Odysseus's most important quality as a hero is his ingenuity (metis).
His most frequent epithet in the Odyssey is polymetis ('having much
metis',
'of many wiles', 68x in the Odyssey). The virtually synonymous
polymechanos ('having many devices') occurs 17x in the
Odyssey.
The semantic range of meaning of metis is quite extensive. Hesychius of Alexandria, a 5th century AD author of a lexicon of rare words, provides us with the various meanings of metis:
The trickster as a character type in world mythology: one of the most universal and most popular of mythological characters. He appears throughout world mythology either in human or animal form. The trickster is often resourceful as well as greedy, and is tricked himself as much as he tricks others.
And devious Prometheus [Zeus] bound with inescapable chains, and drove a shaft through his middle, and set on him a long-winged eagle, which used to eat his immortal liver; but by night the liver grew as much again as the long-winged bird devoured in the whole day.Hermes is another Greek trickster. In the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, Hermes as a baby steals the cattle of Apollo and makes detection difficult by making the cattle walk backwards so that their tracks indicate movement towards and not away from the meadow that is their home. The purpose of this device is to hinder Apollo's search for his cattle and his detection of the crime's author. Hermes, like Odysseus, is a master of deceptive and persuasive words, which help him evade punishment. To Zeus, he unequivocally denies the theft by arguing that a small child like himself could not have done it. Zeus sees through the lie but is utterly charmed by the infant Hermes (389):
Zeus laughed out loud to see this evil-plotting child well and cunningly denying guilt about the cattle.Hermes also exhibits ingenuity (metis) in the form of technology. Using a tortoise shell, he invents the lyre and plays on it and sings beautifully. He uses the lyre to charm his way out of punishment from Apollo, who is utterly captivated by the music. The Greeks were no doubt also delighted to see this little scamp of a god outwit two gods of dire seriousness: Apollo and Zeus. There is something here of Bugs Bunny making a fool of Elmer Fudd (although Elmer never finds Bugs charming).
Zeus himself is also somewhat of a trickster. As we have seen in the Theogony, Zeus disturbed by Prometheus's deceptive sacrifice, deprives mankind of fire. After Prometheus steals it and gives it back to man, Zeus not only punishes Prometheus, but also gives a thing of evil to man: a woman (who in the Works and Days is called Pandora). Hesiod calls the creation of the first woman a 'trick' because her beauty conceals the evil that lies beneath her alluring appearance.
Zeus possesses metis in a very special way. It is significant that he chose the goddess Metis as his first wife after his victory over the Titans. When she became pregnant with Athena, Zeus, as Hesiod tells us: "craftily deceived her with cunning words" and swallowed her (there is irony in a trickster outwitting Trickiness herself). This was done on the advice of Mother Earth and Sky, who told Zeus that Metis's second child, a boy, would become "king of gods and men.” By swallowing Metis, Zeus gained complete control of the source of all metis, so that, in the words of Hesiod, "the goddess might devise for him both good and evil (i.e., for his enemies)." Zeus's control of metis enables him to remain ruler of the universe. Because of his intimate relationship with this goddess, one of Zeus's most common epithets in Hesiod and Homer is metieta ('counselor,' 'all-wise').
It should also be noted that Zeus is the son of a famous trickster named Kronos who slyly ambushed his father Uranus and castrated him. For this act, Hesiod gives Kronos the epithet of angkulometes ('having crooked metis"). 'Crooked' here has the same negative connotation it has in English. Hesiod also applies this negative epithet to Prometheus. As with Prometheus, Kronos's evil use of metis catches up with him. His sovereignty is threatened by a prophecy that his son would replace him. He attempts to avoid this prophecy by eating all his children, but the baby Zeus is saved by the cunning of his mother, who gives Kronos a stone rather than a baby to eat. We note in the cases of both Prometheus and Kronos the theme of the trickster tricked.
As mentioned earlier, Metis was already pregnant with Zeus's child when he swallowed her. As a result, Zeus gives birth to the child, a daughter, from his head. Thus this daughter, Athena, becomes a personification of Zeus's metis, and because this quality is so important to Zeus, Athena cannot be allowed to attach herself to another male who might become a threat to Zeus's rule. So Athena remains a virgin, forever devoted to the plans and wishes of her father. It is significant that Athena is a supporter and protector of Odysseus in the Odyssey.
