Hospitality In The Odyssey

Hospitality, nothing strange about that, we all have experienced it at some points in our lives. However, some of us might not know that hospitality has played an important role in many people’s lives over thousands of years. Hospitality changes people’s lives.

Telemakhos welcomes Athena into his home and serves her with food and drink. Telemakhos shows hospitality towards Athena by saying, “Take a hot bath, and rest, accept a gift” (Homer 1.359).By saying “accept a gift” Homer shows that now

Hospitality is mentioned all throughout the book. Hospitality is important to the people in that time. Zeus’s law of hospitality is that any stranger that comes to your home, the host must be willing to feed, entertain, and maybe offer them a bath and anything else they might be in need of without question until those things had been given, and also give them a parting gift. “It’s wrong my friend, to send any stranger packing-even one who arrives in worse shape than you. Every stranger and beggar comes from Zeus and whatever scrap they get from the likes of us, they’ll find it welcome.” (Book 14 pg.303 Line 64) This statement shows how important it is that the people follow Zeus’ law of xenia. Along with providing great hospitality the guest has to be respectful as well. Some of the biggest parts in the book that shows hospitality is with the Cyclops, and the goddesses Circe and Calypso, the suitors and the Phaeacians.

Throughout Homer's The Odyssey, Odysseus the main character in the story is tested with the true meaning of hospitality. In the heroic age, hospitality was viewed as punishment or acceptance of a stranger. While Odysseus longed for his return to home, he faced the two different kinds of hospitality offered within the heroic age. My theory is that Odysseus was provided with good hospitality when he would enter a town that allowed him to eat at their table, bathed within their baths, and sleep within their homes. The townspeople and their king often provided superior hospitality for strangers without questioning them first. It's thought that maybe the wonderful hospitality was provided in return of viewing the stranger as a

The Greeks have been known for their hospitality and politeness, especially when treating guests- whether strangers or not. This is demonstrated near the beginning of the Odyssey when Telemachus went to Pylos to visit Nestor. Nestor, not knowing who he was taking into his home as guests, treated them with great honor and respect. "Now is the time," he said, "for a few questions, now that our young guests have enjoyed their dinner. Who are you, strangers? Where are you sailing from, and where to, down the highways of sea water (p 299)?" If ever Greeks were to serve themselves before their guests or even a little better than them, then they were breaking the most basic of all Greek customs,

Even though, Ancient Greeks nature was to be hospitable to strangers, their hospitality can become too overbearing. In other words there was no need to shower with so much affection. There were many occurrences were Odysseys was provided hospitality that men would dream to live and he denies it. In Book X The Bewitching Queen of Aeaea traveling back to his home, his suitors was lead into Circe’s the nymph who can speak human-like, with an murderous mind trap where Odysseys had to drink the drug in order not to be under the witches spell and to save his men. When he accomplishes it, Circe fall unto his knees and gave Odysseys everything he wanted, additionally sleeping with her and wishing for his men to be freed lead his men to be broken from

The Odyssey by Homer has many themes that are important throughout its books, although hospitality is one to not forget. “Hospitality is our motto!” is what Scott Humphrey, one of the Bar J Wranglers, said when he hired me to work at the Bar J Chuckwagon for the summer. The hospitality found in The Odyssey holds true to our everyday lives as it did to the Greeks around 800 B.C.E. The greeting to a guest is very similar, the feast is eaten, and the new found friend is sent on his merry way. The greeting to a newcomer is crucial.

The final aspect of positive hospitality that is shown in the Odyssey, is by Eumaus, the old swineherd of Odysseus. Eumaus uses his very appropriate upbringing (he was kidnapped royalty) in order to provide help to Odysseys (in disguise as a beggar) all the help and wealth he can afford to share, in his meager setting. Odysseus used

The major theme found in this story is hospitality. Many characters in the story show an abundance of it. The main character in The Voyage of Odysseus is Odysseus. As you progress in reading the story you will see what Odysseus and his crew have to embody during the voyage into the Trojan war. He has to figure out ways to overcome these obstacles that come at him and how to deal with them in a suitable way.

One of the most prominent code demonstrated in the first half of The Odyssey is hospitality code that is showing kindness towards strangers. In ancient Greek culture the strangers were regarded has they were god and to be treated as gods. The strangers were offered baths, food, drinks, lodging, clothing and gifts before seeking information about the stranger. The main reason behind following this code was that people never knew that the stranger

During 1200 B.C., Greeks were very thoughtful and caring of strangers who came to the homes. Hospitality was taken very seriously, considering Greeks thought one day it could be a disguised god or goddess that comes down to them, knowing that they would want to take care of them very nicely so the god or goddess will be on the mortal’s side and protect them when needed. As seen when Athena came to Nestor’s son Pisistratus, he “ waved [waving] them on in welcome”, Pisistratus welcomes in the strangers not knowing one of them is a goddess(Athena), he then “sat them down at the feast/ poured some wine…lifting it towards Athena/and greeted the goddess now with an invitation” (3.38-47). Greeks welcomed strangers with open doors and made them feel welcomed.

Hospitality in Homer's Odyssey is a central concern of the epic poem. Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines hospitality as “generous and friendly treatment of visitors and guests: hospitable treatment”. This tradition, evident in Greek mythology and customs, serves many purposes as the epic unravels. Hospitality was crucial in the ancient times as a way to survive in the seafaring culture who were often driven off course. Through analysis of passages throughout The Odyssey the significance of hospitality towards survival will be better understood.

Trade between city-states increased suspicions of the outsider. There were two main views of the stranger. "In the primitive times, the poet seems to be suggesting, man lived in a state of permanent struggle and war to the death against the outsider. Then the gods intervened, and through their precepts, their themis, a new ideal was set before man, and especially before a king, an obligation of hospitality: `all strangers and beggars are from Zeus'." One of Zeus' aspects was that of the god of hospitality, Zeus Xenios. The Guest-Friend relationship provided the traveling stranger with protection, kinsmen, refuge and store-house.

This is quite possibly a reference to the fact that they saw hospitality as a way to honor the gods; giving hospitality to a stranger was the same as offering it to a god. Zeus being the god of hospitality, one of the primary ways to worship this aspect of Zeus ' godliness was to be hospitable to strangers and travelers. A

In the epic, the way in which hosts receive strangers and offer hospitality demonstrates their Greek values. For example, when Odysseus arrives on the island of the Phaeacians, they immediately offer him hospitality as King Alcinous “rais[es] him up/… in a burnished chair, / displacing his own son, … /… the son he love[s] the most” (7: 200-204). Here, the Phaeacians are characterized as generous and kind