The Odyssey by Homer translation by T.E. Shaw (Lawrence of Arabia) w/Jesan Sorrells

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Foreign.

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Hello, my name is Jesan Sorrells and this is the Leadership lessons

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for the Great Books podcast. Episode number 30

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with our book today, which you’ll be able to see

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on the video The Odyssey

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the T.ELawrence or T. Shaw

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Trevor Translation of the Odyssey by

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Homer.

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From the Odyssey by Homer

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O divine posy goddess, daughter of Zeus,

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sustained for me this song of the various minded man, who,

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after he had plundered the innermost citadel of

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hallow Troy, was made to stray grievously

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about the coasts of men, the sport

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of their customs, good or bad, while his heart, through all

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the seafaring ached in an agony to redeem

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himself and bring his company

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safe home. Vain hope for

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them, for his fellows he strove in vain. Their own

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witlessness casts them away, the fools, to destroy for meat

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the oxen of the most exalted sun, wherefore the

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sun God blotted out the day of their return.

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Make the tale live for us in all its many bearings,

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O Muse. Book

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one by now the other warriors,

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those that had escaped headlong ruin by sea or in battle, were safely

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home. Only Odysseus, terried

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shut up by Lady Calypso, a nymph and very

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goddess. In her hewn out caves she craved

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for him, she craved him for her bedmate, while he was longing for his house

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and wife of a truth the rolling seasons had at last

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brought up the year marked by the gods for his return to Ithaca.

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But not even there among his loved things, would he escape further

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conflict. Yet had all the gods, with lapse of

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time, grown compassionate and towards

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Odysseus all but Poseidon, whose enmity

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flamed against him till he had reached his home.

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Poseidon, however, was for the moment far away among the Ethiopians, that

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last race of men, whose dispersion across the world’s end is

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so broad that some of them can see the sun God rise, while others,

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while others see him set

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thither, had Poseidon gone in the hope of burnt offerings, bulls and

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rams by hundreds, and there he sat feasting merrily,

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while the other gods came together in the halls of

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Olympian Zeus. To them the father

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of gods and men began speech, for his breast teemed

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with though of great Agitheus,

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whom famous Orestes, the son of Agamemnon had slain.

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It vexes me to see how mean are these creatures of a day towards us

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gods, when they charge against us the evils far beyond our

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worst dooming, which their own exceeding wantonness has heaped upon

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themselves. Just so did Aegisthus

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exceed when he took to his bed the lawful wife of Atreides and killed her

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returning husband. He knew the sheer ruin this would entail.

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Did we not warn him by the mouth of our trusty Hermes, the keen

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eyed slayer of Argus, neither to murder the man nor lust after

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the woman’s body? For therefore the death of the son of Atreus

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will be required by Orestes even as he grows up in

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dreams of his native place. These were

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Hermes very words. But not even such a friendly interposition

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could restrain Aegisthus, who now pays the

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final penancee.

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The psychological odyssey in Western

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Thought from heroic as we just read there in the

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opening from book one of the Odyssey by

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Homer, the journey from heroic to

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not so heroic in western culture and thought

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has been a long one. We

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began back in the 7th, or maybe it was the 8th century before the God

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man Christ showed up by worshiping and appeasing men as gods

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who insisted on meddling in human affairs, as

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was mentioned in book one here, for their own amusement and

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entertainment.

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2500 or well over 2500 years later,

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in the 21st century, long after the God man Christ

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has left this world, we in the west

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have wound up back with the men as gods. Except our scientific

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inquiry and our relentless ruthless scientism has taken

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us places that even the ancient Greeks, even Homer himself, would

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fear to tread. Along the way,

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Western man has stripped, mined away the COVID of first

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the natural world and then the meaning, the deep meaning

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of the transcendental world, to reveal that

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beneath all that stripping away, beneath all that strip mining, beneath all

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that ruthless, relentless scientific rational pursuit,

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only the baser appetites of

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humanity actually remain.

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And if you don’t believe me, or if you’re confused by anything I’m saying here,

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all you have to do is go on social media, just go download TikTok

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or go watch Fox or MSNBC

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or you know, just go talk to your neighbor

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and check out what’s happening there between, well, all

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the genders.

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I observe without any sense of irony whatsoever, that western

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humanity has also collectively erected barriers, and this

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is important for leaders to understand, between the personal and the

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professional, and has assumed wrongly of course, that

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once the barrier between the sacred and profane was shattered, that somehow,

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magically the barriers between the personal and professional or would

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remain irrevocably intact.

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Of course they did not. And now at the apotheosis of

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western man, we have children who have amassed audiences

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of faceless space appetite driven adults. We have

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confused and manipulative adults who are either unaware

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of the state of the world and the game they are in, or they

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are too dopamine driven to do anything other than follow

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along with the masses. And we have public

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institutions that have abandoned the pursuit of trust,

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reverting instead to the pursuing of the amassing of raw

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power and control over the masses

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for their own sakes. Of course.

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Tragically, it turns out that while we may be a long way from Carl Jung

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and Joseph Campbell, we are even farther removed

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from Homer and the Homeric

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ideal. This

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is troubling because in epic tales of the past heroes

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or immature, naive and blind people, of which

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Telemachus was one in the Odyssey, and of course

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Menelaus, these folks went on

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journeys just like Odysseus, to slay dragons, to

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drive spikes in the eyes of monsters, or to defeat all manner of

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God driven weather phenomenon.

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They went on those journeys to prove themselves

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and to prove to the audiences observing

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them and to their ancestors as well, that

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they had what it took. They had the right stuff, right. That they could

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do hard tasks, they could take on large responsibilities and

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shoulder the massive weight that society,

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culture, history, and ultimately tradition places

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on all of us.

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What’s troubling is that in the 21st century, with all of our comfort,

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conformity, complacency and confusion,

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individuals need to be called back to the journey

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toward an epic struggle, at least

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of some kind or another.

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But these heroic acts that men and women

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need to be called to engage in, in our more abundant age,

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these heroic acts of defeating the gods and confronting the monsters

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can’t all be psychological. It can’t all

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be psychological heroism. That’s

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just not good enough. Human

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beings have always needed physical proof of the mere

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transcendent. They’ve always needed to be

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shown, as folks from Missouri will attest

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to. If you don’t believe me, just think

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back to that other ancient book, the Bible. In

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particularly the New Testament, where the disciples stared

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up in slack jawed amazement as the God

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man Christ ascended to the right hand

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of God the Father, who bodily,

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or so it is written,

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the esoteric, the small and the mean, the

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unmentionable, the untruthful, and the outright manipulative,

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the base, the hollow and the

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terribly, terribly cowardly.

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No calls to action that are

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around any of these areas will

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ever get Western people excited for

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more than just a few seconds, animated enough

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to merely swipe left or put in another order for

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soda on doordash. So

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here, now, 22 years

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into the 21st century, we now

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are beginning to realize that Western man needs an appeal to

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the heroic to fix what’s broken and

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to journey out on the road of life, to face down

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the God, men, tyrants all before

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they affix themselves permanently and

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irrevocably to the edifice of Western

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freedom.

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Today on the podcast we are going to talk about the

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Odyssey, but we’re also going to talk about

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the babbling monster in the sub basement of Western

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thought that brought us all of this.

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We’re also going to talk about T.E. lawrence and

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his epic life as Lawrence of

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Arabia. Actually, that’d be T.E. shaw as Lawrence of Arabia.

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And I’m going to make an appeal. I’m going to

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make an assertion. I’m going to throw down a

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challenge. I’m going to ask a question.

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Actually, I’m going to ask you one of three questions here today

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as leaders listening to this podcast. So if you thought you were coming

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here just to hear about Homer today, well, you’re going to hear a little

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bit about Homer, but you’re going to hear a lot more about these three questions.

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And the first one is this whole will carry

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the logs. Who will

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answer the call, and who among

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us will take up the challenge

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and go on the road?

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Sam.

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Back to the Odyssey by Homer. We’re going to

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read from book five in the

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T.E. shaw translation of the Odyssey

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by Homer. Dawn

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rose from her marriage bed beside high born Tithonus, to bring her daylight to

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both gods and men. The immortals, with Zeus the high thundering,

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their mightiest one, sat down in council, and to them Athene spoke

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thus, designing to remind them of the many misfortunes of

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Odysseus, whose long sojourn in the nymph’s house lay heavy on her heart.

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Father Zeus, and you happy ever living gods, henceforth let no

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sceptered king study to be kindly or gentle, or to ensue

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justice and equity. It profits more to be harsh and

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unseemly in act divine. Odysseus was a clement and

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fatherly king, but no one of the men his subjects

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remembers it of him for good, while fate has abandoned him to

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languish sorely in Lady Calypso’s island, kept there

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by her high hand a prisoner in her house.

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Nor has he power to regain the land of his

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father, seeing that he lacks galleys and followers to speed him over the broad

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back of ocean. Moreover, there is now a plot afoot to murder

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his darling son as he returns from sacred Pylos, or

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noble Lacedaemon. Whether he went and hoped to hear

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somewhat of his father Zeus, the

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cloud marshal answered her, and Said my child, too fierce are the judgments of your

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mouth. Besides, I think this last move was of your scheming for Odysseus to

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avenge himself on those men. When he comes, you have the knowledge, the power and

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the skill to convey Telemachus again to his own place

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wholly unscathed. See that it is so. And the suitors come back too, in

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their ship. As they went,

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he turned to Hermes, the son he loved, and said, hermes, hear your commission as

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our particular messenger. Inform this nymph of the love locks of my fixed

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decision that long suffering Odysseus shall return home as best he

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can without furtherance from gods or mortal

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men. Therefore he is to lash together a raft

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as firm as may be, on which, after 20 days of hazard and disaster he

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will make rich gleaved Syria, the Phaeton land. The

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Phoenicians, godlike in race and habit, will take him to their heart with all

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honor as divine, and send him forward to his native place

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in a ship laden with gifts of copper and gold and clothing of an abundance

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such as Odysseus would never have amassed for himself in the sack of Troy,

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even though he had come away intact and with the full share of booty

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assigned to him by lot.