But what is the nature of this metis that Athena possesses? Metis is sometimes translated into English as 'wisdom', but one has to be careful. Metis never refers to philosophical wisdom (philosophy as such didn't exist in this early period), but always to practical wisdom (street-smarts), intelligence employed for a practical end. It would be a mistake to see Athena's metis as anything more than, as Walter Burkert says, "deviousness, scheming, and tricks."
Athena shows the same range of metis as does Hermes: she is not only deceptive, she also practices metis as technology. For example, she is a weaver. As we are told in the Iliad (5.733-37), she wears a robe that she had made for herself. It should also be noted that weaving with its intricate technique of creating a fabric was for the Greeks a perfect metaphor for deception. A web is complex and deceptive. It is made of many separate strands that intersect each other, but give the illusion of being a single solid fabric. In Greek, a person who creates a deceptive plan is said to 'weave a metis'. Even in English, we speak of a 'fabric of lies' in a similar metaphor.
The metaphor of weaving as a representation of deception become literal reality when Penelope uses her weaving of a shroud for Odysseus' father Laertes to deceive the suitors. Her weaving is a metis both senses: as a technical skill and as a cunning deception. A frustrated suitor complains (Odyssey 2.91-128):
For [Penelope] holds out hope to all [the suitors], and makes promises to each man
sending us messages, but her mind has other intentions.
She set up a great loom in her palace, and set to weaving
a web of threads long and fine. Then she said to us:
"Young men, my suitors now that the great Odysseus has perished,
wait, though you are eager to marry me, until I finish
this web, so that my weaving will not be useless and wasted.
This is a shroud for the hero Laertes, for when the destructive
doom of death which lays men low shall take him, lest any
Achaian woman in this neighborhood hold it against me
that a man of many conquests lies with no sheet to wind him.'
Thereafter in the daytime she would weave at her great loom,
but in the night she would have torches set by, and undo it.
But when she had shown him where the tall trees grew, Calypso, the beautiful goddess, returned homewards, but he fell to cutting timbers, and his work went forward apace. Twenty trees in all did he fell, and trimmed them with the ax; then he cunningly smoothed them all and made them straight to the line. Meanwhile Calypso, the beautiful goddess, brought him drills; and he bored all the pieces and fitted them to one another, and with dowels and fastenings did he hammer it together. Wide as a man well skilled in carpentry marks out the curve of the hull of a freight-ship, broad of beam, even so wide did Odysseus make his boat. And he set up the deck-beams, bolting them to the close-set ribs, and labored on; and he finished the boat with long planks bolted to the ribs. In it he set a mast and a yardarm, fitted to it, and furthermore made him a steering-oar, wherewith to steer. Then he fenced in the whole from stem to stern with willow branches to be a defense against the wave, and expended much timber. Meanwhile Calypso, the beautiful goddess, brought him cloth to make him a sail, and he fashioned that too with skill. And he made fast in the boat braces and ropes and sheets, and then with levers forced it down into the bright sea.Athena
Athena demonstrates her expertise in the craft of carpentry when she helped Epeius build the Trojan horse. As Odysseus says to the Phaeacian singer, Demodocus (8.492-496):
But come now, change your theme, and sing of the building of the horse of wood, which Epeius made with Athena's help, the horse which once Odysseus led up into the citadel as a thing of guile...The deception is made more effective by the actions of the Greeks who sail away after burning their huts, while Odysseus and his men wait inside the wooden horse, which Homer calls "a hollow ambush" (8.515). The Trojan horse unites nicely the two most important meanings of metis. The horse is a product of carpentry, a technological metis, and is at the same time a trick, a deceptive metis.
