Odysseus on the beach

“But the great-hearted Odysseus he found not within; for he sat weeping on the shore, as his wont had been, racking his soul with tears and groans and griefs, and he would look over the unresting sea, shedding tears.”

from Classical Text Library’s Odyssey https://www.theoi.com/Text/HomerOdyssey5.html

When Zeus sent Hermes on behalf of Athena to Calypso’s island to tell Calypso to free Odysseus and help hem return to his wife and son on Ithaca, Hermes found Odysseus sitting on the beach crying. He was in grief because he had been away from home for almost twenty years. He spent ten years fighting in the Trojan War (when it started his son was an infant and he tried to demonstrate that he was insane to avoid fighting) and had spent almost that long wandering the Mediterranean trying to return to Ithaca. Now, the beautiful Calypso who desired to make him her immortal husband held him captive on an island paradise. He had been there at least seven years (depending on the account you choose to read). I am sure Calypso treated well and at times, he was tempted to stay, but he longed for his wife, son, and land. However, Calypso would not free him.

I sometimes wonder (and so do others) how hard Odysseus worked to escape from his island paradise and his beautiful warden, but there is a more important question for those looking for leadership lessons from this story. To paraphrase the Talking Heads, we must ask ourselves “how did he get there?” How is it that Odysseus still has not made it back to his home? His other compatriots have returned to their homes and resumed their lives. Menelaus is back home in Sparta with his restored and now devoted wife Helen (if you do not remember, Paris stole Helen or she ran off with him to start the Trojan War). Agamemnon returned to his home on Mycenae (his wife and her lover kill him in revenge for sacrificing his daughter to get favorable winds to sail to Troy). However, Odysseus is still not home; his wife and son are beset by men insisting she choose a new husband from among them (but that is a story for another day).

So how did he get there? Odysseus was one of the better Greek heroes. He used his brains as often as his brawn. It was his plan to end the war using the Trojan horse. He often proposed novel solutions and compromises during the 10-year war, but he had major problems making it home. Well, like all Greek heroes (or maybe all heroes), he was a mixed bag. He had good and bad characteristics. He made wise and unwise decisions. He was pious and impious. The main reason he was there was because of two poor decisions or actions: his taunting of the Cyclops Polyphemus and his men opening the bag of winds within sight of Ithaca while he slept.

Early on, Odysseus and his men had some rough seas and encountered dangers including the Land of the Lotus Eaters where Odysseus’s leadership skills help extract his men from that danger. But when they landed on the island of the Cyclops, Odysseus ran into trouble and he made a critical error. Looking for food, they entered a cave not knowing it was the Cyclops’ cave. The Cyclops named Polyphemus came in, ate several of Odysseus’ men and Odysseus and his men were only saved by his cunning plan to get Polyphemus drunk, blind him, and then sneak out of the cave riding the underside of sheep (I encourage you to read Edith Hamilton’s version in Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes). He escapes the island with most of his men and when safe at sea, he taunts Polyphemus and in the process proudly tells him to let everyone who asks that it was Odysseus who blinded him. Now this seems fair since Polyphemus had eaten several of Odysseus’ men and had intended to eat Odysseus. Polyphemus had violated the rules of hospitality, but there was one problem…. Polyphemus was a son… the son of a god… the son of Poseidon, the god of the seas. Oh and Odysseus was traveling by sea to his island home Ithaca. Therefore, when Polyphemus asked his dad, Poseidon, god of the seas, to take revenge on Odysseus, Poseidon was willing and able.

The good news for Odysseus was that he was able to get to someone who could help him before Poseidon could react. He landed on the island where Aeolus the King of the Winds lived. Aeolus agreed to give Odysseus and his men favorable wind to return to Ithaca. He gave Odysseus a bag that held all the winds but the west wind and the west wind pushed Odysseus’ ships and men home to Ithaca. Well almost. Odysseus remained vigilant and awake during the journey and just as he came within sight of his home island, he decided that he could relax and sleep. While he was asleep, his men asked why Odysseus had benefited so from the war and them so little. They had all suffered for ten years during the war, but he was the one with the treasure and the King of the Winds had given him another bag. Curious about this new treasure and hoping to gain from it, the opened the bag and released the other winds driving them away from Ithaca and into a series of unfortunate events that resulted in the death of all of Odysseus’ men, the destruction of all his ships, and his eventual seven year imprisonment with Calypso.

So how did he get there, crying on the beach? Longing to go home, but with no hope of return. He got there because of pride. He was right in blinding the cyclops, but his pride broadcast to the world and worse to the one person (or god) who could and would disrupt his journey home. What can we learn from this? Just because we are right does not mean it is in our best interest to boast of our success or our victory. Sometimes it is enough to survive to fight another day. Odysseus should have been grateful and moved on without alienating others with his proud boasts. He got there because he let down his guard at the very end. In the Army, the last troop leading procedures (https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/NCO-Journal/Archives/2019/November/Troop-Leading-Procedures/) is “supervise and refine.” I say it is the most overlooked step of the troop leading procedures. Odysseus did a good job supervising his men through most of the early journey from Troy to almost Ithaca, but when he was almost there, he let down his guard. That last minute failure to supervise led to his men making a critical mistake that resulted in their death and his ten year wandering and eventual imprisonment with Calypso.

So our lessons today from Odysseus on the beach: think before you speak in pride and boast, you never know who you will offend and the power they have to affect your and though you can’t supervise everything, know when and what to supervise to avoid disaster.

Next week, we will leave Greek and Roman mythology for the Bible and find Jeremiah in the well.