Odysseus in the Underworld: A Classic Mid-Life Crisis

Envisioning the Future and Valuing the Past

            Jacques Barzun, noted Columbia University historian and author of the still popular Teacher in America, commented in a recent address on the use of classics today.  “Obviously,” said Barzun, “the first service that a classic does is to connect the past with the present by stirring up feelings akin to those that once moved human beings – people who were in part very much like ourselves and in part very unlike.” (Barzun, p.1)  He goes on to suggest that studying the classics often loses its relevance, ending up “mere bookishness,” lacking in “imagination” which he defines as “making a successful effort to reconstruct from words on a page what past lives, circumstances, and feelings were like.” (Barzun, p. 11)

            There are, however, exceptions.  The epics of Homer, I would argue, provide myriad opportunities for glimpses into the thoughts and feelings of the ancients which, when imaginatively reconstructed and applied to our own lives, appear surprisingly familiar.  It is in this light that I propose to examine Odysseus’ venture into the Underworld in Book XI of the Odyssey as a classic mid-life crisis.  The depictions of Odysseus and the characters with whom he interacts in this venture present us an extraordinary array of feelings commonly associated today with those of adults at mid life.

            The psychologist Erik Erikson has suggested in the development of his theory of identity outlined in his Identity: Youth and Crisis that we truly know ourselves when we are able at a given point in our lives to value our pasts while realistically envisioning our futures.  When we are able to satisfy these demands forward and backward we are said to have identity, to use Erikson’s term.  Unlike Robert Frost’s hired man in his poem “Death of the Hired Man” we have “identity” when we are able “to look backward with pride” and “forward with hope.”  Conversely, say the psychologists, when we are, for whatever reasons, unable to comfortably envision our lives in both directions – as having a future as well as a past – we are said to be in a state of crisis.  In the modern consciousness, after adolescence it is at so-called “middle age” when individuals appear to be the most vulnerable to such crises.

            Of course, the epics of Homer contain memorable portraits of age extremes.  The contrast between the passion of youth and the wisdom of age is clearly distinguished in both epics.  Both the Iliad and the Odyssey abound in youthful portraits: Achilles and Patroklos, the Phaiacian athletes, Telemachos, Nausicaa, etc.  Likewise, there are in the epics unforgettable portraits of elders: Nestor’s attempt to end the friction between Achilles and Agamemnon; the touching outpouring to Achilles by his old tutor Phoinix; the appeal by old Priam for the body of his son Hektor; or Odysseus’ return to his old father Leartes.

            However, there is more to life than youth and old age.  One does not just leap from childhood to death’s door.  There is, in reality, considerable life in between – life devoted to marriage, family, children, aging parents, the protection of property, and reputation – life that is constantly assessed by the quality of past decisions and enriched by future possibilities – life whose conflicts are understood by competent therapists to contribute considerably to mid-life crises.  Because modern readers accept the notion of mid-life as a stage of our existence, those episodes of the Iliad and the Odyssey that portray the agony and doubt and tragedy associated with this state are particularly appealing.

            Odysseus could, of course, be viewed as an individual in a constant state of crisis throughout the Odyssey.  Throughout much of the epic his future is in doubt.  However, about midway in the poem in Book XI the cloud of uncertainty regarding his future is lifted.

            A brief examination of this venture reveals a conscious effort by the poet to address the universal need of his adult listeners to envision their futures by evaluating their pasts.

            Before proceeding, it might be apt to point out that by my perhaps fanciful calculations, Odysseus should be viewed as “middle-aged” upon his return to Ithaca.  Since when he embarks for Troy he has

already a wife and a child, he can be assumed to be at least twenty or so.  Therefore, after another twenty years of fighting and wandering, he can be envisioned as in his forties at least upon his return.

            Supposedly, Odysseus is directed by Circe to the Underworld in order to obtain directions home.  Critics, however, have long noted that this adventure serves not its alleged purpose – to receive directions home – but the storyteller’s intended purpose [Clarke. P. 58] – to provide Odysseus and his underworld contacts with news of what has happened, is happening, and will happen in the world of the living.

            During this visit, Odysseus both gives and receives information regarding the upper world.  Further, [and this is the major point] this adventure allows Odysseus the opportunity to review his past and, more importantly at this point in his life, to establish his future, thereby providing him with what all mortals seek but never obtain: knowledge of his future – his destiny.

