#my heart grows three sizes every time I read it. & then explodes ❤️‍🔥💥🔥 such is life once u write a thesis on epics

[pegasusdrawnchariots]

Odysseus' reintegration into the world bound by mortal limitations foregrounds both his age and the distance he has traveled. The shipwrecked sailor who manages to crawl ashore naked on Scheria, bereft of companions, possessions, any token of identity — of all but the bare ember of vitality (cf. 5.488-90 — a lonely spark in a pile of ashes) — meets the young Nausikaa, whose life (like that of Telemachus) is just opening to the possibilities before her. The scene in which Odysseus, awakened by sounds that evoke in him fears of hostile men, faces instead a group of teenage girls playing ball, is both comic and poignant as it measures the difference between their expectations and stages of experience. Later, as he is challenged to compete in an athletic contest, Odysseus acknowledges the toll that age and journeying inevitably take. This is not, then, the epic of the beautiful death (one way to read the Iliad (e.g., see Vernant 1991: 50-74)) but the epic of timeworn, embraceable life.

John Miles Foley, A Companion to Ancient Epic, 2005.

#The Odyssey #Odysseus #John Miles Foley #A Companion to Ancient Epic #quotations #analyses #bestie... the way this chapter changed my life #every page of the Odyssey already makes me sob. be it w joy or despair or some other ineffable poignant nostalgia #but Foley gave me the words to say how & why #tattoo is not enough. gonna get timeworn embraceable life carved into my bones #rhapsody 5 of the Odyssey is actually something that can be so personal #he's a middle-aged war hero w severe trauma! #& crashes out naked & filthy into a gaggle of teenage girls bc he thinks he hears soldiers surrounding him! fuck!!! #strategist & war hero of epic fame colliding into the world of a fairytale princess centuries before fairytales even existed #the scene is so pathetic (in the sense of moving/pitiable). so sweet. so funny. & even a bit silly #my heart grows three sizes every time I read it. & then explodes ❤️‍🔥💥🔥 such is life once u write a thesis on epics #the contrast of the rich jovial life of Nausikaa as a young princess playing ball games w her maids #& Odysseus fighting literally in the trenches just to stay alive. just to ensure the spark of his life does not go out. I'm