Odyssey
Yesterday a handful of us spent an hour discussing Books 19 & 20 of Homer’s Odyssey at work. We met in the quiet seminar room in my building. For an hour, we sat at the table and talked about the slow process of recognition, of reacquaintance. Penelope and Odysseus, probing one another’s hearts. Their talk is like a chess game, like an intellectual courtship. When two lovers meet, we imagine them rushing to embrace; but these two, separated for so long? What a good story it is as they consider carefully what to do next. So much more is at stake than their marriage. Do they even know who they are anymore?
My day was full of meetings and emails and spreadsheets, as it seems so many days are anymore. To spend an hour talking about one of the great texts of our world was both a gift and a bittersweet remembrance of what once was. My life in graduate school was a life of books. We met for hours every week, often for hours every day to talk about great texts and great ideas. My early days of teaching were similar, and when I was not meeting with students to talk about the texts, I was meeting with faculty and others to talk about texts. We had a Hebrew translation group in my department every week. For a while I ran a Latin translation group as well. When I was teaching Greek, I’d spend hours each week reading Greek texts, looking for more good passages to bring back to class, and sharing my treasured finds with my students. School can be scholê, leisure of the best kind.
But we have journeyed far. Reckless suitors have feasted at our table and suppose they know our realm better than we do. They come with wealth and power, and we work the loom, hoping to bide our time and to hold our home intact even as our larder is devoured. It’s easy in such times to forget who we are, and what once held us together. The work of management of scarce resources, working our own small fields while others feast at our table, has meant the hearthfires offer less heat, less light. The romance that once drew us into this palace needs to be rekindled, and at this late hour we often wonder whether our first love, the love of teaching, the love of great books, the love of sharing this time and place with others—will our first love ever return? Did it ever even exist? (Od. 19.315)