            As directed by Circe, Odysseus meets with the blind prophet Teiresias and receives both assurance and advice – assurance that he will eventually arrive safely back in Ithaca and advice as to how to proceed when he arrives.  After he kills the suitors, he is to take an oar and walk inland until he meets someone who has never known the sea and mistakes his oar for a winnow-fan; then he must drive the oar into the ground and make sacrifices to his old nemesis Poseidon.  If this is done: “Death will come to you from the sea. In some altogether unwarlike way, and it will end you in the ebbing time of a sleek old age.  Your people about you will be prosperous.” [Lattimore: 134-37]

            It is through these extraordinary conversations and interactions between Odysseus and the members of the Underworld – conversations in which the shades of Hades hear and think and speak – that Homer provides us with some of his most powerfully human characterizations.

            Though Odysseus encounters many shades in the Underworld, some are singled out for specific revealing encounters that provoke Odysseus.  It is on these few encounters I wish to focus, because it is the sentiments voiced in these encounters – those with Antikleia, Agamemnon, Achilles, and Aias – that, in Erikson’s terms, assist Odysseus in reestablishing his identity.

            It has been suggested that Odysseus, by his very presence as a living being in the Land of the Dead, brings pain to all who see him and talk with him. [Griffin, p. 101] Unlike the souls with whom he interacts who have only their pasts to consider, Odysseus is also looking to the future.  Without exception, all of the shades with whom he comes into contact look at their pasts with regret and self-pity rather than with pride.

            Not one of the great warriors depicted in these encounters in the Underworld – including Odysseus – is able to take pride in his participation in the Trojan War.  The lovely Helen who [though manipulated by the gods] was the cause of it all, has become for Odysseus just another “vile woman,” and he bemoans the suffering and deaths of his companions who perished there.  After Odysseus has related to the gathering in the hall of Alkinoos his encounters with Teiresias, Elpenor, and Antikleia, there is a brief break in the storytelling after which Alkinoos inquires whether he has seen any of “his godlike companions, who once with you went to Ilion and there met their destiny.” [371-72]

“I would not begrudge you the tale of these happenings,” replies Odysseus, “and others yet more pitiful to hear, the sorrows of my companions, who perished later, who escaped onslaught and cry of battle, but perished all for the sake of a vile woman, on the homeward journey.” [380-84]

We learn here that there are no rewards in the afterlife for a hero.  There remains only the memory held by those alive in the upper world.  During his encounter with the shade of Achilles Odysseus tries to sooth the regret expressed by the “Son of Peleus” by calling attention to the honor bestowed upon him when he was alive and the “great authority” he now holds over the dead. [484-86] “Do not grieve, even in death, Achilleus.” [486] Achilles’ reply is that of a man who, now that it’s too late to matter, has his priorities in order:

“O shining Odysseus, never try to console me for dying.  I would rather follow the plow as thrall to another man, one with no land allotted him and not much to live on, than be a king over all the perished dead.” [489-91]

Every one of his fellow Achaians regrets his past and generally accepts responsibility for it.  They are reluctant to blame the gods.  Rather, they blame themselves, save Agamemnon, who characteristically blames his “sluttish wife” for his fate. [411]  And, since they are destined to remain shades in the Underworld forever, they have no future.  Or, do they?

In one respect many of the shades do have a future, the future that all mortals have, the future of their progeny.  The concern expressed here repeatedly by Odysseus and his former comrades is for the welfare of their families, particularly their children – in this case, of course, sons.  When Odysseus meets with his mother he has in mind the future welfare of his family:

“And tell me of my father and son whom I left behind.  Is my inheritance still with them, or does some other man hold them now, and thinks I will come no more?  Tell me about the wife I married, what she wants, what she is thinking, and whether she stays fast by my son, and guards everything, or if she has married the best man among the Achaians.” [174-79]

Wife, family, fortunes are Odysseus’ concerns, because he is looking to the future.

