Free Essays - Comparing Odysseus and Medea :: comparison compare contrast essays

Free Essays on Homers Odyssey Odysseus and Medea      Let me hear no smooth talkof death from you, Odysseus, light of councils.Better, I say, to break sod  as a farm handfor some poor country man, on iron rations,than lord it over all the exhausted dead.   Right before restless Odysseus leaves Circe, she tells him that he must go down into Hades to visit the shade of Teiresias, the blind prophet who advises Odysseus of his homecoming (the Wanderings). He then goes on to meet the shades of the queen and lovers of dead heroes and finally the heroes themselves. In the quotation cited, Odysseus is talking with Achilles, the greatest hero of the Trojan War. Achilles, while alive, was fully cognizant of his choice between a coarse life spent in obscurity or a short life, filled with glory. He chose the latter. I suppose Achilles quickly realized after he died that fame has no meaning for you after youre dead. In retrospect, he understood that death gives meani ng, and fills angiotensin converting enzyme up with the passion for life. Every action, however mundane, is filled with the miracle of life and completes itself when one interacts with others. This is what Achilles meant when he asks Odysseus about his son and his former kingdom--never mind the dead, what are the living doing? Achilles yearns to be back among the living. This theme of death giving meaning to life is universal throughout the Odyssey. Hell is death, heaven is now, in life, in the field of time and action. Odysseus nearly died of homesickness (or boredom) when Kalypso detained him on her island, hoping to make him her immortal husband. Odysseus knew if he drank that ambrosia, life would be eternal, youd produce a beautiful house and a babe for a wife, but things would get terribly vapid after a certain point. Immortality is death, in this sense. Finally, it is genus Athene (thought, action) who convinces the gods (who are, I think, jealous of us mortals) to let Od ysseus off the island and back into his life. It is interesting to note that even Hermes couldnt wait to get off Kalypsos island--who would willingly come hither? There is no city of men nearby. . . . . Ultimately, Odysseus journey to Ithaka is about embracing ones life, accepting the challenges, the dangers, pitfalls, and joys, with courage, tenacity and a keen sense of what it takes to maintain balance in ones life.