Disguise
The use of disguise is particularly typical of Athena, who in the Odyssey often conceals her identity in this way. In the Odyssey she appears as Mentes, Mentor, a young girl in Phaeacia, and a herdsman in Ithaca. Odysseus follows his protectoress in employing this form of metis. Helen at Sparta on the occasion of Telemachus's visit relates a story of a successful spying expedition that Odysseus made into Troy (4.244-258). To enter Troy unrecognized, Odysseus dresses as a slave and in addition beats himself so that even his body would look slavish (slaves were commonly beaten). Only Helen is able to see beyond the disguise and swears an oath not to reveal his identity. Odysseus is able to slay many Trojans and return to the Achaean camp with valuable information (4.244-58):
Marring his own body with cruel blows, and flinging a wretched garment about his shoulders, in the fashion of a slave he entered the broad-wayed city of the enemy, and he disguised himself in the likeness of another, a beggar, he who was in no way such a one at the ships of the Achaeans. In this likeness he entered the city of the Trojans, and all of them were but as babes. I alone recognized him in this disguise, and questioned him, but he in his cunning sought to avoid me. However, when I was bathing him and anointing him with oil, and had put on him clothing, and sworn a mighty oath not to make him known among the Trojans as Odysseus until he reached the swift ships and the huts, then at length he told me all the purpose of the Achaeans. And when he had slain many of the Trojans with the long sword, he returned to the Argives and brought back much information.Upon Odysseus's return to Ithaca, Athena uses her powers to disguise him as a beggar to deceive the suitors. Given Odysseus's ability to disguise himself in the past, one may wonder why he needs the help of Athena in this instance. The probable answer is that the suitors knew Odysseus well and a mere cosmetic change would not have been a sufficient disguise. That is why Athena makes Odysseus look different physically, a change that the hero could not have accomplished for himself.
The encounter between Odysseus and the disguised Athena in Ithaca tells us much about the nature of the relationship between these two (13.222 ff.). Both are deceivers. In this scene, Athena lies with a disguise and Odysseus responds with lies about his identity. Athena, utterly enchanted by Odysseus's cunning, reveals herself to Odysseus and expresses her admiration at his ability to deceive. Her words are full of the vocabulary of cunning (13.291-415):
And she spoke, and addressed him with winged words: "Cunning " must he be and like a thief , who would surpass you in all sorts of tricks , yes, even though it were a god that encountered you. Bold man, crafty in counsel (poikilometa), never weary of tricks, not even in your own land, it seems, would you cease from deception and thievish tales, which you love from the bottom of your heart. But come, let us no longer talk of this, being both well versed in craft, since you are far the best of all men in counsel and in speech and I among all the gods am famed for practical wisdom and craft . Yet you did not know Pallas Athena, daughter of Zeus, even me, who ever stand by your side, and guard you in all toils. And indeed I made you beloved by all the Phaeacians. And now am I come here to weave a plan with you …Demodocus's Song and Odysseus' Ingenuity
The story of Hephaestus, Aphrodite and Ares is sung by the Phaeacian poet Demodocus as an entertainment, but clearly Homer wants us to read it as more than just a pleasant diversion. Its themes present some interesting parallels with the plot of the Odyssey.
As the suitors in their attempt to win Odysseus's wife violate hospitality in Odysseus's home, Ares commits adultery with Aphrodite in house of Hephaestus (8.266-68):
[Demodocus sang the story of] how they first lay together in the house of Hephaestus secretly .
When Helios informs Hephaestus of the adultery in his house, Hephaestus does not act impulsively, but deliberately embarks on a reasoned, deceptive approach to his problem, just as Odysseus will do on his return to Ithaca. As Odysseus recognizes that it is useless to employ open force on the numerous suitors, Hephaestus realizes that his lameness will not allow him to employ force on the war god Ares, who is identified as "the swiftest of all the gods.” As an underdog in this situation, Hephaestus must use metis. The invisible metal net that Hephaestus creates is both a metis in the sense of a trick and a product of the technological craft that he knows best: metalworking (8.272-75).
[Hephaestus] went on his way to his forge, heart disturbed by hard sorrows, and set the great anvil upon its stand, and hammered out fastenings that could not be slipped or broken, to hold them fixed in position .The invisible trap Hephaestus weaves out of metal is compared to a spider's web, which recalls the story of Arachne, the great mistress of weaving and her rival Athena (8.278-83).
[Hephaestus] spun his fastenings around the bed-posts from every direction while many more were suspended overhead, from the roof beams, thin, like spider webs, which not even one of the blessed gods could see. He had fashioned it to be very deceptive. But when he had spun about the bedstead all of his treacherous (dolon) device, he started for Lemnos, the strong-founded citadel .It also brings to mind the metaphor of "weaving a metis.” One might even say that this invisible snare prefigures the trap that Odysseus will lay for the suitors. Through his disguise, Odysseus the avenger will be invisible to the suitors .
