Editorial Note – for the sake of this article the version of ''The Odyssey' used was the Penguin Books revised translation by D.C.H Rieu so any references to specific quotes, line and page numbers will reference this version of the epic.
Following on from Part One, Mythos is back with another look at Jorge Rivera-Herrans’ incredible concept album ‘Epic’, an online musical retelling of Homers’ ‘The Odyssey,’ following the escapades of the unfortunate Greek hero, Odysseus, on his journey home from Troy. Last time, we took a look at the first two Sagas in the tale, ‘The Troy Saga’ and the ‘Cyclops Saga,’ which follow Odysseus from the end of the Trojan war to his defeat of the Cyclops Polyphemus, the death of his dear friend, Polites and his separation from his patron goddess and mentor, Athena.
Picking up where we left off, we’ll be taking a look at the mythical and Homeric inspiration behind the next three sagas in the series: ‘The Ocean Saga’, ‘The Circe Saga,’ and ‘The Underworld Saga’, and the incredible songs which follow Odysseus and his men as they struggle against dangerous storms, powerful gods, and a risky adventure into the world of the dead.
Their first challenge appears in ‘The Ocean Saga’ which opens with Odysseus and his men beginning to feel the first signs of Poseidon’s displeasure after they unknowing blinded his son Polyphemus. ‘Storm’ sees Odysseus and his crew battling through dangerous weather, attempting to keep the fleet together and safe as they struggle through giant waves and dangerous winds. Thankfully, Odysseus manages to steer his crew through to the eye of the storm, where they discovered a floating island – Aeolia, the home of the wind god, Aeolus.
Described in ‘The Odyssey’ as a “floating island” surrounded by an unbroken bronze wall and sheer cliffs, nowadays Aeolia is associated with Italy’s Aeolian Islands, with the islands of Lipari and Stromboli both posited as possible locations for this mythical site. In ‘Epic’ Rivera-Herran takes a far more romantic view of the floating island, with it literally floating in the air above the ships, forcing Odysseus to use a harpoon and rope to climb up to the island where the wind god lives.
The decision to attempt this journey is covered in the next instalment of ‘The Ocean Saga’, ‘Luck Runs Out,’ which sees Odysseus argue with his second in command, Eurylochus. Eurylochus argues that they don’t know for certain that this is Aeolia (to which Odysseus counters “How many floating islands have you seen before?”) and that even if it were, the gods are dangerous and not to be trifled with. This is the not the first time that Eurylochus and Odysseus have disagreed on strategy – in ‘The Troy Saga’ Eurylochus argued for more aggressive tactics to find food, while Odysseus and Polites favoured an initial non-violent scouting mission. The argument in ‘Luck Runs Out’ is however the first sign of future conflict between the two men, with Odysseus cutting down Eurylochus’ concerns and chiding him for showing doubt in front of the other men.
The third song of ‘The Ocean Saga’, ‘Keep Your Friends Close,’ sees Odysseus arrive at the island and implore Aeolus for aid. Though the island is not described in ‘Epic’, in ‘The Odyssey’ it is said to be a rich place with plentiful comfort and eternal banquets filled with delicacies. It is the home of Aeolus, his wife, and their twelve children – six daughters and six sons who, disturbingly enough, made up six married couples. In Homer’s tale, Odysseus and his crew remain on the island for a month, recovering before the next leg of their journey. When the time came to leave, Odysseus asked Aeolus for help, and his host was happy to comply, summoning up a wind that would guide Odysseus and his men safely home. He also gave Odysseus a princely gift – a bag containing the winds of the world – excepting of course that wind which Aeolus had summoned to see them home. The bag was tightly closed and needed to remain that way to prevent the winds from escaping. Of course, it was not to be – Odysseus’ crew suspected that there was treasure inside and secretly opened the bag when they were so close to home that they could “see people tending their fires”. Once released, the winds sent the despairing crew all the way back to Aeolia. This time, Aeolus was not so pleased to see them. He declared their misfortune to be a sign of the gods’ displeasure and ordered them to leave his island immediately, refusing to lend his aid to a people the gods so clearly despised.
