The Odyssey: The Importance Of Hospitality In The Odyssey

Growing up I was fascinated with Greek mythology. I found the bits and pieces of myth and lore highly entertaining but I seldom received anything of weight from them. Since then I have had only brief forays into the Greek world which makes The Odyssey fairly easy to pull new elements of Greek culture from. Throughout all of Homer’s epic, hospitality is mentioned again and again, highlighting two important aspects of their society. The first is how important hospitality is to them in the first place and second is their fear of retribution from the gods. This fear is pervasive and is even shown clearly by the importance of hospitality. Very early on Telemachus demonstrates how important being a gracious host is to him. Surrounded by the hospitality abusing suitors, Telemachus notices Athena and immediately gets up, “mortified / that a guest might still be standing at the doors” (Homer 1:140-141) and does his best to treat her with a royal welcome. He is mortified by the thought that someone might not be taken care of! His strong reaction makes sense when you consider that he lives in a world where any stranger who shows up could be a god in disguise, further illustrated by the guest being just that in this case. How could you not show hospitality to all strangers if any chance exists that they might be deity? This fear is even more strongly shown

Odysseus, fearing he may have caused Nausicca to be the target of her father’s anger, tries to take the blame for himself. To which Alcinous flatly responds, “I’m hardly a man for reckless, idle anger. / Balance is best in all things” (Homer 7:355-354). What a calm and peace-loving man! If only we all could respond the same way when faced with the mistakes of both others and ourselves. Yet this great example of proper behavior is barely made a fuss of in the book. It is simply taken at face value and the tale moves