Just as Odysseus's metis will bring justice to the suitors, the gods in this story are delighted by this unexpected victory of metis and justice. They comment anonymously (8.329-32):
Evil deeds do not prosper. See, the slow one has overtaken the swift, as now slow Hephaistos has overtaken Ares, swiftest of all the gods on Olympos, by artifice , though he was lame and Ares must pay the adulterer's penalty .The story of Hephaistos, Aphrodite, and Ares anticipates the plot of the Odyssey in general terms. Just as Hephaistos uses metis (in two senses) to punish Ares for his adultery with his wife Aphrodite, Odysseus will punish the suitors, who pursue Penelope without worrying whether she is actually a widow or not.
Cyclops Adventure
Homer's story of Odysseus and the Cyclops Polyphemus seems to be just one example of a folk-tale about the blinding of an ogre that has appeared at different times in various parts of the world. Justin Glenn has found 125 versions of this folk-tale and has shown that Homer's contribution to this story seems to be the inebriation trick and probably the ‘Noman’ (or 'Nobody') trick
Odysseus identifies the Cyclopes from the very beginning as creatures blessed by Zeus who provides them with wheat, barley and grapes with no work or skill required on their part. They live a child-like golden age existence, totally innocent of almost all normal human skills and crafts. The only skills that Polyphemus seems to have mastered are those of shepherding and cheese making. The Cyclopes, however, are innocent of the techniques of agriculture (9.105-15):
We [Odysseus and his men] came to the land of the Cyclopes, an outrageous and lawless folk, who, trusting in the immortal gods, plant nothing with their hands nor plow; but all these things spring up for them without sowing or plowing, wheat, and barley, and vines, which bear the rich clusters of wine, and the rain of Zeus gives them increase. Neither assemblies for council have they, nor appointed laws, but they dwell on the peaks of lofty mountains in hollow caves, and each one is lawgiver to his children and his wife, and they care nothing one for another.There is no evidence of metalworking in the land of the Cyclopes and Polyphemus's cave indicates an ignorance of house building. Furthermore, the Cyclopes are asocial, living lives as isolated from each other as their island is isolated from the rest of the world (we still think that ‘loners’ are potentially dangerous and, to a degree, uncivilized). Moreover, their ignorance of shipbuilding prevents them from ever learning about civilized life by traveling to other lands (9.125-30):
For the Cyclopes have at hand no ships... nor are builders of ships in their land who might build them well-benched ships, which should perform all their wants, passing to the cities of other folk, as men often cross the sea in ships to visit one another- craftsmen, who would have made a strong settlement on this island.The Cyclopes' lack of social intercourse with each other also means that they have no political institutions such as assemblies in which they can plan as a group (remember that one of the meanings of metis is 'plan'; in Greek a 'plan' as well as a 'body of men who plan', i.e, a 'council'). There is no common body of laws that apply to all the Cyclopes, but each Cyclops is the law for his own family. In short, their lack of metis in almost all of its forms is the equivalent of a lack of civilization, as the Greeks understood it. For the Greeks, various arts and skills combined with organized cooperation among citizens ruled by law are the very essence of civilized life.
Odysseus' metis in this episode is characterized by an extraordinary foresight and prudence, which give him options in difficult situations. His foresight is no more evident than in his decision to take along the delicious wine that he had received from Maro when he and his men had sacked Ismarus, soon after they had begun their journey home (9.196-215):
With this wine I filled and took with me a great skin, and also provisions in a bag; for my proud spirit had a foreboding that presently a man would come to me clothed in great might, a savage man that knew nothing of justice or of law.Odysseus would eventually find an opportunity to put this extraordinarily powerful wine to good use against Polyphemus.
