Respect of the Gods in the Odyssey - 1219 Words

Odyssey Essay When his two nearest companions pulled away his clothes and looked at his neck, they had said him a solemn farewell in expectation of his death. We ll meet again in a better world, they said. He was classed among the dying and put aside on a cot to do so. But he failed at it. After two days, space being short, they sent him on to a regular hospital in his own state. All through the mess of the field hospital and the long grim train ride south in a boxcar filled with wounded, he had agreed with his friends and the doctors. He thought he would die. About all he could remember of the trip was the heat and the odors of blood and of shit, for many of the wounded had the flux. (Frazier, 4) Charles Frazier s novel Cold†¦show more content†¦Zeus crashes Odysseus vessel, spins it in a circle, and fills the boat with brimstone. Odysseus men are thrown into the water and bobbing like sea crows (12.418). The gods then bring Odysseus to the Island of Ogygia, home of Kalypso. For Odyss eus crew, the price of disrespecting and provoking Helios was death. Instead of being killed, Odysseus was placed under the hardship of duress on Kalypso s island. Just as Odysseus men rashly and stupidly provoke and dishonor Helios, Odysseus rashly and stupidly provokes Poseidon through a careless display of hubris. According to the Earth Shaker, Poseidon, mortals such as Odysseus do [him] no honor (13.129). Odysseus dishonors the Earth Shaker when he blinds his Cyclops son, Polyphemos, by twirling fire-point-hardened timber in the Cyclops eye as he slept, causing blood to boil around the hot point of the timber, so that the blast and scorch of the burning singes Polyphemos eyelids and eyeballs, and the fire makes the roots of his eye crackle (9.390).Odysseus and his men rush back to their ship. As they escape the oafish Cyclops, Odysseus engages in a uselessly macho and reckless act of bravado; he taunts Polyphemos, telling him, Cyclops, if any mortal man ever asks you who it was that inflicted upon your eye this shameful blinding, tell him that you were blinded by Odysseus, sacker of cities (9.502-504).Show MoreRelated The Gods in Homers The Iliad and The Odyssey Essay1393 Words   |  6 PagesThe Gods in Homers The Iliad and The Odyssey The stories told in the Iliad and Odyssey are based on stories handed down over several generations, for they preserve (as we have seen) memories of an already quiet far distant past. The two pomes show clear connection in their language and style, in the manner in which their incidents presented, and in the combination of agreement with level, which distinguish their creation. 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