Lesson 1.6 · Unit 1 · RL.9-10.5, RL.9-10.2
What the dead are allowed to tell the living
The descent to the underworld appears in Gilgamesh, in Homer, in Virgil and in Dante, which makes it the most persistent structure in Western narrative. This lesson asks what the device is for.
- A katabasis is a journey to the land of the dead undertaken by a living person.
- It solves an information problem, letting a character learn things no living witness could supply.
- In Book 11 Odysseus goes to consult Teiresias, a dead prophet, about how to get home.
- He meets his own mother there and learns she died of grief waiting for him, which he did not know.
- He meets Achilles, who delivers the most quoted lines in the poem about the value of being dead.
- Achilles's speech contradicts the Iliad's values directly, which is why it is placed in this poem rather than that one.
- The dead must drink blood to speak, a detail that makes memory and speech physical rather than spiritual.
- The episode sits at the poem's center, in the middle book of the twenty-four, which is unlikely to be accidental.
Where students lose marks: summarizing the parade of ghosts. The examinable content is what two or three specific encounters do to the poem's argument about heroism and homecoming.
The text. Homer, the Odyssey, Book 11, in Samuel Butler's 1900 translation. Public domain.
"Say not a word," he answered, "in death's favour; I would rather be a paid servant in a poor man's house and be above ground than king of kings among the dead."
"My son," she answered, "it was not that the goddess Diana, whose arrows are so gentle, came and killed me... it was longing for you, Ulysses, and for your wise counsel and your gentle ways, that brought my life with all its sweetness to an end."
Step one: establish who is speaking in the first passage. Achilles, the greatest warrior of the Iliad, who chose a short glorious life over a long obscure one and knew he was choosing it.
Step two: state what he now says. That he would rather be a hired laborer for a poor man and alive than king among the dead. He is repudiating the exact trade the Iliad is built on.
Step three: state why this is in the Odyssey. Because the Odyssey is the poem of homecoming rather than glory, and its hero's project is to survive and return. Having the Iliad's hero argue for survival puts the Iliad's own greatest figure on the Odyssey's side.
Step four: notice the audience inside the scene. Odysseus hears this. He is a man who has been offered immortality by Calypso and refused it in order to go home to a mortal wife. Achilles is confirming a choice Odysseus has already made.
Step five: work the mother's speech. Anticleia died of grief, waiting. Odysseus did not know she was dead, and learns it here, and learns simultaneously that he caused it.
Step six: state what that adds to the poem. A cost. The wandering has been presented as suffering endured by Odysseus; this is the first accounting of suffering caused by him to someone who was not on his ship. The homecoming he is fighting for is already partly lost.
Step seven: work the detail about blood. The dead cannot speak until they drink sacrificial blood, and Odysseus must hold them off with a sword until Teiresias has drunk. Memory and speech are physical resources that run out, which makes the underworld a place of scarcity rather than of judgment.
Step eight: state the structural function. Book 11 sits at the center of twenty-four books and delivers the poem's thesis from the mouths of the dead: that being alive and at home is worth more than glory, and that the price of the journey is being paid by people who are not on it. Everything after it is Odysseus acting on that information.
Questions 1 to 5 are recall. Questions 6 to 10 ask for reasoning.
- Why does Odysseus go to the underworld?
Show the full solution
To consult the dead prophet Teiresias about how to get home
- What must the dead do before they can speak?
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Drink sacrificial blood
- What does Achilles say he would prefer?
Show the full solution
To be a paid servant in a poor man's house and alive, rather than king among the dead
- How did Odysseus's mother die?
Show the full solution
Of longing for him
- Where does Book 11 sit in the poem?
Show the full solution
At the center of the twenty-four books
- Why is Achilles the right person to say what he says?
Show the full solution
Because he is the one figure whose authority on the question cannot be questioned. He chose a short glorious life over a long obscure one, knew he was choosing it, and received exactly what he bargained for. Having him repudiate the trade puts the Iliad's greatest hero on the Odyssey's side of the argument, which no other speaker could accomplish. He made the trade knowingly and can testify to its value
- How does the speech relate to Odysseus's own situation?
Show the full solution
Odysseus has been offered immortality by Calypso and has refused it in order to return to a mortal wife on a small island. Achilles is confirming a choice Odysseus has already made, which means the scene functions as reassurance rather than instruction. The poem arranges for its hero to hear his own decision endorsed by the one person qualified to judge it. It endorses the choice Odysseus already made in refusing Calypso
- What does Anticleia's death add to the poem?
Show the full solution
A cost borne by someone who was not on the ship. Up to this point the wandering has been presented as suffering endured by Odysseus and his crew. Learning that his mother died of waiting, and learning it from her, is the first accounting of damage he has caused at home. The homecoming he is fighting for is already partly lost before he arrives. The first cost paid by someone who was not on the voyage
- What does the blood-drinking detail establish?
Show the full solution
That memory and speech are physical resources rather than spiritual properties. The dead are silent until they drink, and Odysseus must hold them back with a sword so Teiresias can drink first. That makes the underworld a place of scarcity rather than of judgment or reward, which is a very different conception from the later Christian one Dante will use. Speech is a scarce physical resource, so the underworld is not a place of judgment
- State Book 11's structural function.
Show the full solution
It sits at the center of twenty-four books and delivers the poem's thesis from the mouths of the dead: that being alive and at home is worth more than glory, and that the price of the journey is being paid by people who are not on it. Everything in the second half is Odysseus acting on that information, which is why the episode is placed where it is. It states the poem's thesis at the exact center, from the dead