The Struggle of the Ancient Greeks to Overcome the Threat of the Sea

"Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean-roll!/ Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain:/ Man marks the earth with ruin- his control/ Stops with the shore."

Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812-18), 4.179

Inhabitants of the many mountainous islands thickly studding the waters of the Mediterranean, the ancient Greeks lived in a physical reality dominated by the presence of the sea. The Mediterranean lied at the center of their world, stretching for uncharted distances to the west and north. It contained the whole of the navigable and known world. Whether on their sea-faring explorations or on the shores of their islands, the ancient Greeks found themselves always bound by water. Thus, their conception of the universe itself was anchored in the ever presence of the sea. They imagined the farthest limits of the earth to be a river they called Ocean, a wide expanse of water, the source of all waters, encircling their territory. In addition, the sea affected the very nature of their lives. While enabling them to be a sea-faring people devoted to trade, piracy, migration, and colonial expansion, it also constantly forced them to face the primitive and dangerous side of existence, the ever present threat of winds, storms, of becoming shipwrecked and experiencing death at sea. Thus, the Greeks lived in great distrust and even hatred of the sea. Thousands of their fleets vainly swept over the waves of the blue Mediterranean, meeting death upon a medium out of man's control. Yet because the ancient Greeks were consistently faced with this superhuman power of the deep and dark blue rolling sea, because the threat of death at sea was so tied up with their daily lives, they sought, in their oral and literary traditions, to show that man can refuse to let the sea overtake him. In face of the threat posed by the sea, he can struggle to hold on to both life and personal identity. The ancient Greeks sought to demonstrate that not only must the forces of nature be endured by man, they must also be overcome by his efforts, his action, and his intelligence.

In Homer's The Odyssey, it is upon the medium of the sea that

Odysseus faces his most dehumanizing struggles. At the onset of the epic, it is set forth that it is upon the ocean that Odysseus' struggle takes place. "On the ocean he [Odysseus] suffered many pains within his heart,/ Striving for his life." (1.4-5) His fight against the sea is literally a struggle against Poseidon. Odysseus must undergo such strife for many years at sea, for "all the gods pitied him,/ Except Poseidon, who contended unremittingly/ With godlike Odysseus, till the man reached his own land." (1.19-20). Poseidon pursues him with relentless malice for he remains "enraged about the Cyclops whom [Odysseus] blinded in the eye,/ Godlike Polyphemos, who possesses the greatest strength/ Of all Cyclopes. The nymph Thoosa gave him birth,/ The daughter of Phorcys, ruler over the barren sea,/ In hollow caves, after she had lain with Poseidon." (1.67-73)

Poseidon ensures that his element becomes a constant threat and obstacle to Odysseus because Odysseus not only blinded Polyphemos but also because he had the audacity to boast about it. Poseidon's curse is a desire for vengeance using the storm and the wave. Yet, in a figurative sense Poseidon is himself the equivalent of the element he controls. In his essay , "The Obstacles to Odysseus' Return," Charles H. Taylor, Jr. points out that "of all the Olympians, [Poseidon] is the most immersed in the elements. Although he attends gatherings on Olympus, his sphere of action is the Mediterranean waters and his home is deep in the Aegean Sea." As the "god of the violent sea," "the earth-shaker," and "the earth holder," Poseidon is only superficially detached from the natural environment by his designation as an Olympian deity. Thus, Odysseus' struggle is really one for maintaining individual existence against the sea, against the external forces of the natural world. In order to arrive home, to maintain his identity as a hero, as well as to simply remain alive in the world of men, Odysseus must overcome the obstacles set forth by Poseidon, by the sea itself. To Odysseus, the sea is the elemental barrier through which he must physically and mentally pass in order to restore himself to his home, his family, and his identity. Odysseus must use his physical efforts to

challenge the sea's mortal threat to his very existence as a human being. At the same time, he must also use his mental capacities to avoid the temptation to give into the sea. He must mentally refuse an easy surrender to an unheroic death. A death at sea would mean a loss of fame and reputation, of his identity as a hero. Odysseus must struggle so that he can choose to be a hero, choose life over death. Thus, the struggle of Odysseus versus the forces at work in man's natural environment is representative of the struggle of the ancient Greeks to overcome the violence of the natural world that is ever encroaching upon the sands of their civilization.

