Today we start The Odyssey, and The Odyssey is a sequel to The
Iliad, and it's a family story. It's a story about a homecoming.
There are three main characters, right?
There's Odysseus, sorry, Odysseus, who is the main
character, and this is what it's called, The Odyssey.
Then there is Tanalpi, who is his wife, and there's Tilakis,
who is their son. And as we discussed when we read
The Iliad, Homer is first and foremost concerned about the
human condition. What does it mean to be human?
What does it mean to live in a world of war, of trauma, of
tragedy? And how can we overcome there's
adversity? So the Odyssey, it's about 3
individuals and a family and they are all traumatized and
they're all heartbroken. OK, so Odysseus is we're trying
to return home from the war and his problem is that he has PTSD,
which is post traumatic stress order.
And this is very common for soldiers who returned from war.
They've seen so much violence, they've seen so much tragedy,
they've seen so much senseless death that their souls are
shattered. And that is this is problem.
Then you're at Penelope, who's suffering from depression.
And why is she depressed? Because her husband has been
away for 20 years, and she doesn't know if he's alive or
he's dead. He's probably dead, right?
It's been 20 years. There's been no sign of him for
the past 20 years. But she cannot bring herself to
admitting that he's dead. So she's put herself in a very
precarious situation. There's dozens of suitors who
want her hand in marriage, and she she wants to say no, but
she's afraid that if she does that, then she'll be alone for
the rest of her life. But she doesn't want to say yes
because she refuses to admit that her husband, the love of
her life, Odysseus, is dead. In her heart, she feels that
he's still alive. But in her head, she cannot
justify it. She cannot explain it.
It's just a feeling in her. OK.
And so her response, and this what we call cognitive
dissonance, her response is just to shut down.
OK? She just spends all her time
alone in a room. At first she's weaving stuff,
but then she just sits in our room, right?
And then there's Tamakis. Tamakis.
His problem is that his he doesn't know if his father is
dead or alive, but the man is a legend.
This is a man who won the Trojan War by coming up with a Shard,
him with a Trojan horse, OK? So he is a legend in this world
and everyone sings his praises and he's his son.
So he's living in his shadow, OK?
And he wants to prove he's better than his father.
He wants to become a hero himself, but he's being burdened
by the legacy of his father. The other issue is that unless
his father is dead, he cannot inherit his father's legacy,
right? His plot, the property, the
reputation cannot be transferred to him.
Then there's his mother, who's just sitting around the house
every single day. If she were to get married, she
would leave, and then he could be master of his own house,
right? But she's still around, so he's
kind of stuck. At the same time, the suitors
are waiting for Panopti's answer, which is never going to
come. So they're just in the house and
they're eating up all his wealth.
So he is just seeing his life wither away, and there's nothing
he can do about it. All right, so he is just
depressed as well, and he's angry.
But you know, all these things are the same thing.
It's really one of chronic dissonance.
It's really one of depression. It's really one of trauma.
All right, so there's another way we can analyze what's going
on. And the thing about the soul and
the soul is something that the ancients were really concerned
about because it was really the most fundamental issue of what
it means to be a human being. It's something that we don't
talk about today, something that we don't think about today
because we live in a world of material science.
We can't see it. It doesn't exist.
But for most of humanity, sorry, for most of human history,
humanity has understood the soul as very present, and it's very
real, the most significant thing in our lives.
OK, so the soul that they understood, let's talk about
their understanding of the soul. And this is true for a lot,
actually a lot of cultures. First of the soul is a very
complex thing, OK? It is almost infinite
dimensions, the different layers to the soul.
And there's really a part of the soul that is you, OK?
That's just you, the person, but who you are as a person is
ultimately influenced by other influences as well, by other
factors as well, OK? So these influences include your
family, OK, your culture, the history, and maybe the gods, OK.
So again, there are infinite dimensions, and these dimensions
have an impact on you. And maybe when you die, maybe
there's a part of you that lives on, OK, But there's also parts
of you that flows back into these different streams of the
universe, OK? So it's a very complex thing.
