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The Odyssey Episode · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: and welcome to the Epic Cast. This is Josh. There's Chuck.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Jerry's here, too. We're all wearing breastplates, and that means
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: this is Stuff You Should Know.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: To protect our chest.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Yes, I'm also wearing a codpiece, but that's not unusual
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: for me.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: To protect your cod.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: I know. Why is it called that?
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: Fish of the day.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: What if you dated somebody who referred to that as
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: your cod? Wouldn't you be like, please stop calling it that?
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It's like, do you mind giving me some privacy?
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: I'm in here washing my cod. Right.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: They would say, I'm sorry. I majored in the Canterbury Tales.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: What a weird way to start the odyssey. I know.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: I know. And you're the one who wrote those lines.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: I know. That's true.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Uh, yeah, we're talking about the Odyssey. You saw the
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Odyssey and you were like, how's the Odyssey work? And
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: here we are, right?
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, you know, I saw the movie. Uh,
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: I thought it was really good. I am no Christopher
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: Nolan fan boy. I'm about 50, 50 with him. Maybe,
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: maybe 60, 40 with ones I like.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: Which ones do you like? Aside from Memento, obviously.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: Well, I liked Memento. I liked the prestige. I liked
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: the Batman movies.
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: Um, Didn't love, I mean, Oppenheimer was quote-unquote good, I guess,
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: but it was a bit of a slog for me,
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: and I never wanted to see it again.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: I could see that.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: I think you and I had the same problems with Interstellar. Yeah.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: I did not see Tenet because I heard it was
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: so bad. So, yeah, he sort of hit or miss
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: for me, but I really thought the Odyssey was great,
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: and it kind of hit me after I saw it.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: I was like, it's kind of just crazy, this idea
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: that this story that's this old, like one of the
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: oldest stories... like can still resonate with an audience in 2026.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: And like, what is it about that story itself? And
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: I knew nothing about just the Odyssey as a literary piece.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: And I didn't know much about Homer. Like I was
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: an English major, but we didn't, I guess I didn't
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: do the classes where we studied this stuff.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: Well, in your defense, it was written in Ionic, not English.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: So yeah, good point.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, I can totally see where you're coming from.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: The story has legs, I guess, is how you'd put it.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just kind of fascinating to me as a
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: piece of work.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: For sure. And let's talk about this piece of work
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: because there's a lot to talk about, not just recounting
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: the highlights of the story and spoiling the movie, I guess,
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: for anybody who hasn't paid attention over the last, like,
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: 2,000-something years. Yeah, if you can't.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: If you can't, uh, spoil something written in the eighth century, then, uh,
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: I'm just sorry.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. So about almost 3000 years ago, the 700s BCE, right.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: That's where they think Homer first put this to paper. Uh,
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: but the whole thing, and it's attributed to the Greek
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: poet Homer, uh, who I guess this would have been
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: post bronze age, um, Like after the Bronze Age collapse,
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: I think, is when Homer was walking around. If Homer
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: was even walking around, we'll talk about in a second.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: But they attribute both the Odyssey and the Iliad, which
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: is kind of the prequel to the Odyssey, to Homer.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: And they think that it was first written down, like
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: I said, in the 700s, the 8th century BCE. But
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: it was probably around way longer than that because the
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: whole thing is set up as a form of oral storytelling. Yeah.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: I mean, you know, just you mentioned quickly that it
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: was sort of a sequel or the Iliad was a,
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: did you say prequel?
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: You bet I did.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: Well, the Odyssey is 24 books, one book for each
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: letter of the Greek alphabet. But the Iliad that you
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: were talking about, um, talks about Agamemnon's return from the
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: Trojan war. And then the Odyssey basically covers Odysseus, uh,
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: his return from the very long delayed return from the
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: Trojan war. And what was your question that you asked
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: before I sidetracked us?
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: Do you remember? I asked you, uh, what, um, Christopher
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: Nolan movies you like.
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: He said that right before.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: That's the last question I remember asking you.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's okay. Um, But I think I know what
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: you said. Something about it being an oral tradition that
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: was much older, right?
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: I must have said right.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: That was my question. Am I right?
