ULYSSES – THE GREEK HERO -#BLOGCHATTERA2ZCHALLENGE2022

 
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Ulysses or Odysseus was the hero of Homer’s epic poem titled ‘The Odyssey’. He also played a significant role in ‘The Iliad’, also by Homer. He was the son of Laertes and Anticlea, and supposedly the great-grandson of Hermes, the messenger god of Olympus. He was married to the beautiful and wise Penelope and had a son, Telemachus. He ruled over the kingdom of Ithaca.

The legend goes that when Helen of Troy eloped with Paris, the prince of Greece, her husband Menelaus, the king’s brother, called all her suitors together to get her back. This step led to the Trojan War, which is the theme of The Iliad.

In those days, it is believed that the gods often spoke to humans through oracles. One such oracle prophesied that if Ulysses took part in the Trojan War, he would spend years abroad before he finally returned home. Ulysses had no intention of going to war, and hence, he pretended to be a lunatic. He tethered together an ox and a donkey on to his plough and started sowing salt on his fields. Agamemnon, the brother of Menelaus, saw through his ruse. He ordered Palamedes to place the little son of Ulysses, Telemachus, in front of the plough. When Ulysses swung the plough away, he revealed the fact that he was as sane as anyone else.

Ulysses was one of the wisest and most influential Greek champions. It was he, along with Nestor and Idomeneus, who kept the Greeks together. He was always the man of reason, a clear-headed warrior known for his wisdom and his diplomatic skills. The stratagem of the Trojan Horse was devised by him, where a giant horse filled with Greek enemy soldiers was offered as an offering to Goddess Athena and hence, allowed into the ramparts of Troy. In the darkness of night, while the Trojans were celebrating, the Greek soldiers disembarked from within the horse, and sacked the city of Troy which had held out for so long. This clearly brings out the cunning of Ulysses.

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The Odyssey was the saga of Ulysses’ trip home to Ithaca which took ten long years, as prophesied by the oracle, and the adventures he had on his way. He and his men were lost at sea and reached the island of the Lotos-Eaters, from which they escaped. They were captured by the Cyclops, Polyphemus, and entranced by the Goddess Circe and her Sirens. Their ship also narrowly escaped the six-headed monster, Scylla, and the perilous whirlpool, Charybdis.

After twenty long years, when he finally got home, the Goddess Athena disguised him as a wandering beggar so that he could see what was happening back home.

Penelope, his faithful wife, had been besieged by suitors, and she had promised them that she would marry the one who could string her husband’s bow. None of them could do so. Finally, Ulysses strung his bow, revealed himself and slaughtered all the suitors, after which he lived happily (hopefully!) ever after.

Alfred Tennyson wrote his famous poem ‘Ulysses’ in which an aging Ulysses looks back at his life of adventure and seeks out his old comrades “to sail beyond the sunset”. James Joyce also named his novel ‘Ulysses’ and created a protagonist, Leopold Bloom, who spent a day that mimicked Ulysses’ ten-year period of travelling.

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An interesting book that I recently read is ‘The Penelopiad’ by Margaret Atwood in 2005 that retold the story from Penelope’s viewpoint.

Myriad films have been made on the Greek hero over the years, the most popular ones having Ulysses played by Kirk Douglas (1955) in ‘Ulysses’, John Drew Barrymore (1961) in ‘The Trojan Horse’, Piero Lulli (1962) in ‘The Fury of Achilles’ and ‘Sean Bean’ (2002) in ‘Troy’.

 
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The word 'odyssey' has now come to mean a long, eventful journey filled with adventure or experience.

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