Odysseus on his own Conversion

Odyssey IV:244-259 (Fagles trans. P. 308)

 

But now my heyday's gone--

I've had my share of blows. Yet look hard at the husk

And you'll still see, I think, the grain that gave it life.

By heaven, Ares gave me courage, Athena too, to break

The ranks of men wide open, once, in the old days,

Whenever I picked my troops and formed an ambush,

Plotting attacks to spring against our foes--

No hint of death could daunt my fighting spirit!

Far out of the front I'd charge and spear my man,

I'd cut down any enemy soldier backing off.

Such was I in battle, true, but I had no love

For working the land, the chores of households either,

The labor that raises crops of shining children. No,

It was always oarswept ships that thrilled my heart,

And wars, and the long polished spears and arrows,

Dreadful gear that makes the next man cringe.

I loved them all--

The Art of Politics and the Odyssey

 

  1. Politics: is it more like what goes on in a theatre or what goes on in a lab?

  2. Politics as an Art and what is important to it?

    1. Action and actors vs. objects and analysis in science

    2. Audience, essential for politics, but irrelevant to science except to announce findings

    3. Emotion, ever-present and often appreciated, in the art of politic; controlled and discounted in science

    4. Experienced Judgment or practical wisdom (phronesis in Aristotle's writings on ethics) vs. quantification and calculation in science

III. Politics as an Art in Classical Philosophy

A. Aristotle in Nicomachean Ethics, I.1

  1. Political associations form for exchanging and enjoying the fruits of varied arts, crafts, and services
  2. Politics as the master art or the art of coordinating the development of all the other arts and protecting their exchange.

B. Plato in Republic iv-v

  1.  The polis is but the souls or characters of the people in it written in large letters
  2. If the souls of those given prominence and imitated in a polis are diseased or disordered , then we can expect to find similar deformation in the people
  3.  Drama as a public festival for the healing of disorder in the polis

IV. The Odyssey and the Art of Poltics

 A. The Iliad and the beginnings of tragedy

B. The Odyssey and the beginnings of comedy