The Awakening of Sense & Sensibility in Odysseus
By Katherine Lansing Davis
The wily wanderer begins his voyage home leading his men in the usual activities of men of war—pillaging, looting raping, and keeping to the warrior mode. But for Odysseus to return to Penelope, there must be a place made for the scent of a woman—for the soft beauty the feminine has to offer. This is unlikely to be found in a land populated with unwashed soldiers yet wielding swords caked with foul-smelling, rusted blood. The senses which a lover must develop to court a lady, rather than simply to bed a prostitute or take a quick and shallow pleasure with a “spoil of war,” are yet to be developed.
His encounter with the anima figure Circe may be Odysseus’ first clue that it is possible for him to fail in an attempt to dominate an adversary with force or trickery. He does resist her porcine spell, but then holds off his attack of her and remains in her seductive lair, bargaining freedom from enchantment for his men, but nevertheless staying to appreciate the pleasures of her beauty and domain for a year, which is a fair image of a man under some kind of spell. When he leaves “the beautiful bed of Circe,” (Od. 10. 114-479) it is at his men’s urging. At this point, however, he is a man who listens carefully to a woman who possesses an intellect he has come to appreciate. By carefully following her instructions, he may survive the descent to Hades’ domain to pass through the realm of death and, ironically, discover a pathway to the future and the way home. As this trip is a soul-making journey, home is the place where the warrior must have not only learned to watch his mouth and wipe his feet before crossing the exquisite inlaid marble of his own front hallway, but also to speak without wiles to those who wait to welcome him. He must also be able to appreciate the loveliness of his land, his castle, his strong son and the amazing wife who has preserved it. The feminine energy experienced on his voyage will need to have been integrated into the intellectually clever but unfeeling consciousness from which he is emerging.
The “nymph of the fair braids,” Calypso, is the third essential anima to engage the hero. Odysseus appears as lost as a lotus eater in a place where the senses are so satisfied by all she brings as to create a sense of satiation—unsurprisingly resulting in a sense of extreme lethargy. What more could one want than to leave the gray, insubstantial land of the dead and spend time before “[…] the hearth where a big fire was burning, and the smell from afar/Of cedar and easy-split citron was exhaled through the island/As it blazed,” (Od. 5. 61) fulfilling the desire for delicious scent; an adoring goddess who sang “[…] in a lovely voice,” delighting the ears, and a view of nature that is an abundant pleasure for the eyes, of wood “[…] growing in abundance around the cave,/Alder and black poplar and fine-scented cypress,/Where the birds with their long wings went to sleep./[…]And right on the spot round the hollow cave had been drawn/A trained vine in bloom that was blossoming with clusters.[…] All around soft meadows of violet and wild parsley were blooming.” (Od. 5. 63-73)
When Calypso reluctantly yields to the will of Zeus of which Hermes has informed her, Odysseus is swept into the land of the last powerful anima he will encounter before setting foot on his own land. She appears in the most innocent of forms, yet when we imagine the intense emotion that must have been roused by their meeting, we realize that the Odysseus who pries out or grasps hold of what he needs is stopping to look and to think in a much more pan-determined context than we have seen. Like a god, who is able to see all the players in the game, because he views them all from above, Odysseus is considering the complexity and the consequences of his thoughts, words and actions. He has learned, among other things, how to look for another way and let the water carry him. He can cease to fight the furious waves of the ocean and allow himself to be carried on a safe, though less familiar, waterway—the river where he will meet his last anima figure before the final adventure home.
Imagine the sexual pull of the encounter. A powerful fighter, rippling with muscles, dark—except for the white scars tattooing his body, emerges naked from the water, covered with brine and seaweed, looking more like a selkie than a true man. Nonetheless, he is not a young man and has survived encounters with death too numerous to tell, a man at his weakest, most vulnerable; and this in itself is an attraction that few women could resist. Nausicaa, a beautiful young princess, just the age to attract such a man, has been washing clothes in the river, followed by bathing with her serving maids, all of whom have just anointed themselves with gleaming olive oil. She is undoubtedly in the semi-nude herself, and there is additionally a healthy glow of sweat, as they’ve been playing ball together while waiting for the clothes to dry. Nausicaa […] holds her head and her forehead higher than all/And is easily outstanding, but all are lovely:/So the unwed girl stood out among her serving maids.” (Od. 6. 107-109). Odysseus addresses this vision, not as a warrior who assumes that she is for him—not as a seducer, using his cleverness to get his way with her. Rather he behaves in a very conscious way, respecting convention, position, and her personal feelings. “I […] if you are one of the mortals who dwells on the land,/Three times blessed are your father and your queenly mother,/And three times blessed your kinsmen. Surely their hearts/Must be warmed forever with happiness on your account,/Beholding so fine a flower stepping into the dance./Blessed above all others within his heart is the man/Who, laden down with bride-gifts, may lead you home.” (Od. 6. 154-156).
Although she naturally falls in love with him, the hot sexual charge, the danger, and immoral potential of the situation is diffused by Odysseus’ mature and pan-determined sensitivity. Essential to his plans as is his need to meet her father, he nevertheless considers the unsuitability, the possible damage to her virginal image and honor, which could result if she led a naked man from a private place in the woods back to the castle. He follows behind, thus protecting her reputation, and perhaps adding an additional aspect of self-control to his own feelings. One is reminded of El Gallo in the musical “The Fantasticks,” who answers the question of the virginal girl he’s assigned to manipulate into a final mature relationship with the “boy-next-door.” “Are you attracted to me?” truthfully, “A little,” in a voice that vibrates with suppressed emotion. We meet a new Odysseus—a man who is more sensitive and more sensible—ready for reintegration, and ready for love.
Posted by john at May 25, 2005 10:00 PM
