Dorothy Sayers on Odysseus
In her witty alignment of the principles of literature framed by Aristotle, Aristotle on Detective Fiction, Dorothy Sayers more than once raises the spectre of Homer. For it was Aristotle who wrote that "Homer more than any other has taught the rest of us the art of framing lies in the right ways." That is, Odysseus manages to come up with many false tales based loosely upon actual events. Thus lying is easier when there is a grain of truth to it. In book XIV of the Odyssey, Odysseus weaves together a tale for the swineherd, telling him he is from Crete, filling in the story with relevant, believable details. Unlike the swineherd, the reader is aware that Odysseus is lying. The fascination derives from our knowledge that the lies Odysseus is telling are remarkably similar to the truth, but the names and places have changed. Rather than his rescue coming from Nausikaa, the young girl who led him to her father's hall, Odysseus says it was a young boy who did as much. When he speaks of his men losing control, he is echoing the actual events of the narrative he told to the Phaeacians. Pleasure results from the manipulation of perspective, where we are given a godlike perspective as readers, while the characters are left in variable degrees of ignorance. As Jacques Barzun states, it is the "concealment that arouses curiosity." Elements of disguise enable the poet to expose the flaws of those characters that fall prey to the misleading layer of appearances.
On the other hand, appearances can yield clues to identity, but only if one is privileged with the proper insight into what the visual clue means. Think of the famous recognition scenes late in the Odyssey: In book XVII, Argos the dog recognizes his master's voice after twenty years; and, in Book XIX, Euryclea, the loyal maidservant, identifies the beggar as Odysseus by the scar given to him as an adolescent. The latter is the subject of an equally famous essay by Erich Auerbach in Mimesis, entitled "Odysseus' Scar." We delight in Euryclea's recognition of her old master because it happens at a sensitive moment, within eyeshot of Penelope. Homer takes us on an extended digression intended to further solidify Odysseus' true identity, recalling his genealogy and the reason for his scar. Penelope, along with Laertes, father of Odysseus, and of course the suitors, still does not know it is Odysseus. Barzun tells us:
"In the ancient stories a single physical fact-a ring or other object, a footprint, a lock of hair-usually suffices to disclose identity and set off the denouement. The object is symbolic and conventional rather than rationally convincing. What happens in modern detective fiction is that objects-and more than one in each tale-are taken literally and seriously. They are scanned for what they imply, studies as signs of past action and dark purposes. This search for history in things is anything but trivial. It reflects the way our civilization thinks about law and evidence, nature and knowledge."
From this perspective we can see that by focusing on the literal explanation for the hermit thrush, T.S. Eliot distracts us from the symbolic role of the bird, thus enshrouding his secret purpose in mystery. Homer is the supreme master of objects: he relies on definite physical objects as symbols, but also as literal realities. When, after twenty years of rumors and tales of reputation, Telemachus finally meets his father, he is, naturally, stricken with skeptical disbelief, his essential trait before the meeting. As he has searched for his father he has been unwilling to put all of his faith in the gods, afraid to commit himself to an idea which he cannot prove true. Even now, since he has never seen his father, though he has been told by Menelaus and Helen that he resembles him, Telemachus has no definite proof. Homer has Odysseus respond to Telemachus' skepticism with the authenticity of his paternalism, but the words he uses subtly sustain the difference between the rumor of the man and the man himself:
This is not princely, to be swept
away by wonder at your father's presence.
No other Odysseus will ever come,
For he and I are one, the same; his bitter
Fortune and his wanderings are mine.
The duality is clear: the man you have heard about, the fiction you have built up in your mind, the myth you have stored all of these years, that person is me, because I am the reality behind the myth, I am the man in flesh and blood. It is the sheer economy of Odysseus' words and immediate turn to meditation upon the necessity to act, which leaves all doubt behind.