The Value of Cunning over Strength Essay

When Odysseus and his men come to their island Calypso, first, uses her beauty to captivate him and keep him with her. She wanted him to stay with him and be an immortal husband to her. She was ordered to release him and she eventually did. However, Circe wanted Odysseus for herself. She lured Odysseus and his men with her beauty, she then poisoned them and kept Odysseus for herself. He gave in to the temptation. “So she spoke to them, and the rest gave voice, and called her and at once she opened the shining doors, and came out, and invited them in, and all in their innocence entered; only Eurylochos waited outside, for he suspected treachery. She brought them inside and seated them on chairs and benches, and mixed them a potion, with barley and cheese and pale honey added to Pramneian wine, but put into the mixture malignant drugs, to make them forgetful of their own country. When she had given them this and they had drunk it down, next thing she struck them with her wand and drove them into her pig pens, and they took on the look of pigs, with the heads and voices and bristles of pigs, but the minds within them stayed as they had been before.” (Homer, 1994-2009)

This time spent on Circe's island was a test of whether he could resist lust from a goddess, and he fails. At first it appears as though the only reason Odysseus sleeps with Circe is to regain his companions, but she easily persuades them to stay. What makes it worse is the fact that Odysseus is not even the first one ready to go. His men are the ones who urge him to leave: "What ails you now? It is time to think about our own country" (Book X, line 472). At a glance, it appears that Odysseus is merely succumbing to Circe's schemes for reasons related to their health and well being, if we read between the lines, we soon begin to realize that Odysseus is weak in the voracious hands of lust. Odysseus arrives on Calypso's island in her cave. At first, it seems like Odysseus doesn't seem much to mind her taking care of him, but over time it is plainly evident that he is unhappy with her. When Hermes arrives on Calypso's island to give her the message from Zeus to release Odysseus, he is bawling on the beach-- a daylong activity for him. Calypso is holding him with her by force; she has no companions to help him back to Ithaca, nor has she a ship to send him in. Athena pleads with Zeus to give Odysseus good fortune,

“Now, Circe, “loveliest of all immortals,” persuades Odysseus to stay, share her meat and wine, and restore his heart” (page 758). Odysseus did not have to stay with Circe, but chose to anyway. While Penelope was fending of suitors and staying loyal to Odysseus, Odysseus was not able to do the same and showed the flaw of unfaithfulness. Even though he was able to heroically get past every other obstacle, he was unable to stay loyal to his wife, illustrating his character flaw of

Calypso being the temptress that she is kept Odysseus on her island, Ogygia, for seven years. Eventually, after Zeus talked to Athena, Zeus told Calypso that she must set Odysseus free. Even with Zeus’ orders she did not want to let Odysseus go so Odysseus had to escape her dreadful island and return home on his own. Then after he left the island of Calypso, he ran in to Circe. Circe started to mess with all of Odysseus’ men and made it harder to get home. Both Calypso and Circe, made Odysseus’ journey home so much harder than it needed to be. Since Calypso trapped him on the island for seven years, his family and everybody at home was starting to believe he was dead. They had no hope that they would ever see him again. So they started to push themselves on Penelope. Also if Circe would have just left him alone and did not mess with any of his men and stayed out of the way, he could have made it home faster. Since both of the Goddess wanted him for their selves they both interfered with his journey in many different ways. Some ways was the same like giving him the gift of immortality and persuading with other stuff. Some ways was different like trapping him in a cage for seven years and turning his men into pigs so he could not leave as

     After two more stops Odysseus proves again that he is a real hero by out smarting the Cyclops and escaping the giant Laestrygonians. However, even hero's can't win all of the time and he losses many of his men to the Cyclops and the cannibal Laestrygonians. By the time he arrives at Circe's island his ship is the only ship left. Odysseus, being more cautious now, sends a group of men ahead to check out her house. The men called to Circe, and she came out of the house. She invited them in to share a meal. Unfortunately for them, Circe had mixed a magical drug into their food. This drug caused them to forget their native land, and turned

Here he was willing to walk straight into danger and willing to sacrifice himself for his crew. Yes he had to give in to her desires and bed Circe, but this was all within the grand scheme of things, to show her that she could not do to him what she had done to his men, again with some help from the gods. Also, in exchange for him agreeing to sleep with her, she had to agree to undo the spell from his men. Mission accomplished, and they journeyed on, with the help of Circe even. However, For all of his great heroic feats, his accomplishments on the battlefield and his cunning ways, and his willingness to put himself in arms way to save his men, time and time again Odysseus showed us how earthly and human he was by the many temptation to which he succumbed. In book 12, prior to his departure from the island of Circe, Odysseus was warned of the Sirens and was told that he nor his men should allow themselves to listen to the song of the Sirens. However, Circe gave him an alternative so that he could listen to the song without succumbing to its effects. "but if you yourself have a mind to listen, have them bind you hand and foot upright in the mast-step and tie the end of the rope to the mast. then you can enjoy the song of the Sirens" (468). Upon hearing this Odysseus could not help himself, he had to exercise the option and heed to the temptation of hearing the songs of the Sirens.

First, Odysseus men came to Circe island and some of his men went off to hunt for food. To begin, One of his men come back and told Odysseus that everyone else was turned into an animal by a witch and one of them is the pig the men who stayed back were trying so hard to kill. Second, when Odysseus went back to his men he almost died from falling from the mountain that Circe house was on. Third, Odysseus boat was almost destroyed from the sand and erosion that happened to it, but that did not stop him, he fixed up his boat and went back to his journey. Finally, Odysseus did not back down from a witch that could have easily harmed him but he was not scared he wanted to keep his men safe.