Agamemnon and Achilles, however, are left only to think of their sons – the only future they can envision.  “Tell me,” says Agamemnon, “if you happened to hear that my son was still living.” [458] Odysseus has no knowledge of Orestes, and the two are left “exchanging their sad words.”  Achilles requests information regarding his son Neoptolemos and his father “the stately Peleus.”  Although Odysseus has no knowledge of Peleus, he is able to relate an elaborate account of Neoptolemos’ brave actions both inside and outside the “Trojan horse.  Apparently, this sooths if not satisfies Achilles.  “So I spoke,” says Odysseus, “and the soul of the swift-footed scion of Aikos stalked away in long strides across the meadow of asphodel, happy for what I had said of his son, and how he was famous.” [538-40]

Among his former comrades encountered in the Underworld only Aias is unwilling to communicate although he apparently recognizes Odysseus.  He rejects Odysseus’ attempts at reconciliation and walks away angry still over his loss to Odysseus of the armor of Achilles.  In Odysseus’ mind, however, the armor has not been worth its cost, and he is filled with regret by Aias’ scornful reaction.  “I wish,” he says, “that I had never won a contest like this.” [548]

Nowhere in Homer, perhaps, are we given so vivid a depiction of a hero’s willingness to resolve an old quarrel and the everlasting bitterness which is the fate of an individual who stubbornly refuses to let go of the old baggage of his past.

The emotions expressed in these encounters have little to do with the gods and their will and power as they do in the Iliad and Odyssey generally.  Rather, they reflect the emotions and concerns common to all mortals.

The primary players in this drama are all looking toward both the past and the future.  However, it is Odysseus’ view that most concerns us, since he is the only player still functioning in the land of the living, the only character with a future.

Homer emphasizes in the opening words of the Odyssey that this is the story of a man.  “Tell me, Muse, about the man.”  It has been suggested that this focus “implies study of personality, of human relations, of the subtle psychology of man – a man in relation to other men and women, to his heritage, to his present environment, and to his destiny.” [Belmont, p. 49]

In Book XVIII Odysseus, awaiting his revenge in his own household disguised as a wretched beggar, humiliates a rival resident beggar named Iros and wins for himself a free meal.  Afterwards, he offers some advice to one of the least offensive of the suitors, a man name Amphinomous whose father and whose family Odysseus has respected in the past.  In a subtle attempt to persuade the young man to dissociate himself from the suitors, he urges Amphinomos to “listen and understand.”

“Of all creatures that breathe and walk on the earth, “says Odysseus, “there is nothing more helpless than a man is, of all that the earth fosters; for he thinks that he will never suffer misfortune in future days, while the gods grant him courage, and his knees have spring in them.  But when the blessed gods bring sad days upon him, against his will he must suffer it with enduring spirit.  For the mind in men upon earth goes according to the fortunes the Father of Gods and Men, day by day, bestows upon them.” [XVIII. 130-37]

Ironically, Amphinomos fails to heed this advice.  Perhaps he is too young to understand and, unlike Odysseus at this time in the tale, with ample spring still in his knees.  At any rate, he does not separate himself from the other suitors as Odysseus has urged, and is later killed by Telemachos in the slaughter.

We recognize the voice of experience in Odysseus’ observations.  These are the words of a man who has known suffering, a man who has literally “been th hell and back.”  Furthermore, we know these words reflect the confidence of a hero, made wise by his trials, who has returned to his home to fulfill his destiny.  The reader knows his adventures are nearing their end.

Jacques Barzun concludes his comments on the uses of classics today by reasserting that while scholarship can be brought in occasionally to shed light on a work, “a classic sheds its own light . . . And everything in it may be usefully related to the world and to the Self; it’s the role of the imagination to forge the links.”  Then, warning mildly of the dangers of proceeding in this imaginative realm, he concludes: “It is easy to talk nonsense and make false connections.  But the reward of reading with a humanistic eye is not in doubt: it is pleasure, renewable at will.  That pleasure is the ultimate use of the classics.” [p.12]

To consider the experiences of Odysseus in the Underworld as a successful passage through a crisis at mid-life may be a bit too imaginative, perhaps – playing fast and loose with the classics, so to speak.  Maybe.  Yet, for all but the most unthinking adult, mid-life provokes nothing if not a taking stock of the past in an attempt to ensure a future.  It seems clear to this reader that Homer’s depiction of Odysseus in the Underworld provides contemporary readers with brilliant models, even case studies, of familiar “feelings akin to those that once moved human beings” in the ancient world.

 [This essay was first presented at the 83^rd annual meeting of the Classical Association of New England at Miss Porter’s School, Farmington, CT, April 7, 1989]

Bibliography

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_________ Death, Fate and the Gods. London: Athlone, 1965.

Erikson, Erik, Identity: Youth and Crisis. New York: Norton, 1968

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