Though the broad strokes of this encounter do appear in ‘Keep Your Friends Close’ – the visit to Aeolus, the gift of the bag, the foolishness of the crew – the circumstances are quite changed. For a start, Odysseus and his crew do not spend a month on the island, and the ‘gift’ is not freely given, but instead part of a challenge posed to Odysseus: how well can he trust his crew?
In the song’s opening, Odysseus supplicates himself before Aeolus, begging to be given aid to get through the terrible storm. Aeolus promises to help, but only if Odysseus will play a game with them – all Odysseus would need to do is keep the bag of winds closed until he was home. Odysseus readily agrees and returns to his crew, but before he can explain the deal, Aeolus’ minions appear, telling the crew that the bag contains treasure. Though Odysseus tries to convince the crew otherwise, discontent and rumours spread amongst the men (“everything’s changed since Polites”). In order to protect the bag, Odysseus remains awake for nine nights before finally succumbing to exhaustion and falling asleep. While he sleeps, his crew take the bag and open it – the escaping winds sending them far away from home. This is how it happened for Homer’s Odysseus as well, with the crew stealing the bag while he slumbered, however Homer’s Odysseus did not have the same goal of protecting the bag. He remained awake, sailing the ship without rest because of his own eagerness to get home. Perhaps if Odysseus had been well rested the bag would never have been stolen or, perhaps, it would merely have been taken earlier.
While Homer’s Odysseus lost the winds forever, ‘Epic’s’ Odysseus is a little quicker on his feet, managing to close the bag so that at least some of the winds were still trapped. Instead of sending the fleet back to Aeolia, a gleeful Aeolus informs Odysseus that they are heading to “the land of the giants”. ‘Ruthlessness,’ the final song of ‘The Ocean Saga,’ sees Odysseus and his fleet face their greatest and most dangerous threat yet…the god, Poseidon.
If there is one person that you do not want to insult while undergoing a long ocean voyage, that person is, of course, Poseidon, god of the seas. In ‘The Odyssey,’ Poseidon’s rage at Odysseus took the form of terrible seas and misfortune. In ‘Epic’ Poseidon comes down in person, taunting and tormenting Odysseus and his men. Though Poseidon could have easily dispatched the entire fleet, he chose not to, instead keeping Odysseus’ ship and crew alive long enough to see the rest of his men and ships destroyed completely at the god’s hands. The fleet’s numbers have dropped from six hundred at the start of their journey to a mere forty-three.
As the god finally moves to destroy Odysseus and his ship, Odysseus remembers the mostly empty bag of winds – opening it, the winds carry him and his last remaining ship away from the furious god.
While in ‘The Odyssey’ Odysseus and his men do not encounter Poseidon directly, that does not mean that they fare any better. Homer’s Odysseus also loses his entire fleet in the land of the giants – more specifically in the lands of the Laestrygonians. The fleet find a harbour, surrounded by great cliffs and, while the rest of the ships stayed close together, mooring inside the harbour, Odysseus’ ship remained outside.
Three of Odysseus' men wer sent in land to see what people lived in this place. They encountered a young woman gathering water who directed them to the palace of her father, Antiphates. When the three men arrived, however, they realised that these were a people of giant proportions and, to make matters worse that they were cannibals. One of the men was snatched up and devoured while the other two fled back to the ships to warn the rest of the fleet. Antiphates called his fellow Laestrygonians who followed the men, lining up on the cliffs around the harbour and throwing great rocks down to shatter and sink the ships. They fished the dead and dying out of the water, carrying them away “to make their loathsome meal”. Outside of the harbour, Odysseus and his last remaining ship were able to free themselves and sail away, leaving the rest of their companions behind.
The next saga, ‘The Circe Saga’ covers Odysseus’ final surviving ship in its arrival and eventual escape from the island of the enchantress Circe. A sorceress and minor deity of magic, Circe was the daughter of the sun god Helios and the nymph Perseis (or Perse). Her home was the beautiful island of Aeaea and she was known for her disdain for men – enchanting those unlucky enough to find her island.
