Odysseus bow

[Odesio]

@constanze

Actually, no. That is, if we take the Odysseus of the Iliad together with the Odyssee - which not all scholars do because of the 1000 year gap between them

This is the first I’ve heard that the Iliad and the Odyssey were created 1,000 years apart from one another. No mention of this gap was made was made the multiple times I had to read the two in high school and college. Do you happen to have a cite to support your claim?

[Gil-Martin]

@Odesio

This is the first I’ve heard that the Iliad and the Odyssey were created 1,000 years apart from one another. No mention of this gap was made was made the multiple times I had to read the two in high school and college. Do you happen to have a cite to support your claim?

I too am curious about this. I thought scholars generally put the writing of both these works as we now know them in the eighth or seventh century BCE. I know there have been debates about this, and different sources will move the composition of the Iliad and Odyssey forward or back some, but I’ve never heard or read anything suggesting a thousand year gap between creation of these two texts. Perhaps there was a typo, or I misread something?

@constanze

That is, if we take the Odysseus of the Iliad together with the Odyssee - which not all scholars do because of the 1000 year gap between them . . .

Sorry. I’m not trying to stir things up, but the quoted words above just struck me pretty hard.

Anyway, I agree with **Simplicio **and **Shodan **about Odysseus being big and strong with regard to his bow-stringing ability.

Have a good day.

[dangermom]

@Shodan

Well, yes, if Odysseus considered that something to which a loyal wife would object.

Yeah, which he wouldn’t. From what I can tell, everyone would consider it a matter of course that the hero would not be bound to be faithful to his wife.

[Autolycus]

He was always my favorite grandson.

[Attack_from_the_3rd_dimension]

Another thought - Odysseus may not be the strongest hero of the Trojan war, and he may have made his reputation for his cunning, but the least powerful hero of the Trojan war is going to be mightier than an normal man, and godlike in comparison to the collection of leeches in human form that the suitors represent.

[Telperion]

@constanze

Was the recurve bow a “modern” invention/ introduction to Homer’s audience? Would they think of Odysseus having a “modern” bow because he was smarter than his contemporaries, and knowing how to string it?

Recurve bows should certainly have been familiar to any archer, since there are numerous depictions of them in art from around that time. Here’s a painting from the 6th century BC of Herakles using one: http://www.theoi.com/Gallery/L3.6.html

[mlees]

For some reason, I always thought that the bow was “blessed” (or fashioned) by Athena, and no one could use it unless they had her favor. Odysseus was her favorite throughout the Odyssey.

But now I can’t find any evidence of such a theory.

[constanze]

@Odesio

This is the first I’ve heard that the Iliad and the Odyssey were created 1,000 years apart from one another. No mention of this gap was made was made the multiple times I had to read the two in high school and college. Do you happen to have a cite to support your claim?

Sorry, I made a mistake. It’s a hundred years (about) that the major opinion dates them, though it’s not absolutley sure.

[astorian]

@Shodan

Even when I first read The Odyssey, I was struck by the cruelty with which they treated women. Even the part I mentioned above, where Telemachus is becoming a man, the sign is that he orders his mother around.

And embedded in the whole homecoming part, after Odysseus has killed all the suitors, he calls out all the servant women who have been sexually involved with the suitors, and hangs them. As if they had a lot of choice about whether or not they were going to sleep with the suitors. They were slaves, for heaven’s sake. But it is presented as part of the “purification” of the house after Odysseus kills the suitors. They have had sex with the suitors, and so they are sort of “spoiled” - not fit to remain as slaves in the newly restored household. And no one thinks twice about it.

And of course the whole Iliad is about who gets the princess, who has been captured in battle and is treated like another of the spoils, like good armor and bars of bronze and all that. Just another trophy to be passed around. Helen doesn’t get that treatment, even though her leaving her husband starts the whole mess. She goes back to Menelaus and her excuse that she was enchanted by Aphrodite.

“Sing in me, o Muse, of the wrath of Achilles”. They might have added “and what an asshole he, and everyone else, even the heroes, is towards anyone who isn’t aristocracy”.

Regards,
Shodan

With one notable exception: Hector, the Trojan enemy, is an affectionate husband, as well as a doting father, and he shows respect for women- even for Helen, whom he might (reasonably) blame for causing the whole bloody war.

[Chronos]

Wouldn’t it be a lot more reasonable for him to blame Paris?

[Son_of_a_Rich]

Seems like the extreme age of Odysseus’s dog would have been one of the more remarkable aspects of the story.