Now the soul, another name for the soul that we use today, if
you go to psychology class, their name for the soul is the
worldview. OK, so we have a much more
simplistic understanding of our psychology than the ancients.
The idea of the world view is just our understanding of who we
are, where we came from, and our place in the universe, OK?
It comes and we believe it comes from our memories and our
experiences. OK, And the world view is
important because it allows us on ourselves.
This is important for things such as planning, right?
Only if you know who you are can you actually plan ahead, because
then you know what you want to do, what you want to accomplish,
OK. It allows for empathy, building
relationships with others, OK. And it allows for judgement,
basically, what's good, what's bad?
What do you like? What don't you like?
OK, so the worldview and the soul are fundamental to who we
are. Now in psychology, what they
will teach you is that trauma splinters the worldview, OK?
There's something about your experience that is fundamental
to your identity, but because it is so painful, you forget about
it or you refuse to see it. And this causes a rupture in
your identity, in your coherent sense of the world, which
destroys your worldview, OK? And this leads to depression.
What is depression? Depression is the inability to
act and to think, OK, you don't know what you want to
accomplish. You don't trust yourself.
You don't know what you'd like. And So what are the symptoms of
depression? You sleep a lot or you find no
pleasure in anything. You feel no emotion.
You feel sort of numbness, OK. And that's why people, they tend
to take drugs or they just sleep all the time or whatever.
OK. All right.
Because you're unable to act. And that's exactly what's
happening to Odysseus, Penelope and Tamakis.
All right, There's a trauma in their lives, OK?
And they just believe this as well, OK.
There could be a trauma that splits the soul, OK?
And it could be a demon. It could be a really painful
incident. It could be anything, OK?
But it splits your soul. And if you are to recover, then
you have to repair your soul. And that's a fundamental
conflict into the dilemma. Within the Odyssey, you have 3
individuals, Odysseus, Penelope, Tamakis, their soul has been
splintered. And so they're on a journey,
their own Odyssey to repair their soul.
And the answer, of course, is each other, OK, Their love for
each other. That's what's what's going to
save the world, OK, The love of family.
And that is the fundamental message of the Odyssey, all
right. And that's why it's such a
powerful read. OK, so let me give you some
background as to the plot. So as you know, the Odyssey
begins in immediate in median rest OK, in the middle of
things, which is to say that a lot of things that were taking
place and happens just in the middle of the plot, OK.
And then in the in the in the beginning, Odysseus has been
away for 20 years and he's stuck on an island with Calypso.
Penelope is depressed and seeing herself in the room.
Tamakis is angry. OK.
And Athena comes and tells Tamakis, come with me.
I will help you find your father.
OK, so the story starts with the Trojan War, of course.
OK, So remember the Troy, this the Helen has been taking to
Troy. She falls in love with Paris
because that's what Aphrodite promised Paris as a prize.
And now her husband, the king of Sparta, Menelaus, and her and
his brother Eggman on the king of Kings are like, we're going
to raise an army and we're going to get back to Helen, OK.
And this is prophesize, this is this is to be the greatest war
in human history. It will make it will make
mortals into gods, right? That's why Achilles enters this
war, because this is the opportunity for him to prove
that he is the greatest warrior of All in all of human history.
And that's why he goes to Troy. Odysseus is also supposed to go
to this war, but this is he's different from Achilles because
Odysseus loves his wife Penelope and he has a new son, six
months, six months old Tanakis. So he's conflicted and he really
doesn't want to go to war. But the Greeks need him because
the gods have told the Greeks that it is really Odysseus Who
Will Win the war because he's the one who will come up with a
Trojan horse, the stratum that will win this war.
So you need this guy. OK, so this is doesn't want to
go, but the Greeks insist. So the Greeks send 2 messengers
to Ithaca where this is lives. Now.
This is what he does is he pretends to be mad.
So he dress up as a beggar. OK, he's a king, but he dresses
up really badly and he's going around the farmland and throwing
salt everywhere he goes. He looks crazy.