In ‘The Odyssey’ Odysseus’ crew are so despondent and exhausted when they arrived on the isle that they remain on the beach for the first two days. It is only once Odysseus gives a speech to inspire the men that they move to explore the island – splitting into two groups, one led by Odysseus and the other by Eurylochus. They draw lots to see which group would be unlucky enough to explore and Eurylochus loses, heading off inland to explore, while Odysseus’ group remain behind.
This exploration and the group’s encounter with Circe is explored in the first of ‘The Circe Saga’s’ four songs, ‘Puppeteer,’ which sees a panicked Eurylochus return alone. Eurylochus describes the encounter with Circe “We came across a palace, inside we heard a voice, it seemed to show no malice” much as this first encounter is described in ‘The Odyssey’ – “They came upon Circe’s house, built of polished stone”, “They could hear Circe within, singing in her beautiful voice as she went too and for at her great an everlasting loom”. One feature of Circe’s palace not described in ‘Puppeteer’ are the wolves and lions that prowl around Circe’s house, seemingly tame and enchanted by the goddess into docility.
Here events transpire similarly, grateful for the hospitality the group are invited inside and willingly shared a meal whereupon they fall prey to Circe’s enchantments and are transformed into pigs. One major deviation in ‘Puppeteer’ is that in ‘The Odyssey’ the man who led the soon-to-be pigs inside Circe’s house was Polites who is of course already dead by this point of ‘Epic’ – killed by Polyphemus. Only Eurylochus, suspicious of such good fortune remains outside, witnessing what happens to the other men and fleeing back to the beach alone. In a speech that echoed his Homeric counterpart (“you will never come back yourself and you won’t rescue a single man of your crew. I am certain of it. Let us away quickly with those that are left here. We might still escape this evil day.”) Eurylochus begs Odysseus to abandon those other men, to save those still left (“think about the men we have left before they’re none, let’s just count our losses you and I and let’s run”) both Odysseus’ responses to these entreaties is the same - that he cannot abandon his men.
While honourable, Odysseus’ choice may very well have spelled disaster, as when he made it he had no way of defeating such a powerful enchantress, or indeed of transforming his men back to their original forms. In fact, it is only through divine intervention that Odysseus succeeds at all.
We may have already encountered Athena, Zeus, and Poseidon, but the next song in the saga, ‘Wouldn’t you like’ introduces another Greek god. One who “Isn’t afraid to send a message” – Hermes, messenger of the gods and patron god of travellers, thieves, and merchants, to name just a few. Hermes’ motivations for helping Odysseus are never explored in ‘The Odyssey’ – it may be because as a traveller and master of deception, Odysseus fell into the god’s domain, or Hermes’ motivation may have been more personal. By some accounts, Hermes and Odysseus share a familial connection. Odysseus’ mother, Anticleia, is said to be the daughter of a famous thief, Autolycus – and though accounts of Autolycus’ parentage vary, some claim him to be the son of Hermes. This would, of course, make Hermes Odysseus’ great-grandfather.
Both versions of Hermes offer Odysseus a special plant – in ‘The Odyssey’ described as Moly, a plant with black roots and white flowers, and in ‘Epic’ described as ‘Holy Moly’ by a far more flamboyant and less serious Hermes. In ‘The Odyssey’ the plant will merely grant Odysseus immunity from Circe’s magics, allowing him to overpower her. In ‘Epic’, the plant is said to allow Odysseus to “manifest a being of [his] creation” which would help him defeat Circe. In both, the plant is said to be very dangerous, incapable of being plucked by human hands.
The final two songs of ‘The Circe Saga’ show the confrontation between Odysseus and Circe. In ‘Done For’ we see the initial conflict, with Odysseus succeeding in defeating Circe – or at least battling her to a stalemate. The following song, ‘There Are Other Ways’ sees Circe’s attempt to seduce Odysseus. Though initially tempted, Odysseus refuses Circe’s seduction, and instead pleads with her to help him and his men return home.
