all to return home, where our true life is to be found, our truernfame. Troy is wonderful, but it is a young man’s adventure andrnnot the place for a mature head of family.rnKalypso had offered him immortality combined with agelessness:rnhe could stay with her, forever young and forever vigorous,rnenjoying the male fantasy of continuous sex with a beautifulrnwoman. There would, however, have been no issue fromrnthis coupling, and Odysseus would have remained in oblivion,rna cipher in world history. The young, as we know, are immortal;rndeath does not affect them, and it is only when they grow arnbit older that they realize their mortality. The unmarried malernin Greece, then as until recently at least, did not believe thatrndeath has any relation to him until he marries and becomes involvedrnin the cycle of birth, maturity, death. Till then thesernthings affect him not at all. So with Odysseus, as a warrior atrnTroy and with Kalypso death was an irrelevance: he was immortal.rnIn the underworld he learned that he was not.rnUpon his return to Ithaca Odysseus, now wiser about himselfrnand about his motives, confronted an unknown situation: herndid not know how the people would welcome him back; andrnmore importantly, he did not know the mind of his wife, Penelope.rnWas she to be like Agamemnon’s wife Clytaemnestra,rnwho slew her husband, in league with her lover Aegisthus? Orrnwas she—as Odysseus had been repeatedly told—still faithfulrnand longing for him? Another question—unasked—^by Homerrnis: Would Penelope welcome the now 20-years-older Odysseus?rnOdysseus himself seems convinced that he wants Penelope, butrnthat is not enough. He wants not only her but his property, hisrnstanding, his son, and his father. He does not upon landingrnknow whether he can count on any one of these people. Hernfaces massive uncertainty and great odds when he lands on hisrnhome isle.rnHe does know that there are suitors in his halls who want tornmarry Penelope, to take over the rule in Ithaca, and to divide uprnthe property that should properly go to Telemachus. Thesernsuitors are behaving—by Greek standards—in a monstrousrnway, eating at another’s expense, maltreating beggars, and inrngeneral behaving irresponsibly. They are totally hostile tornOdysseus, whom they think dead; and to Telemachus, whomrnthey plot to kill. Odysseus can be absolutely certain that hernfaces at least 108 enemies when he endeavors to reassert hisrnkinglv prerogatives. We, in turn, can be certain that the suitorsrnmust die for their offenses against the house of Odysseus andrnthe laws of hospitality.rnStruggle, disguise, and degradation await Odysseus in hisrnown home. He first visits a swineherd, the lowest of his formerrnslaves, and disguises himself so that it is as a beggar that he entersrnthe house he had ruled in earlier days. Prior to his enteringrnhis house he meets up with his son Telemachus, reveals to himrnthat he is his long-lost father Odysseus at last returned, andrnplans with him how things are to be handled in town. Once inrnhis own home he has an opportunity to observe the suitors,rnmake military preparations for their death, and to test his wife’srndisposition. He is satisfied that she is in fact faithful to him andrnthat she can count on him. He thus is prepared to kill the suitorsrnand then ready to be reunited with Penelope.rnAt this point Homer pulls a switch on us. Odysseus kills thernsuitors all right, but instead of falling immediately into his armsrnPenelope is dubious whether this is really Odysseus she sees beforernher. Not that she does not really believe it is he, but she isrnperhaps afraid that he may not be the same Odysseus whomrnshe loved many years earlier. Her trick with the bed convincesrnher that this is Odysseus and that he wants her. They can thenrngo to bed and spend the night together, their first night togetherrnin some 20 years.rnIt is at this point that Hollywood ends the Odyssey, and somernscholars in antiquity may—the matter is disputed—have endedrnthe poem here. Homer, though, knew better. Odysseus wasrnnot yet home and master of his property until he had madernpeace with the relatives of the suitors and had completed his returnrnto family by means of a meeting with his aged father,rnLaertes. Once he—together with Laertes and Telemachus—rnhave faced down the suitors’ relatives, Odysseus can be trulyrnsaid to be home and through with his adventuring, and the TrojanrnWar can be said finally to be at an end. Laertes and thisrnepisode were omitted from the television Odyssey.rnThe first four books of the poem—the so-calledrn”Telemachy,” which is sometimes (and incorrectly)rnthought not to be part of Homer’s original version of hisrnpoem—display Odysseus’ young son beginning to grow up andrnfor the first time endeavoring to take charge of his own household:rnthe Hollywood version well introduces this theme.rnTelemachus knows that the suitors are vile and must be punished,rnbut he is too young to do anything about it. He finallyrnundertakes two adult activities on his own behalf: he calls an assemblyrnto announce to the Ithacans that the suitors should bernsent away; and he undertakes, against all expectation, a trip inrnquest of knowledge of his father’s whereabouts. These books,rnthen, describe the maturing of a young man and his beginningrnto undertake manly activities.rnThe remaining books describe the maturing of a grown man,rnthe maturing of the grown Odysseus, who has to learn twornthings: that adventuring is not the role of the adult male, andrnthat one’s proper life is with family, house, and polity. Thesernthings he learns both through his adventures and through hisrnhumiliation and triumph in his palace on Ithaca. He learnsrnthat man’s lot is, while young, to garner goods and property,rnbut then later to govern the household thus acquired with hisrnwife and family. There comes, however, a time when evenrnthese duties and pleasures must be forsworn, and the olderrnman—in the Odyssey represented by Laertes—must yield placernto the younger and prepare himself to die.rnThe Odyssey thus contains in nuce the stages of male existence.rnTelemachus represents youth becoming man; Odysseusrnrepresents adult man learning maturity and responsibility;rnLaertes represents the old man who must step aside for his son.rnAll is there. Each one in the poem puts aside a stage of life andrnmoves into another. Laertes gives up the familial and politicalrnlife, assertive activities, in favor of his son; Odysseus forswearsrnthe soldier’s life, the life of youthful adventure; and Telemachusrnputs aside childhood, presumably for the heroic life of war andrntravel. The problems of these men thus differ. The story of therncourse of a Greek man’s life is there in the Odyssey. The centralrnproblem, however, remains that of reintroducing a hero tornlife without warfare, without acclaim, without booty.rnHomer did not omit the women. Their role also is adumbratedrnin the Odyssey, though without the detail of Odysseus’rnadventures and in part in a negative way. They tend to be characterizedrnas sly seductresses, obstacles to the male’s fulfillmentrnof his familial role. Nausicaa and Penelope and Anticlea,rnOdysseus’ mother, however, provide positive female roles—rnNausicaa that of the expectant bride, Penelope that of thernfaithful wife, Anticlea that of the long-suffering mother. OnernSEPTEMBER 1997/21rnrnrn