Monday
My student John Reineke has written an essay about Odysseus’s lying that I can’t get out of my head. What are we make of a hero, Jack wants to know, who fabricates stories every chance he gets? What are we to make of the fact that his lying receives divine endorsement?
Given that our president has told (according to the Washington Post’s tally), 16,241 false or misleading statements since becoming president—and that certain Christian nationalists nevertheless regard him as God’s anointed–it’s a good question to grapple with. While Jack is not looking at the issue through my political lens, the essay leads me to wonder about the effect such leadership has on young people. Are they becoming as accepting as Homer of a lying leader?
Jack notes that, when Odysseus tries to lie to a disguised Athena upon returning to Ithaca, she heartily approves:
To outwit you
in all your tricks a person or a god
would need to be an expert at deceit.
You clever rascal! So duplicitous,
so talented at lying! You love fiction
and tricks so deeply, you refuse to stop
even in your own land. Yes, both of us
are smart. No man can plan and talk like you,
and I am known among the gods for insight
and craftiness. You failed to recognize me:
I am Athena, child of Zeus. I always
stand near you and take care of you, in all
your hardships. (trans. Emily Wilson)
As Jack sees it, Odysseus’s lying appears to be just another weapon, one that most warriors don’t have. In Odysseus’s case, the lying take different forms, sometimes tricks and deceptions, sometimes fabricated stories.
His greatest accomplishment, of course, is the Trojan Horse. What ten years of assaults on the city can’t accomplish, Odysseus pulls off in a day and a night. Odysseus is also a master of disguise, which allows him to scout out hostile locations (Troy, his own suitor-filled palace). Jack notes that Homer describes disguising as a noble craft:
As when Athena and Hephaestus teach
a knowledgeable craftsman every art,
and he pours gold on silver, making objects
more beautiful—just so Athena poured
attractiveness across his head and shoulders.
And in the other direction:
Then with her wand Athena
tapped him; his handsome body withered up;
his limbs became arthritic. She bleached out
his hair, and made his skin look old and wrinkled,
and dimmed his fine bright eyes. She turned his clothes
into a tattered cloak and ragged tunic,
dirty with soot.
While his lying often saves his life, there are moments where Odysseus sometimes lies just for the fun of it, as though to stay in practice. When the loyal swineherd asks the disguised Odysseus not to tell him any lies—he will host him regardless—the Ithacan leader can’t help himself and tells an elaborate account of himself as Cretan nobility. The story ends with Eumaeus commenting,
Poor guest! Your tale of woe is very moving,
but pointless; I will not believe a word
about Odysseus. Why did you stoop
to tell those silly lies!
Yet Eumaeus appreciates a well-chosen lie, such as the one Odysseus tells a little later in order to get another coat for himself:
That was a splendid tale, old man!
It worked. You will get all the clothes and things
a poor old beggar needs—at least for now.
Jack also touched on the fact that Penelope is herself a master deceiver, making her a worthy companion. Facing an explosive situation at home, she holds off the suitors by promising to marry once she finishes weaving a shroud for her father-in-law—a shroud that she unweaves every night until someone rats her out.
In his essay, Jack entered the arena of situational ethics: lying and deceiving are fine if done done for a good purpose (one endorsed by Zeus), bad if for an evil purpose. Jack identified the suitor Eurymachus as one of the evil liars:
Eurymachus, the most vocal suitor, fabricates one of the most malevolent lies directly to Penelope herself as he says to her:
No man will ever, ever hurt your boy
while I am still alive upon this earth.
I swear to you, if someone tries, my sword
will spill blood!
…
So Telemachus is now
the man I love the most in all the world.
The boy is in no danger, not from us—
there is no help for death brought by the gods. (16.439-448)Homer addresses this blatant lie in the very next line, writing, “He spoke to mollify her; all the while / he was devising plans to kill her son.”
Lying, in other words, is simply a verbal extension of physical battle. Liars are not taken in by liars, and neither Odysseus nor Penelope believe Eurymachus. Nor does Odysseus fall for Helen’s trickery (this by Menelaus’s account) when she tries to lure the Greek warriors out of the Trojan Horse. Lies are likes bows or spears, most effective when wielded by accomplished hands.
I noted to Jack that attitudes changed 300 years later when numerous Athenian demagogues were using lying to catastrophic effect (like today). Neither Sophocles nor Euripides are okay with Odysseus lying.
In Sophocles’s Philoctetes, for, instance, the Greeks have learned they cannot win the Trojan War unless they bring back the famous archer Philoctetes, whom they have marooned on an island because a foul-smelling, ulcerous wound. Aware that Philoctetes is bitter, Odysseus wants Neoptolemos, son of Achilles, to participate in an elaborate lie. I share the passage because I suspect that the young man’s views are shared by my student:
Son of Laertes, I shall never practice.
I was not born to flatter or betray;
Nor I, nor he--the voice of fame reports--
Who gave me birth. What open arms can do
Behold me prompt to act, but ne'er to fraud
Will I descend. Sure we can more than match
In strength a foe thus lame and impotent.
I came to be a helpmate to thee, not
A base betrayer; and, O king! believe me,
Rather, much rather would I fall by virtue
Than rise by guilt to certain victory.
--(trans. Thomas Francklin)
In the end, truth and honor prevail and Odysseus is discredited, but only thanks to the divine intervention of Heracles. Given that lying is a trademark of autocratic leaders, I’m glad to see Jack troubled by Homer’s apparent approval.
I must add that I too am troubled. Normally an author as great as Homer will be ahead of his time and foresee problems. Perhaps I’m missing something. Whatever he thought in 800 BCE, however, I can’t imagine that Homer would have given Odysseus a free pass 300 years later.
Further thought: I acknowledge that different cultures have a different relationship to truth-telling. Because of the importance I myself attach to truth, I still remember being shocked by the following passage from M. M. Kaye’s Far Pavilions (1978) when I read it forty years ago:
The Sahib-log [the British] do not understand that Truth should be used sparingly, and they call us liars because when we of this country are asked questions by strangers, we prefer to lie first and then consider whether the truth could have served us better.
Should I just be culturally tolerant of Homer’s oral society? In any event, such a lax relationship to truth is among today’s greatest threats to democracy.