While there are similarities between the scenes in Homer and Rivera-Herran’s tales, there are also some major differences. In the Homeric version, Odysseus does not reject Circe’s advances.
During his meeting with Hermes, Odysseus is advised by the god that once he physically overpowers Circe the goddess will attempt to seduce him. Hermes tells Odysseus that he “must not refuse the goddesses favours,” but that before sleeping with her he must first extract a vow from Circe on the gods that she will not attempt to enchant him further. If he does not extract this vow Circe will use this seduction to weaken Odysseus and steal his manhood. Though Homer’s Odysseus may have accepted Circe’s offer under duress – under the instruction of a god, and in fear for his men – he did still accept her offer and he and his men stayed on Circe’s island for a year. In the end, it wasn’t even Odysseus who decided to leave, instead his men came to Odysseus and begged him to continue their journey and return home – Odysseus readily agreeing.
Now decided to leave, Odysseus supplicates himself before Circe, and begs her to allow him to leave. At this, she gives him the most unwelcome news. He may, of course, leave. But before he could go home, he must first travel to the halls of Hades to consult with the blind prophet Teiresias or, as ‘Epic’s’ Circe put it “I know of a brilliant prophet, problem is this prophet is dead. I can't get you home, but I'll get you to the Underworld instead.”
Though the crew’s adventure on Circe’s island may have seemed relatively harmless – they may have been turned into pigs, but they were turned back and then spent a year in luxury for their troubles – it was not entirely without its victims. A member of the crew, Elpenor had gotten drunk, fallen asleep on the roof of Circe’s palace and fallen to his death.
The journey to visit the prophet Teiresias is a hard one for Odysseus and his crew. In ‘The Odyssey’ Odysseus is required to travel to the entrance of the Underworld – where the River of Fire and the River of Lamentation meet. There he digs a trench, into which he pours offerings to the dead – milk and honey, sweet wine, water and barley, followed by the ritual sacrifice of a ram and a black ewe, their blood flowing into the trench also. In order to receive prophecy from Teiresias, Odysseus had to keep all other shades away, allowing only the prophet to drink first. This task was made harder by the fact that among the ghosts who arrived where some Odysseus recognised, first among them was Elpenor who arrived to tell Odysseus his fate and request that his captain return to Aeaea to find and bury his body. Second came Odysseus’ mother, Anticleia and, despite his sorrow to find his mother in this place, Odysseus holds firm, refusing her the chance to drink before the prophet. Once Teiresias has drunk and given Odysseus the prophecy however, Odysseus allows his mother forward and the two reunite, Odyssues tells his mother that he had survived Troy and come to the underworld as a visitor, not an inhabitant. In turn, Anticleia tells Odyssues of his home, the fate of Penelope and Telemachus, how his father, Laertes, fared, and that she herself had died of a broken heart, longing for her son to return. Though Odysseus tries to embrace his mother, he is unable, “Three times […] I started forward. Three times, like a shadow or a dream she slipped through my hands and left me pierced by an even sharper pain.”
Interestingly, once Odysseus has spoken with his mother, and allowed the other shades near he did not first see the souls of great heroes – instead he saw their mothers and wives. Though Odysseus only named a few, in his recounting of this journey, the number includes Alcmene and Megara, Hercules’ mother and wife, respectively, Leda – from the famous tale of Leda and the Swan – and Ariadne, who had aided Theseus in his quest against the Minotaur. He even saw Jocasta, the mother of Oedipus, whose own tragic tale is well known. It was only after encountering the women that Odysseus was approached by the heroes, some his friends and companions from the Trojan war – Agamemnon and Achilles – and some of even greater acclaim, such as Hercules himself.