As Odysseus drew his sword about (pretending) to strike Circe, these were her words, “Who are you? From what family? What city? You drank my drugs, but you were not entranced. No other man has ever passed that test; for once that potion’s passed their teeth, the rest have fallen prey: you have within your chest a heart that can defeat my sorcery. You surely are the man of many wiles, Odysseus, he whom I was warned against by Hermes of the golden wand: he said that you would come from Troy in a black ship. But now put back your blade within that sheath and let us lie together on my bed: in loving,

However, when he continually sleeps with Circe he has no one to blame but himself. Odysseus continues to be unfaithful to Penelope because he feels lonely after being away from home, and seeks comfort in being with Circe. Odysseus gives into the temptation of being loved because he can only live in the moment, and lets it get the best of him.

Odysseus swore to himself that he would not betray his wife, Penelope, again after Calypso, but Circe’s enticing words convinced him that “when she’d finished, / then, at last, [he would mount her] gorgeous bed” (10.385-386). If sleeping with one goddess was not enough, he did not even have a second thought about doing the exact same act again. Odysseus truly does not realize how unacceptable his actions are, the worst of them being his disloyalty to his wife. As well as sleeping with Circe, Odysseus told himself that Circe’s palace and even her existence was nothing but a trick, yet her simple words convinced him into staying with her awhile longer (10.448). Now, Odysseus and his crew are lounging at Circe’s palace with no intention of leaving until a bit of time passes. He does not think about the situation his family might be in, or even if he will get home safely, he pays attention only to the things that matter to him. Lastly, Odysseus was near leaving Circe’s palace, and that was something she definitely did not want, “So she enticed / and won [their] battle-hardened spirits over. / And there [they] sat at ease, / [. . .] till a year had run its course” (10.513-516). Time is obviously nothing but a joke to Odysseus; if it was not, he would not have even spent a single minute at Circe’s palace, let alone a year. Then, one of Odysseus’ crew members

Before finally landing in Ithaca, he had to sail past Scylla, a six-headed monster who swallows one sailor for each head from passing ships, and Charybdis, an enormous whirlpool that could swallow an entire vessel. Circe instructed Odysseus to not put up a fight with Scylla as he sails past her, and he obeyed her instruction. Here, Odysseus showed firm self-discipline, where he refrained himself from the desire to battle with the monster when she plucked out and killed six of his strongest men (pg. 163). It is true that Odysseus is a war hero with immense physical strength, but what truly set him apart from other war heroes in The Odyssey are his wits and intelligence. The tale of the Trojan Horse, which was a device Odysseus designed to help the Greeks invade the city of Troy and win the Trojan War, greatly highlights his intelligence and skills in tactical warfare. The true extent of his wits can be seen when Odysseus tricked the cannibal Cyclops into letting his crew go by using a clever word play on his own name (pg.

Hermes helps him out and gives him a plan to help save his men. So our hero is saved by the god Hermes from a horrible fate. Still Odysseus is not content to sail on and leave the goddess behind (Odyssey 10:269-532). Here Odysseus lost sight of his goal, thinking he was in full control of the situation. Only after a full year has past does he even ask Circe to help them on their way and only at the urging of his crew. He forgets that it was only by the gods help that he was able to triumph over Circe. There was no other way he could have survived her magic. In a sense he is beat by her because he forgets his voyage home and wastes a year in tarring there. By forgetting the voyage he denies himself, a hero, and forgets his family and subjects in Ithaca. Exactly the same threat that the lotus eaters posed to Odysseus and his men. The temptation that Circe offers is a life of pleasure. Anything you desire: food, sport, beautiful women, anything at all. For a time Odysseus is taken in my her offer but thanks to his men he is able to break free of it and remember his home and family.

At first it appears as though the only reason Odysseus sleeps with Circe is to regain his companions, but she easily persuades them to stay. And what’s even worse is the fact that Odysseus isn’t even the first one ready to go. His men are the ones who urge him to leave: "What ails you now? It is time to think about our own country". So though at a glance it appears that Odysseus is merely succumbing to Circe’s schemes for reasons related to their health and well-being, if we read between the lines, we soon begin to realize that Odysseus is weak in the voracious hands of lust.

After the encounters with the Sirens, Odysseus had to face a terrifying creature that he feared of. Circe warned Odysseus about the dangers of Scylla. He is informed that she will snag six of his men and tells him that it is much better than loosing everyone. “Nobody would feel good seeing her, not even a god who crossed her path. She has a dozen feet all deformed, six enormously long necks, with a horrible head on each of them and three rows of teeth packed closed together, full of murky death” (Steele and Alwa, 489). Odysseus knew that in order for his survival and to be able to get to the island, he had to sacrifice his men and escape this monster. “Monsters such as the Sphinx are often represented as female, as if to imply that women are on the borderline between human and “other” than human”(Steele and Alwa, 41). Odysseus also had to deal with his love affair with the witch goddess, Circe. She lived with nymphs on a mythical island. She changed all of Odysseus’s men into animals when he showed up to see her. Hermes helped Odysseus remove the men from the spell. “Many men appear to have felt that they could truly not love women who were not educated well enough to read, write, or engage in informed dialogue with their husbands”(Steele and Alwa, 43). The love between Odysseus and Circe failed due to her lack of ability to engage with men, by

The cornerstone of early Greek culture was using strength instead of your mind to get you through dangerous situations. From the statues and the stories Greek heroes were always portrayed as powerful and athletic, and used this to there advantage. The Odyssey written by Homer is an epic poem that shows that it’s not always your strength but your cunning ability to get you through treacherous situations. Throughout The Odyssey there are numerous examples in which characters show this skill including, Odysseus’s escape from Polyphemus, his resistance of the Sirens, and Penelope’s ability to trick her suitors.