OK and you throw salt in the land to kill crops.
So he looks kind of crazy, but the but the Greeks understand
that this is a man of disguise. He's a man of stratagems.
He's very clever. So it's probably a trick.
So what they do is they take his six month year old son Tamakus,
OK, and put in front of Odysseus.
Odysseus is plowing the field and salting the fields.
OK. And basically the test is this.
If you're really mad, you're going to run over your son
Tamakus and kill him. If you're not mad, if you're not
really crazy, then you're going to stop and go somewhere else
and save your son. So.
So let's see if you're really crazy.
And so this is, of course, turns away and saves his son.
And the Greeks just say hi. You see, you're tricking us all
along. Come with us to Troy.
And so this is has no choice but to go.
OK, So This is why Odysseus goes.
He's forced to go. When you think about it, the
story doesn't really make any sense, right?
And that's the greatness of Homer, because he's telling us
the complexity of human psychology.
But this is really, really smart.
He thinks ahead, right? He should know that if he were
to have the stratagem, the Greeks would see it, see it
through it really quickly, right?
So what he should be doing is hiding from the Greeks, right?
Or maybe just moving away. If you really, really don't want
to go to this war, you just run away and take your family with
you, OK. Or you know what?
Just kill these guys because you're crazy, right?
All right, So what this tells us is that, yes, Odysseus really
loves his family, and he wants to be with his family because he
knows that if he goes to Troy, he'll be gone for 20 years.
That's 20 years that he won't be able to see his son Tamakis grow
up. OK.
But at the same time, this is the greatest war in human
history. Achilles is going, a man is
going. This is want to be really want
to be left out. Does he really want to be the
one guy who's like a coward, who's like, you know what?
I'm going to stay home, right? The Greeks will just laugh at
him for the rest of his life, saying you're just a pussy,
right? You've been pussy whipped by
your wife doesn't want to do that.
So it's a conflict, right? So what he does is he comes up
with a stratagem that allows the Greeks to see food really
quickly and force him to go. So he doesn't have to be any
responsibility for what he does, all right?
And that is a complexity of the human soul.
That is a complexity of our worldview.
All right, So he goes to Troy and he has to explain to himself
why he's there. And he he knows he's going to be
away from home for 20 years, 10 years in Troy, 10 years being
lost at sea, right? So his world view is this.
Why am I here in Troy? Well, the first reason is just
justice, right? This is a just war because a
Trojan stole Helen and therefore the Greeks must avenge the honor
of Analyse. OK.
Second is family. Helen should be with her
children. Helen should be with her family
in Sparta. We have to return her to Sparta.
How would I feel if Panoply were stolen from me?
I want everyone to go fight with me to get her back as well.
Right? But family OK now.
Third reason is legacy. Yes, he will not see his son
Camachus for 20 years. Therefore, he has to build him a
legacy that will carry him for the rest of his life.
If he is in Troy and he wins this Great War and he becomes
this great hero, then Tamakis himself will be famous as a son
of of Odysseus. People will respect Tamakis.
He wants to build a legacy for his son.
He wants to tell his son, this is this is how you should live
your life. You should live a life of honor,
of justice, of truth. OK, so these are the three
reasons why he goes to Troy. And we have to remember that
this is all to justify his conflict, OK?
There's a conflict, there's a rupture in his soul, and he he
needs to mend it by explaining why he's doing what he's doing,
OK? Because again, he's abandoning
Hispanic for 20 years. OK, So what's going to happen is
this this is this is the world view that Odysseus has when he
enters Troy. The problem starts when they win
the war, OK? Because when they win the war,
then Odysseus is forced to see that all these three things were
wrong, OK? He will discover that this war
was not about justice. It was just about revenge and
murder. It is about family.
It's about destroying families, because when you win this war,
you enslave the woman and kill the husbands, right?