Odysseus and his crew’s journey into the Underworld is explored in the first song of ‘The Underworld Saga’ named, appropriately enough, ‘The Underworld’. Though Odyssues and his men get to avoid the messy business of digging holes and sacrificing sheep they do have their own troubles to contend with – sailing through troubled waters besieged by ghosts and shades that attempt to lead them astray “This land confuses your mind so no matter who we find full speed ahead until we find the prophet”. Odysseus in particular is troubled by the shades of his fallen men, and his own guilt of the murder of the infant Astyanax in Troy. Rather than Elpenor, it was Polites that Odysseus encountered in the Underworld and, when he met his mother, unlike in ‘The Odyssey’ she seemed unable to perceive him at all, deaf to his cries. Despite their traumatic journey, as with their Homeric counterparts, Odysseus and his crew do succeed in finding the prophet Teiresias.
Of all the prophets for Odyssues to have encounter, Teiresias was a poetic choice – like Odysseus it seems he was loved and loathed by the gods. He was the son of the nymph Chariclo, a dear companion to the Goddess Athena. When a young Teiresias accidentally witnessed the goddess bathing, Athena blinded him. Though Chariclo begged, Athena could not return the boy’s sight, but instead gifted him the ability to understand the ability to understand the voices of birds, and a cane that would allow him to walk unaided.
An alternate version of the myth states that Teiresias was blinded by an angered Hera, and that Zeus gifted him his prophetic abilities in recompense – in addition to an extended lifespan. In his earlier life Teiresias is said have been transformed into a woman after he struck two mating snakes in anger. He lived as a woman for several years, marrying and having children, before being transformed back into a man. At some point after this transformation, Hera and Zeus were having an argument over whether men or women get more pleasure out of sex, Hera insisting men and Zeus insisting women. Seeking an alternate viewpoint, the two questioned Teiresias who sided with Zeus and was immediately blinded by an angered Hera. Admittedly, it is hard to see how Teiresias could have avoided misfortune –angering Zeus was hardly a better option.
As a figure with so many contrasting myths it is therefore appropriate that there should also be such differences between the Homeric and the ‘Epic’ versions of this prophet. In ‘No Longer You’ Teiresias essentially tells Odysseus that he cannot help him. Though Teiresias does give Odysseus a prophecy, it is vague and full of double meanings, referencing ‘sacrifice’ and ‘betrayals’ without giving any clear context, or ways to avoid this fate. The clearest advice that Odysseus is give, is that in order to return home he must undergo a transformation, letting go of his current self, to become someone new – “I see a man who gets to make it home aliveBut it's no longer you”.
By contrast, Homer’s Teiresias is much, much more helpful, something that ‘Epic’s’ Teiresias even cheekily references in his song “I see a world where I help you get home”. Far from leaving cryptic clues, Teiresias is very clear about what must be done. He tells Odysseus that their journey will be plagued by hardship as they have offended Poseidon, but that they may all still make it home providing they do not eat the cattle of the sun god – if they do, the crew will be destroyed and Odysseus alone will make it home, though many years later than he would have if they had left the cattle alone. Teiresias’ prophecy even extends past Odysseus’ homecoming, detailing the suitors and their deaths at Odysseus’ hands – something that that is only alluded to in ‘Epic’, “I see your palace covered in red. Faces of men who had long believed you're dead”. Teiresias also gives Odysseus advice on how to regain Poseidon’s favour, though this would only be possible after he made it home. He informed Odysseus that he would need to travel so far inland that the natives had never seen an oar, and then make sacrifices to the god.
Though in ‘Epic’ Teiresias may not give Odysseus such clear instructions, that does not mean that their journey was in vain. It is Teiresias that finally gets Odysseus to learn that lesson the Athena, Poseidon and even to some extent Eurylochus have been attempting to teach him this whole time – that his mercy has only ever been a hindrance. In order to make it home, Odysseus must become ruthless. It is this internal conflict that Odysseus wrestles with in ‘Monster,’ the final song of the saga, grappling with the reality of his situation against his own morals and guilt before ultimately making his choice “I’ll become the monster, like none they’ve ever known […] I must become the monster and then we’ll make it home”.
With that chilling proclamation we come to the end of first act of the ‘Epic’ musical and prepare to head into stormier waters with the next instalment – a journey with far less kind Odysseus, and even more terrible monsters waiting to pounce.
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