Snider, A Commentary on the Odyssey of Homer - II

From, Homer's Odyssey: A commentary
[Please note that the Table of Contents here published, is created by Elpenor and is not to be found in the print version]

b. At once there is the transition to the famous mothers of legend—"wives and daughters of Heroes" says the poet, with, an eye to his audience, which has men in it also, so he does not mention mothers, though they are the burden of his strain. Here follows a Catalogue of Women, giving them their due place in the genealogy and destiny of distinguished houses. Three groups of these mothers we may distinguish.

First is the group of mortal women who were embraced by some god, and gave birth to heroic offspring. Tyro met Neptune and brought forth Pelias and Neleus; from the latter sprang Nestor who connects the Pre-Trojan and Trojan ages, since he appears both in the Iliad and Odyssey. In the Third Book of the latter epos we have already seen Nestor sacrificing to his divine ancestor; so the present passage has its pertinence to the total poem. In the same group are Antiope and Alemena, the latter of whom was the mother of Hercules, whose father was Zeus. At the end of the present Book, Hercules himself will appear as the supreme example of the Greek Hero.

Such were three typical mothers, famed in Hellenic legend, being the women who bore Heroes, the offspring of Gods. It was deemed the highest function of the Greek mother to bring forth a Hero, the child of divinity, with an immortal portion. This view, in its purely sensuous aspect, is dubious enough to the modern ethical mind, still its real meaning must be looked at with sympathetic vision, which sees therein the divine descent into mortal flesh, a mythical utterance of the faith that the great man is the son of God. The Christian view universalizes this conception, holding that all men, and not merely the Heroes, are God's children. Yet the Christian world has also retained its faith in the Son of God, son by a mortal woman, which faith the old Greek had too, and expressed in his way. Thus we may extract out of this Homeric account something more than divine license; it has indeed a wonderful pre-Christian suggestiveness, and gives a glimpse of the movement of Universal Religion.

The second group of famous mothers are mortal women with mortal husbands. The wedded wife brings up now the domestic relation, which is passingly introduced by the spouse of Hercules, Megara, who is simply mentioned. The two chief women of the group are Epicaste and Chloris, the one supremely tragic in her motherhood, the other reasonably happy. Epicaste is mother of Œdipus, who marries her after slaying his own father who is her husband, both deeds being done in ignorance; thus the closest domestic ties are whelmed into guilt and tragedy, whereof Sophocles has made a world-famous use, in his two dramas on the subject of Œdipus. Chloris is, on the contrary, the mother of Nestor, not a tragic character by any means; also she is mother of Pero, the beautiful maiden, "whom all the people around were wooing," and who was happily won by an heroic deed. Mark the interest of those listeners, Arete and Nausicaa, mother and daughter in this tale. Thus the two women, Epicaste and Chloris, have opposite destinies, and show the sharp contrasts of life.

In the third group are two mothers who have a double honor; each has borne twins and heroic ones at that; moreover the Gods again enter the domestic relation of mortals. Leda's sons are "Castor the horseman, and Pollux the boxer," the first being mortal, the second immortal, and reputed son of Zeus, who permitted the immortal brother to share his immortality with his mortal brother; hence "every other day they both are alive, and every other day they both are dead." Again the divine gives itself to the human in the spirit of true brotherhood; the son of Zeus takes on the ills of mortality through fraternal love. The second mother of this group is Iphidameia, who declares Neptune to be the father of Otus and Ephialtes, of her monstrous twins, "who at the age of nine years threatened war upon the Gods," and proposed to storm heaven by piling Mount Ossa upon Olympus and Pelion on top of that. Such is the contrast: one set of sons is noble, worthy, and "receive honor like unto Gods;" the other set is defiant, assailing the divine order, and are slain by the arrows of Apollo "ere the down blossomed beneath their temples, and covered their chins with tender furze."

D. Snider
A Commentary on the Odyssey of Homer - Part II

Learned Freeware

D. Snider A Commentary on the Odyssey of Homer - Part II

Learned Freeware

D. Snider
A Commentary on the Odyssey of Homer - Part II