That's destroying families. And it's not about legacy
because you've destroyed the Trojan civilization for no
particular reason, because Helen, Helen doesn't even want
to go back to your Sparta, OK? And this causes cognitive
dissonance and this is what causes his PT SD OK, or trauma.
And so for So the Odyssey is his journey to repair his soul so
that he can go home. OK, Does it doesn't make sense,
guys? That's what the Odyssey is
about, OK? So what we're going to do now is
we are going to read certain sections, OK?
So this is from the Iliad actually.
OK, this is from the Iliad. And.
And so remember in Book 1, the Iliad, Achilles, angry Manon had
this nasty fight where Achilles is like, screw you, you're a
dog, I'm not gonna fight for you ever again.
Eggman is like, screw you, I don't need you.
OK. But in Book 2, Eggman recognizes
that, oh, there's actually a problem because Achilles is the
greatest war that we have. And if Achilles doesn't want to
fight, then that's bad for morale.
OK, We might actually lose this war.
So Eggmanon being stupid, he has this stupid idea and this stupid
idea is this. How can I rally my soldiers?
How can I galvanized them into action?
Now that Achilles has abandoned battlefield, I know what I'll
do. I'll tell them they can go home.
Ha, Reverse psychology guys, right?
Reverse psychology. Because when I say you guys can
go home, every Greek will be like, no, we came all the way to
Troy to win glory for you. Agate man on.
We're going to fight to the death to ensure that you get
your glory. Agate man on.
We don't want to go home. Don't make us go home.
We're going to fight. OK?
So that's the plan. And of course, it backfires.
And when people hear, oh, we go home, they all run away.
And everyone's like, he now has caught his dissonance.
He's like, what? Oh, what?
He doesn't understand what's going on.
OK. And at this point in the story,
the war should be over because all the Greeks just got went
home. And again, what happens is a
dish will come and save everyone because he will recognize that
Egeman just being stupid, and he will force all the Greeks to
return back to the post. OK.
All right. So, Ivory, can you read, please?
Testing his man. Testing hits men, but he only
made the spirit race inside their chests all the rank and
file who'd never heard his plan, and the whole assembly surged
like big like big waves at sea. The Acarian Sea, when east and
South winds Dr. it on blasting down in force from the clouds of
Father Zeus, or when the West wind shakes the deep sanding
grain with with hurricane gusts that flame down the stalks.
So the mass assembly of troops was was shaken now they cried on
alarm and charged towards the ships, and the dust went
whirling up from under rushing feet as the men jostled back and
forth, shouting orders. Grapple the ships, drag them
down to the bright sea. Clean out the launching
channels. Shrill shouts hitting the
heavens, fighters racing for home, knocking the blacks out
underneath the holes. Wait, so this shows you how
stupid Eggman is because Eggman thinks that his soldiers
actually want to fight this war, but all the soldiers are
homesick. They're sick of this stupid war.
They don't know why, why they're in this war.
OK, so the moment that Eggman says you guys can go home,
they're all like, we're going to get home as soon as possible,
OK? They missed your wives.
They missed your children. All right, So Aphrodite and Hera
are up, up in the sky, OK, Mount Olympus.
And they they watch it and like, Oh my God, Eggman is going to
lose us this war. What a moron.
And Hera says to Athena, oh, sorry, sorry, sorry.
It's not actually Hera and Aphrodite.
It's Hera and Athena because they're the ones who lost the
contest to Aphrodite. OK.
But Hera says to Athena, you get down there, man, and you stop
this, OK? So Athena rushes down, and he
talks to Odysseus. OK.
All right. Can you read?
And now they might have won their journey home, the men of
Argos fighting the bullet. Fate, yes, if her had not
alerted Athena, inconceivable child of Zeus, whose battle
shield is Thunder. Tireless one.
Athena, What is this? The way all the archives flying
home to their fatherland, sailing over to seas, brought
back, leaving Prime and all the men of Troy a trophy to glory
over Helen Argos. Helen, for whom so many archives
lost their lives in Troy, far from native land.
Go range the ranks of Achene's Arms and Bronze with your
winning words. Hold back each man you find.