After Polyphemus devours a number of Odysseus's men raw (another indication of his savagery), the hero's reaction is not impulsive, but characterized by careful thought and restraint . Because the entrance is blocked by a boulder, immovable except by Polyphemus, Odysseus immediately realizes that his desire for immediate revenge cannot be satisfied, if he and his men are going to survive. He and his men must endure sorrow and frustration until the right time comes for vengeance (9.296-306):
And I formed a plan in my great heart to steal near him, and draw my sharp sword from beside my thigh and strike him in the breast, where the midriff holds the liver, feeling for the place with my hand. But a second thought checked me, for right there should we, too, have perished in utter ruin. For we should not have been able to thrust back with our hands from the high door the mighty stone which he had set there.Since there is no advantage in killing Polyphemus, another device must be employed that will prevent the killing of more men and allow the possibility of escape from the cave. Therefore Odysseus forms the plan of making the giant drunk and blinding him. In this way, the blinded Polyphemus will find it difficult, if not impossible to catch Odysseus and his men and he will eventually have to roll back the boulder from the entrance to allow his sheep out. Odysseus finds it very easy to get Polyphemus drunk because of the giant's characteristic thoughtlessness (9.360-62):
I handed him the flaming wine. Three times I brought and gave it him, and three times he drained it in his thoughtlessness.Once the giant is inebriated, it is easier for Odysseus to deceive Polyphemus with his famous 'Noman' trick (9.364-67):
But when the wine had stolen about the wits of the Cyclops, then I spoke to him with gentle words: "Cyclops, you ask me my glorious name, and I will tell it you; and do you give me a stranger's gift, even as you did promise. Noman is my name, Noman do they call me-my mother and my father, and all my comrades as well.'In Greek Odysseus tells Polyphemus that his name is Outis, a combination of two words, ou tis, which literally means 'not anyone', i.e. 'no man' or 'nobody'. The dimwitted giant does not understand this and thinks of Outis merely as a name with no special meaning.
The Noman trick of Odysseus is not just some random prank created by the poet to make a good joke later on. It has a very practical value for Odysseus, who recognizes that to give Polyphemus his real name might alert the Cyclops to the presence of a formidable opponent. Indeed Odysseus is correct to conceal his identity. As we find out later, Polyphemus would have recognized the name of Odysseus because of a prophecy that he would be blinded by Odysseus (9.512). This trick also foreshadows the deception that Odysseus will work on the suitors, when he disguises himself as a nameless beggar. Odysseus always wants to be underestimated. Although he cannot anticipate how valuable this lie will prove later on, he sets up a situation in which survival becomes more possible.
The instrument that Odysseus and his men use to blind Polyphemus is a long olivewood club. The simile which Homer uses to describe the club is interesting and full of irony:
Now this seemed to my mind the best plan. There lay beside a sheep-pen a great club of the Cyclops, a staff of green olive-wood, which he had cut to carry with him when dry; and as we looked at it we thought it as large as is the mast of a black ship of twenty oars, a merchantman, broad of beam, which crosses over the great gulf; so huge it was in length and in breadth to look upon.
The simile implicitly emphasizes the superior civilization of Odysseus and his men, who see the club in terms of a ship's mast, an identification that the Cyclopes could never make because of their ignorance of shipbuilding. Some lines later, Homer repeats this irony when he compares the driving of the olivewood stake into the eye of the Cyclops to a drill used on a ship's timbers (9.382-86):
They took the stake of olive-wood, sharp at the point, and thrust it into his eye, while I, throwing my weight upon it from above, whirled it round, as when a man bores a ship's timber with a drill, while those below keep it spinning with the strap, which they lay hold of by either end, and the drill runs around unceasingly.Following close on the heels of this simile is another, drawn from metalworking, another skill unknown to the Cyclopes (395):
And as when a smith dips a great ax or plane in cold water amid loud hissing to temper it-for therefrom comes the strength of iron-even so did his eye hiss round the stake of olive-wood.When Polyphemus cries out in pain, his fellow Cyclopes do show some concern, but Odysseus's concealment of his identity with the name 'Noman' begins to have an effect he could not have intended or even foreseen. When the other Cyclopes ask Polyphemus (9.405-06)
It can't be, can it, that somebody (me tis) is driving off your flocks against your will, or slaying you yourself by trickery or by might?they use a form of ou tis (me tis) that is grammatically required in a question of this kind. He corrects them (9.408)
'My friends, Noman (Outis) is slaying me by guile and not by force.'
The Cyclopes do not understand Polyphemus's meaning; they take this statement at face value and leave him alone in his suffering and isolation (410-12).
