THE BLACK SHIP

How deep our thought
How dark our way

Homer's ODYSSEY

Briefly, Homer’s story is told in twenty-four ‘books’, twelve thousand words, in easy flowing simple language and in magical heroic verse. Close to three thousand years, kept alive by innumerable bards, singing minstrels, welcome in village and hamlet, honoured in the larger places, and taken into the household by wealthy patrons, ever with a place in the halls of Kings and nobility, and now in the books of the new world. 

Villagers or townsfolk, all knew the stories by heart, and would quickly point out any deviation from the tradition; due allowance being made the style and presentation of the bard, for the same story can be told either indifferently, or with passion, and in the idiom of a thousand localities, a thousand audiences, a thousand bards, and a thousand years.

Then, naturally, as now half the pleasure is the telling; the other half the listening. Thus was the magnificent allegory of our way through life, preserved through the millennia until Pisistratus of Athens employed men to record the story on the papyrus scrolls of his day two thousand five hundred years ago. Thus making it available to all. It came to England in Shakespeare’s day, was translated from Latin text by George Chapman and others, who because of the Latin, gave us Ulysses instead of the Greek Odysseus, and so by such stages to Joyce, and thus Stephen Dedalus, Poldy Bloom, Buck Mulligan, Mrs. Purefoy, and Molly Bloom. Joyce roughly (poetry roughly) based Ulysses upon the Odyssey, but few readers can make the connections. So with some fear of censure from the scholars I offer a very brief précis of the Homeric books for the benefit of those souls, not knowing Homer.  Hopefully also, the work may introduce both Homer and Joyce to a wider audience, there is a larger proportion of our children at university than in 1922, and both these great books demand the attention of those studying the Humanities.

Book 1: Athena and Telemachus
Athena, she of the white arms, flashing eyes, the braided hair, appears to Telemachus, son of Odysseus and Penelope, to inspire him to go in search of his father, not home yet though, ten years ago he left the beaches of Troy.  Telemachus, defies Penelope, “I am head of this house," rages at the suitors pestering Penelope.

Book 2: Telemachus
Telemachus, grim and determined takes a ship and goes in search of his father.

Book 3: King Nestor
The first call is Nestor, famed King and charioteer at Troy. The young man is received with honour; and in the best tradition of hospitality. 

Book 4: Menelaus of Sparta
Feasting and stories of Troy again in the Great Hall of Menelaus, undisputed King of Sparta. Helen, two husbands dead in Troy there with him and remorseful 'shameless whore that I was'.  He hears for the first time the story of Troy his fathers Wooden Horse.

Book 5: Athena in Olympus
In Olympus, home of the Gods, Athena pleads a fair go for Odysseus, captive lover of Calypso these past seven years. Calypso is given instructions, provides a ship and rations but Poseidon is ever vengeful.

Book 6: Nausicaa
Nausicaa, princess and daughter of Alcinous, King of Phaeacia finds Odysseus, and ensuring his safety, takes him to her father.  She desires him, but cannot have him.

Book 7: Alcinous
A beautiful picture of Alcinous’ house and magnificent gardens. 

Book 8: Phaeacia
Alcinous entertains with games and contests. Odysseus hurls the discus. The bard Demodocus sings the love story of Aphrodite and Ares; the classic joke of the Gods. 

Book 9: Cyclops, and other perils
Odysseus tells how they encountered the Lotus-eaters, then Cyclop; the great one-eyed Titan of the race of giant gods from before the Olympians. Odyssey blinds Cyclops and so they escape.

Book 10: Circe, The Beautiful
Aeolus, god of the winds, on his floating island home, he who wed his six beautiful daughters to his six magnificent sons. Then the Lestrygonians, man-eaters; they destroyed the fleet; only Odysseus and his crew escape. Then Aeaea, where some of the men are bewitched into pigs by Circe.  Odysseus saves his men at the cost of one year as lover of Circe.

Book 11: Hades
The Kingdom of the Dead. Odysseus talks with the shades of the men who died at Troy. Achilles and the rest. He talks with the shade of his mother; from long dead Tiresias learns much. A powerful episode. 

Book 12: Scylla, Charybdis and dangers
The Oxen of the Sun. From the Kingdom of the Dead they return to Aeaea, Circe’s island she warns of perils to come.  His ship and comrades, destroyed he is now captive lover of Calypo; but the high Gods command his release. 