In order to remain alive and eventually reach Ithaca, Odysseus

utilizes physical exertion to overcome the mortal threat presented by the sea. In Book IV, Menelaos informs Telemachos what Proteus, the old man of the sea, told him regarding Odysseus' situation. "I saw him on an island shedding a swelling tear/ In the halls of the nymph Calypso, who by compulsion/ Is holding him back, and he cannot reach his fatherland,/ For he has no ships there with oars, and no companions Who might convey him over the broad back of the sea." (4.555-560) Odysseus is trapped on the island of Calypso because as he himself relates later in the epic, he had lost his companions, oars, and ship, when they not heeding his advice, ate the herds of cattle and flocks of sheep on the island of Thrinacria. In punishment for such a deed, they were forced to succumb to the superhuman power of a storm at sea. Odysseus relates how when he and his men were surrounded by nothing but sea "then the son of Cronos halted a dark blue cloud/ over the hollow ship, and the ocean darkened beneath it./... Zeus at that instant thundered and threw a bolt on the ship./ It whirled all around, struck by Zeus' thunderbolt, /And was filled with brimstone. My companions fell from the ship, / And they resembled sea crows around the black ship/ As they were borne on the waves." (12.405-419) With all of his companions dead, like crows, dehumanized in the depths of the sea, Odysseus relates how he had to use his physical strength to hold on to life. When he had lost to Scylla the keel and mast that he had bounded together, Odysseus relates how he: had raised myself high up against the tall wild fig tree/ And held myself fastened to it like a bat. Nor anywhere/ could I plant my feet firmly or climb up on it,/ For its roots held far off and its branches were high swaying,... I held there steadily, till she should disgorge back / The mast and keel again. I longed for them but they came late/.... At that time did the timber appear out of Charybdis./ I let my hands and feet be brought down from above/ And plunged right on in the midst of the lengthy timbers./ Seated upon them, I rowed with my hands. (12.432-444)

In face of the threat of death, Odysseus raises himself onto a tree and

holds himself there steadily. This image is one of him struggling and

hanging high above the water, one of him releasing himself from the power of the sea through his physical strength. Alone at sea, Odysseus, with neither companions, a ship, nor oars, is able to keep himself alive by using his own physical strength. He overcomes the absence of a ship through connecting the mast and keel and through holding onto the fig tree until another option, that of the timbers, presents itself. Then when timber appears, Odysseus falls upon it, overcoming the absence of both companions and oars through using only the power of his two arms to row himself for ten days until he arrives at the island of Calypso. Now, on Calypso's island, Odysseus, sitting on the beach and "looking out on the barren sea, shedding tears" (5.84) is again faced with the threat of the sea. Again, alone and empty-handed, he must utilize physical exertion to remain alive. Upon the suggestion of Calypso, Odysseus builds a raft that will serve as a vehicle for his physical passage over the sea. He creates this object through physical action, going to where the tall trees grow, cutting down twenty of them, shaping them into a raft with a mast, a yardarm, a rudder, and a sail. When he completes the building process, he drags the entire raft down to the sea where he sails peacefully for seventeen days upon it. However, on the eighteenth day Poseidon witnesses him and grows angry. On this day Odysseus, alone at sea, is to be faced with the challenge of a devastating storm. Yet each time a mortal threat is put in front of him, Odysseus physically overcomes the obstacle. For example, in the aftermath of a great wave:

He himself fell far from the raft. The rudder/ Shot out of his hands. A

fearful storm of intermingled/ Winds came up and broke the mast in the

middle. / The sail and the yardarm fell into the ocean. It put him under the water a long time, and he could not / Quickly rise up from the rush of the great wave, / For the clothes weighed him down that divine Calypso gave him./ At last did he come up, and spat out of his mouth / The bitter brine that flowed plenteously off his head./ Nor did he forget the raft, though he was wearied./ But as he rushed into the waves he caught hold of it/ And sat in the middle, shunning the end of death. ( 5.315-326)

Odysseus spits the salt water out of his mouth, separating himself from the sea, and grabs hold of the raft, physically shunning death and maintaining his mortal existence. Using all the physical power he possesses, Odysseus refuses to succumb to the superhuman strength of the sea. When faced with the loss of his raft to the power of one of Poseidon's great waves, Odysseus utilized the veil given to him by Cadmos' daughter and "fell headlong down in the sea, spreading out his hands/ And striving to swim." (5.374-375) When Poseidon sees Odysseus utilizing the entire force of his body to ensure his survival, he "whipped up his lovely-maned horses/ And arrived at Aigai, where his renowned dwelling is." (5.380-381) In a sense, Odysseus has overcome Poseidon, or the sea, and has sent him home. Through his physical acts, Odysseus has refused to give into the mortal threat that the sea presents and thus, is able to make it to land and remain alive in the world of men.