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The decree is that so furnished. He shall once again behold his friends and

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enter his stately house in the country of his

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fathers.

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Such was the order in the messenger. The Argus slayer made no delay in his

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obedience. Instantly he laced to his feet the fair sandals of

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imperishable gold by which she made equal way, swift as a breath of

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wind over the ocean and over the waste places of the earth. He took the

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wand with which at will he could lure the eyes of men to slumber or

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wake them into activity. And with it in hand, the Argus slayer leaped out

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upon the air and flew straight strongly over Mount Puri as he dived down from

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the firmament to sea level, and then along the waves he sped like a

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cormorant which down the dread troughs of the wild sea chases its

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fish and drenches its close plumage in the salt spume. Just

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so did Hermes skim the recurring wave crests.

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Arriving at the island of Calypso,

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presenting himself to her, he delivers

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the message, and then

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Calypso

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responds

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by saying, as God is to God. You ask me. You order me

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to tell why I have come, hear the truth of it. Zeus commanded my

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journey. By no choice of my own did I fare to you across so unspeakable

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a waste of salt water. Who would willingly come where there is no

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near city of men to offer sacrifice to the gods and burn his tasty hundreds

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of oxen. Listen. In no way can

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another God add or subtract any tittle from the will of Zeus. The aegis

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00:17:41,800 –> 00:17:45,520
bearer, he declares that you have with you the unhappiest

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man of men, less happy than all those who fought for nine years round

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the citadel of Priam, and in the 10th year sacked the city and went homeward.

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Yet during their return they sinned against Athene, and she worked up against them

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an evil wind and tall waves, by which this man’s entire splendid company

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were cast away. As for

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himself, the wind blew him, and the sea washed him to this

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spot. Wherefore now the Father commands that you send him hence with

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speed, for it is decreed that he is not to die far from his friends.

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On the contrary, he is to behold these friends again, and is to sit under

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his lofty roof in his own land.

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Calypso, as you can probably expect, didn’t take

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that well. Then with

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barbed words did she reply, Cruel are you, gods, and immoderately jealous

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of all others. Especially do you hate it when goddesses elect to lie openly with

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men, or fall in love and make a match of it with some mere mortal.

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Just in that same way, you gods are now envying me this man I live

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with. Yet it was I who saved him. As he clung astride his

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vessel’s keel, alone and adrift in the wine dark ocean,

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Zeus had launched a white thunderbolt at his ship and shattered her. And in her

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00:18:58,960 –> 00:19:02,800
wreck were all the worthy henchmen lost. Only it chanced that

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he himself drifted to my shore before the wind and

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waves. And I have loved him and cared for him, and promised myself he should

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not die, nor grow old all his days.

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Yet very justly do you say that no lesser God can overpass or make obeying

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the purpose of Aegeus bearing Zeus. Accordingly, if the impulse and order are from him,

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I must let my man go hence across the sterile sea.

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Yet shall descending be in no wise mine here

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00:19:29,630 –> 00:19:33,390
are neither or ships nor cruise to convey him over ocean’s broad back.

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Unreservedly, however, I furnish him my very best

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advice as how he may come safe to his

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00:19:40,990 –> 00:19:42,510
native land.

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The translator of this version of the

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Odyssey was a gentleman

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named Colonel Thomas Edward Lawrence,

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also known as T.E. shaw, also known as T.E Lawrence,

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also known as Lawrence of Arabia. And

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his book. His. His book, Seven Pillars of

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00:20:19,580 –> 00:20:23,220
Wisdom we will be reading on the podcast at some

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point here. But I want you to. I want to read directly now from

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00:20:26,860 –> 00:20:29,180
the translator’s note

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00:20:32,060 –> 00:20:35,180
that he wrote from the Odyssey.

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It’s on pages seven through nine. And

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00:20:42,640 –> 00:20:46,000
we’re going to. We’re going to get his view

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00:20:46,560 –> 00:20:50,000
of the Odyssey, his view of the epic journey of Odysseus

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00:20:50,720 –> 00:20:54,320
from leaving Troy all the way back home

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00:20:54,800 –> 00:20:58,360
to deal with the suitors plumbing or

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00:20:58,360 –> 00:21:02,120
plummeting or plundering, depending upon your perspective. His

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00:21:02,120 –> 00:21:05,810
house. The 28th English

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00:21:05,810 –> 00:21:08,690
rendering of the Odyssey can hardly be a literary event,

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00:21:09,570 –> 00:21:13,290
especially when it aims to be essentially a straightforward translation. By the way, these are

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00:21:13,290 –> 00:21:16,930
the words directly of T.E. shaw. Wherever

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00:21:16,930 –> 00:21:20,610
choice offered between a poor and a rich word, richness had it. To raise the

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00:21:20,610 –> 00:21:24,450
color. I have transposed the order of metrical Greek,

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00:21:24,450 –> 00:21:28,130
being unlike plain English. Not that my English is plain enough. Water

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Street Greek, like the Odysseys, defies honest rendering. Also,

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00:21:31,930 –> 00:21:35,770
I have been free with moods and tenses, allowed myself to interchange adjective and

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00:21:35,770 –> 00:21:39,410
adverb, and dodged our poverty of preposition limitations,

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00:21:39,410 –> 00:21:42,810
of verb and pronominal vagueness by rearrangement.

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Still, syntax apart, this is a

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00:21:46,210 –> 00:21:46,970
translation.

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Crafty, exquisite, homogenous. Whatever great art may be, these

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00:21:53,770 –> 00:21:57,530
are not its attributes. In this tale,

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00:21:57,530 –> 00:22:01,380
every big situation is burked and the writing is soft. The shattered

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00:22:01,380 –> 00:22:05,180
Iliad yet makes a masterpiece, while the Odyssey, by its ease and interest

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00:22:05,180 –> 00:22:08,940
remains the oldest book worth reading for its story and the first novel

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00:22:08,940 –> 00:22:12,700
of Europe. Gay, fine and vivid, it is never huge

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00:22:12,700 –> 00:22:15,900
or terrible book. 11.

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00:22:16,379 –> 00:22:19,940
The underworld verges towards terrible dia, yet runs

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00:22:19,940 –> 00:22:23,580
instead to the seat of pathos, that feeblest mode of writing.

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00:22:24,220 –> 00:22:27,860
The author misses his every chance of greatness, as must all his

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faithful translators.

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00:22:31,750 –> 00:22:35,510
The limitations of this work scope is apparently conscious. Epic belongs to

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00:22:35,510 –> 00:22:39,110
early man, and this Homer lived too long after the heroic age to feel

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00:22:39,110 –> 00:22:42,950
assured and large. He knows exact knowledge of what he could and could

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00:22:42,950 –> 00:22:46,790
not do. Only through such superb self criticism can talent rank

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00:22:46,790 –> 00:22:48,550
beside inspiration.

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In the four years of living with this novel, I’ve tried to deduce the author

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00:22:54,030 –> 00:22:57,480
from his self betrayal. In the work I found a bookworm,

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00:22:57,800 –> 00:23:01,360
no longer young, living from home, a mainlander city bred and domestic,

339
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married, but not exclusively a dog

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00:23:04,920 –> 00:23:08,120
lover, often hungry and thirsty, dark haired, fond of poetry,

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a great if uncritical reader of the Iliad, with limited

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sensuous range, but an exact eyesight which gave

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him all his pictures. A lover of old bric, a brac, though

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as muddled an antiquary as Walter Scott, in

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00:23:23,110 –> 00:23:26,630
sympathy with which side of him I have conceded tenter

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00:23:26,630 –> 00:23:30,230
hooks, but not always railway trains.

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Few men can be sailors, soldiers and naturalists yet this Homer

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00:23:39,710 –> 00:23:43,550
was neither landlubber nor stay at home, nor ninny. He wrote for audiences

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to whom adventures were daily life, and the sea their universal neighbor,

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so he dare not err. That famous doubled line where the Cyclops narrowly

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misses the ship with his stones only shows how much better a seaman he was

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00:23:54,020 –> 00:23:57,660
than a copyist. Scolais have tried to riddle his technical

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knowledge, and of course he does make a hodgepodge of periods.

