From Villain to Hero: Odysseus in Ancient Thought

Epilogue: Odysseus’ Virtus and Thirst for Knowledge in the Renaissance

148 Epilogue: Odysseus’ Virtus and Thirst for Knowledge in the Renaissance Echoes of the ancient discussion over Odysseus’ drive to contemplation in relationship to his duties in the world are heard again in the allegorical interpretation of the Odyssey offered in the sixteenth century by the French scholar Jean Dorat, who taught the poets Pierre de Ronsard and Joachim Du Bellay and quite likely influenced their own treatments of Odysseus (the best known of which perhaps is Du Bellay’s sonnet Heureux qui comme Ulysse, a fait un beau voyage).1 I say “echoes” because Dorat explicitly draws on classical sources, both Latin and Greek, for his reading of Odysseus. In medieval Europe moralists and philosophers do not seem to have been concerned with balancing Odysseus’contemplative inklings and his duties in the world. The reason is likely to be that they read Odysseus’ wisdom through a Christian lens. In the East, where Homer was never systematically Christianized ,2 that thematic was kept alive: witness Eustathius with his admiration for Odysseus the πολιτικὸς φιλόσοφος, who delights in the Sirens’ company but stays with them only temporarily. For Western readers, on the other hand, Odysseus’ wisdom mainly consists in his striving to reach his celestial home, Ithaca thus reconfigured.3 This Christian idealization of Odysseus culminates in the exaltation of him as a figure for Christ the savior, as in this passage from Maximus of Turin (450 AD): “If, then, the story says of Ulysses that having been bound to the mast saved him from danger, how much more ought there to be preached what really happened—namely that today the tree of the cross has snatched the whole human race from the danger of death! For, because Christ the Lord has been bound to the cross, we pass through the world’s charming hazards as if our ears were stopped; we are neither detained by the world’s destructive sound nor deflected from the course of a better life onto the rocks of wan- Epilogue 149 tonness. For the tree of the cross not only hastens the person who is bound to it back to his homeland but also protects those gathered about it by the shadow of its power” (Sermons 37.2).4 As an avatar of Christ, Odysseus perhaps remains a “king”—by binding himself to the mast he saves others in addition to himself— but one projected onto the world beyond, not the wise and competent administrator of the terrestrial city. The medieval Odysseus is a contemplative in a sense reminiscent of Neoplatonism : as a stranger on earth, eager to leave a world where he does not belong. So for instance in the reading of the Norman philosopher William of Conches (twelfth century), for whom Odysseus blinding the Cyclops is the wise man battling worldly desires: “For Polyphemus, that is, childish vision, is pride, because it seems to a child that he knows and sees many things. He has only one eye, that is, only contemplation of temporal things, and this he has in his forehead, that is, an ostentatious display, because children turn their attention to ostentation and boasting. Ulysses plucks out the eye of childish pride, because the wise man Ulysses is called ὁλονξένον,5 that is, the far-ranging wanderer (a traveler through all lands), since here is (his?) pilgrimage. But our life is in heaven; he scorns the contemplation and desire for temporal things.”6 This passage recalls the Platonizing reading of Polyphemus’ blinding as the extirpation of the θυμός by the pursuer of contemplation. William of Conches further elaborates on the incompatibility between contemplation of true things on the one hand and worldly sights and actions on the other by presenting Odysseus as a pilgrim on earth. Within this mind-frame there is no negotiating Odysseus’ double aspiration as a contemplative and as a practical sage, because the only desirable commitment to the world consists in fighting all worldly goods. As long as he is moving on this earth Odysseus is everywhere a stranger (ὁλονξένον), and his wisdom is nothing but this total estrangement.7 The picture is significantly altered in the Renaissance, along with both changes in mentality and the rediscovery of Homer and Greek philosophical authors , especially Plutarch, whose fervid admiration for Odysseus’skills and virtue greatly contributed to recommending him as a model of leadership (Renaissance authors repeatedly quote the story, told by Plutarch, about Alexander the Great knowing Homer by heart and sleeping with the Iliad under his pillow).8 In keeping with...