And they made answer and addressed him with winged words: 'If, then, no man (me tis) does violence to you in your loneliness, sickness which comes from great Zeus you may in no way escape.Since the Cyclopes use a conditional clause (i.e., an 'if' clause) in their response to Polyphemus ('if noman does violence to you...'), according to the rules of grammar ou tis again must become me tis as in their earlier question. The poet clearly intends that we should see word play here. Carelessly pronounced in Greek the clause can be understood either as "if me tis (no one) does violence to you" or "if metis does violence to you.” Metis in the shape of Odysseus has indeed brought ruin upon Polyphemus. In the narrative, Odysseus enjoys the unintended outcome of his deception immensely and, if anyone has missed the me tis - metis word play, his words make the point quite clearly (9.413-14):
So they spoke and went their way; and my heart laughed within me that my name and cunning (metis) had so fooled him.Polyphemus then removes the stone from the entrance, now making it possible for Odysseus and his men to escape. But Odysseus's metis still has one problem to overcome. Polyphemus has lost his sense of sight, but not his sense of touch (9.415-24):
But the Cyclops, groaning and suffering in anguish, groped with his hands and took away the stone from the door, and himself sat in the doorway with arms outstretched in the hope of catching anyone who sought to go forth with the sheep-so witless, indeed, he thought in his heart to find me. But I took counsel how all might be the very best, if I might perhaps find some way of escape from death for my comrades and for myself. And I wove (hyphainon) all kinds of tricks (dolous) and cunning (metin), as a man will in a matter of life and death; for great was the evil that was near us. And this seemed to my mind the best plan (boule).Each one of Odysseus's men is tied underneath a sheep attached to two other sheep on either side to prevent detection. Odysseus chooses the best of the flock, a ram, which is apparently large enough all by himself to hide Odysseus underneath. W.B. Stanford points out that the "escape under a ram's belly is kind of a Trojan horse stratagem in reverse.” Stanford also mentions that the more traditional heroes Achilles and Ajax would never have tried to save their lives in such an undignified way. An open fight to the death would have been their approach. But this undignified manner of escape does not trouble Odysseus. Dignity is meaningless when it comes to preserving one's life. Odysseus's immediate concerns are survival and escape. Odysseus is a practical man.
At the end of his narration of this ingenious escape Odysseus contrasts Polyphemus's primitive innocence with his own cunning sophistication. Odysseus essentially says that "it was like taking candy away from a baby." He uses the word nepios, which means literally 'not yet speaking," (like the Latin derived 'infant', 'not speaking) but is used figuratively to mean 'like a child,' 'childish' (9.440-45):
And their master, distressed with grievous pains, felt along the backs of all the sheep as they stood up before him, but like a child he did not realize this, that my men were bound beneath the breasts of his fleecy sheep.But lest we be too hard on Polyphemus for his naiveté, remember that the Trojans were equally helpless when confronted by Odysseus's metis on his spying expedition before the war.
The address of Polyphemus to his ram, under whom Odysseus is hiding, poses an interesting problem (9.444-60):
Good ram, why do you go forth from the cave the last of the flock? You never lagged behind in the past but you were always the first to feed on the tender grass, moving with long strides, you were always the first to reach the river, and you always returned first to the fold in the evening. But now you are last of all. Surely, you are sorrowful because of your master's eye, which an evil man blinded along with his miserable fellows, when he had overpowered my wits with wine.Polyphemus has received a punishment that the poem seems to view as proportionate to his lawless and uncivilized behavior. We have been shocked by the giant's lack of hospitality, and revolted by his cannibalism. But in these lines the poet seems to have introduced a new element into the narrative of this adventure: pity. Polyphemus, the shepherd, in his isolation has at least managed to develop a relationship with his ram and tries to convince himself that the animal's tardiness in leaving the cave is caused by his sorrow for his master's blinding. Justin Glenn sees this address as "a touch of pathos and sympathy.” Does indeed the poet here present Polyphemus at least briefly in a sympathetic light? Does this speech make us feel that Odysseus' deception and punishment of the guileless Cyclops was in some way cruel? I have no satisfactory answer to this question, so I will leave it for you to consider.