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It is the penalty of being pre archaeological. His

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00:24:05,660 –> 00:24:09,180
pages are steeped in a queer nativity, and at our

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00:24:09,180 –> 00:24:12,900
remove of thought and language we cannot guess if he is smiling or

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not. Yet there is dignity which compels respect

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and baffles us, he being neither simple in education

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nor primitive socially. His generation

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so rudely admired the Iliad that even to misquote it

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00:24:27,580 –> 00:24:31,380
was a virtue. That

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00:24:31,380 –> 00:24:34,820
is from the translator’s introduction of the

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Odyssey written by Colonel Thomas Edward

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Lawrence, and according to Wikipedia,

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Colonel T.E. lawrence was a British

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archaeologist, army officer, diplomat and writer who

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became renowned for his role in the Arab Revolt and the Sinai and

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00:24:52,760 –> 00:24:56,400
Palestine campaign against the Ottoman Empire during the First World

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War. The breadth and variety of his activities and

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associations, and his ability to ascribe them vividly in writing, earned him

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00:25:03,840 –> 00:25:07,600
international fame as Lawrence of Arabia, a title used

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for the 1962 film based on his wartime

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activities. He was born out of

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wedlock in August 1888 to Sarah Junior a

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00:25:17,980 –> 00:25:21,660
governess, and Sir Thomas Chapman, 7th Baronet, an

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00:25:21,660 –> 00:25:25,420
Anglo Irish nobleman. Soon after the

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outbreak of war in 1914, he volunteered for the British

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00:25:29,020 –> 00:25:32,660
army, and this was after he had worked as an archaeologist for the

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00:25:32,660 –> 00:25:36,180
British Museum from 1910 to 1914 and then

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00:25:36,420 –> 00:25:39,380
briefly. Before that he had studied at Oxford

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00:25:40,260 –> 00:25:43,220
at the Jesus College from 1907 to 1910,

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00:25:45,930 –> 00:25:49,370
when he volunteered for the British army and was

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stationed at the Arab Bureau intelligence unit in

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00:25:52,770 –> 00:25:56,370
Egypt. He traveled to Mesopotamia and to Arabia on

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00:25:56,370 –> 00:26:00,050
intelligence missions and became involved with the Arab revolt as a liaison

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00:26:00,050 –> 00:26:03,690
to the Arab forces along with other British officers supporting the Arab

387
00:26:03,690 –> 00:26:07,130
kingdom of Hejaz’s independence war against its former overlord,

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00:26:07,370 –> 00:26:10,900
the Ottoman Empire. He worked closely with

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00:26:10,980 –> 00:26:14,260
Emir Faisal, a leader of the revolt, and he participated

390
00:26:14,340 –> 00:26:18,180
sometimes as a leader in military actions against the Ottoman armed forces,

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00:26:18,420 –> 00:26:21,620
culminating in the capture of Damascus in October of

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00:26:21,620 –> 00:26:25,340
1918. After the

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00:26:25,340 –> 00:26:29,140
first World War, Lawrence joined the British Foreign Office, which basically

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00:26:29,140 –> 00:26:32,780
means he continued being a spy, working with the British government and

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00:26:32,780 –> 00:26:36,500
with Feisal. In 1922 he retreated from public life and spent the years

396
00:26:36,500 –> 00:26:40,310
until 1935 serving as an enlisted man, mostly in the Royal Air

397
00:26:40,310 –> 00:26:44,070
Force with a brief period in the Army. During this time, he

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00:26:44,070 –> 00:26:47,470
published his best known work, Seven Pillars of An

399
00:26:47,470 –> 00:26:50,790
autobiographical account of his participation in the Arab revolt.

400
00:26:51,270 –> 00:26:54,830
He also translated books into English and wrote the Mint, which

401
00:26:54,830 –> 00:26:58,230
detailed his time in the Royal Air Force working as an ordinary aircraftman.

402
00:26:59,750 –> 00:27:03,590
Lawrence’s public image resulted in part from the sensationalized reporting of the

403
00:27:03,590 –> 00:27:07,360
Arab revolt by American journalist Lowell Thomas, as well as from

404
00:27:07,360 –> 00:27:10,680
Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Tragically,

405
00:27:11,080 –> 00:27:14,640
on May 19, 1935, Lawrence

406
00:27:14,640 –> 00:27:18,480
died at the age of 46, six days

407
00:27:18,480 –> 00:27:21,720
after being injured in a motorcycle accident

408
00:27:23,000 –> 00:27:23,360
in

409
00:27:23,360 –> 00:27:30,940
Dorsey.

410
00:29:10,240 –> 00:29:13,730
Back to the book, Back to the

411
00:29:13,730 –> 00:29:17,490
Odyssey by Homer. We’re going to move around

412
00:29:17,490 –> 00:29:20,810
a little bit, actually. We’re going to move around extensively today

413
00:29:21,130 –> 00:29:24,530
and we’re going to read directly from this

414
00:29:24,530 –> 00:29:27,770
idea. Well, not directly from, but we’re going to read about

415
00:29:28,330 –> 00:29:31,890
this idea that’s in the Odyssey, that’s embedded

416
00:29:31,890 –> 00:29:35,610
within the Odyssey, this idea of sight, this

417
00:29:35,610 –> 00:29:38,730
idea of seeing the truth.

418
00:29:39,460 –> 00:29:43,260
Right. Because if you can

419
00:29:43,260 –> 00:29:47,100
see the truth, whether that’s the truth of reality or the truth

420
00:29:47,100 –> 00:29:50,780
of responsibility, well, then you can effectively deal with

421
00:29:50,780 –> 00:29:54,620
it. Or as in the case of Odysseus, you can maybe

422
00:29:54,620 –> 00:29:58,020
potentially blind it. So we’re gonna go to book nine.

423
00:30:01,940 –> 00:30:05,780
We’re gonna read Odysseus’s

424
00:30:07,570 –> 00:30:09,730
rendition a little bit here and there

425
00:30:11,730 –> 00:30:15,490
of his battle with the

426
00:30:15,490 –> 00:30:17,890
arrogant, iniquitous Cyclops.

427
00:30:21,090 –> 00:30:24,810
We left in low spirits. This is Odysseus speaking. We left in low

428
00:30:24,810 –> 00:30:28,650
spirits and later came to the land of the arrogant, iniquitous Cyclops, who so leave

429
00:30:28,650 –> 00:30:32,380
all things to the gods that they neither plant nor till yet does plenty

430
00:30:32,380 –> 00:30:36,100
spring up, unsown and unplowed of corn and barley, and even vines with

431
00:30:36,100 –> 00:30:39,580
heavy clusters which the reigns of Zeus fatten

432
00:30:39,740 –> 00:30:43,260
for them. They have no government, nor

433
00:30:43,260 –> 00:30:46,900
councils, nor courts of justice, but living caves on mountaintops, each

434
00:30:46,900 –> 00:30:50,460
ruling his wives and children and a law unto himself.

435
00:30:50,940 –> 00:30:54,220
Regardless. Across the blight of

436
00:30:54,220 –> 00:30:58,060
Cyclops’s country extends a fertile island, a wooded island not very

437
00:30:58,060 –> 00:31:01,760
far, yet not close. And in it their harbor,

438
00:31:01,760 –> 00:31:05,040
uncounted wild goats. No trace of men

439
00:31:05,520 –> 00:31:08,320
scares these, nor do hunters with dogs track them out,

440
00:31:09,120 –> 00:31:12,680
fighting their way through the bush to explore the summits of the hills. The

441
00:31:12,680 –> 00:31:16,080
herbage is not grazed down by flocks of sheep, nor broken by any plow.

442
00:31:16,240 –> 00:31:19,960
Rather, the spot continues in solitude wholly uncultivated, a paradise

443
00:31:19,960 –> 00:31:23,800
for the bleeding she goats. By reason that the Cyclops seas have

444
00:31:23,800 –> 00:31:27,440
no ruddle cheeked ships nor shipwrights to make them

445
00:31:27,670 –> 00:31:31,470
such seaworthy vessels for pleasuring among the cities of mankind, like those ordinary

446
00:31:31,470 –> 00:31:35,190
men who tempt the seas to know others and to be known.

447
00:31:36,230 –> 00:31:40,070
Otherwise they might have made this island theirs, it being not at all bad land.

448
00:31:40,150 –> 00:31:43,830
Anything would grow well there in season in the soft moist meadows behind the

449
00:31:43,830 –> 00:31:46,950
dykes of the silvery sea, and its vine stalks would bear forever

450
00:31:48,230 –> 00:31:51,870
the crop to be harvested at the due time for such smooth plough

451
00:31:51,870 –> 00:31:55,190
loam would be heavy, seeing that the undersoil is fat.

452
00:31:56,040 –> 00:31:59,520
Its haven is a natural port, requiring no such gear as anchors or

453
00:31:59,520 –> 00:32:03,080
warps. Ships can be beached directly to lie there in peace, while the

454
00:32:03,080 –> 00:32:06,760
sailors screw up their hearts to venture farther, or until the winds

455
00:32:06,760 –> 00:32:10,560
blow kind. At the head of this inlet is

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00:32:10,560 –> 00:32:13,880
pure running water from a spring rising in a cave, black

457
00:32:14,200 –> 00:32:16,040
poplars shadow.

458
00:32:16,040 –> 00:32:20,860
It’s

459
00:32:23,250 –> 00:32:26,050
Odysseus lands and gets off the ship

460
00:32:26,850 –> 00:32:29,650
and then sees

461
00:32:31,970 –> 00:32:35,250
the food and the owner

462
00:32:35,250 –> 00:32:38,730
absent in the cave, the

463
00:32:38,730 –> 00:32:42,370
flocks of lambs and kids, the milk of the

464
00:32:42,370 –> 00:32:43,170
she goats.

