This way, the nostos of Odysseus, as an epic narrative, becomes interwoven with a mystical subnarrative. To restate in terms of two words used elsewhere in the Odyssey, the hero is experiencing a loss of orientation in his noos or ‘thinking’, and this loss is presently blocking his nostos, ‘homecoming’. [41], The hero’s despair makes his comrades despair as well: as soon as they hear the news of their leader’s disorientation, they break down and cry (x 198–202) as they recall Antiphates the Laestrygonian and Polyphemus the Cyclops (x 199–200). Odysseus Journey Essay 846 Words | 4 Pages Thirdly, Odysseus’s journey takes him through many road of trials that depict the heroic cycle. From here on, the tales Odysseus tells are masterpieces of mythmaking as embedded in the master myth of the Odyssey. If he didn’t have anyone to help him, he would’ve died or stayed in one place for years. For Odysseus to get over the Iliad, he must sail past it. The gods have mercy on Odysseus at the bidding of Athena who loves Odysseus and Athena helps him return home.Â. Then, after Odysseus finishes his narration, he leaves the island of the Phaeacians and finally comes back home to {311|312} Ithaca, where his narration is taken over by the master Narrator of the Odyssey. At the beginning of the Odyssey, both the epic narrative about the hero’s return to his home and the mystical subnarrative about the soul’s return to light and life are recapitulated in the double meaning of psÅ«khē as either ‘life’ or ‘soul’. Our mentality as modern readers invites us to see Odysseus at home as “reality” and Odysseus abroad as “myth,” as if the myth of the hero contradicted the reality of the hero. [52] {312|313}. I focus this time on the contents of verse 3 together with the contents of verse 5: In verse 3, we learn that Odysseus saw the cities of many mortals and that he came to know their ways of ‘thinking’, noos. And we will see a further level of meaning for noos: it can be interpreted as ‘coming to’ in the mystical sense of ‘returning to consciousness’ after being unconscious – whether in sleep or even in death. By contrast, the noun noos, ‘thinking’, conveys the idea of being conscious of nostos. Before the hero’s descent into the realm of darkness and death, we saw the Okeanos as the absolute marker of the Far West; after his ascent into the realm of light and life, we see it as the absolute marker of the Far East. [29] In returning to the island of Circe by crossing the circular cosmic river Okeanos for the second time, the hero has come full circle, experiencing sunrise after having experienced sunset. [30] Even the name of Circe may be relevant, since the form Kirkē may be cognate with the form kirkos, a variant of the noun krikos, meaning ‘circle, ring’. This is the point being made at the very start of the tale: that the narrative is being kept in a state of suspension, and the cause of this suspension is said to be the goddess Calypso, who is preventing Odysseus from his nostos (i 13) by keeping him concealed in her cave (i 15). Need help with Book 11 in Homer's The Odyssey? Another time that Odysseus was kind to the people he met on his journey was when he was down in the The same can be said about the return of Odysseus from the cave of the Cyclops Polyphemus at the end of Odyssey ix. The hero is typically portrayed as wearing his hat and holding his staff and his bag. Yet another translation is ‘consciousness’.