In order to hold on to his personal identity, Odysseus concentrates his mental power to overcome the threat of an unheroic death at sea. For Odysseus, a death at sea, unlike a heroic one in battle, would mean that his name would endure. In face of this threat, Odysseus uses his mental capacities to both build the necessary objects for his journey over the sea and, as his dialogues with himself illustrate, to resist the temptation to surrender to an easy death at sea. While on the Calypso's island, "just the way a man who is a well-skilled craftsman/ Rounds off the hull of a broad ship for carrying freight," (5.249-250) did Odysseus "skillfully" (5.245) build his raft, not only as a basic requisite for his physical journey but also as a demonstration of his rational faculties being used to avoid a death at sea. This act, along with his earlier creation of bounding the keel and mast of his ship together, reasserts the power of his human mental faculties over the great abyss of the sea, reaffirming his power to act creatively on his environment and thus master it to serve his own ends. In his inner dialogues, Odysseus uses his mental capacities to refuse to give succumb to an unheroic death. The notion of the unheroic death was an idea abhorrent to the Greeks, as illustrated in Odysseus' desire to have died at Troy rather than at sea. Near the end of his journey, alone upon a raft in the violent and arbitrary sea, Odysseus engages in dialogue with himself when faced with the threat of death from an oncoming great wave. He expresses a desire to have died in battle. Then Odysseus' knees and his own heart went slack;/ He was distressed, and he spoke to his own great-hearted spirit:/ 'Ah, wretched as I am, what will happen at last to me now?/.... Now my sheer destruction is sure./ Thrice and four times blessed are the Danaans who perished/ In broad Troy then, doing the pleasure of the sons of Atreus./ Would that I myself had died and met my fate/ On that day when numbers of the Trojans did hurl/ Bronze-tipped spears at me over the dead son of Peleus:/ I would have gotten my rites; the Achaians would have spread my glory./ But now I am fated to get caught in a miserable death. (5.299-312)

If he wants a heroic death, like the kind he would have received if he had died at Troy, Odysseus must intelligently persuade himself to stay alive. Early on his journey, after his companions let the winds out of the bag given to him by Aeolos and he is thus faced with not home but the wide expanse of the sea, Odysseus debates whether he should drown himself. "They undid the skin, and the winds all rushed out./ At once a storm seized them and bore them onto the ocean,/ Far away from our fatherland, weeping. And I,/ As I awoke, wondered in my own blameless heart/ Whether I should drop from the ship and perish in the ocean/ Or endure silently and stay among the living still." (10.47-52) In this instance Odysseus is able to mentally cling to life, as he says "But I endured and waited, and lay with head covered/ In my ship." (10.53-54) Yet, many more times throughout his wanderings, Odysseus, if he wishes to maintain his personal identity as a hero, will have to overcome this temptation to give into the power of the sea. Soon he loses the raft and must rely on the his own limbs to get him to Scheria. At the sight of this island, at first he is rejoiced only to become extremely dismayed at the presence of reefs and cliffs and the absence of harbors. Grieving, he address his own great spirit: Alas, that Zeus has granted me to see unhoped-for land/ And I have come to the end of cleaving this gulf,/ And no way of escape appears from the hoary sea./ But offshore there are sharp reefs, and the wave about them/ Moans as it surges, and the rock runs on up smooth./ The sea is deep close in, and there is no way/ To stand with both feet and to escape misfortune./ For a great wave perhaps may snatch me as I am getting out/ And hurl me on rough rock, and my trying would be in vain./ But if I can swim along still further and can find/ Spits of land jutting out and harbors of the sea,/ Then I fear that a storm will seize me back again/ And bear me heavily groaning onto the fish-laden ocean. (5.408-420)