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00:32:48,300 –> 00:32:50,460
And then. Well,

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00:32:54,300 –> 00:32:57,620
so far he had been wholly engaged with his work, but now he rebuilt the

467
00:32:57,620 –> 00:33:01,100
fire and looked around and saw us. Why,

468
00:33:01,100 –> 00:33:04,820
strangers, said he, who are you and

469
00:33:04,820 –> 00:33:08,300
where have you come from? Across the water. Are you traitors or

470
00:33:08,300 –> 00:33:12,140
pirates, those venturers who see prowl at hazard, robbing all comers

471
00:33:12,140 –> 00:33:15,860
for a livelihood? So? He asked, and our confidence cracked

472
00:33:15,860 –> 00:33:18,860
at the giant’s dread booming voice and his

473
00:33:18,860 –> 00:33:22,580
hugeness. Yet I made shift to

474
00:33:22,580 –> 00:33:26,180
speak out firmly, saying, we are waifs of the Achaeans from

475
00:33:26,180 –> 00:33:29,900
Troy, intended homeward, but driven off

476
00:33:30,380 –> 00:33:34,100
our course haphazardly across the boundless ocean gulfs

477
00:33:34,100 –> 00:33:37,740
by adverse winds from heaven. It may be the

478
00:33:37,740 –> 00:33:41,490
will and decree of Zeus, it may be by the will and decree of

479
00:33:41,490 –> 00:33:44,930
Zeus we can vaunt ourselves, companions of Atreides,

480
00:33:44,930 –> 00:33:48,690
Agamemnon’s men, who is now the widest fame under heaven for

481
00:33:48,690 –> 00:33:52,290
having sacked earth’s greatest city and brought such multitudes to

482
00:33:52,290 –> 00:33:55,930
death here. Therefore we find ourselves suppliant at your knees

483
00:33:56,330 –> 00:34:00,010
in hope of the guesting fee or other rich gift, such

484
00:34:00,010 –> 00:34:03,610
as is the meat of strangers. Have regard for the gods. Magnificent.

485
00:34:04,010 –> 00:34:07,420
We are your suppliants and. And Zeus, who fares with deserving

486
00:34:07,420 –> 00:34:11,220
strangers along their road, is the champion of suppliants, their protector

487
00:34:11,220 –> 00:34:12,500
and patron God.

488
00:34:14,740 –> 00:34:18,020
Thus far I got but the reply came from his pitiless heart.

489
00:34:18,740 –> 00:34:22,460
Sir, stranger, you are either simple or very outlandish, if you

490
00:34:22,460 –> 00:34:25,660
bid me. Fear the gods and avoid crossing them. We the

491
00:34:25,660 –> 00:34:29,380
Cyclops. We are the Cyclops.

492
00:34:29,700 –> 00:34:33,340
And being so much bigger, we listen not at all to the Aegeus bearing

493
00:34:33,340 –> 00:34:37,080
Zeus, or any blessed God. So if I

494
00:34:37,080 –> 00:34:40,240
should spare your life and your friends, it would not be to shun the wrath

495
00:34:40,240 –> 00:34:44,000
of Zeus, but because my heart counselled me. Mercy. Now tell me where you moored

496
00:34:44,000 –> 00:34:47,440
the stout ship you came on. The far shore. Was it or the near? I

497
00:34:47,440 –> 00:34:51,000
want to know. With these words he laid a

498
00:34:51,000 –> 00:34:54,560
crafty snare for me, but to my subtlety, all his deceits

499
00:34:54,640 –> 00:34:58,400
were plain. So I spoke back, meeting fraud with

500
00:34:58,400 –> 00:35:02,240
fraud. My ship was broken by Poseidon, the earth shaker,

501
00:35:02,240 –> 00:35:05,400
who swept her towards the cape at the very end of your land and cast

502
00:35:05,400 –> 00:35:09,180
her against the reefs. The drifted us in from the high sea. Only myself

503
00:35:09,180 –> 00:35:11,660
with these few escaped. So I said

504
00:35:13,500 –> 00:35:17,260
his savagery disdained me. One word in reply. He leapt to his feet,

505
00:35:17,260 –> 00:35:20,860
lunged with his hands among my fellows, snatched up two of them like whelps

506
00:35:20,860 –> 00:35:24,540
and wrapped their heads against the ground. The brains burst out from their

507
00:35:24,540 –> 00:35:28,100
skulls and were spattered over the cave’s floor while he broke them up

508
00:35:28,100 –> 00:35:31,420
limb from limb and sucked off them to the last shred, eating

509
00:35:31,420 –> 00:35:35,140
ravenously, like a mountain lion. Everything, bowels and flesh

510
00:35:35,140 –> 00:35:38,980
and bones, even to the marrow in the bones. We

511
00:35:38,980 –> 00:35:42,500
wept and raised our hands to Zeus in horror at this

512
00:35:42,500 –> 00:35:45,540
crime committed before our eyes. Yet there was nothing,

513
00:35:45,940 –> 00:35:49,500
nothing we could do. Wherefore the Cyclops,

514
00:35:49,500 –> 00:35:53,300
unhindered, filled his great gut with the human

515
00:35:53,380 –> 00:35:57,100
flesh and washed it down with raw

516
00:35:57,100 –> 00:36:00,940
milk. Afterwards he stretched

517
00:36:00,940 –> 00:36:04,740
himself out across the cavern among the flocks and

518
00:36:05,380 –> 00:36:06,020
slept.

519
00:36:11,380 –> 00:36:15,140
This obviously cannot stand. And so

520
00:36:15,860 –> 00:36:16,820
Odysseus,

521
00:36:19,060 –> 00:36:20,900
desiring to fix this problem,

522
00:36:22,900 –> 00:36:25,300
begins to think,

523
00:36:26,590 –> 00:36:30,190
begins to beg the gods for an opportunity to fix

524
00:36:30,190 –> 00:36:33,150
this wrong, to correct this heinous

525
00:36:34,990 –> 00:36:37,950
act of, well,

526
00:36:38,670 –> 00:36:41,950
murder. But even more so than murder,

527
00:36:43,230 –> 00:36:46,910
this heinous act of ignorance of good taste

528
00:36:46,910 –> 00:36:50,430
and, of course, ignorance of hospitality

529
00:36:51,480 –> 00:36:54,200
to guests and to strangers.

530
00:36:56,200 –> 00:36:59,880
Of what came to me this seemed best. There lay in the

531
00:36:59,880 –> 00:37:03,720
sheep pens a great cudgel belonging to Cyclops, or rather a limb of

532
00:37:03,720 –> 00:37:06,640
green olive wood, from which he meant to make himself a staff. When it had

533
00:37:06,640 –> 00:37:10,480
seasoned in our estimation, we liken it to the mast of

534
00:37:10,480 –> 00:37:13,960
a 20 oared black ship, some broad beam merchantman of the high seas. It looks

535
00:37:13,960 –> 00:37:17,320
so long and thick. I straddled it and cut off about a

536
00:37:17,320 –> 00:37:20,360
fathom’s length, which I took to my fellows, bidding them taper it down.

537
00:37:21,160 –> 00:37:24,040
They made it quite even, while I lent a hand to sharpen its tip.

538
00:37:24,840 –> 00:37:27,680
Then I took it and revolved it in the blazing flame till the point was

539
00:37:27,680 –> 00:37:31,360
charred to hardness. Thereafter we hid it under the sheep droppings, which

540
00:37:31,360 –> 00:37:35,200
were largely heaped up throughout the cave. Lastly, I made the others draw lots to

541
00:37:35,200 –> 00:37:38,600
see who would have the desperate task of helping me lift up our spike

542
00:37:38,840 –> 00:37:42,480
and grind it into his eye. When heavy sleep had

543
00:37:42,480 –> 00:37:46,240
downed him, the luck of the draw gave me just the four men I would

544
00:37:46,240 –> 00:37:49,990
have chosen. With my eyes open, I appointed myself the

545
00:37:49,990 –> 00:37:51,030
fifth of the party.

546
00:37:54,870 –> 00:37:56,550
Cyclops leaves the cave,

547
00:37:59,430 –> 00:38:03,230
and then Cyclops comes back, and

548
00:38:03,230 –> 00:38:06,150
Odysseus puts his plan into action.

549
00:38:08,470 –> 00:38:12,270
Briskly he attacked his household work only after it to snatch

550
00:38:12,270 –> 00:38:15,800
up two more of us and dine off them. Then I went up to the

551
00:38:15,800 –> 00:38:19,360
giant with an ivy cup of my dark wine in hand and invited him, saying,

552
00:38:19,360 –> 00:38:23,200
cyclops, come now, on top of your meal of man’s flesh, try

553
00:38:23,200 –> 00:38:26,840
this wine to see how tasty a drink was hidden in our ship. I brought

554
00:38:26,840 –> 00:38:30,279
it for you, hoping you would have compassion on me and help me homeward. But

555
00:38:30,279 –> 00:38:33,120
your unwisdom is far beyond all comprehending,

556
00:38:34,400 –> 00:38:38,200
O sinful one. How dare you expect any other man from the

557
00:38:38,200 –> 00:38:41,400
great world to visit you after you have behaved towards us so

558
00:38:42,200 –> 00:38:45,880
unconscionably? I spoke, he

559
00:38:45,880 –> 00:38:49,440
took and drank. A savage gladness

560
00:38:49,440 –> 00:38:52,600
woke in him at the sweetness of the liquor, and he demanded a second cup,

561
00:38:53,240 –> 00:38:56,960
saying, give me another hearty helping, and then quickly

562
00:38:56,960 –> 00:39:00,240
tell me your name for me to confer on you a guest gift that will

563
00:39:00,240 –> 00:39:03,840
warm your heart. It is true, our rich soil grows good vines for a

564
00:39:03,840 –> 00:39:07,480
Cyclops, and the moisture of heaven multiplies your yield. But this vintage

565
00:39:07,790 –> 00:39:10,430
is a drop of the real nectar, ambrosia.

566
00:39:12,590 –> 00:39:15,950
Thus he declared all at once.

