Book Review: The Odyssey by Homer

The Odyssey by Homer translated by Robert Fagles

The Odyssey is a cultural touchstone. So many images and stories have become omnipresent--the Cyclopes story, Scylla and Charybdis, the irresistible song of the Sirens, the beguiling witch Circe, the faithful and wily wife Penelope, and on and on. Going back to the source material always has benefits. The details can get hazy and need sharpening; there's a certain joy in rediscovery, like Odysseus's dog recognizing his master after twenty years of absence.

The basics of the story are familiar. Odysseus heads home after the Trojan War (chronicled in The Iliad, another classic for another time). The sea god Poseidon is set against Odysseus returning and sends all manner of trouble. Odysseus and his men get trapped on various islands facing various problems and temptations. The recurring obstacle is losing the desire to go home, which could happen when Circe turns the men into pigs or when the Sirens bring distraction to a whole new level. Odysseus, as clever as he is, is still true to his purpose and always weeps for the loss of Ithaca and Penelope. He moves on when he can, often at the intercession of the gods (especially Athena, who personally intervenes many times).

Penelope is beset by suitors who assume Odysseus is dead. They want nothing more than to feast on Odysseus's riches, to be abusive to the house staff and to Telemachus, Odysseus's son. When Telemachus searches of information about Odysseus's fate, the suitors plan to kill him. The troubles only end when Odysseus returns home in disguise (which doesn't fool his dog) and hatches a plan with the help of Athena and Telemachus to end the suitors' rapine.

The story has lasted for nearly three thousand years because the themes are timeless. Giving hospitality to strangers and treating others well is important to civilized society, a lesson we humans constantly need to relearn. Family is the bedrock for society--without it we can quickly descend into selfishness, isolation, and anarchy. The ancient Greeks grappled with these issues a long time ago; we still wrestle with them today.

There's a discussion of this story at A Good Story is Hard to Find podcast. The first part of the discussion is here, the second part here.

Highly recommended.

An Icon from Crete

While visiting Crete we hoped to buy an icon. We have no real advice on how to shop for one. We went to an religious goods shop in Heraklion, a town on the north shore of the island. Selecting an icon was a little challenging. It would have been nice to get an icon of one of our patron saints but we couldn't decide on which of the four of us. We weren't going to buy four icon. A long time ago in America I'd seen an icon of the Wedding Feast at Cana but the store didn't have any. The lady recommended one for scholars, featuring three of the greats of the Eastern Church.

Click to enlarge

On the icon are the Three Holy Hierarchs--Saints Basil, John Chrysostom, and Gregory Nazianzen. They were bishops in the 300s who had a major impact on Christian theology through their teaching and their holy lives. In the Eastern Church, they have a special feast day on January 30 dedicated to all three. They are venerated in the Western Church as doctors of the church but do not have a combined feast day.

Icons themselves have an interesting history. As an artistic tradition, they grew out of the Egyptian mummy portraits of the first to fourth centuries AD. These portraits featured large eyes and formal settings, a step away from the naturalistic depictions of Roman and Greek art from the same time. The style also flows from the Platonic tradition of the world of idealized Forms, so that the icons represent archetypes of Christ or Mary or whatever they portray. The images invoked the sort of reverence that could be misconstrued as idolatry, leading Emperor Leo III of Byzantium to start the first wave on iconoclasm in 726. The persecution lasted for about one hundred years. Afterwards, the Byzantine church spread north through Eastern Europe all the way to current-day Russia. They brought the tradition of making icons with them.

Of course, icons are not considered art properly in the East, they are a way of praying for both the artisan and the viewer. The icon is incarnational, communicating a spiritual reality through material means. The icon gives a focal point and rich details for meditating on the person or event depicted. It raises the mind and heart to God, the classical definition of prayer.

In other ancient icon news, I bought one in Jerusalem when I visited back in 2000. I'd been looking for a Nativity but I had special criteria. Most icons have Saint Joseph off in a corner moping which I don't particularly care for. I understand the theology behind it--he's not the father of the baby. But surely he wasn't whiny about it. He accepted his position and worked hard to do what he needed to do. I came across an icon where he was by the manger and knew I had to get it right away. It's a triptych which we usually open for the Christmas season.

Nativity icon closed (click to enlarge)

Nativity icon open (click to enlarge)

Of course, photos never do justice to icons, so don't miss an opportunity if you can see them. Eastern rite churches are loaded with icons, including the iconostasis that separates the nave from the sanctuary. Symbolically, it's a doorway between earth and heaven. It includes images of Jesus, Mary, the evangelists, the patriarchs, the apostles, and the patron of the church. It's worth the visit, plus there's probably other icons around the church.

Read more about icons in this slim, illustrated volume:

The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent, England

Stoke-on-Trent is famous for its pottery, so it is only natural for the town to have a pottery museum. We visited in August of 2012 and had fun discovering the history of the local area.

The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery

Statue out front

On entering, we ran into an ancient warrior--one of the Saxons who filled the land before the Normans took over.

Saxon warrior

Shield detail

Helmet detail

The 2009 discovery of the Staffordshire Hoard resulted in a large display of local, Anglo-Saxon items dating back to the seventh century. The hoard included over five kilograms of gold craftworks, one and a half kilos of silver, and thousands of garnets. Almost all of the items are martial. Photography wasn't allowed for the hoard items, but some other things were.

Sample Anglo-Saxon man

Fierce J

Fierce Daddy

Side shot

The museum also has displays of more recent items of more interest to L.

Elaborate doll house

L dresses up with Aunt R

Fierce L

Pretty L

The museum also has a large, fine collection of pottery. I took pictures of their ancient Greek items (and some imitations).