Book 13: Ithica – Home at last
Odysseus has told his long story. The Phaeacians fell silent, hushed, spellbound by the story. Alcinous offers every help; rich gifts, a swift ship and a skilled crew to deliver him to the very shore of Ithica, his island Kingdom.  Just a swift trip thru the night.

Book 14: Troubles at home
Eumaeus, his faithful herdsman, loyal through all the twenty years of his absence, tells 
all; Penelope; Telemachus; the suitors. He has faithfully tended all, cared for Laertes, aged father of Odysseus and now must attend the wishes of the suitors.

Book 15: Telemachus returns
An interlude. Telemachus returns avoiding the ambush set by the suitors. They rage at his return. Odysseus and son united. He tests the son.

Book 16: Odysseus and Telemachus
Powerful. Odysseus tells his story. The boy amazed; the story beggars imagination.

Book 17: Odysseus meets the suitors
They plan death for the suitors. Odysseus goes to his own hall disguised as a beggar.
He’s insulted and abused. Antinous urges the suitors to act quickly, to compel the hand of Penelope, Odysseus observing all. 

Book 18: Odysseus in his Great Hall
The Beggar at the Palace. The suitors insolent. Insults, but all weighed in the balances. 
Odysseus patient weighing up all; planning their doom. The fight with Irus; the unfaithful maids.

Book 19: Odysseus and Penelope
Penelope speaks in defence of the beggar. Hospitality is the law, and this law the suitors abuse. Penelope senses the truth, but has no assurance from Odysseus or her son. 

Book 20: The net closes
The situation worsens. Telemachus warns the suitors. Odysseus tests Penelope; and she’s clearly testing him. What is happening? The suitors only dimly aware that the situation is changing.

Book 21: The great Bow
Penelope challenges the suitors to string the great bow of Odysseus. All fail. Penelope dares the beggar to attempt the bow. He does so. The strength of Odysseus is revealed. The suitors begin to see the man hidden in the beggar’s rags.

Book 22: The King claims his own
Judgement this day. Telemachus locks all the doors. None will escape.
Penelope and the women locked safely in the upper rooms. 

Book 23: Death
The battle. The suitors slain. Melanthus the traitor goatherd dies terribly. The faithless maids hanged. Odysseus and Penelope exchange secrets. The ultimate testing. The great Bed. Once more Odysseus tells his story.

Book 24: The End
Men from the houses of the suitors seek revenge. Laertes, father of Odysseus, though old, kills their leader. Athena intervenes. “Enough of this killing. The King is home. Let there be peace.” The duty of the King is the welfare of the people. 
 

Of the two great books, Homer's Odyssey and the Iliad has possibly three thousand years of magnificent story behind it.  Joyces, approaching one hundred.  The one a book for the multitude; the other for the Universities.

Any serious reader of Ulysses, will better appreciate the story if he knows the Odyssey.  It is doubtful that any reading in Ulysses will enhance the reading of the Odyssey,

In this the third millennium, is possible that the reading of both is no waste of time; there is reward to be found in both.  The multitude of books available demands care in the selection.  Why waste time with an indifferent book, when a good book is so readily available?

The opening words of each segment of Ulysses are indicated by small case capitals. Just a couple of lines. There are three books, I, II, III. The usual and accepted Homeric adventures corresponding with Ulysses are indicated below. The books of Homer separately named; in accordance with the accepted reference for Ulysses.
 
 

Homer comprises 24 books in all. Ulysses touches on only 18 of the books of Homer; has no counterpart of the return of Odysseus, his judgment of the situation and the suitors, the reunion with the patient Penelope.
 

Homer’s Odyssey flows, a broad and powerful stream, action and intrigue, hot blood and strong emotion; the human condition meticulously observed, displayed without malice; a beautiful simplicity without guile or ambiguity, men and women in an early but not wholly primitive society; a society in which death and slavery is the norm, but a society which valued courage and endurance in men and women; and tells all with a power of language which equals the human spirit to such effect that the story is retold still in our generation nearly four thousand years after its fateful events.

Long years of inspiration for myriads of our kind. And strength and power for yet a further couple of millennia. 
 

Joyce polarised (no pun intended) many in those heady days - but he was not alone. Other writers passed him by on the way to the top. Once the flurry of interest over the 'obscenity' had waned; the grubby residue offended many and the book quietly reached its true level in the literature of the West, a literary curiosity - a singularity.

The publication of Finnegans Wake finally put his work to a restless sleep on the shelves of booksellers.  But Joyce's Ulysses celebrated as no other character in the literature of the Western World, as Bloomsday, June 16.