5. Insights on
Homeric catabasis
February 13, 2013
San Marcello
Pistoiese, Italy
The encounter with the dead in the canto XI from Odyssey is without any
doubt composed of more parts, showing different sources and next superimposing.
Nevertheless, in its different parts, it shows an own basic coherence. The
discordances in the content let the mythopoetic shade intact, which links
strictly the public sort to the private destinies both to the framework itself
and the single episodes of the play.
In contrast with the Homeric tradition, in which the dead are not allowed
to dialogue, because they aren't gifted with any emotions or thoughts at all,
here the unnatural encounter takes place by a shamanic libation which not only
gives them the word, but the ability to spread the truth:
“E quando là le famose larve dei morti/ avrai supplicato, un montone
sacrifica/ e una pecora nera volgendone all'Erebo il capo/ e volgi te stesso al
cospetto del fiume:/ anime spesse vedrai apparire dei morti” (Afterword you
will have begged there the famous shadows of the dead, make a sacrifice a ram
and a black sheep turning its head to Erebus and turn yourself towards the
river: thick souls of the dead will appear to you).
Odissea X, vv. 526-530
Each encounter, in which the dead, telling the past life, reveal the sense
to Ulysses, transforms into a particular attention to the generational range.
In fact, the first soul which Odysseus recognizes in Hades is the one of
Elpenor who invokes a sense of mingling among the living, a burial that the
descendants can see and recognize in order to preserve the memory:
“ma bruciami, ornato dell'armi che avevo,/ e un tumolo innalza sull'ido del
mare/ grigio: che giunga anche ai posteri il nome/ di quest'uomo infelice” (But
burn me together with the weapons I had, and lift a tomb on the Ido of the grey
sea: let my name, the name of this unhappy man, arrive to the descendants too).
Odissea XI, vv. 75-78
The continuity in which the Homeric dead are interested, does not consider
the individual, but a meaningful part of the values of a community. So that the
sort of humanity is always integrated in an universe of signs that shares both
to the mortals and to the gods, thanks to which we are able to build a
circularity of the meaning between the living and the dead.
In an analogy with the XXIV chapter of Biblical Genesis in which the
servant Arram is sent by Abraham to find a wife for his son Isaac, the divine
sign designating the chosen one can be found, according to Tiresias, Ulysses
will be able to see the sign in order to put an end to the hostility of
Poseidon and finally return to Ithaca (Odyssey XI compares vv. 133-183).
Even in the encounter with his mother, it is Anticlea herself who becomes
the symbol of the coexistence between a private feeling and an important social
interest, until now bypassed and left aside in a way that is altogether too
modern. As the daughter of Romantcism a large number of twentieth century
critics stressed the "private" part of the interview, the feelings
between mother and son.
However, we cannot ignore the emotional and personal involvement of the
final part of the meeting:
“Perchè, madre, svanisci, sebbene/ io brami di stringerti a me, così/ che
anche nell'Ade abbracciati possiamo/ di questo triste gemente colloquio
godere?” (Why are you disappearing, mother, even if I crave to hold you tight,
so as, even in Hades, we can be glad of this sad and moaning encounter, by
staying embraced?).
Odissea XI, vv. 208-211
Odysseus shows strongly his desire to verify the words of Tiresias
regarding the royal privilege of Laertes and Telemachus, and the faithfulness
of Penelope (Odyssey XI compares vv.180-190).
The episode focuses on a structure of a sequence of parallelisms in which
the perspective of social hierarchies and political power are never neglected:
Laertes sleeps with servants, Telemachus feasts with the important people of
the city, and Penelope, who cries every night, allowing no-one to usurp the
throne of Ulysses.
Giovanni Albergucci, Matteo Bizzarri
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