Book 12 of Homer’s ‘Odyssey’ is an epic. An epic is always a long poem that is narrative and explains a hero’s journey, which in this case is the main character Odysseus. Another reason that this is an epic is that the gods Odysseus were forced to face on his journey to try and get back home. In an epic, the hero faces supernatural antagonists. Odysseus has proved himself to be a good leader, but at the beginning of this journey, he and his men are distracted for a moment because he does not follow the rules Circe gave him and they get blindsided, the first tragedy of many on this journey caused by bad decisions.
“I did not mention Scylla, since she meant inevitable death, and if they knew, the men would drop the oars and go and huddle down in the hold in fear. Then I ignored Circe’s advice that I should not bear arms; it was too hard for me. I dressed myself in glorious armor; in my hands I took two long spears, and I climbed up on the forecastle. I thought that rocky Scylla would appear from that direction, to destroy my men. So we rowed through the narrow straight in tears. On one side, Scylla; on the other, shining Charybdis with a dreadful gurgling noise sucked down the water. When she spewed it out, she seethed, all churning like a boiling cauldron on a huge fire. The froth flew high, to spatter the topmost rocks on either side. But when she swallowed back the sea, she seemed all stirred from inside, and the rock around was roaring dreadfully, and the dark-blue sand below was visible. The men were seized by fear. But while our frightened gaze was on Charybdis, Scylla snatched six men from the ship—my strongest, best fighters. Looking back from down below, I saw their feet and hands up high, as they were carried off. In agony they cried to me and called my name—their final words”.
This passage is about Odysseus and his men trying to make it home with the instructions Circe has given them. Circe has given Odysseus very specific directions to follow on how to help them make it home by not upsetting any gods and without losing all of his men. Odysseus seems to listen to Circe and follow the directions she has given him by making it past the first obstacle of many in his journey back home. He and his men then come upon the second obstacle of their journey, which is getting past Scylla, the six-headed monster that takes a man for each head on its body. Circe gave directions to lose the six men and keep on going, but Odysseus did not tell his men about this before the journey because he knew they would be scared. This is the first of the bad decisions he makes and goes against the directions Circe has given him. He decided to bear arms, which he was told not to do, as he could risk losing more than six men by staying around Scylla longer than necessary. This led to the first tragedy. They only ended up losing the six men as expected, but the foolishness Odysseus showed by not following instructions could have led to much worse things happening.
This passage is descriptive because it is important for the readers to know what led up to each event and what caused each tragedy that happened throughout the passage. There are plenty of examples of this in the passage, such as when Odysseus’s men told him that they could not keep going because they were not as strong as him, and forced him to stop at the island of the sun god with the cattle. This is followed by Odysseus explaining to the men that they cannot touch the cattle or tragedy will happen. He also tells them that they need to only use the supplies they have with them from Circe. The men eventually got tired of this and disobeyed Odysseus by not listening to the directions he gave them.
Odysseus’s men killed the cattle and ate it to avoid starving to death. They said that they would rather die in any other way than starve to death. Odysseus could smell the cooking and quickly fled from the island with his men. He tried explaining what happened to keep the gods from killing all of his men. This did not work, and since the men did not follow directions, all of them were killed, leaving only Odysseus still alive. Another example of the theme, bad decisions. After this event happened, Odysseus was sent back to the island of Calypso after ten days of floating with driftwood from his ship. Although this was not the worst thing that could have happened to him, considering he stayed alive, if he and his men would have followed directions, they would have been able to make it home.
Odysseus has proved himself of being a good leader throughout Book 12 and the rest of Homer’s ‘Odyssey’ and seemed capable of successfully completing this journey, which is why his men trusted him. The plot of this epic consists in not following instructions and, as a result, wrong decisions. Odysseus was the first to not follow directions that Circe gave him by trying to fight Scylla. This first bad decision almost made him lose more than six men, which he already knew was going to happen. The next bad decision was made by his men. Odysseus gave them strict directions to follow and they went against him and ate the cattle, which led to all of them being killed. All of these events were caused by not following directions, which kept them from staying alive and making it home.
Works Cited
https://www.bartleby.com/essay/The-Odyssey-by-Homer-is-an-Epic-F3Q3KWYVC
Puchner, Martin, et al. The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Fourth ed., vol. 1, W.W. Norton & Company, 2018, pp.290-291.