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: I can't believe how good we are at this 18
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: years in.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: 18 years in.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: It astounds me sometimes. Masters.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: I know. It's almost like we're both sleepwalking right now.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: No, no, no. Not sleepwalking.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: On the phone.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: So we don't know how closely the Odyssey resembles the
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: story of That Homer told in 700s because you were right.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: It was an oral.
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: Story.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: It was an oral tradition and it was supposed to
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: be told by memorizing it and retelling it by, you know,
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: from bards telling the story to people in a crowd,
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: maybe changing a thing or two. You know, the idea
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: is that we it's pretty likely that this thing was
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: a little bit like a game of telephone, right? Yeah.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: You know, like as you learned it and you passed
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: it on, you could kind of embellish it in this way.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: You're like, I don't really care that much about the siren,
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: so I'm not going to give them as much play
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: as maybe the guy who taught you how to say
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: this did. And then it really started to take its
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: final shape again when it was finally put to papyrus.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: I want to say pen to paper, but probably quill
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: to papyrus is how it was first done.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: Right. Right. I love that.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: That's when it really kind of started to take a
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: solid form because now it was like now you just
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: basically copied it.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: You didn't have to memorize it or anything like that.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: But it was far from the only like legend or
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: tale of like Greek culture and Greek heroics and like
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: Greek moral lessons and all that.
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: But it was just for some reason that I don't
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: think anyone's really put their finger on. It just has
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: resonated throughout the years. So it's the one. that we
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: tend to think of when we think of this whole stuff.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: But it was a cornerstone of Greek culture. Like this
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: was just part of your indoctrination into growing up in
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: ancient Greek culture. You knew the Iliad among other things,
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: or the Odyssey, probably the Iliad too, among other things,
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: you'd at least heard it probably more than once. And
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: then finally Plato comes along and he's like, this is
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: all rubbish. We need to start using our noodles. So
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: he tried to actually ban the Odyssey and it didn't
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: take because people love it that much.
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: That's right. It lived on. You mentioned it was an
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: Ionic Greek, which is an Asiatic dialect, and it's been
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: gone for more than 2000 years. So if you're wondering
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: how we got to the point where Christopher Nolan is
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: working on a screenplay adapted from a 21st century novelized version,
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: I guess, it's sort of a winding road. The first
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: print copy came around in 1488, and it was produced
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: in Italy in that Ionic Greek. And then I guess
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: about 100 years later or so, or at least in
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: the next century, it was finally translated to some European languages,
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: some actual living languages. And then in 1616, we got
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: our first English translation of this epic poem from a
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: British poet named George Chapman.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: That's a pretty British name if I've ever heard one.
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: So, yeah. So now it starts to come into our awareness,
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: our understanding.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: And, you know, him translating it and then other people
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: translating it from the original, you know, we talked a
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: little bit about just the original oral translations. But when
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: you finally get to like written translations, it also took
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: a bit of a winding road, obviously.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because the thing was written originally or created originally
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: to be spoken. And it actually follows a specific meter,
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: like the rhythm that you're supposed to say it in.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: It's called Homeric hexameter. Or dactylic hexameter I've also seen.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: In each line, there's six three-syllable units. And in these
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: three-syllable units, these dactyls, the first syllable is stressed and
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: then the next two are not stressed. So it's like, hi,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: how are you doing today, guy? Right?
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: Do you have to sing it?
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: I actually saw a video of somebody not only reading
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: it in English, but reading it in Ionic. Oh, wow.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: And I couldn't tell any difference from somebody just reading
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: it normally. But that's not something that literally translates very
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: well into other languages, including English. So the translators basically
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: had to make some big decisions, essentially.
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, it's almost like translating the Bible, you know,
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: through the various translations of the Bible over the years.
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: There was, you know, each time someone's doing that, there
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: are writers that are doing that. So each version is
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: going to be a little bit different.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: You know, a language, especially, you know, in the case
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: of a poem, it's going to have a unique rhythm.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: But people's native tongue have unique rhythms as well. And
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: just where they're from, there are unique cultural experiences that happen.
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: Some of these translate better than others, I guess.
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: And so, you know, you're really, you know, you're not
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: rewriting in like, I don't think people made up like
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: a ton of stuff out of whole cloth, but making
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: it relevant for the audience that they're writing it for,
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: which would have been. in their language for the people
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: in their country because they wanted them to get something
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: out of it. Yes.
