Thursday, December 24, 2015

What are the actions of good judgement by Odysseus? And what are some poor judgement examples in book 10?And what is odesseus character examine and...

Odysseus' good judgement in Book X is that he listens to the gods.  Both Aeolus, the god of wind, and Hermes, the messenger of the gods, try to help Odysseus in his journey home, and Odysseus forsakes his hubris, or pride, and follows their advice.


Aeolus gives Odysseus a bag of wind: he bottles up the north, south, and west wind, leaving only the east wind to blow them home in a westward direction.  Aeolus thinks Poseidon is a bully; therefore, he takes pity on Odysseus.  Before, Odysseus might have tried to get home only through his own cunning, but now the wiser, less impetuous Odysseus is thankful for the wind.


However, Odysseus' mistake is that he fails to share the gods' advice with his crew.  He feels that only he is deserving of the wind, that they are undeserving of the gods' guidance.  When he falls asleep, the crew open the bag, thinking it is secret treasure.  They are blown back to their origin, and Aeolus angrily refuses to help them again.


Odysseus likewise listens to Hermes when the god warn him about Circe's spell.  He eats of a plant Hermes gives him as protection; then, he takes Circe to bed.  Odysseus not only listens to a god, but he goes to bed with a goddess for the sake of getting home.  When Circe tells him that he will have to go through Hades in order to find home, Odysseus realizes his fate: that he must fall in order to rise.


As for Book XII, to which which speech are you referring?  The most important speech is telling his crew that they must sail between Scylla and Charybdis:



“Friends, it is not right that only one or two of us should know the prophecies of the lovely goddess, Circe. I will tell all, so that escaping fate and death or no, at least you are forewarned. First she advised us to evade the voices of the marvellous Sirens in their flowering meadow. She commanded me alone to listen. You are to tie me hand and foot and stand me upright in the mast housing, and fasten the rope ends round the mast itself, and if I beg you to free me, bind me yet more tightly.”’



Unlike with the bag of wind, Odysseus is honest with his crew.  He relates the danger to his crew and shares their fear.  In this manner is he truly great in that he is worthy to receive the gods' advice and worthy to bear it like a human.  Odysseus has learned to suffer from the gods, like a man.

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