Odyssey 21.404-411
ὣς ἄρ᾽ ἔφαν μνηστῆρες: ἀτὰρ μητις Ὀδυσσεύς,
αὐτίκ᾽ εὶ μέγα τόξον ἐβάστασε καὶ ἴδε πάντη,
ὡς ὅτ᾽ ἀνὴρ φόρμιγγος ἐπιστάμενος καὶ ἀοιδῆς
ῥηϊδίως ἐτάνυσσε νέῳ περὶ κόλλοπι χορδήν,
ἅψας ἀμφοτέρωθεν ἐϋστρεφὲς ἔντερον οἰός,
ὣς ἄρ᾽ ἄτερ σπουδῆς τάνυσεν μέγα τόξον Ὀδυσσεύς.
δεξιτερῇ ἄρα χειρὶ λαβὼν πειρήσατο νευρῆς:
ἡ δ᾽ ὑπὸ καλὸν ἄεισε, χελιδόνι εἰκέλη αὐδήν.
Thus the suitors spoke. But cunning Odysseus
Straightaway after he lifted the great bow and looked it all over,
Just as when a man skilled with a lyre and song
Has easily stretched a chord over a new peg,
Having fastened the well-twisted sheep-gut at either end,
Just so did Odysseus quickly string the great bow.
Then taking up in the bow in his right hand, he plucked the string
That sang beautifully beneath (his touch), a voice like a swallow.
Heraclitus:
Fragment 48: τῷ οὖν τόξῳ ὄνομα βίος, ἔργον δὲ θάνατος.
The name for the bow is life, its work death.
Fragment 51: οὐ ξυνιᾶσιν ὅκως διαφερόμενον ἑωυτῷ ὁμολογέει· παλίντροπος ἁρμονίη ὅκωσπερ τόξου καὶ λύρης.
They do not understand how a thing opposed agrees with itself. It is a backward-turning harmony like that of a bow or a lyre.
Odysseus’ stringing of the bow represents the moment when the opposing forces in the narrative are themselves drawn taut: the suitors' death opposed to Odysseus' rebirth as his true self. IAs Heraclitus says, the work of the bow is death. What he does not say is that the work of the lyre is song which is in this instance the epic song of Odysseus’ homecoming. The work of the bow and the lyre come dramatically together at end of Book 21. It creates a backward turning harmony. It is worth noting that the sound of the bow is additionally compared to the voice of the swallow, a bird that returns to Ithaca in the spring, marking Odysseus’ rebirth.
(The translations are my own.)
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