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: Most translators have ignored the there's a joke in one
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: of the books about laying with a goat and it
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: just does not translate well into modern times.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: That's right. Got to leave that one behind. And the
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: other thing is, you know, there's a few things here.
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: You're translating from a dead language, which is a big deal.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: We already mentioned that they were things meant to be
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: spoken aloud to something read, which is going to change it.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: And then it's just something that's just thousands of years
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: old that you have to make sense. So it's a
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: it's a hard job.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: Right. It's a hard knock life for translators of the Odyssey.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: That's right. That's what Annie said.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: So there there were some. There's some like standout translations
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: over the years, but the one that everyone's talking about
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: right now is from Emily Wilson. And she, I think,
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: did hers in 2017. Okay. 2017 is how most people
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: say that.
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: And she basically, she turned it into English heroic couplets,
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: which is basically a tea drinking way of saying like
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: exactly the kind of rhyming words pairs that you hear
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: in any modern song.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And this is the one that Christopher Nolan used
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: specifically to adapt his version of the story on screen. Um,
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: I think we should probably talk a little bit about
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: the Homeric question because you, you teased earlier the, uh,
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: if Homer was really a person and that it's sort
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: of one of these things where, you know, we don't
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: have any hard facts when it comes to Homer, like
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: everything that we know, um, historians, literary historians have surmised
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: from reading the text? Like, well, it's written in this language,
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: so he's probably from this place that spoke that language.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: Like stuff that makes sense, though.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, there's plenty of stuff that makes sense. It's
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: more just like a question of like, did he actually
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: exist if he was a bard, if he was a
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: group of people? It's very similar to the Shakespeare question, too,
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: we did an episode on. But there, I mean, just
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: even though everything is a guess that we've kind of
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: compiled from Homer, strictly from, I guess, his own writing.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: I don't think he's referenced in any other, like, historical
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: text or anything like that. It's just the stuff he's
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: writing about just kind of lines up. And they think
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: that he was probably from Ionia, which is along the
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: west coast of Turkey today, because the whole thing was
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: written in Ionic. And... He almost certainly lived during this
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: age that they attribute it to. And they also are like,
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: it's possible that he might be a known historic blind
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: bard named Demoticus. Demoticus.
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: That's the hardest one, I think, out of this whole article.
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's a character in the Odyssey that like
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: a lot of space is devoted to. So I think
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: there are people who are like, I wonder if this
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: is just a stand in for him because, boy, there
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: is a lot of stuff in there about this, you know,
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: minor character. Right.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: He's like, and let me sing the praises about Demodocus's cod.
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: There's just verse after verse about that.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: A lot of stuff. So I also think we should
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: talk before we break about sort of a central concept
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: because in Act Two, everybody, we're going to give you
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: the CliffsNotes version of the Odyssey.
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: It's very exciting.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: I'm very excited.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: But we should a little bit more before we get
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: into that is sort of conceptually what the Odyssey was
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: about in a lot of ways was homecoming and hospitality,
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: which are Nostos and Xenia in ancient Greece. And these
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: two things were like really big deals in ancient Greece
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: that figured heavily in like their life and culture.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they're not only like. things that you should do
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: to be like a good host. There are actual like
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: rules that you have to follow. And if you don't,
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: you're actually upsetting Zeus because this is Zeus, the king
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: of the gods, a real God's God, if you ask
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: other gods. This is his divine law that he's passed down.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: That's how important these rules for treating guests are.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, Xenia is a big deal. And the rules
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: specifically are if you happen to hop through town and
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: you knock on a stranger's door, they're supposed to say,
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: come on in. I don't need to know anything. Here's
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: some food. Here's some wine. Why don't you go? I'll
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: draw you a hot bath. Sure. And then we'll get
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: to why you're here. And also, while you're doing this stuff,
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: like maybe while you're in the bathtub, I'm going to
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: stand sentry out front with my sword and make sure
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: you stay nice and safe.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you have to guarantee their protection while they're staying
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: at your home. Yeah, like a heaping helping of hospitality
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: is what you're supposed to offer a stranger, according to Xenia, right?
