Hospitality In The Odyssey Essay

“The word ‘hospitality’ in the New Testament comes from two Greek words. The first word means ‘love’ and the second word means ‘strangers’. It is a word that means love of strangers.” This is a quote by Nancy Leigh Demoss who precisely defined the meaning of “hospitality” through its Greek origins. In The Odyssey written by a prominent poet Homer, hospitality is definitely an important part of the ancient Greek culture. Three obvious rules can be summed up using the passages of Telemachus, Eumaeus, Circe, and the Cyclops. The first rule is that every host must welcome every guest; no matter they are strangers or acquaintances, you must let them in and make them feel comfortable. In addition, the hosts and the guests should treat each other

A great example will be when Odysseus finally reached his homeland Ithaca. First, Athena turned his appearance into an old man so that nobody knew his true identity. Then, he could plan to defeat the numerous amounts of suitors secretly. He met Eumaeus, Odysseus’s swineherd and friend. At first, Eumaeus welcomed Odysseus in the same way as Telemachus did and slaughtered two pigs as food for the guest. He also told Odysseus that his kind master was dead, and he felt miserable for his master’s death. However, Odysseus tried to give him a sense of hope by recounting his personal experience and ensuring Odysseus will come back one day. Eumaeus still didn’t believe in Odysseus’s opinion. “But one part’s off the mark, I know-you’ll never persuade me-what you say about Odysseus. A man in your condition, who are you, I ask you, to lie for no good reason?” (Homer, )Eumaeus thought that Odysseus, who appeared as an old and wary man, is lying to him for no good reason. His rule for hospitality is that the guest and host should tell each other the truth. If the guest lied, the host should not treat the guest kindly as

For example, when Odysseus was describing his arduous journey to King Alcinous, he mentioned his story in Queen Circe’s house. After his first group of sailors entered Circe’s house, they all drank the poisonous potion and turned into pigs. “She opened her gleaming doors at once and stepped forth, inviting them all in, and in they went, all innocence. […] She ushered them in to sit on high-backed chairs, then she mixed them a potion-cheese, barley, and pale honey mulled in Pramnian wine-but into the brew she stirred her wicked drugs to wipe from their memories any thought of home. Once they’d drained the bowls she filled, suddenly she struck with her wand, drove them into her pigsties, all of them bristling into swine-with grunts, snouts-even their bodies, yes, and only the men’s minds stayed steadfast as before. “(Homer, ) As you can see from the quote, Circe was giving her guests poisoned potion, which is definitely not a nice way to treat her guests. Turning them into grunting pigs made the situation even worse. Circe broke the rules for hospitality, so Odysseus was going to take revenge on