffers, the people around him often suffer more, with all of his crew dying from Zeus’s storm and the Phaeacians being punished as described above. Arguably, all of those godly interventions were a direct result of decisions made by those who were punished, but they wouldn’t have been in that situation of not for Poseidon’s grudge against Odysseus. This makes me feel like, especially in the case of the Phaeacians, their curse was unfairly implemented; Odysseus just happened to end up in their kingdom and they were just trying to treat him properly.
Do you think that it’s fair that the gods punish those that try to aid Odysseus on his cursed journey home? Or that Odysseus gets to finally return home while most of those he interacts with don’t?
Zeus, in the scene with the Phaeacians, doesn't seem particularly concerned with whether the punishment is fair or just--it's what Poseidon wants, and he's basically like, "Do whatever" (in the Fagles translation it's even more extreme: "whatever warms your heart"!). His embellishments to Poseidon's original plan don't have anything to do with whether the Phaeacians "deserve" such a fate--he simply seems to think it's a cool idea, an artistic flourish, a little more sadistic than Poseidon's shipwreck idea, with the added element of a ship-shaped stone to remind these people of how they lost Poseidon's favor.
ReplyDeleteI do think it's somewhat unfair that the gods are punishing those who are trying to help Odysseus. However, before we start criticizing the gods, we should take a closer look at Odysseus. If he didn't decide to blind Polyphemus, then none of this would have happened. Let's say he does blind Polyphemus but doesn't tell the cyclopes his name. Again, nothing would have happened. I do agree that Odysseus is reckless but also has alot of self pride. It wasn't necessary for him to be like "oh btw I, Odysseus, blinded you." Maybe from this perspective, Odysseus could be the bad guy.
ReplyDeleteWe were also talking about this in our section. I think the gods’ big cop out is mentioned in the beginning on the epic, when Zeus is like “we can do whatever we want to you mortals because after all, we do warn you, and it’s your fault if you don’t listen”. Which is on one hand kinda fair – they did give the Phaecians a pretty detailed prophecy – but also, maybe a warning doesn’t actually compensate for turning a ship full of people into stone.
ReplyDeleteI don't think fairness is really the objective of the gods. It's more about respect, hierarchies, obeying prophecies, and sometimes just catching them in the right mood. I addressed this in my blogpost, but this worldview seems broadly in line with the chaos of the ancient world; it was a place where really awful, unfair things happened for seemingly no reason all the time, so it makes sense the ancient Greeks would create a mythology reflective of their reality. It certainly leaves a bit of a bad taste in the mouth of the modern reader, though.
ReplyDeleteI think the gods let their personal grudges overrule good judgement too often, such as the example you give with the Phaeacians. If anything, they were doing the right thing in helping a stranger and exercising xenia, but it just so happened that that stranger was Odysseus and Poseidon hates him. Why should a group of people, who were doing the theoretically right thing, be punished for that, especially when they are devoted worshipers of Poseidon. Zeus, who is supposed to be the reasonable mediator of the gods also eggs on Poseidon and makes the punishment even worse. Definitely unfair.
ReplyDeleteYou brought up some super interesting points! One thing that I find super fascinating in this book is how the portrayal of the gods we get here might totally differ from the portrayal of the gods that we get from a different myth. We get such a positive, almost bro-ey view of Athena in this story but are there other petty or morally unjust things that Athena might do in other stories? How does what we see here compare to the general beliefs about the gods? Are they similar, or do different myths portray them in different ways based on culture or convenience or a myriad of other factors.
ReplyDeleteThis question is extremely hard to answer. Although the gods give out pretty harsh punishments, they are justified (to some extent). Many times, the victim of the punishment has done something to upset a god. The Phaeacians were warned. Odysseus did blind Poseidon's son. So it's not like Poseidon randomly woke up one day and thought: "Hey, I want to punish someone today." However, the severity of their punishment doesn't always seem just. Maybe this depiction of the gods is Homer's way of conveying Greek culture at the time; appeasing the gods by any means necessary.
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