567
00:39:20,350 –> 00:39:24,150
And then at once I poured him a second cup of the glowing wine, and

568
00:39:24,150 –> 00:39:27,750
then one more, for in his folly he tossed off three bowls of it. The

569
00:39:27,750 –> 00:39:30,950
fumes were going in his cyclopean wits as I began to play with him in

570
00:39:30,950 –> 00:39:34,670
honeyed phrase. Cyclops, you asked me for my public name. I

571
00:39:34,670 –> 00:39:37,950
will confess it to you aloud. And do you then give me a guest gift,

572
00:39:37,950 –> 00:39:41,590
as you have promised? My name is no man,

573
00:39:42,550 –> 00:39:45,670
so they have always called me. My mother and father and

574
00:39:46,390 –> 00:39:47,350
all my friends.

575
00:39:52,550 –> 00:39:53,350
Cyclops

576
00:39:56,470 –> 00:40:00,230
says I will eat no man, finally, after all

577
00:40:00,230 –> 00:40:03,530
his friends. The others first. That shall be your

578
00:40:03,530 –> 00:40:07,370
benefit. He sprawled full length, belly up on the ground, lolling

579
00:40:07,370 –> 00:40:11,130
his fat neck aside in sleep that conquers all men conquered

580
00:40:11,130 –> 00:40:14,930
him heavily. He vomited out all his load of drink and gobbets

581
00:40:14,930 –> 00:40:18,050
of human flesh swimming in wine spurted gurgling from his throat.

582
00:40:18,930 –> 00:40:22,570
Forthwith I thrust our spike into the embers of the fire to get it burning

583
00:40:22,570 –> 00:40:25,690
hot, and cheered my fellows with brave words, lest any of them hang back through

584
00:40:25,690 –> 00:40:29,390
fear. Soon the stake of olive wood, despite its greenness, was almost trembling into flesh

585
00:40:29,540 –> 00:40:33,300
flame. With a terrible glowing incandescence I snatched it from the fire. My men,

586
00:40:33,300 –> 00:40:36,340
helping some power from on high, breathed into us

587
00:40:37,300 –> 00:40:41,060
all manner of mad courage, by whose strength they charged with a great spear

588
00:40:41,060 –> 00:40:44,580
and stabbed its sharp point right into his eye. I

589
00:40:44,580 –> 00:40:48,380
flung my weight upon it from above, so that it bored home as

590
00:40:48,380 –> 00:40:51,620
a shipbuilder’s bit drills its timbers steadily

591
00:40:51,620 –> 00:40:55,370
twirling by reason of the drag from the hide thong, which is mates underneath

592
00:40:55,680 –> 00:40:59,440
to and fro alternately. So we held the burning pointed

593
00:40:59,440 –> 00:41:03,080
stake in his eye and spun it till the boiling blood

594
00:41:03,080 –> 00:41:04,880
bubbled about its pillar of fire.

595
00:41:06,240 –> 00:41:09,880
Eyebrows with eyelids shrivelled and stank in the blast

596
00:41:09,880 –> 00:41:13,640
of his consuming eyeball. Yea, the very roots of the eye

597
00:41:13,640 –> 00:41:16,000
crackled into flame.

598
00:41:37,770 –> 00:41:41,450
The irony of blindness is

599
00:41:41,450 –> 00:41:45,170
not lost on me, and the

600
00:41:45,170 –> 00:41:48,750
irony of an unconscionable lack of hospitality to

601
00:41:48,750 –> 00:41:52,590
guests is also not lost on me, because,

602
00:41:52,670 –> 00:41:55,630
quite frankly, it has been a long, long

603
00:41:56,430 –> 00:41:57,550
20th century.

604
00:42:00,190 –> 00:42:03,670
Beginning in the 1840s, collectively, through a series of

605
00:42:03,670 –> 00:42:07,350
conscious and subconscious decisions and actions, we in the west

606
00:42:07,350 –> 00:42:10,510
have blindly and psychologically

607
00:42:10,910 –> 00:42:14,190
built and now fully inhabit the world we claimed

608
00:42:15,200 –> 00:42:16,320
we always wanted.

609
00:42:19,280 –> 00:42:23,040
Beginning with the much valuehooed death of God in

610
00:42:23,040 –> 00:42:26,480
the early 19th century and continuing through the rise of secular atheist

611
00:42:26,480 –> 00:42:29,920
humanism, society, culture, and modes of thinking

612
00:42:30,320 –> 00:42:34,080
about our place in the Western world and the transcendental world beyond

613
00:42:34,240 –> 00:42:38,080
have catalyzed into an acidic form of nihilistic,

614
00:42:38,080 –> 00:42:41,600
existential, blindly paralytical dread.

615
00:42:44,180 –> 00:42:47,540
And yet I have hope,

616
00:42:47,860 –> 00:42:51,540
because there are still some Odysseuses out there.

617
00:42:51,540 –> 00:42:54,940
And the Nietzschean ideal fully matured through the

618
00:42:54,940 –> 00:42:58,700
existential dread proposed by Sartre and Camus and fully matured

619
00:42:58,700 –> 00:43:02,500
by Jacques Derrida and the other deconstructionists, is finally

620
00:43:02,500 –> 00:43:05,820
shuffling, I believe, ignominiously, capriciously and

621
00:43:05,820 –> 00:43:08,420
ideologically to an end. In the West,

622
00:43:10,340 –> 00:43:14,100
I think we are beginning to recover our sight.

623
00:43:16,820 –> 00:43:20,220
But the tragedy is that the Nietzschean ideal did a lot of

624
00:43:20,220 –> 00:43:23,860
damage on the way to the forum of the

625
00:43:23,860 –> 00:43:27,700
now. Leaders can

626
00:43:27,700 –> 00:43:31,340
see this whether they have one eye, two eyes, or

627
00:43:31,340 –> 00:43:35,140
whether they are dead. Blind leaders can see

628
00:43:35,140 –> 00:43:38,840
this, and right now they’re dealing with entitlement.

629
00:43:39,080 –> 00:43:42,080
They’re dealing with a lack of grit and resilience, they’re dealing with a rise in

630
00:43:42,080 –> 00:43:45,680
narcissism, and they are dealing with an end of the ties of shared

631
00:43:45,680 –> 00:43:49,400
humility, shared community, and shared reality

632
00:43:49,400 –> 00:43:52,120
that used to bind Western culture together.

633
00:43:54,440 –> 00:43:57,880
Leaders right now are seeing the effects of such conditions in the form of

634
00:43:57,880 –> 00:44:01,520
resignations, lower quality work product and an overall

635
00:44:01,520 –> 00:44:05,260
decline in productivity and a desire more for the trappings

636
00:44:05,260 –> 00:44:08,860
of promotion than a willingness to adopt the responsibilities of

637
00:44:08,860 –> 00:44:09,820
promotion itself.

638
00:44:13,100 –> 00:44:16,780
To navigate our way forward and out, we must go back to the past.

639
00:44:16,780 –> 00:44:20,460
We must go into the cave, such as it were, and rescue the

640
00:44:20,460 –> 00:44:24,220
knowledge of the rightness of human authority, action and competence

641
00:44:24,540 –> 00:44:28,380
from our forgotten, blinded and abandoned

642
00:44:28,460 –> 00:44:31,830
father. We must restore

643
00:44:32,230 –> 00:44:35,990
our father’s sight. But we

644
00:44:36,070 –> 00:44:39,790
ourselves can’t perform this rescue mission without clear

645
00:44:39,790 –> 00:44:43,110
eyes, courageous hearts, and the ability

646
00:44:43,990 –> 00:44:47,550
to really speak candidly about what is

647
00:44:47,550 –> 00:44:50,950
true. So

648
00:44:51,190 –> 00:44:54,790
I’ll start. Here’s a piece of truth.

649
00:44:56,450 –> 00:45:00,090
Every ideal and every idea that the

650
00:45:00,090 –> 00:45:03,530
wily German lurking in the sub basement of Western social,

651
00:45:03,530 –> 00:45:06,690
cultural, intellectual thought, Friedrich Nietzsche

652
00:45:07,090 –> 00:45:09,810
ever had was an absolute

653
00:45:10,610 –> 00:45:12,770
cyclopean lie.

654
00:45:16,530 –> 00:45:20,330
But it was close enough, it hewed close enough

655
00:45:20,330 –> 00:45:24,000
anyway, to the perceived truth of some people’s mental

656
00:45:24,000 –> 00:45:27,360
models of reality. That in the maelstrom of moral

657
00:45:27,360 –> 00:45:30,800
destruction wrought by the ideas that were also

658
00:45:30,800 –> 00:45:34,400
swirling around at the time of Marx, Darwin and Freud,

659
00:45:34,800 –> 00:45:38,080
the lie went mostly unnoticed

660
00:45:38,800 –> 00:45:42,560
and became integrated into so many other lies that

661
00:45:42,560 –> 00:45:45,840
the tangled web became untangleable.

662
00:45:48,730 –> 00:45:52,250
That web has developed and turned into a cancerous

663
00:45:52,730 –> 00:45:55,850
manner, turned into a cancerous thing

664
00:45:56,330 –> 00:46:00,130
that lurks in the sub basement of Western thought that

665
00:46:00,130 –> 00:46:03,370
impacts everything we do, and that has

666
00:46:03,770 –> 00:46:07,610
made us ill and blind. But

667
00:46:08,090 –> 00:46:11,570
it’s time. And I believe we are the

668
00:46:11,570 –> 00:46:15,420
generation who will begin the

669
00:46:15,420 –> 00:46:18,340
long, sordid and messy process

670
00:46:19,540 –> 00:46:22,900
of cutting the cancer of the Nietzschean ideal

671
00:46:23,460 –> 00:46:26,500
out of the body of Western

672
00:46:26,980 –> 00:46:27,380
thought.