There is another ambiguity about the Cyclops narrative. Although it is in this adventure that Odysseus gives the best illustration of his heroic quality of metis, Stanford points out that Odysseus's triumph over the Cyclops had some less than positive results. It was a victory of the hero's intelligence and civilized values, but it also cost him dearly. Because he blinded the son of Poseidon, he lost Athena's support and protection for nine years. Athena refused to help Odysseus for fear of offending her uncle (9.340-41). Poseidon also answered Polyphemus's prayer uttered after Odysseus had revealed his true identity (9.534-35):
Let him come home late, in bad shape, with the loss of all his companions in someone else's ship, and find troubles in his household.Odysseus returned home after twenty years, not in very good shape, with none of his companions, none of his ships, only to find that his wife's suitors were eating him out of house and home. Odysseus paid a high price for his successful metis. Even Homer despite his clear admiration for Odysseus (Homer was called in ancient times "Odysseus lover") seems not to be entirely sure about his hero's character.
Homer does refer to Odysseus's reluctance to serve at Troy but he does not mention Palamedes and his trick for obvious reasons. As far as Homer is concerned, Palamedes does not exist. Odysseus waited to get his revenge on Palamedes until after the war had begun. There is some evidence that there was more to Odysseus' motivation for killing Palamedes than just being forced to go to Troy. In Xenophon's Memorabilia, Socrates says that Odysseus killed Palamedes out of envy of his cleverness (sophia) (4.2.33). The trickster par excellence had been outwitted by an upstart rival. Characteristically, Odysseus uses a trick to pay his enemy back but there are different versions of how he accomplished this revenge.
One version has Odysseus 'framing' his enemy for treason by planting gold in his tent and forging a letter from the Trojan king Priam to Palamedes promising him the gold. When the gold and the letter are discovered, Palamedes is stoned to death by the Achaean army. Thus Odysseus uses cunning as an appropriate retaliation for the trickery employed by Palamedes in exposing him as a draft-dodger. In this way, the outwitted trickster gets revenge for both his thwarted draft-dodging and his damaged pride. Later writers continually denounced Odysseus for this crime, Homer's silence on this issue notwithstanding.
In the fifth century, Odysseus's predilection for deception, pragmatism, and opportunism began to be viewed with increasing suspicion. His good qualities displayed so frequently in the Odyssey were downplayed and Odysseus gradually became a stage villain. One example of Odysseus's villainy is Sophocles' Philoctetes, in which Odysseus takes advantage of the innocence of Neoptolemos, the son of Achilles, to pull a cruel trick on the long-suffering Philoctetes. Moreover, the story of Palamedes by that time had become a popular theme of tragedy, further undermining Odysseus's reputation. Odysseus' cold-hearted trickery became proverbial; his character was further disparaged by the Romans whose hostility was fueled by the belief that they were descended from the Trojans, whose city Odysseus had destroyed. This hostility is evident in Vergil's Aeneid, in which Odysseus, because of his connection with the Trojan horse, becomes a symbol for Greek treacherous deceptiveness (Aen. 2.43-44). Laocoon tries to convince his fellow Trojans of the dangers of the Trojan horse:
Do you really believe that the enemy has left? or do you think that the Greeks had left any trick untried? is this the reputation of Ulysses?This Roman prejudice against the Greeks was later expressed in terms of Odyssean qualities by the satirist Juvenal. He criticized the Greeks for their "quick wits, reckless nerve and ready tongue" and their versatile talent for adapting themselves to any situation (3.60-108).
The Homeric Odysseus is a fascinating character of great subtlety and
moral depth. The poet presents Odysseus as a paradigm of civilized
values. He is a man of great intelligence, who consistently outwits
his enemies and therefore survives against all odds. Despite great
provocation he displays an admirable restraint that saves his life on two
occasions and ensures his eventual success. His deception and trickery
in the the Odyssey, however, did not serve him well in later times.
The morality of archaic Greece that underlies the character of the Homeric
Odysseus eventually came into collision with the more philosophical concerns
of the fifth century BC. Deception and trickery were no longer considered
acceptable behavior in a hero. It is significant that Socrates, when
faced with the risk of death in his trial, rejects Odyssean pragmatism
in refusing to play up to the jury to win acquittal or to go into exile
to save his life. Socrates is concerned about justice and truth no
matter what the cost to himself. Thus he chooses Achilles, the supremely
impractical man, as his model, who accepted death to avoid the moral disgrace
of not avenging the death of Patroclus (Pl. Ap. 28.b.3. - 28.d.5).
Odysseus may have succeeded at Troy where Achilles failed, but he was to
be denied the undying glory that was the fate of Achilles.