8th+The+Suitors+Bk+11

​  //**BOOK XI**// Main characters: - Odysseus - Ghost of Elpenor - Ghost of Tiresias - Reference to Poseidon - Circe - Ghost of Odysseus' Mom: Anticleia -Ghost of Achillies - Tantalus  Summary: Odysseus travels to the River of Ocean in the land of the Cimmerians. he then pours libations and performs sacrifices(Theme) as [|Circe] earlier instructs him to do to attract the souls of the dead. The first to appear is that of Elpenor, the crewman who broke his neck falling from Circe’s roof. Odysseus then speaks with the Theban prophet Tiresias, who reveals that Poseidon is punishing the Achaeans for blinding his son Polyphemus. He then foretells Odysseus’s fate(Theme) ,that he will return home, reclaim his wife and palace from the wretched suitors, and then make another trip to a distant land to appease Poseidon. He warns Odysseus not to touch the flocks of the Sun when he reaches the land of Thrinacia; otherwise, he won’t return home without suffering much more hardship and losing all of his crew. Tiresias departs, Odysseus calls other spirits toward him. He speaks with his mother, Anticleica, she then updates him on the problem of Ithica and expalins why she is in the underworld, she died in by grief waiting for him to return. Achillis then appears to him ans asks about the welfare about his son. While leaving the dead he spots Tantalus's in his eternal punishment(Theme). Tantalus is faced with food and drink, but he can never reach it do to the Gods. Then souls of the underworld start pestering and forcing Odysseus to look for their alive relatives. In fear Odysseus sails away to appease Posiedon.

Themes and Imagery: One of the major themes is displayed right away in book 11 and that is sacrifice. Odysseus sacrifices to the dead spirits as he is told so that they may present themselves to him. Prophecy is also a large part of book 11. Odysseus actually talks to a Theban prophet who foretells his fate about his journey home and a future journey. Hospitality is another theme expressed in this book. As Odysseus is leaving from talking with the spirits he sees Tantulas in his eternal punishment. The reason he has this punishment is because he abussed the hospitality of the gods.

Tantalus is used in the book to illlude to the justice of the Gods. Tantalus had anger the Gods by tricking them and he now faces the consequences. Though it may be extreme it is the Gods's divine will that commands the course of man.

A large part of the book is horror. The imagery is very strong in this particular book, talking about the pits of blood and cutting throats. The imagery in the sacrafices and in the people is so descriptive that it is horrific. The evil demon Kharon forces the souls to go out as ghosts to haunt people. Also that Odysseus flees from the spirits the under world due to their horrific appearence and constant pestering . Other Info: __The Akheron__ Akheron (or Acheron) is the river that the began in the mortal world and followed a path to the underworld. The daemon (demon) Kharon was the ferrier of the dead. He would recieve the shades (spirits) of the dead from Hermes and lead them to a final resting place in Hades, the land of the dead. Kharon would lead the dead to Hades only if the fee for his servivce was paid. The fee was a single obolos coin placed in the mouth of the corpse. If his fee was not met then the souls would be forced to roam the mortal world haunting as ghosts.

__Kharon the ferry men__ Kharon is depicted frequently in the Art of ancient Greece. Attic funerary vases of the 5th and 4th centuries B.C. are often decorated with scenes of the dead boarding Kharon’s boat. On the earlier such vases, he looks like a rough, unkempt Athenian seaman dressed in reddish-brown, holding his ferryman's pole in his right hand and using his left hand to receive the deceased. On later vases, Kharon is given a more “kindly and refined” demeanor. Aristophanes, in The Frogs had him spewing insults regarding people's girth.

http://www.pantheon.org/articles/t/tantalus.html

__Tantalus__ Tantalus was the son of [|Zeus] and was the king of Sipylos. He was uniquely favored among mortals since he was invited to share the food of the gods. However, he abused the guest-host relationship and was punished by being "tantalized" with hunger and thirst in Tartarus: he was immersed up to his neck in water, but when he bent to drink, it all drained away; luscious fruit hung on trees above him, but when he reached for it the winds blew the branches beyond his reach. There are differing stories about what Tantalus' crime was. One account says that he tried to share the divine ambrosia with other mortals, and thus aroused the ire of the gods. A more famous account says that he invited the gods to a banquet and served them the dismembered body of his own son, [|Pelops] ; when the gods discovered the trick, they punished Tantalus and restored Pelops to life, replacing with ivory a part of the shoulder which had been eaten by [|Demeter]. His punishment was he would be place chin deep in a pool of water surrounded by grapes and every time he would try to grab the grapes they would rise out of his reach, or when he was thirsty the water would sink out of his grasp. Tantalus' family was an ill-fated one. His daughter, [|Niobe], lost all her children and was turned to stone. His son, Pelops, was murdered, cooked, and restored to life. His grandsons, [|Atreus] and [|Thyestes], struggled for power, and Atreus committed a variation of Tantalus' cannabilistic trick with Thyestes' children. His great-grandson, [|Agamemnon], was murdered by another great-grandson, [|Aegisthus] , who was in turn killed by a great-great-grandson, [|Orestes].