673
00:46:39,050 –> 00:46:49,290
Sam,

674
00:47:20,700 –> 00:47:24,340
Back to the Odyssey, back

675
00:47:24,340 –> 00:47:28,140
to the story of Odysseus. Book 13,

676
00:47:29,740 –> 00:47:33,440
where we’ll pick up here in book 13. And remember, we we

677
00:47:33,440 –> 00:47:37,280
never read the whole book on these podcasts. There’s no possible way

678
00:47:37,280 –> 00:47:40,760
to do it. These podcasts are built like book reviews

679
00:47:41,720 –> 00:47:45,480
or critical critiques, right? Built like

680
00:47:45,480 –> 00:47:49,320
folios. Folios? Folios. I can’t pronounce words today.

681
00:47:49,560 –> 00:47:53,160
Folios of the past. Right? Where you can

682
00:47:53,400 –> 00:47:56,520
we give you enough of a sample of the book, we provide you with enough

683
00:47:56,520 –> 00:47:59,000
of an idea of the book for you to go out and pick it up.

684
00:47:59,000 –> 00:48:02,260
And just like we covered the

685
00:48:02,260 –> 00:48:05,980
Iliad in episode number three of the Leadership Lessons from the

686
00:48:05,980 –> 00:48:09,340
Great Books podcast, this book has plenty to teach us

687
00:48:09,500 –> 00:48:13,060
now about all manner of things. Whether

688
00:48:13,060 –> 00:48:16,460
that means whether that is about epic journeys,

689
00:48:16,620 –> 00:48:20,220
whether that is about recovering from our own blindness or

690
00:48:20,620 –> 00:48:24,260
recovering from the blindness of our fathers. But it also

691
00:48:24,260 –> 00:48:28,100
has something to teach us about how to be

692
00:48:28,100 –> 00:48:31,860
subtle in exacting not

693
00:48:31,860 –> 00:48:35,260
necessarily revenge, but how to be subtle in

694
00:48:35,340 –> 00:48:38,620
thinking about your powers,

695
00:48:38,940 –> 00:48:42,300
your rights and your responsibilities.

696
00:48:43,900 –> 00:48:46,060
Back to The Odyssey. Book 13.

697
00:48:47,100 –> 00:48:50,060
Odysseus speaking with

698
00:48:50,300 –> 00:48:53,830
Athena fluently,

699
00:48:53,830 –> 00:48:57,590
Odysseus answered, your powers.

700
00:48:57,590 –> 00:49:01,230
You assume all forms, goddesses. Your

701
00:49:01,230 –> 00:49:05,070
powers let you assume all forms, goddess, and so hardly may

702
00:49:05,070 –> 00:49:08,470
the knowingest man identify you. Yet I well know of your

703
00:49:08,470 –> 00:49:12,230
partiality towards me from the day that we sons of the Achaeans went

704
00:49:12,230 –> 00:49:15,190
to war against Troy, until we plundered Priam’s towering city.

705
00:49:16,230 –> 00:49:20,025
But after we had embarked thence, and the might of the gods scattered the Achaeans,

706
00:49:20,025 –> 00:49:23,530
and since that day I have not set eyes on you, O daughter of

707
00:49:23,530 –> 00:49:27,290
Zeus, nor been aware of you within my ship to deliver me from evil. So

708
00:49:27,290 –> 00:49:30,890
it became my lot to wander brokenheartedly, waiting for the gods to end my pain,

709
00:49:30,890 –> 00:49:34,410
until at long last you appeared in the Phaeacians rich capital and

710
00:49:34,410 –> 00:49:37,650
threatened and heartened me by your bold words to venture in.

711
00:49:38,610 –> 00:49:42,370
Accordingly I now conjure you for your father’s sake. Surely I am not

712
00:49:42,370 –> 00:49:46,130
in clear shining Ithaca. I think I have lighted on some foreign land,

713
00:49:46,130 –> 00:49:49,560
and you are telling me it is Ithaca only in mockery to cheat my soul.

714
00:49:50,360 –> 00:49:53,400
If in very deed this is my native land, assure me of it,

715
00:49:55,160 –> 00:49:58,920
said Athene or Athena. Your mind harps on that, and I

716
00:49:58,920 –> 00:50:02,440
cannot leave on tenter hooks one so civil, witty and shrewd.

717
00:50:02,760 –> 00:50:06,040
Any other returned wanderer would have dashed home to see his children and his wife.

718
00:50:07,000 –> 00:50:10,720
Only you chose to be skeptical and to reject the evidence, till you had further

719
00:50:10,720 –> 00:50:14,480
proved the wife who was who, as from the beginning, sits awaiting you in

720
00:50:14,480 –> 00:50:17,880
the house, miserable through the long nights and tearful all her days.

721
00:50:18,440 –> 00:50:21,560
I was never one of those who despaired for you, because I knew for certain

722
00:50:21,560 –> 00:50:25,400
you would return, though not till after losing all

723
00:50:25,400 –> 00:50:28,840
your party. Wherefore I refrain from open warfare with

724
00:50:28,840 –> 00:50:32,560
Poseidon, my uncle, who always wished you ill because of his rage at

725
00:50:32,560 –> 00:50:36,360
your blinding his dear son. By the way, that was the Cyclops.

726
00:50:37,240 –> 00:50:40,600
But now let me show you the substantial Ithaca to convince you.

727
00:50:41,970 –> 00:50:44,610
Then she takes him on a tour.

728
00:50:48,930 –> 00:50:52,650
The grey eyed goddess then exhorted him further. Be

729
00:50:52,650 –> 00:50:56,170
bold and dismiss these concerns from your mind, while we turn to laying up your

730
00:50:56,170 –> 00:50:59,050
goods in the hinder end of this cave of marvels, where they will be safe

731
00:50:59,050 –> 00:51:02,690
for you. Then must we ponder and advise ourselves the best

732
00:51:02,690 –> 00:51:06,530
course of action. Athene spoke and plunged into the gloom of the cavern

733
00:51:06,530 –> 00:51:10,310
to search it for hiding holes, while Odysseus carried in the Phoenician gold the

734
00:51:10,310 –> 00:51:14,150
tempered Bronze, the goodly raiment, after everything

735
00:51:14,150 –> 00:51:17,470
had been carefully laid by Pallas, sealed the passage with a rock.

736
00:51:18,750 –> 00:51:22,350
Then they sat together by the bowl of the sacred olive to plot the doom

737
00:51:22,350 –> 00:51:25,710
of the extravagant wooers. By the way,

738
00:51:26,510 –> 00:51:30,150
Odysseus house has been filled with suitors the entire time he’s been

739
00:51:30,150 –> 00:51:33,550
gone 20 years, consuming through

740
00:51:33,630 –> 00:51:37,240
his savings and plundering his

741
00:51:37,400 –> 00:51:40,760
goods, his son Telemachus went off to go find him,

742
00:51:41,320 –> 00:51:45,040
and was somewhat unsuccessful

743
00:51:45,040 –> 00:51:47,480
on his own hero’s journey.

744
00:51:50,440 –> 00:51:53,800
Athene opened. Thus, son of Laertes,

745
00:51:54,120 –> 00:51:57,320
next you must settle how to get these shameless suitors into your hands. For it

746
00:51:57,320 –> 00:52:00,160
is now three years that they have been lording it in your palace. Okay, three

747
00:52:00,160 –> 00:52:03,890
years, not 20 years. Sorry. Plaguing your glorious wife with their suits

748
00:52:04,610 –> 00:52:07,970
and proffering marriage settlements, while she, despite heart wrecking

749
00:52:07,970 –> 00:52:11,810
anxieties over your return, still keeps them all in play by giving each

750
00:52:11,810 –> 00:52:15,490
one hope and separate promises and privy messages. With

751
00:52:15,490 –> 00:52:17,810
her mind set constantly elsewhere,

752
00:52:20,530 –> 00:52:24,250
wily Odysseus replied. My hard fate on reaching home, goddess, would have been such

753
00:52:24,250 –> 00:52:27,960
another pitiful death as Agamemnon’s, but for your timely acquainting me with the

754
00:52:27,960 –> 00:52:31,720
true situation. Wherefore extend your bounty and disclose

755
00:52:31,720 –> 00:52:35,160
how I may avenge myself upon these suitors. Stand by me,

756
00:52:35,160 –> 00:52:38,960
mistress, fanning my valorous rage. My valorous rage, as on

757
00:52:38,960 –> 00:52:41,880
the day we despoil shining Troy of its pride of towers

758
00:52:42,600 –> 00:52:46,280
with Your countenance, August1, I would fight 300 men together

759
00:52:46,280 –> 00:52:49,240
only buoy me up with your judicious aid, O wise

760
00:52:49,240 –> 00:52:50,600
goddess.

761
00:52:56,290 –> 00:52:59,730
And then Athene or Athena

762
00:53:00,210 –> 00:53:03,890
tells him what she will do for him.

763
00:53:04,450 –> 00:53:08,249
Surely I shall be by your side always taking thought for you, so

764
00:53:08,249 –> 00:53:11,690
soon as we undertake this deed. As for these wooers of your wife and

765
00:53:11,690 –> 00:53:15,010
wasters of your substance, I feel that some are about to be spatter the great

766
00:53:15,010 –> 00:53:18,780
earth with their blood and brains. But now I must so work

767
00:53:18,780 –> 00:53:22,060
on you, that no human being will know you. By parching the fair flesh of

768
00:53:22,060 –> 00:53:24,540
your agile limbs and laying waste

769
00:53:26,140 –> 00:53:29,780
the yellow locks on your head, I shall even make dim your

770
00:53:29,780 –> 00:53:33,500
eyes, which are so lovely, and afterward clothe you in tatters to affront every eye.

