ODYSSEUS'S
OAR by Robert Foulke
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ne of the o ldest embl ems in sea literature is Odysse us's oar, symbolizing the unnaturaln ess of treading the "searoad," as the Homeri c formula is often translated , and introducing the motif of leaving rh esea forever. During Odysseus's visit to the underworld, the proph et Tiresias tells him what he must do to complete his penance for offending Poseidon . Not only had he tricked and blinded the Cyclops Polyphemus, bur he also had taunted this stricken son of Poseidon as he sailed away. The vengea nce of the god of the sea brings sufferin g to Odysseus throughout his long voyage ho me, destroys all his ships and men, and, after his las t shipw reck, leaves him a lo ne swimmer facing a brutal surf pounding into a towering cliff. As if this were no t enough penance, he must turn his back o n th e sea and make a journ ey inland after he has reclaimed his kin gs hip in Ithaca. T ires ias says: go forth once more, yo u must ... ca rry yo ur well-planed oar until yo u co me to a race of peo ple who know nothing of the sea, whose food is never seaso ned with salt, strangers all ro ships with th eir crimso n prows and long slim oars, wings that make ships fl y. And here is yo ur signunmistakable, clear, so clear yo u ca nn o t mi ss it: When another traveler falls in with yo u and calls that weight across yo ur shoulder a fa n to winnow grain, th en plant yo ur bladed , balan ced oar in the earth and sacrifice fin e beasts to th e lo rd god of the sea, Poseidon(Odyssey 11 : 138-49 (trans. Robert Fagles, New York, 1996) The theme of escaping bondage to the sea and li vi ng out of sight of it persists throu gho ut sea literature from H o mer to Conrad and beyo nd , and it is often associated with Odysseus's emblematic oar. In The Mirror of the Sea, Joseph Co nrad co nsciously draws a parall el between Dominic Cervo ni and Odysseus. Cervoni , who has had to deliberately wreck his ship to avo id capture by Spanish coast guardsmen, comes as hore with an oar: I gazed after th e strangely d eso late fi gure of that seaman ca rrying an oar o n his should er up a barren, ro ck-strewn ravin e under the dreary leaden sky of the Tremolino's last d ay ... walking deliberately, with his back to the sea .... And D omini c Ce rvo ni takes his place in my memory by the side of the legendary wa nderer on the sea of marvels and terrors, by th e sid e of the fa tal and impious adventurer, to whom the evoked shade of the soothsayer pred icted a journey inland with an oa r o n his should er, till he met men who had neve r set eyes on ships and oars. It seems to me I ca n see th em side by sid e in the
SEA HISTORY 96, SPRING 200 I
Odysseus taunts the Cyclops Polyphemus, son ofPoseidon, in a mural on the wall ofa school in Krakow. (Photo: Robert Foulke)
twi lighto fa n arid land, the un fort unate possessors of the secret lo re of the sea, bearing the emblem of their hard calling o n their sho ulders, surrounded by sil ent and curio us m en: even as I, too, hav in g turn ed my back on th e sea, am bearing those few pages in the twi li ght, with the ho pe of fi.ndin g in an inland vall ey the sil ent welcom e of so me pati ent listener. (The Mirror of the Sea, 182-3 (Lo ndon, 1946)) Like the Ancient Mariner who waylays an unsuspectin g weddin g guest in Co leridge's poem of the sa me name, both Odysseus and Con rad have sea tales to tell , o nes thar wi ll barely be understood o n land . A nd the lure of the sea is so stro ng rhar one must carry the oar fa r eno ugh inland to be out of its sight and so und. Writing about seafaring is loaded with di chotom ies between the sea and th e land , and am o ng rhem, in voyage narratives, th e stro ngest polari ty is the simultaneo us impulse to sail outward set again st the d es ire to return ho me. Such ambi valence of feeling is as un stable as the sea itself, and its currents ca n flow either way. Odysseus's voyage follows rhe ancient G reek pattern of the nostos o r return , yer most of his ad ve ntures and disasters co me from the opposite impulse, an in satiab le curios ity and brashness that leads him into trouble rime afte r rime. One of rhe most telling moments in the Odyssey occurs in the Aeolus epi sod e, when curious and avaricious crewmen unseal th e bag of winds and release gales that dri ve th e hom eco ming fl eet back to sea just as they have made a landfall on Ithaca-years before the return that no one but Odysseus wi ll see.
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