Abstract:
The partnership between Odysseus and Athena in the Odyssey is unlike any other
relationship within Homer. Indeed in her book Homeric Morality, Naoko Yamagata even asks “Can we not, then, read the Odyssey as a story of friendship between the goddess and the hero?” This question seems initially disquieting, especially considering how inherently different Homeric gods are from their heroes. Jenny Strauss Clay provides a key insight into the intrinsic alienness of Homeric gods by categorizing the gods as, “Universal gods who protect the moral and cosmic order appear to coalesce side by side with immoral divinities who seek nothing but the immediate gratification of their Olympian but all-too-human appetites.” On the most basic and essential level, Homeric gods are entirely immutable and possess accumulated knowledge on the wider universe that mortals can not even dream of. The gods and mortals of Homer are different by their very nature, they obey different laws, and face different challenges. Because of the structural differences between mortals and immortals, the ways in which gods and mortals interact can not be intuitively understood. The interactions between Odysseus and Athena are,
however, especially complex because their behavior does not subscribe to any of the common patterns for divine-mortal interactions.