771
00:53:33,900 –> 00:53:37,660
Then your guise will repel the united suitors, as also the wife

772
00:53:37,660 –> 00:53:41,380
and son you left in the house. You will begin by joining company with

773
00:53:41,380 –> 00:53:44,900
the swineherd who keeps your swine, a man of single heart towards yourself and

774
00:53:44,900 –> 00:53:47,390
devoted to your son and judicious Penelope.

775
00:53:50,580 –> 00:53:54,380
He said to the goddess, why did you not

776
00:53:54,380 –> 00:53:57,300
tell him so much? Out of your all knowing heart must he too painfully roam

777
00:53:57,300 –> 00:53:59,300
the barren seas, while others devour his living.

778
00:54:01,140 –> 00:54:04,580
This is speaking in reference to Telemachus, who was

779
00:54:04,820 –> 00:54:08,580
wandering the seas at the time. The gray eyed one replied, taken in

780
00:54:08,580 –> 00:54:11,940
not so much to heart, I was his guide. Even I who stirred him up

781
00:54:11,940 –> 00:54:15,460
to win favor by this activity. He suffers no hardship, but rests

782
00:54:15,460 –> 00:54:18,350
tranquilly in a treaty’s palace, lapped in abundance.

783
00:54:19,390 –> 00:54:23,190
Admitted the cadets of the suitors lie in ambush with their black ship hot to

784
00:54:23,190 –> 00:54:26,950
kill him before he can regain his fatherland. Yet I think this will not be.

785
00:54:26,950 –> 00:54:30,390
Instead the earth will cover certain suitors who devour your

786
00:54:30,390 –> 00:54:34,190
estate. Then Athene touched him with her rod, withering

787
00:54:34,190 –> 00:54:37,350
the firm flesh of his active limbs, robbing his head of its fair hair, and

788
00:54:37,350 –> 00:54:41,150
making the skin over all his body old like an aged man’s.

789
00:54:41,790 –> 00:54:45,550
She quenched the sparkle of his handsome eye and flung round him for covering foul

790
00:54:45,550 –> 00:54:48,750
and sorry rags, all crusted with a sooty reek.

791
00:54:49,390 –> 00:54:52,990
Over these she draped a great deer skin from which the hair was quite worn

792
00:54:52,990 –> 00:54:56,750
off. She gave him a stick and a shameful leather

793
00:54:56,750 –> 00:55:00,110
pouch of stiff cracked leather slung from a common cord.

794
00:55:00,830 –> 00:55:04,630
Then, having reached agreement upon their plans, they separated, her intentions

795
00:55:04,630 –> 00:55:08,430
being for Lacedaemon to summon home the son of

796
00:55:08,590 –> 00:55:09,550
Odysseus.

797
00:55:14,600 –> 00:55:18,040
That’s one way to take responsibility and to set a trap,

798
00:55:19,000 –> 00:55:22,360
to be patient and to continue on the road.

799
00:55:27,800 –> 00:55:31,480
Responsibilities. And this is what Odysseus is really doing

800
00:55:31,480 –> 00:55:35,120
here in this passage from the Odyssey. Responsibilities to

801
00:55:35,120 –> 00:55:38,230
tradition, to culture, to hierarchy, to the past, and even to the future.

802
00:55:40,070 –> 00:55:41,990
Responsibilities matter more than rights

803
00:55:44,070 –> 00:55:47,750
in the West. We have journeyed away from Homer, and of course

804
00:55:47,750 –> 00:55:51,350
we’ve gone towards the Nietzschean ideal of the pursuit of the overman.

805
00:55:52,710 –> 00:55:56,550
And as we have done this, as we’ve focused more about our rights,

806
00:55:56,710 –> 00:56:00,430
what we are owed, we have left behind an

807
00:56:00,430 –> 00:56:04,150
older, more robust attention that was once paid to

808
00:56:04,150 –> 00:56:07,950
responsibilities. Homer’s

809
00:56:07,950 –> 00:56:11,630
writing and T.E. shaw’s translation, among the

810
00:56:11,630 –> 00:56:15,310
undergrowth of many other translations over the

811
00:56:15,310 –> 00:56:18,710
last 2500 years or so, was focused on

812
00:56:18,790 –> 00:56:22,430
ensuring that our inspiration towards

813
00:56:22,430 –> 00:56:26,230
preserving tradition, our responsibility towards preserving

814
00:56:26,230 –> 00:56:29,950
tradition, was upheld and maintained, even if it was at the

815
00:56:29,950 –> 00:56:33,280
expense of the new, which

816
00:56:33,600 –> 00:56:37,360
in our less than heroic, existentially dread

817
00:56:37,360 –> 00:56:40,960
filled and narcissistic age, rings hollow to even our

818
00:56:41,040 –> 00:56:42,240
jaded ears.

819
00:56:44,560 –> 00:56:48,400
However, trading the truth of responsibility for the lie of

820
00:56:48,400 –> 00:56:52,160
rights has resulted in exactly the type of Western mental

821
00:56:52,160 –> 00:56:55,920
modeling of behavior where freedom is held up as the highest ideal.

822
00:56:56,400 –> 00:56:59,960
And like all ideals, freedom judges its worshippers.

823
00:57:01,160 –> 00:57:04,280
And of course, it always finds the worshippers,

824
00:57:05,400 –> 00:57:07,000
well, wanting

825
00:57:09,560 –> 00:57:12,360
it comes as no surprise that there’s never enough freedom,

826
00:57:13,799 –> 00:57:16,760
that there’s never enough sacrifice to freedom

827
00:57:17,400 –> 00:57:20,520
on the altar of individuality.

828
00:57:23,730 –> 00:57:27,370
This is not epic, and this is not what Western man was

829
00:57:27,370 –> 00:57:31,090
meant for. This is not the journey or the hierarchy

830
00:57:31,330 –> 00:57:34,970
we should be worshiping. And the Odyssey gives us a

831
00:57:34,970 –> 00:57:38,770
glimpse into something that can be higher, something that can be more

832
00:57:38,770 –> 00:57:42,570
robust, something that can be more fulfilling, and

833
00:57:42,570 –> 00:57:45,410
not in a James Joyce, Ulysses kind of way,

834
00:57:46,690 –> 00:57:48,450
more like in a broader

835
00:57:50,380 –> 00:57:53,260
world bending, world shaking kind of way.

836
00:57:54,700 –> 00:57:58,420
But we can only take up the task, take up the mode

837
00:57:58,420 –> 00:58:02,220
of this responsibility, if we actually

838
00:58:02,300 –> 00:58:05,660
recognize what it is and put down our appetite,

839
00:58:06,300 –> 00:58:09,940
our cyclopean appetite for

840
00:58:09,940 –> 00:58:13,780
our rights. But

841
00:58:13,780 –> 00:58:17,510
a wise letter writer, older than myself, writing to

842
00:58:17,990 –> 00:58:21,750
believers, worshiping a different hierarchy with a different ideal at the top of it,

843
00:58:21,990 –> 00:58:25,750
during times that seemed just as moribund, unserious, and

844
00:58:25,750 –> 00:58:29,510
chaotic as ours, wrote it better than I

845
00:58:29,830 –> 00:58:31,670
ever possibly could.

846
00:58:33,830 –> 00:58:37,470
And I quote, who

847
00:58:37,470 –> 00:58:41,190
changed the truth of God into a lie and

848
00:58:41,190 –> 00:58:44,840
worshiped and served the creature more than the

849
00:58:44,840 –> 00:58:47,760
Creator who is blessed forever.

850
00:58:49,440 –> 00:58:52,800
Amen. Romans

851
00:58:52,800 –> 00:58:55,120
1:25.

852
01:00:14,950 –> 01:00:18,470
So this may be a podcast episode

853
01:00:18,470 –> 01:00:20,950
that you may want to listen to a couple times, because it’s going to take

854
01:00:20,950 –> 01:00:23,190
a little bit for you to kind of understand what I’m doing here with the

855
01:00:23,190 –> 01:00:26,670
Odyssey. It may seem a little

856
01:00:26,670 –> 01:00:29,910
disjointed at first. Listening may seem like I’m jumping all over the place.

857
01:00:31,120 –> 01:00:34,800
But I’m making the foundation of a much larger

858
01:00:34,800 –> 01:00:38,400
argument that we are going to be exploring this month on the podcast.

859
01:00:39,200 –> 01:00:43,000
Our very next episode, we’re going to be looking at Heart of

860
01:00:43,000 –> 01:00:46,679
Darkness by Joseph Conrad. And then on the

861
01:00:46,679 –> 01:00:50,280
back end of that, we’ll be looking at Thus Spake Zarathustra.

