Homer's Odyssey, Book 11

“I’d rather be a hired hand slaving away for some poor dirt farmer, than the king of the dead.”

Art: The Shade of Tiresias Appearing to Odysseus during the Sacrifice (Book XI of the Odyssey), by Johann Heinrich Füssli (c. 1780-85).

Odysseus descends into the Underworld in search of wisdom, and passage home. And as we encounter the shades there, the weight of their regrets and urgency of their warnings resonate far beyond his own journey and time. Book 11 is like a mirror that helps us better see and understand life. The first figure he meets is his mother, Anticleia. Odysseus learns that she died longing for him, under the weight of his absence. When he reaches for her, she slips through his fingers—a shade. The harrowing moment reminds us that the years we spend chasing after what we think we want can have unseen costs. And it heightens dramatic tension from Odysseus’s POV. What of Penelope and her suffering? Odysseus fulfills his quest to consult with Tiresias, the blind prophet who sees more clearly than any living man. Interestingly, Tiresias gives Odysseus a clear choice: avoid reckless hunger and respect the gods, and he may return to Ithaca. This is such a good reminder that knowledge of the future isn’t what saves us, but how we prepare and choose the right path through discipline. We have to reel those passions in and retrain desire—a key theme throughout the Odyssey, and one that becomes a cornerstone of later Greek philosophy. The shade of Agamemnon, his former comrade at arms, shares a warning as we learn, first-hand of his betrayal by Clytemnestra and how she and her lover struck him down as soon as he returned home. Never reveal your whole truth, he cautions… Informed by this shattering of trust, we’ll see Odysseus disguise himself in the books to come. Agamemnon’s warning lingers with him, a reminder that the deepest wounds aren’t made by swords. And then, there’s the greatest Achilles, who delivers the mic-dropping truth bomb. Odysseus speaks of his admiration for the great warrior and his undying fame amongst the living, but Achilles cuts him off. “Don’t try to console me,” he essentially responds. “I’d rather be a hired hand slaving away for some poor dirt farmer, than the king of the dead.” The message here, as we approach the midpoint of The Odyssey, and delivered by the great Achilles himself, if that honor isn’t enough. In death, he knows that honor fades. The simple act of “feeling the sun on your skin” is enough. It’s worth more than all the praise in the world. Life may be messy, uncertain, and fleeting, but the message is clear: it is not just enough. It’s everything. And it puts the devastating loss of war in stark perspective.