Xenia in The Odyssey
Hospitality today is nothing like it was in Ancient Greece. Today, good hospitality is being friendly and respectful to a guest. In Ancient Greece, hospitality was something people had to do, or face the wrath of Zeus. 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. The guest, in turn, would not be a burden in any way. In The Odyssey, most people follow the rules of hospitality, but there are others who do not. The Greek concept of xenia shows the serious priority the Greeks place on the laws of the gods.
An example of complete xenia would be when Telemachos meets the people of Pylos. Telemachos meets the Pylonians while they are in the middle of an important ritual to Poseidon. Even though they are in the middle of a ritual to another god, they stay true to Zeus’s law of hospitality. The people of Pylos welcome Telemachos without question, and as soon as he arrives. They do not ask his name or where comes from until they have fed and entertained him, further following the rules of hospitality. They honor the law of Zeus and continue their festival to Poseidon. The people of Pylos are polite to their guests and treat them very well from the moment they greet them. They wait until Telemachos has eaten to ask him his name and where he has come from. Throughout Telemachos’s stay, they never give him a reason to be nervous or uncomfortable. The people of Pylos are the perfect role models of xenia in The Odyssey because they follow all the rules of hospitality unreservedly.
The Cyclops is...
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... hospitality should be given to a guest because of how they treat Telemachos. The Cyclops, Polyphemos, shows how xenia can be not given at all, by the way that he treats Odysseus and his men. How one disregards the rules of hospitality, and does it knowingly, is how the suitors behaved. Throughout the Odyssey, Homer writes about many different instances of good hospitality, like the people of Pylos. Homer also shows instances of bad hospitality, like how the suitors behave as guests and how Polyphemos treats his guests. No matter if it is a good or bad example of hospitality, the impression of how important xenia is to the Greeks is always present. All of the Greeks follow the rules of hospitality to the nines, for fear that they will be struck by Zeus’s lightning bolt.
Works Cited
Homer. The Odyssey. Trans. Richmond Lattimore. New York: Harper Perennial, 1967.
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Hospitality in the greek is Xenia which was the guest to host friendship and obligations of the host and guest. The giving of gifts was usually done between guests and hosts. They really strived for a symbiotic give and take relationship in which the host does most of the leg work but a honorable and good guest would give so gift or reward in return. The only time when the host could really reject or throw out a guest was when a guest violated xenia terribly to the point where Zeus would give the order to seek justice for an act of such magnitude. For example when Paris is a guest in the King of Sparta Menelaus’ house as a guest and then steals his beautiful daughter from him and runs away. The theft of a princess is a major offense and would definitely deserve some repercussions it says many times in the Iliad of how the gods disapprove of this act.
Homer’s Iliad is ripe with a variety of social structures. The passage where Diomedes meets Glaucus in battle shows the reader how a variety of these structures interact, and how the Argives value them in relation to each other. There are times when the characters fight for glory, there are times when they strive to earn riches, but above all else, they respect xenia. Xenia is the ancient Greek concept of hospitality, and it is evoked any time a guest visits a host. The Achaeans respect it above all else, and failure to adhere to its strict customs could lead to the forfeiture of countless souls. By the end of the story, xenia has overpowered money, battle, and glory, cementing its place as the most powerful force in all of Homer’s Ancient
The Greek value of hospitality is exhibited in The Odyssey by Odysseus and Penelope. Odysseus and his hungry men entered an unfamiliar cave, which was home to the Cyclops. Once the Cyclops saw the men he asked why they are there, and in Odysseus's explanation he mentions “It was our luck to come here; here we stand beholden for your help, or any gifts you give-as custom is it to honor strangers” (line 194). Odysseus is tried to convince the cyclops to let him and his men live by using the Greek value of hospitality. He wants the Cyclops to view him as a guest, not food. To Odysseus it was second nature to help out a guest or person in need. While Penelope was speaking to the suitors she noted “Here is a poor man come, a wanderer, driven by want to beg his bread, and everyone in hall gave bits, to cram his bag” (line 1116). She shamed Antinous for not helping the man, because in Ithaca its is accustomed to provide the hungry and poor with food. The fact that Antinous “threw a stool” at Odysseus, and “banged his shoulder” appalled Penelope. The thought of doing such a thing was unheard of to Penelope since hospitality is a part of her way of life along with all other Greeks. The people of Ithaca from The Odyssey a...
Through characters and situations, The Odyssey promotes and emphasizes many important ancient Greek values such as hospitality, pride, and fate. Stressed greatly in ancient Greek culture, hospitality is evident throughout Homer’s writing, which reflects and expresses many different value systems within it. For example, when in the cave of the Cyclops, Polyphemus, Odysseus confronts him by saying, “we therefore humbly pray to show us some hospitality and otherwise make us such presents as visitors may reasonably expect” (92). To the Greeks, hospitality was very important, to the point that it was an expectation and not just a quality, as it is in today’s culture. If you feared Zeus and the gods, you were to show hospitality.
In Homer’s The Odyssey there is another mention of Zeus, the god of hospitality and when Odysseus reaches the cave of the Cyclopes, he tells Polyphemus, “Zeus protects all suppliants and strangers—as god of guests, he cares for all respected visitors “(Bauschatz, 31). The Cyclopes reply expresses that he can care less about the Gods because he believes the Cyclopes hold more power. Towards the end, Polyphemus prays to Poseidon and he throws in Odysseus way but this demonstrates how much interaction the Gods have with the
Hospitality was very important to the ancient world. Not only was it important to them, but it’s still important now. Hospitality is the welcoming of your guest by entertainment and catering. In each book of the Odyssey, we see hospitality when a new character is introduced. Ancient greek people were taught to treat their guest well. Although, that wasn't always the case.
Xenia, at the ancient Greeks society, simply means hospitality: the standard practice of the host and the guest from various locales. Examples from providing food and drink, through offering bath and gift, and to protect and escort guests to their destination are extremely common and what seemed appropriate to expects from the host. Basic rules of xenia include how host should respect guest by not asking questions about one before one finish dining, and how guest should respect host by offering gift and to not to be a burden. Through out Homer’s epic, The Odyssey, hospitality plays a major and constant theme where it at least appeared in 12 different occasions. At Homeric times due to limitation on transportation, people can only travel by vessel or by foot, which were much slower than current sorts of transportation and made the journey back then much longer and more challenging. Additionally, there were