Don't let them haul their rolling ships to sea, OK?
Come on, you. The bright eyed goddess palace
lost no time down. She flashed from the peaks of
Mount Olympus, quickly reached the ships and found Odysseus
first, a mastermind like Zeus, still standing fast.
He had not laid a hand in his back black benched hole.
Such anguish wracked from his heart and fighting spirit now
close beside him, the bright eyed goddess stood in Urjaman,
royal son of. Leartes.
Leartes Odysseus, great testician.
What is this the way? OK.
So, So everyone's trying to go home.
And you would think that Odysseus would be the first
person to get on a ship to go back to see his son and his
wife. OK, But he's he's standing
there. He's kind of confused.
All right, So he's like, this doesn't make any sense to me.
Why would Edgar and do this? But at the same time, he sort of
shows you that he actually doesn't really want to go home,
right? Because if we want to go home,
he'd be home by now. Keep on going.
All you archives flying home to your fatherland, tumbling into
your ore swept ships, leaving Priam an old man of Troy, a
trophy to glory over. Helen Vargos.
Helen of Argos, Helen for whom so many archives lost their
lives in Troy, far from native land.
No, don't give up now. Range the akin ranks with your
winning words. Hold back each man you find,
don't let them haul their rolling ships to sea.
He knew the goddess's voice. He went on a run, flaying off
his Cape as Yuri Bases picked it up, the Herald of Ithaca always
at his side. Coming face to face with
Atreides Agamemnon, he relieved him of his father's rural
scepter. Its power can never die, and
grasping it tightly off, he strodes the ships of Archives,
armed and bronze. OK, so he's not going to sing it
heavenly, save the Greeks from losing this war.
OK, so Athena, right? Athena is always part of
Odysseus. It's part of his soul, right?
The intuition. And his intuition tells him
something's something wrong here.
I need to stop this, OK. Also what?
Look at Agamemnon. Agamemnon is frozen.
He he is so distraught. He's shut down, OK?
His brain has stopped working. It's it's frozen because this is
not supposed to happen, right? When he says that you guys can
go home. He wanted everyone to say no.
We're going to stay and fight for you, Agamemnon.
All right, So it's kind of dissonance.
It's so much kind of dissonance that when Odysseus takes the
world scepter, everybody doesn't even notice.
The world scepter is part of his soul, right?
It's his legacy. It's what gives him authority.
He's the king of kings. And this is just takes takes the
crown from and says, like, no, I'm the king for now to save
this war. OK.
And it just shows you how committed Odysseus is to winning
this war. He really believes that this war
is about justice, about family, about building a legacy for his
son. So he refuses to lose this war.
All right, Do you want to go? Ahead I I.
Thought I Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah.
All right, All right. So, but that's the Iliad, OK,
And again, what will happen is that Odysseus will win this war
and when eternal glory for himself with a stratum of a
chosen horse. Right now we go to the Odyssey
and in the Odyssey, we don't actually meet Odysseus for many,
many books, OK? It's only towards the middle
that we meet Odysseus. In the first few books, It's
it's a story of Tamakis and it's during the finest Father, OK.
And when we meet Odysseus, he's a very different person from
when from the Iliad. Remember the Iliad, he is trying
to win this war. He's very energetic, he's
galvanized, he's very heroic, OK.
But when we see him in the Odyssey, he's a changed person.
In fact, he's a broken person. So what's happening is that this
this isn't his crew try to go home and they get lost at sea.
They have many adventures and they get shipwrecked on an
island and he's and he becomes the sex toy.
OK, Literally a sex toy of a God's name, Calypso.
All right, so basically he's getting raped every day at
night, and then he goes to the beach and he cries.
OK, so and so so so he's he's he's a prisoner of Clipso for
many years. And the gods Zeus, Athena, they
get together and and and say, you know what?
We can't have this happen anymore.
OK, this is needs to go home. So they send Hermes to tell
Clipso you have to send this is home.