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: For sure.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: That figures in so much to the story that essentially
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: entire groups and individuals are characterized by how they treat strangers,
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: how they act as guests, how they act as hosts.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: Like this is a really important thread that goes through
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: all of the Odyssey. That's Xenia. Then there's also Nostos, right?
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, homecoming. I mean, that's basically what the Odyssey is.
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: It's about somebody coming home. And this was a very
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: big deal in Greek society because they were seafarers. They
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: were adventurers and wanderers by sea. And so they would
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: go out a lot and coming home was a big deal.
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: They would be separated from their family. They would have
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: these brutal, you know, sea journeys. And so coming home
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: was a very big deal. And so it's no surprise
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: that these two sort of prominent things that figure in
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: Greek culture and society at the time were sort of
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: the two big themes of the Odyssey. Right.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: If you're in high school and you have a crush
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: on somebody who likes to read the classics, just go
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: up to them and say, would you like to go
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: to Nostos with me? And they will, they'll be putty
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: in your hand after that.
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: That's great. I started Moby Dick, by the way, just
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: so everyone knows it's officially happening.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: Awesome. How's it going so far?
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: Well, I read chapter one and then I watched that,
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: you know, I mentioned the Rob Delaney podcast that he's
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: doing with the professor. And so I'm going to do
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: that like in lockstep. So I did that and then
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: I watched their chapter one recap and it's helping a lot.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: I like it so far.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: That's awesome. Keep us posted, will you?
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: I will. So far, so good. Okay.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: So that was, I think we covered Xenia and Nostros
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: pretty well. And that's probably a pretty good place to break, right?
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: And everyone, hold on your hats, because Act 2, we're
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: going to go over these books of the Odyssey.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: Whoa, whoa, whoa.
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: Learning stuff with Joshua and Charles. Stuff you should know.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: All right. I'm back with Josh. He's screwed his head
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: back onto his body. Cartoon style.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: And if you don't know what Chuck's referring to, that
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: means we edited that thing out.
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: Oh, perhaps. You never know. But we're going to kind
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: of do, like I said, the CliffsNotes version of the Odyssey.
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: Spoilers will abound. If you haven't seen the film and
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: you really don't want to know anything about it, then
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: don't listen to this chapter. But, you know, I think
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: it might help going in to know a little bit
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: about the story if you really don't know anything. And
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: I'll also point out the actors who feature in and
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: who they play. How's that?
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: I think that's great. Can you also do their voices, maybe?
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: No, I can't do any of those voices.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: You can do a great Matt Damon.
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: How about them apples?
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: There you go. Exactly. That actually sounded like Matthew McConaughey
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: trying to do a Matt Damon.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: It sort of did.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: All right. So let's get started, Chuck. We start with
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: book one. And actually, this kind of covers books one
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: through four.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: And we find we start the Trojan War has ended
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: 10 years before. And the Trojan War itself has taken
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: 10 years. So it's been 20 years since our hero,
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: literally the hero of the story, Odysseus.
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: Matt Damon.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: Yes. Which I'm not crazy about that casting. I'm sorry.
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: There's a lot of people upset about this casting.
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: Not him, like all kinds of the casting. I know.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: Everybody's like, Matt Damon's fine. So he's been gone for
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: 20 years. And from what I understand, this was initially
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: considered a fairly quick errand. The Trojan War started because
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: Paris stole Helen of Troy. And now I think everybody
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: kind of set out to get her back. And it
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: turned into this 10-year Trojan War.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: That's right. Helen of Troy is played by Lupita Nyong'o
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: in this film. And Elon Musk is so mad about that.
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: He's going to make his own AI version that he
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: thinks is more historically accurate. That's what he said.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: I heard about that. I'm waiting for its IPO.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: I'm sure it's going to be great. So Matt Damon
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: is Odysseus. He's been gone for those 20 years, like
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: you said. He has a wife named Penelope, played by
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: Anne Hathaway in this film, and he has a son
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: called Telemachus, who's played by Tom Holland, who you might
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: know more as Spider-Man.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: All right. So where we pick up with them, they
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: are living in their big house, their mini mansion. And
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: there are 100 suitors vying for Odysseus' throne and the
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: hand of Penelope to marry.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: The most villainous in the film, at least, is Antonis,
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: played by Robert Pattinson.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: I'll bet he does a great job.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: He's great. The acting is really, really good in this
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: entire film. But these guys are all living there, kind
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: of really have made themselves at home, let's just say.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: And not keeping up their end of the Xenia bargain,
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: which is, I don't even know if we mentioned, as
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: a guest, you're also supposed to be awesome in return.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: And these guys are not. We left that out. It's
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: not just incumbent on the host.
