Visions and omens in wartime return

1 passages · search this phrase →

Often appears with: swineherding and rural life · hospitality to strangers · hospitality and the guest · guest-host oath and trust · fate, destiny, and necessity · doubt, skepticism, and certainty · belief vs doubt about the hero’s return

Usually: narrative (1) · crisis of belief (1) · skepticism (1)

Quotable

“As for me I live out of the way here with the pigs, and never go to the town unless when Penelope sends for me on the arrival of some news about Ulysses.” Homer, The Odyssey · observation

The Odyssey primary

Homer · 8th–12th century BCE (composed earlier than c. 750 BCE; traditional authorship generally placed in the 8th century BCE)
BOOK I. > BOOK XIV (7/10)

Ulysses in disguise tells Eumaeus his story, but Eumaeus rejects it as lies, insisting he knows the real situation of Odysseus’s absence and describing his own remote life caring for pigs.

went back to their ship. The gods, having hidden me thus easily, then took me to a good man’s door—for it seems that I am not to die yet awhile.” To this you answered, O swineherd Eumaeus, “Poor unhappy stranger, I have found the story of your misfortunes extremely interesting, but that part about Ulysses is not right; and you will never get me to believe it. Why should a man like you go about telling lies in this w…