The gods will it. And the clip says sure, why not?
OK, so can you read? With that, the powerful giant
killer speed away. So it's Hermes.
OK so Hermes has total clipso you have to let this guy go.
The queenly nymph sought out the great Odysseus, the commands of
Zeus still ringing in her ears, and found him there on the
headland, sitting still, weeping, his eyes never dry, his
sweet life flowing away with the tears.
He wept for his foiled journey home since and then no longer
pleased. So he's sitting, he's still,
he's weeping, his eyes never dry, and all he's thinking about
is the past. OK, this is clear signs of
depression PDST. OK.
You're annoying in the night. True, he'd sleep with her in the
in the arching cave. He had no choice, unwilling
lover alongside lover all too willing.
But all his days he sit on rocks and beaches, wrenching his heart
with sobs and groans in anguish, gazing out over the barren sea
through blinding tears. So he's a broken man.
He's a very different person from the Iliad.
OK, so now the question then is why?
What happened to him? All right, so Klepto says to
Odysseus, You know what? It's been great having a sex
toy, but the gods insist that you have to go home.
But you know what? You can choose to be my sex toy
for eternity. I can make it immortal, right?
You can go home, but I can make you immortal and you'll be my
statutory for all of eternity. Now this is is like, that's a
really nice offer. I I really want to do this, but
I need to go at home. OK, So he leaves and he gets an
island. And on this island, he's given a
ship to go home. OK.
But before he goes home, as a custom, they host a banquet for
him. OK.
And they really don't know who he is.
They don't really know he's audacious.
All right, So doing the banquet, what's the tradition is have a
bar, sing a great story. OK, To sing a story of great
deeds. And of course, he sings about
the Trojan War. OK, So can you read Ivory?
Destroyed between Odysseus and Achilles, Pelius's son.
OK, so so the boys sing about the Swordan war, OK.
How at once at the God's flowing feast the captains clash in the
savage war of wards, while Agamemnon, Lord of armies,
rejoiced at heart that Achaeus's bravest men were battling.
So for this was the victory sign, the Apollo prophecies as
shrine in Pytho, when Agamemnon strode across the rocky
threshold asking the Oracle for advice, the start of the tidal
waves of ruin tumbling down on Troy's and Nikki's forces both
at once. Thanks to will of Zeus, who
rules the world. That was the song the famous
Harper sang. But but Odysseus, clutching his
flaring sea blue Cape in both powerful hands, drew it over his
head and buried his handsome face, ashamed his host might see
him shedding tears. Whenever the wrath Bard would
pause in the song, he'd lift the Cape from his head, boy, pop his
tears and hoisting his double handed cup, pour it out to the
gods. But as but as soon as the Bard
would start again, impelled to sing by faces Lords who revelled
in his tail again, Odysseus hit his face and wept.
OK, so there's this great banquet and the Bard singer of
the children war. And at this point you would
think that Odysseus would be like, hey, that's me man.
He'd be very proud. But instead, he cries and he
cries. OK, this again is trauma where
the memories are storing pain in him.
So clearly something happened during the children war that
made him want to forget about it, that made him resent
himself. OK, That caused his soul to be
ruptured. All right, all right, So keep on
going. See as.
Master of many exploits, praise the singer.
I respect you, Demoticus, more than any man alive.
Surely the Muse has taught you, Zeus's daughter or God, Apollo
himself. How true to life.
All too true. You sing the aching and his
fate. All they did and suffered, all
they soldiered through as if you were, as if you were there
yourself or heard from one who was.
But come now, shift your ground. Sing of the wooden horse.
EPS is built with Athena's help. The cutting trap, that good,
that good. Odysseus brought one day to the
heights of Troy, Filled with fighting men who laid the city
waste. Sing that for me, true to life
as it deserves, And I will tell the world at once how freely the
muse gave you the gods, his own gift of song.
OK, so. He's feeling all this pain
because of memories of the tournament war, but he
recognizes that if he's willing to go home because remember,
he's on his journey home, he needs to confront his pain.
