The Odyssey continues...

It has looked to be on hiatus, but I am getting back to this now, and determined to keep reading through all the classic texts from the beginning. Having dusted off the essentials of the Ancient Near Eastern tradition, I am now setting out through the wisdom of the Greeks. Although Homer's two epic poems should come next in the journey, after finishing Hesiod, I have read these before, and will read them again. I will thus set them aside for now and press on to something new: The Homeric Hymns.

Hesiod, Theogony and Works and Days

What we have here is a pair of poems from the eighth century BC. The poetic style is the same as that of Homer's poems (dactylic hexameter), although their length is much shorter. The Theogony presents us with a genealogically-oriented story of the origins of the gods, the world, and mankind. Works and Days deals with some of the more practical issues of Hesiod's day, including the agricultural calendar. As strict literature, these works probably fail as stories, although the myths and explanations are not without some interest to those familiar with the Ancient Greek gods and mythology. In some cases, these represent the earliest known versions of stories about such famous figures as Prometheus, Pandora, and Heracles (aka Hercules - Hesiod loves Hercules!).

As the editor and translator, M. L. West, notes in his Introduction, the works of Hesiod reflect obvious oriental influences. The Greek world of the eighth century (the opening of the Archaic Period) was a world expanding beyond its own frontiers and importing much from beyond its shores. Thus, it is possible that Hesiod's poems were among the earliest works of literature recorded for posterity with the newly imported and adapted Phoenician alphabet. West argues that Hesiod should be seen as just another example, albeit a Greek one, of the ancient tradition of wisdom literature in the Near East. There is certainly much wisdom embedded in these poems, even for modern-day non-farmers.

As a window into the culture of Archaic Greece, there are some fascinating glimpses here. I like to use Hesiod in my history classes as the classic example of the mythopoeic explanation of the origins of the world, in contrast to the work of the pre-Socratic Ionian philosophers. Essentially, Hesiod's Theogony is telling us that the human mind cannot really understand the origins of the world, except to say that it was created by the will and power of the gods - this knowledge is unknowable by humans. The pre-Socratics would challenge this notion, but there is no doubt that Hesiod's works contain much that we would simply dismiss as superstition. I think it is important to remember this when we encounter Classical Greek authors like Plato. We tend to think of Ancient Greece as the birthplace of rational science, and it was, but running right along side it was an irrational strand. This was the irrationality that condemned Socrates to death and attracted numerous adherents to the Eleusinian Mysteries or the Oracle at Delphi. One of our great challenges as human beings is finding the balance in our world between the rational and the irrational, or to put it another way, between the sophic and and the mantic, or in modern parlance, between faith and science. Hesiod, who is just as Greek as Plato or Aristotle, reminds us that man cannot know everything, nor should he.

I am particularly fascinated by Hesiod's discussion of war and strife and Zeus' justice. Hesiod lives in a world in which human justice often fails the righteous. He calls the aristocrats of his day "bribe swallowers", and one can detect a certain personal bitterness in his discussion of these local rulers, and even towards his own brother, Perses. Yet, through it all, Hesiod has faith that Zeus is watching, Zeus the defender of justice. In the strife and conflict created by these unjust judges lies, in fact, the origin of Greek democracy. From this conflict would arise the principle figures in that development: Draco, Solon, and Cleisthenes. But Hesiod is not just a close-minded liberal or conservative (he advocates social change like a liberal, but also emphasizes the traditional virtues connected to agriculture like a conservative). Hesiod is also a supporter of the Greek notion of arete, a word often translated as 'excellence'. He describes what he calls the good kind of strife in opposition to the bad kind of strife engendered by social injustice. The good kind is what we would probably call ambition (I am reminded of Sallust's discussion in his historical texts of ambitio, "the vice that comes closest to a being a virtue"). At the heart of Greek civilization and its greatest achievements was a striving with one another for excellence, seen most visibly in the quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon in Homer's Iliad, a text relatively contemporary with Hesiod. The key to success in this battle, says Hesiod, is simply work. Hesiod firmly believes that labor will bear its own fruit as well as being rewarded by the gods: "But in front of Superiority the immortal gods set sweat."

There is a lot more cultural evidence and basic advice to savor here. Hesiod's views on women are fairly misogynistic, and yet quite practical given the living conditions of his day. Hesiod might also be called the Benjamin Franklin of the Greeks, and Works and Days would be his version of Poor Richard's Almanac. His versions of some myths are a bit different from the version we tend to tell today. It all adds up to a Greek Classic well worth the read, especially considering its length.

The Epic of Gilgamesh

Analysis

On the one hand, I don't want to fall into the trap of comparing Gilgamesh to Homer's epic poems, since the contexts of their creations are both geographically and temporally distinct. On the other hand, both provide some of the earliest explorations of the human experience, and thus seem ripe for comparison. I will simply say that I prefer the richness of Homer, but there is certainly something attractive about the raw emotions and experiences in the Gilgamesh epic.

Gilgamesh gets right at the heart of the human experience in its most basic terms: love, fear, power, and friendship. Almost right from the start, the Epic begins to explore the nature of human civilization, and the benefits and costs of moving from a more natural state of living to the sophisticated city life of ancient Mesopotamia. Gilgamesh takes full advantage of his position of power in Uruk, lording it over his subjects. Another powerful dynamic in the city is religion, the only potential power capable of addressing the people's woes. Of course, the gods only react when they get tired of hearing the whining from below. Their solution is to match might with might, through the creation of Gilgamesh's equal: Enkidu. Of course, Gilgamesh's first effort to deal with the threat is to turn to religion as well, in the form of a temple prostitute. She it is who is able to tame and civilize the wild Enkidu. All of this should remind us of the constant battle between wild nature and the cultivated (read: agricultural) city inherent in the earliest civilizations.