862
01:00:50,280 –> 01:00:54,080
We’re actually going to go into the Cyclops cave, and we’re going

863
01:00:54,080 –> 01:00:57,460
to see. We can pull out of there with Friedrich Nietzsche. And

864
01:00:57,460 –> 01:01:01,020
finally, the end of this month, beginning of next month, we’ll be looking

865
01:01:01,020 –> 01:01:04,740
at fantasy and memory. We’re looking

866
01:01:04,740 –> 01:01:08,380
at Alice in Wonderland and what happens when you go through the looking glass,

867
01:01:08,380 –> 01:01:11,620
as so many of us have. Whether that looking glass is

868
01:01:11,700 –> 01:01:15,460
YouTube, Hulu, Netflix,

869
01:01:15,940 –> 01:01:19,740
Facebook, TikTok, or LinkedIn, we’re

870
01:01:19,740 –> 01:01:23,550
all through the other side of looking glass. And this is

871
01:01:23,550 –> 01:01:26,670
part of the place we need to walk out of,

872
01:01:27,230 –> 01:01:31,030
for there are caves and monsters on the other side of that

873
01:01:31,030 –> 01:01:34,870
looking glass. So the question I

874
01:01:34,870 –> 01:01:37,270
always ask at the end of these podcasts is how do we stay on the

875
01:01:37,270 –> 01:01:40,870
path? Right? How do we. How do we make

876
01:01:40,870 –> 01:01:44,630
sure that we’re actually getting something out of this experience, how do we as

877
01:01:44,630 –> 01:01:48,480
leaders integrate this knowledge from these great pieces of

878
01:01:48,480 –> 01:01:52,200
literature? And the Odyssey is a great piece of literature, been around for

879
01:01:52,200 –> 01:01:55,720
so long and developed an undergrowth of so many different translations.

880
01:01:56,120 –> 01:01:59,960
That just proves its greatness. What can leaders learn from

881
01:01:59,960 –> 01:02:03,560
Odysseus journey through the

882
01:02:03,560 –> 01:02:07,400
wilds of going home? What can he learn

883
01:02:07,400 –> 01:02:11,120
from the speeches of the gods, the laments of

884
01:02:11,120 –> 01:02:14,180
Calypso, all the way to the firmness of Athena,

885
01:02:15,530 –> 01:02:19,290
the recalcitrant nature of Poseidon, or

886
01:02:19,290 –> 01:02:22,810
the angry recalcitrant nature of Poseidon and the

887
01:02:22,810 –> 01:02:24,810
hands off leadership of Zeus?

888
01:02:26,570 –> 01:02:30,410
How can leaders take all of this and stay on the path in our

889
01:02:30,410 –> 01:02:33,730
modern times where we don’t believe in the gods and where the

890
01:02:33,730 –> 01:02:37,450
transcendent has been stripped away and needs

891
01:02:37,450 –> 01:02:38,330
to be restored?

892
01:02:41,140 –> 01:02:43,060
Maybe the first thing that leaders need to do

893
01:02:45,620 –> 01:02:48,820
is not confuse the results of the impact

894
01:02:49,540 –> 01:02:53,260
of the power of the triumph of the Nietzschean ideal with the

895
01:02:53,260 –> 01:02:56,500
process of the path we walked in the west to that ideal.

896
01:02:58,180 –> 01:03:01,940
Yes, that has had impact. Yes, that has had power. Yes. There’s a

897
01:03:01,940 –> 01:03:04,820
lot of complicated things going on in there and I’ve used a lot of complicated

898
01:03:04,820 –> 01:03:07,020
philosophical terms today. I’ve used

899
01:03:08,060 –> 01:03:11,900
existential and I’ve used deconstruct and I’ve used Nietzsche and I’ve repeated

900
01:03:11,900 –> 01:03:15,700
this over and over again, right? Because I want you to know that

901
01:03:15,700 –> 01:03:19,340
underneath banal ideals, underneath the

902
01:03:19,340 –> 01:03:22,860
clicks and the likes, underneath the hot

903
01:03:22,860 –> 01:03:24,860
takes and

904
01:03:26,940 –> 01:03:30,620
underneath the casual commentary lie deeper

905
01:03:30,620 –> 01:03:33,580
things that are influencing all of that. And leaders,

906
01:03:34,420 –> 01:03:38,180
leaders need to not confuse the results of the impact

907
01:03:38,180 –> 01:03:41,060
of the power of that with the path we’ve trodden.

908
01:03:42,420 –> 01:03:45,780
The path we’ve trodden to that ideal in the west can be

909
01:03:45,780 –> 01:03:49,620
retroden and leaders can lead us off of

910
01:03:49,620 –> 01:03:53,140
that path or, or if we would like, back onto it.

911
01:03:53,460 –> 01:03:57,140
Maybe backwards is better than going

912
01:03:57,380 –> 01:03:57,780
forward.

913
01:04:01,870 –> 01:04:05,630
The second thing that leaders need to take from the Odyssey

914
01:04:06,270 –> 01:04:09,710
is that the weight of responsibility is something that each

915
01:04:09,710 –> 01:04:13,270
individual needs to carry. And this is not just in a

916
01:04:13,270 –> 01:04:16,870
psychological sense, but sometimes also in a physical sense. And

917
01:04:16,870 –> 01:04:20,510
that when you allow your followers to

918
01:04:20,510 –> 01:04:24,190
fail and then put more weight

919
01:04:24,190 –> 01:04:27,160
on them, they will rise to the challenge.

920
01:04:28,280 –> 01:04:31,000
We talk a lot in our culture, particularly startup culture,

921
01:04:31,880 –> 01:04:35,480
about how we’re free to fail, right? We, we fail

922
01:04:35,560 –> 01:04:39,280
upwards, right? Or, or sometimes we

923
01:04:39,280 –> 01:04:43,080
talk about it. Well, actually failing upwards is usually used as a term of,

924
01:04:43,400 –> 01:04:47,240
of, of, of dismissal, right? Or as

925
01:04:47,240 –> 01:04:50,080
a term of a person who should have been allowed to fail and then be

926
01:04:50,080 –> 01:04:53,120
booted out of, be booted off the scene, right?

927
01:04:54,320 –> 01:04:58,120
We have it on the wall of Facebook, fail fast

928
01:04:58,120 –> 01:05:01,720
and break things, right? But most of us, most

929
01:05:01,720 –> 01:05:05,520
average leaders, most average people don’t live in that environment. We instead

930
01:05:05,520 –> 01:05:08,560
live in an environment where very often the risk

931
01:05:09,040 –> 01:05:12,760
associated with failure, the cost associated with failure

932
01:05:12,760 –> 01:05:16,560
is too high to bear. And so we do everything possible to eliminate

933
01:05:16,560 –> 01:05:20,360
failure. Failure. We do everything possible to eliminate mistakes. We

934
01:05:20,360 –> 01:05:24,160
do everything possible to eliminate even the possibility that

935
01:05:24,160 –> 01:05:25,280
we might screw up.

936
01:05:28,640 –> 01:05:32,480
That’s not responsible. That’s just avoidance. And at the

937
01:05:32,480 –> 01:05:36,120
end of the day, it is responsibility of leaders to make sure that their followers

938
01:05:36,120 –> 01:05:39,880
are not avoiding hard things, but

939
01:05:39,880 –> 01:05:43,520
that they are instead rising to the challenge of hard things. And that

940
01:05:43,520 –> 01:05:47,240
when failure does occur, that people realize, as

941
01:05:47,240 –> 01:05:50,200
Zig Ziglar said back in the day, that failure is not final.

942
01:05:52,360 –> 01:05:55,920
It ain’t over until the fat lady sings or

943
01:05:55,920 –> 01:05:59,480
the fat goddess or the fat whatever.

944
01:06:03,240 –> 01:06:06,440
The last thing we can take from the Odyssey, and I think this is the

945
01:06:06,440 –> 01:06:07,640
biggest thing, is that

946
01:06:11,170 –> 01:06:14,450
leaders need to fight for their followers

947
01:06:15,330 –> 01:06:18,370
to have the responsibility to experience an epic life.

948
01:06:19,010 –> 01:06:22,770
And they need to encourage and support their followers as they travel

949
01:06:22,770 –> 01:06:26,370
along the epic path of their own lives. Right?

950
01:06:28,210 –> 01:06:31,650
So that we as a society, individually and

951
01:06:31,730 –> 01:06:34,690
collectively, but it always starts with the individual first

952
01:06:35,580 –> 01:06:39,380
so that we may go into the pit and rescue our dead fathers and our

953
01:06:39,380 –> 01:06:42,900
moribund traditions and restore the power of

954
01:06:42,900 –> 01:06:45,420
epic, awe inspiring meaning

955
01:06:46,540 –> 01:06:47,340
to the West.

956
01:06:50,860 –> 01:06:54,700
Leaders, this is your calling. This is the road that

957
01:06:54,700 –> 01:06:58,460
you are out on. This is the answer to the question of who will

958
01:06:58,460 –> 01:07:02,270
carry the logs? Who will go out on the

959
01:07:02,270 –> 01:07:04,870
road? Who will take the journey?

960
01:07:06,150 –> 01:07:06,870
Who will,

961
01:07:14,070 –> 01:07:17,910
Who will go on the path and who will stay on it?

962
01:07:21,590 –> 01:07:22,230
And well,

963
01:07:26,560 –> 01:07:29,920
That’s it for me. Well, if you liked that video, you should check out more

964
01:07:30,000 –> 01:07:33,600
by subscribing to the Leadership Lessons from the Great Books Podcast

965
01:07:33,920 –> 01:07:37,600
playlist here on the HSCP Publishing YouTube channel.

966
01:07:37,680 –> 01:07:41,400
You can also get a copy of my third book, 12 Rules for

967
01:07:41,400 –> 01:07:45,120
Leaders, the foundation for Intentional Leadership, co written with

968
01:07:45,120 –> 01:07:48,760
Bradley Mankin. Check that out on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and

969
01:07:48,760 –> 01:07:51,440
everywhere where you get ebooks today. And thanks.