Stories in Disguise: On Odysseus' Ithacan Lies and Their Relevance ...

that enemy and whose speed of foot failed against me.
Such was I in fighting; but labor was never dear to me,
nor care for my house, though that is what raises glorious children;
but ships that are driven on by oars were dear to me always,
and the wars, and throwing spears with polished hafts, and the arrows,
gloomy things, which to other men are terrible, and yet
those things were dear to me which surely some god had put there
in my heart, for different men take joy in different actions. (The Odyssey, 14.199-228)
The parodic quality of this narrative will appear when contrasted to the true ethos of epic poetry.
Just like the slayer of Orsilochos, this veteran does not fight the war of a true hero, meeting his
enemy eye to eye, but prefers attacking from ambush. However bellicose in appearance he will
not be put on a par with the aristocrats of the Iliad. He also implies that his way of life –
contemptuous of civil work, drifting about, raiding, away from home and family – is justified and
equal in moral value to that of a steady person's, the life of one who cares for his house and raises
children. He espouses a kind of relativism as regards human activity: "different men take joy in
different actions".
The veteran is also full of boasting about earlier manliness, alternating with lamenting over
his present state. But what do the details he mentions about his war experiences and the treatment
he receives from others actually reveal about him?
On the fifth day we reached the abundant stream Aigyptos,
and I stayed my oarswept ships inside the Aigyptos River.
Then I urged my eager companions to stay where they were, there
close to the fleet, and to guard the ships, and was urgent with them
to send look-outs to the watching places; but they, following
their own impulse, and giving way to marauding violence,
suddenly began plundering the Egyptian's beautiful
fields, and carried off the women and innocent children,
and killed the men, and soon the outcry came to the city.
They heard the shouting, and at the time when dawn shows, they came
on us, and all the plain was filled with horses and infantry
and the glare of bronze, and Zeus who delights in thunder flung down
a foul panic among my companions, and none was so hardy
as to stand and fight, for the evils stood in a circle around them.
There they killed many of us with the sharp bronze, and others
they led away alive, to work for them in forced labor;
but Zeus himself put this thought into my mind, as I will
tell you, but how I wish I had died and met my destiny
there in Egypt, for there was still more sorrow awaiting me.
At once I put the well-wrought helm from my head, the great shield
off my shoulders, and from my hand I let the spear drop,
and went out into the way of the king and up to his chariot,
and kissed his knees and clasped them; he rescued me and took pity
and seated me in his chariot and took me, weeping, homeward
with him; and indeed many swept in on me with ash spears
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