He needs to omit his pain. OK, so now he's going to ask the
bar to sing the memory that he's most trying to repress.
He's trying to he he wants to now focus on the children war
and really come to terms with his own trauma.
OK, All right, so this so so let's let's see what happens.
Sorry, certain now by the. Muse the Bard launched out in a
fine blaze of song, starting at just the point where the main
aching force, setting their camps afire, had boarded the
oar, swept ships and sailed for home.
But famed Odysseus's men, already crouched and hiding in
the heart of Troy's assembly, darkened that horse.
The Trojans dragged themselves to the city heights.
Now it's stood there looming, and round it's bulk the Trojan
sat debating clashing days on end.
Three plans split your ranks. Either to hack open the hollow
vault with ruthless bronze or haul it up to the highest Ridge
and pitch it down the cliffs. Or let it sand a glorious
offering made to pacify the gods.
And that that final plan was bound to win the day for Troy
was fated to perish once city lodged inside her walls.
The monstrous wooden horse where the prime of our guy power lay
in wait with death and slaughter bearing down on Troy.
OK. Troops of Achians broke Achians
broke from cover streaming out of the horse's hollow flanks to
plunder Troy. He's saying how left and right
they ravaged the seep's city, saying how Odysseus marched
right up to de Phoebus's house. Like the God of War on attack
with diehard Menelaus de Phoebus isn't a name for prime.
OK, they want to go kill the king there, he's saying.
Odysseus fought the grimmest fight he had ever braved, but he
went through at last thanks to Venus's superhuman power.
That was a song the famous Harper sang.
The great Odysseus melted into tears, running down from his
eyes to with his cheeks as a woman weeps, her arms flung
around her darling husband. A man who fell in battle,
fighting for town and townsmen, trying to beat the day of doom
from home and children. Seeing the man go down dying,
gasping for breath, she clings for dear life, screams and
shrills. But the victor is just behind
her, Digging spear butts into her back and shoulders.
Drag her off in bondage, yoke to hard labor.
Pain and the most heartbreaking torment waste her cheeks.
So from Odysseus's eyes ran tears of heartbreak now.
OK, so now we know what happened.
OK, all right. So what happened was this, for
10 years, Odysseus and the Greeks were trying to defeat the
Trojans and they could not do it because the Trojans were behind
a walled city. So this is prayed and prayed to
Athena for inspiration. And then one day he had it, the
Trojan horse, OK, so he sneaks in.
So he gets into the underbelly of the Trojan horse, a lot of
other soldiers, and then they get into the city and like, you
know, they're really scared, they're really excited.
Then they're able at night to leave the Trojan horse and then
open the gates of Troy. And the Greeks stream in and
they start to conquer the city. And then this is, you know, he
is killing, OK, because it's war and he's full of adrenaline.
But then someone catches his eye, all right.
He strikes down a soldier. And then the a woman comes
crying and she's traumatized at the sight of the death of her
husband. And he's and this is traumatized
by this woman being traumatized because he came to Troy to save
the woman, right? He sees Penelope in this woman.
He says, I came all this way to make sure that Helen could be
safe of her husband. And now he just recognized that
I just killed someone's husband. But not only that, but the Greek
come and they take her off to be enslaved.
So he by witness war has has destroyed every single family in
Troy. He's caused the suffering of
thousands and thousands of women and children.
And that is what he sees for the first time, OK.
For the longest time, he believed that he was here to
fight for justice, to save families, to leave his legacy
for his son Tamakis. And now he recognizes, no, this
is not a just war. I'm destroying a civilization.
This is not a war about family. This is this is a war about
destroying families. And what am I?
What legacy am I leaving my son? How my son feel if he knows how
I destroyed families like ours? And this causes trauma in him,
It splits his soul and it drives him crazy, basically.
And that's a conflict, the central conflict in the Odyssey.
Having done so much evil, how can you go home?
How can you repair yourself? How can you mend your soul and
repair your worldview so that you can live for your family?
OK.