Vase

Greek pot and a 1700s copy

Another fierce L

J rebuilds a temple

A more sombre moment

Some Greek mosaics and other works were also on display.

A Christian mosaic

Medusa mosaic

Modern Medusa Makeover

Europa and the Bull

The museum also has Reginald Mitchell's MK 16 Spitfire. Mitchell was a local who achieved fame through designing racing aircraft and the Spitfires used in World War II.

Spitfire

Leeds City Museum, England

Leeds has a fine museum in the heart of the city that includes exhibits on the ancient world, the modern world, life on earth, and the story of Leeds. On our visit, we saw everything but the story of Leeds. We'll have to go back (without the children!). Here's what we saw.

The Leeds City Museum, with some of the 2013 Christmas Market outside

Our first stop was naturally the cafe for a snack and a bit of a warm up (we visited in late November). After that, we looked around the Life on Earth exhibit on the ground floor. The exhibit had plenty of stuffed and unstuffed animals as well as interactive exhibits that J and L enjoyed.

L interacts!

An unstuffed animal!

Upstairs is an exhibit of items collected by seven local people. The collection was wide-ranging, including Roman statuary, china porcelain, and other nicknacks.

Caligula bust

Nero bust

Stained-glass coats-of-arms

Further upstairs is the Ancient Worlds and Special Exhibitions. When we visited, the special exhibit was Through the Magic Mirror: The World of Anthony Browne, who is a Yorkshire children's author and graduate of Leeds College of Art. Plenty of children's activities were available but not many photographic opportunities, except for children who wanted to hang out in a cage with a gorilla from one of Browne's stories.

Shooting the sign for the exhibit is allowed

J tries to escape the cage!

The Ancient Worlds exhibit shows a variety of items from Rome, Greece, and Egypt.

The Wolf and Twins mosaic depicts Romulus and Remus suckled by a she-wolf. The legend goes that they were abandoned in the Tiber River but came ashore and were raised by a she-wolf. They went on to found the city of Rome. The mosaic is from the Roman ruins in Aldborough, which the Romans called Isurium Birgantum.

The Wolf and Twins, circa 300-400 AD

Some busts from that period are also on display.

Roman heads

One interactive exhibit here is archeology-based. Patrons can try to reconstruct pottery from the various bits that have been dug up.

We do this all the time at home

Another exhibit has a Roman altar used by a local family in Catterick, North Yorkshire, at the end of the second century. The inscription translates as "To the mother goddesses of the household, Julius Victor willingly and deservedly fulfilled his vow for himself and his family."

Roman Altar circa 200 AD

The Greek exhibit includes various gravestones and tomb doors. The dead were washed and a coin put in their mouths to pay Charon to ferry them across the river Styx to the realm of the dead.

Greek tombstones, from 400 to 100 BC

Greek Tomb Doors circa 200 BC

This copy of the Rosetta Stone shows a decree from Pharoah Ptolemy V on taxes and putting up statues. The stone is significant because, after its discovery in the 1800s, French scholar Jean-Francois Champollion used it to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics, which had been untranslatable until that time.

Copy of the Rosetta Stone, circa 196 BC

The Egpytian samplings also include a variety of jewelry and figurines.

Egyptian jewelry

Egyptian figurines

The star of the exhibit is the Nesyamun, a 3000 year-old mummy. Pictures weren't allowed but visiting the museum is worth it just to see the mummy up close. The corpse is out of the sarcophagus and many of the linens have deteriorated, leaving a spooky-looking mummy. J and L were still in the Special Exhibit, which was probably good for them. Also, Mommy and I might have a hard time explaining a mummy to them.

Agioi Deka Church, Crete

The Agioi Deka church in the village of Agioi Deka commemorates ten Christian martyrs who lost their lives in 250 A.D. while Christians were persecuted under Roman emperor Trajanus Decius. The church in the town is the site where they were executed, formerly the Roman amphitheater of Gortyna (the Roman capital of Crete). It was not open when we visited.

Agioi Deka Church, with the sun in just the right spot!

A bit of the town, just because the architecture is so cool!

Down the road is a small chapel dedicated to St. Ephraim. The chapel is little more than a small room and was open.

St. Ephraim Chapel

A red-roofed church further down the road is also dedicated to the ten martyrs. This church has a crypt accessible from outside showing where the martyrs might be buried.

Church with the tombs

Burial place of the martyrs?

A small niche altar

Icons by the tombs (click to enlarge)

The church itself is not very large but has fantastic icons inside.

Another icon of the ten martyrs (click to enlarge)

St. Karalamnos (?) and St. Titus

Icon of the execution

Who were the Ten Martyrs of Crete?

Christianity had been present in Crete since apostolic times, when Paul sent Titus to evangelize the island. At the time Gortyna was the capital and the community of believers grew strong. In 249 A.D., the Roman emperor Decius demanded that all his subjects worship him as a god. Many people just went through the motions, even in mostly Christians towns like Gortyna. Ten men would not sacrifice to the emperor, saying that the only truly divine person was Jesus Christ. The men were arrested and imprisoned for a month. During that time they were tortured in hopes that they would give in. They did not and the governor of Crete ordered their execution. They were killed and buried in the town. Under the reign of Constantine, permission was granted to exhume and move the bodies of the martyrs. Their final resting place is unclear, though further archeology may reveal their tombs.

Interestingly the protest was planned. Five of the men came from Gortyna: Theodoulos, Satornilos, Euporos, Gelasios, and Eunikianos. The others came from other cities around the island. Pompios came from Lebena, Agathapos from Panormos, Basiliedes from Kydonia (Chania), Zotikos from Knossos and Euarestos from Irakleon.