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, they're being pretty terrible. And one of the
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: main things they're doing as suitors, this whole hundred of
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: them who've taken over Odysseus' home, they're like really pressing
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: Penelope to be like, your husband's dead. It's been 20 years.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: you need to choose a husband to sit on the
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: throne next to you and become king of Ithaca. Who
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: are you going to choose? And she keeps hemming and hawing,
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: hemming literally because she says that when she finishes the
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: funeral shroud that she's weaving for Odysseus's elderly father, Gary, She, um,
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: she will make this, this decision, right? And then every
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: night after she has woven all day, she goes and
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: undoes the weaving that she did that day so that
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: she will never finish. And this, I guess the suitors
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: are all idiots and it's working quite well because they
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: still haven't caught on, I guess.
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: You know, sometimes when we get emails that are like,
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: I can't believe Josh said that Odysseus' father's name was Gary.
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: Didn't he read it or do his research? I wonder
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: if people even know you.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: I do, too. After 18 years, you know?
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: So barren, desert dry. Like, get with it, people. He
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: knows it's not Gary.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: Chuck, I love how well you know me. Thanks, man.
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: I mean, you still fool me. So I guess I
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: shouldn't throw stones.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: I'm going to take issue with that. There's probably... 98%
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: of the time, you're just like moving on. Not that
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: you don't think it's funny. Not that you don't get it.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: You're just like, we're burning up time here. That's enough
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: of your shenanigans. I'm just going to let that sit.
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: Thanks, Gary.
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: So Penelope and Telemachus are, you know, it's been 20 years.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: So they're also losing hope that dad and husband are gone.
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: Like for good. So Athena, played by Zendaya in the film,
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: the goddess of wisdom and warfare, she's on Odysseus' side
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: this whole time. She's like, hey, kid, why don't you
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: go out and actually do something and see if you
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: can find out if your dad's alive? That'd be a
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: good start.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: I'm guessing Zendaya does a great job, or Zendaya.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: Is it Zendaya? Yeah, she's awesome. She's a really good actor,
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: I think, in everything.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: I read recently that people thought of her as like
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: a nepo baby or something like that. I don't know
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: where that's coming from. And I think she's really good
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: at everything I've ever seen her in.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: Who are her parents? Are they famous?
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know. I'll have to go
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: back and double check that. But I saw somebody reference it.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: She's great.
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, she's great. And she was also in Spider-Man, the movies.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: So it's a reunion of sorts.
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: And Benny, I can't remember. He's one of the creators
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: of Uncut Gems.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: Benny Safdie.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: Yes, he's in this movie. And he directed Robert Pattinson
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: in Good Time. That's right.
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: He plays, Benny Safdie plays Agamemnon.
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: Man, look at all this.
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: Go ahead, though. I'm sorry for sidetracking us so badly.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's okay. So she says, why don't you go
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: out and see if your dad's still alive? He goes
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: and meets with John Bernthal from The Walking Dead, who
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: plays King Menelaus in Sparta. And from him learns, hey,
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: your dad's alive. He's sort of being held captive, but
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: in the best way he can be held captive on
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: Calypso's island. And that's where book five picks up.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: Right. Calypso is a nymph, a goddess nymph, who has
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: basically turned Odysseus into a sex toy after he washed
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: up on her island after a shipwreck, which we'll come
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: to later. That's another cool thing about the Odyssey. It's
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: not completely linear. It actually spins around. There's different, like
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: this entire part we're talking about is a flashback, as
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: we'll see.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this starting with book five, yeah. Yes.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: Thank you. And so Calypso falls in love with Odysseus.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: And she's like, don't forget, I'm a goddess nymph, not
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: just a nymph. So I can make you stay here.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: And she does. She holds him captive there for, I think,
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: something like seven years. Yeah. And then finally, Athena, who
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: has really chosen Odysseus as like one of her favorite
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: humans and really intervenes on his behalf throughout this whole,
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: I guess, odyssey. She goes to Zeus and is like,
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: you got to get this guy out of Calypso's clutches.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: And Zeus is like, sure, I'll see what I can do.