Here, Odysseus intelligently compares his options. He refuses to go back into the open sea and thus, resists the temptation to succumb to an easy death. Instead, with presence of mind, he does what seems to him to be the best course of action. He chooses to swim alongside of a wave spewed on the mainland, "looking for land, if he might happen/ On spits of land jutting out and harbors of the sea./ But when as he swam on he came up to the mouth/ Of a fair-flowing river, there the best place seemed to him to be." (5.439-442) Odysseus spots the river, and: it made a calm in front of him and rescued him/ At the issue of the river. Then he bent both his knees/ And his stout hands. For his own heart was drowned by salt water./ All his skin was swollen, and much seawater oozed / From his mouth and his nostrils. Breathless and voiceless/ He lay with slight strength, and dread fatigue came upon him. /But when he caught his breath and the spirit in his mind/ awakened, he unbound the god's veil from himself/ And he let it go into the sea-mingling river./ A great wave bore it back down the stream. Ino quickly/ Took it in her own hands. He slipped out of the river, Lay down on a rush bed, and kissed the grain-giving earth. (5.452-463)

Thus, through the use of his mental capacities, Odysseus is able to triumph over dehumanizing power of the sea. By using his intelligence to create sea-faring objects and also to resist the temptation to surrender, Odysseus is able to cling to his personal identity. He is able to arrive on solid land with his hero status intact. Here, on Scheria, the Phaeacians clean all traces of the sea's salt water off of Odysseus for he has escaped and overcome the inhuman power of the sea.

When Odysseus is reunited with Penelope, his struggle versus the sea is illustrated in a simile. "He wept, holding his pleasing wife, who had a sense of devotion./ As when land appears welcome to men who are swimming,/ Whose well-made ship Poseidon had dashed in the ocean/ As it was driven on by wind and a solid wave,/ And few have escaped from the hoary sea onto the mainland/ By swimming, and much brine has caked upon their skin,/ And they walk up on land glad, having fled misfortune,/ So welcome was her husband to her as she looked up upon him." (23.231-259) When he reaches Ithaca, Odysseus is able to flee misfortune and walk on land glad for he has overcome the winds and waves of the natural world using both his physical and mental capacities. Odysseus overcomes the obstacles that the sea presents him with and thus ensure his personal security, his fame and reputation, and in a sense, achieves victory over disordering nature. This victory over the forces of the sea is illustrated in how images of his struggles at sea are used to describe his restoring of order in his own

household. For example, the bodies of the dead suitors are described "like fish that the fishermen/ Have drawn up on the curved beach of the hoary sea/ In a net that has many meshes: and all of them/ Are heaped upon the sands longing for the waves of the sea:/ But the sun in his shining is taking away their life ," (22.384-388) and the maids are hanged with "a cable from a dark blue-prowed ship." (22.465) In addition, in Hades, Teiresias informs Odysseus that after he has restored order in his household by killing the suitors, he must: take a well-fitted oar and go on/ Till you arrive at the place of men who do not know / The sea and eat a food that has not been mixed with salt,/ And where they do not know about ships with purple cheeks,/ Or about well-fitted oars that are wings for ships./ I will tell you a very plain token; do not forget it:/ When another wayfarer has confronted you/ And says you have a winnowing fan on your gleaming shoulder,/ Then set your well-fitted oar fast in the earth/ And carry out fine sacrifices to Lord Poseidon,/... Then go back home and sacrifice hecatombs/... Far from the sea will death come. (11.119-134)

The wanderings of Odysseus will come to a peaceful end when he reaches a place where the sea and its ways are unknown. Here, Odysseus will use the instrument of voyaging to separate himself from the sea, for he has

overcome its threat, and now is able to reestablish his place upon the earth. Thus, the epic is both a movement away from the sea and an overcoming of its power. Yet Odysseus is simply a creation of the ancient Greeks, a people constantly faced with their vain attempts to control the sea. They existed in a world dominated by the deep and dark blue ocean, one where fleets of ships were constantly dashed down into the depths and men were forced to die unheroic deaths at sea. Yet, in their oral and literary traditions, they sought to create characters, like Odysseus, who triumph over the threats posed by the sea, creating a world dominated by human control and order. In the epic Odysseus is able to use his physical and mental capacities to arrive home and restore order, maintaining his physical identity and fame, dying a peaceful death far from the sea. Yet, even in the epic, because the waves still break upon the sands of Ithaca, Odysseus must go where the sea is unheard of to truly overcome its threat. However, in the ancient Greek world, so dominated by the presence of the sea, such a place only existed in the creative imagination. Thus, it is only in literature that the obstacles of the sea can be overcome for in reality, the sea is forever encroaching upon the sands of civilization.