The social nature of the human experience is also heavily emphasized, particularly through the friendship of Gilgamesh and Enkidu. Together they achieve great feats of wonder, just as ancient kings organized their people in the construction of great buildings and public works. We should remember that the infamous Tower of Babel was built not too far from Uruk. In fact, like the builders of the Tower of Babel, the team of Gilgamesh and Enkidu become a threat to the gods themselves when they kill the Bull of Heaven, and thus Gilgamesh's world must be thrown into confusion. The lamentations of Gilgamesh for his one true friend in the world of men are powerful and emotional - stirring up feelings that all humans must experience at some time in their life, that of loss and loneliness.

The death of Enkidu spurs the famous quest of Gilgamesh for immortality. This quest becomes a contemplation on the nature of mortality. As we can also learn from Homer's Iliad, what truly distinguishes men from the gods is their mortality. But where Homer shows us that the gods, in all their immortality, are missing something (and know it), here human mortality is portrayed with a typically Mesoptamian pessismism. Gilgamesh will die; there is nothing he can do about it (it is his, as for all men, destiny, despite attempts to thwart it); that is why the gods are to be envied.

The Epic of Gilgamesh, therefore, becomes the perfect segway between the earlier Mesopotamian poems, which focused almost solely on the exploits of the gods, and the earliest Greek poems, which will move us further and further into a truly human perspective, which makes this ancient literature so meaningulf for us, even 3000 years later.

A Farewell to Virgil

Dante's Purgatorio XXX is a canto of transition, as Dante prepares to leave Mount Purgatory and enter Heaven. Dante the poet has earlier hinted at the necessity of a change of guides for Dante the Pilgrim in order to complete his prescribed journey. The suddenness of that exchange comes rather unexpectedly for both Dante and his readers. As the majestic Beatrice approaches him, Dante turns to Virgil, as he has become accustomed to do during the last 63 cantos, using the simile of a trembling child turning to its mother for comfort. When he turns, however, and states his fear out loud, his words fall mutely to the ground, for Virgil has quietly departed the scene. Dante's brief encomium that follows, however, becomes the focal point of the movement in this canto celebrating repentance. We thus come to see repentance not just as a progress through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, but specifically as a process of transition from one guide to another.

The poet has already equated Virgil to a mother. Now he is described as "sweetest of fathers" (XXX.50). When Beatrice has fully entered the scene a few lines later, she comes dressed in the simile of an admiral. Thus, we compare Dante to a young cabin boy heading off to sea under the tutelage of an old sea captain, to extend his own simile further. We can imagine the many tears that such a boy might weep in the first few days of his new life, thinking back to the home and family he has always known, but now lying so far away. And of course the old sea captain draws the boy's attention away from that past life to focus on the task at hand. In Dante's words, "Do not weep yet/there is another sword to make you weep." (XXX.56-7) We can expect that these experiences of our hero will one day produce a man worthy of our admiration.

The commentators divide up Dante's journey into two main parts, each marked by a different guide. Virgil's task was helping Dante to master his own will in order to fully bend it to God's. Beatrice will now aim to reform his intellect or understanding of God. This then is Dante's view of repentance: We must bow our will to God, and having done so, we will come to fully understand God's ways, fully overcome our sinful ways, and complete our path to divine perfection. I suspect that most of us tend to think of repentance in a more Platonic way, simply as a matter of recognizing and understanding our fault. One can hear the voice of Socrates: once we know what is good and right, we will surely do good and right rather than evil. Yet, our sins are typically the result not of faulty knowledge, but simply of a weak will. We know at some level that we should not do it, but we just can not help it. Surely, then, Dante is right to spend 2/3 of his poem of repentance and salvation learning to curb his appetites, bending his will to God's will.

This makes the final line of his 'farewell to Virgil' tercet all the more poignant. It calls to my mind the twenty-first verse of Obadiah: "And saviours shall come up on mount Zion to judge the mount of Esau; and the kingdom shall be the Lord’s." As Beatrice tells us later in the canto, it was she who shed tears before Virgil in a last ditch effort to save Dante, essentially from himself, or at least his weak will. From Dante's perspective, however, at least at this point in the poem, it has been Virgil who has been the real author of his repentence: "Virgil, to whom I gave myself for my salvation." (XXX.51) Virgil is acquited of any potential charge of trying to usurp Beatrice's primary role in Dante's true conversion process, since he has repeatedly made mention of the lady who sent him on his errand. Nevertheless, it is Vergil who appeared to Dante in the dark woods at the very beginning of the poem; it is Virgil who safely guided Dante past the devil and his minions in Inferno; and it is Virgil who has been his constant support in his upward climb through Purgatory. It is no wonder that Dante cannot stop the flow of tears at the loss of his guide and mentor. Dante's language also seems to suggest that it may have been his study of Virgil's poetry in real life that has not only inspired him in his current vocation, but indeed led him to this salutatory point of repentance.

And so, as readers of Dante's poem, we too must bid farewell to the old Roman at this point, and prepare ourselves to continue the journey into Paradiso, perhaps by shedding a tear or two of our own for the poor fellow who must now hasten back alone to his eternal home in limbo. We can only wish him a safe and happy return, and perhaps some future adventure, if he so wishes it, as our guide on our own journey towards salvation.

RPC