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: That's right. Calypso, by the way, is played by Charlize Theron. So, again,
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: he was being held captive. as a sex slave for
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: seven years to Charlize Theron and still wants to leave.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: He's like, my God, it's exhausted.
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: Uh, so he has resumed his journey home to Ithaca.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: He leaves on a raft. Um, Poseidon, Poseidon is a
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: real jerk throughout this whole story. Really doesn't like Odysseus.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: So he destroys, he plays Poseidon. So no one plays
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: Zeus or Poseidon in this.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: Oh, are they CGI?
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: No, no, no.
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: They, they, he, bite your tongue, he uses very little CGI.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I heard it's all practical effects, but I don't
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: understand what you mean. They're just off screen?
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: They're not in the movie, like at all.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: Okay, they're just referenced.
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: Like Poseidon really did me dirty.
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Okay.
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: So Poseidon wrecks the raft as punishment because he blinded
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: his son, which was a cyclops. And we'll get to
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: that in a minute because that's coming by way of
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: flashback a little bit later. And Odysseus is shipwrecked once
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: again and taken in by the, I guess, the Phaeacians.
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: And they are showing some serious Xenia. They are like
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: great hosts to him. Say, come on into the royal court.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: Here's everything you need in the way of food and
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: wine and protection.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: Right. And the reason we said that book five starts
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: as a flashback because it's Odysseus is being really well
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: taken care of by the Phacians, and the Phacian king,
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: I guess one night while they're feasting, says, Hey, man,
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: tell us your story. What's going on with you, buddy?
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: And Odysseus basically tells the story of the Odyssey, everything
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: he's been through up to that point. And this is
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: kind of... I mean, this is the part where everybody's like,
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: when they talk about the Odyssey, this is the stuff
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: they're talking about, where he's recounting his adventures in flashback
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: to the Fascians.
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: That's right. And this is the real flashback. I guess,
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: I mean, we sort of misspoke earlier, but I think
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: everyone gets it, right? Sure. Okay, great.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: This is the part where Matt Damon goes, do-do-do, do-do-do, do-do-do.
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: So as soon as Odysseus leaves with his big fleet
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: of ships, there are about 600 soldiers. They're all headed
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: home from The war at Troy, once again. Athena sends
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: some storms that way, veer the ships off course. Athena
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: is mad at this point about war crimes that they
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: committed in the battles when they conquered Troy. And they
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: landed initially at the land of the lotus eaters, which are,
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: you know, they're eating lotus. So they're very blissful and,
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: you know, they're basically sort of doing drugs. And Odysseus'
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: crew is like, this place is awesome. Can we stay here?
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was curious what that's an allegory for, what
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: drug or whatever, you know?
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: I mean, I guess it was lotus at the time, right?
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: I guess, but I've tried lotus and it doesn't get
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: you messed up. Okay. But yes, this is what these
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: people were doing. And Odysseus' crew was like, I'm not
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: sure we need to keep going back home. Like, this
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: is pretty great. These lotuses are amazing. The lotus eaters
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: are great people. Let's just stay here. Odysseus has to
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: drag every single one of his men, all 600 of them,
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: back to their ships where he ties them up until
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: he finally gets the last one and is able to
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: set sail again from the land of the lotus eaters.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: That is far and away the best experience that these
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: guys have on the Odyssey as a whole. Because the
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: next thing that happens to them is actually the turning
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: point that really brings on everything else. All of their misfortune,
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: they seem to have started. And then Odysseus really drives
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: it home on the island of the Cyclops.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: That's right. Obviously, one-eyed beasts, cannibalistic even. And they end
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: up trapped in a cave there. We mentioned Poseidon's son
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: is a Cyclops. That's Polyphemus. And he's just eating these guys.
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: If you see the movie, this is an actual puppet.
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: It is not CGI, which is incredible.
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: Oh really?
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: Because it looks amazing, yeah.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: I'll bet.
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: And Odysseus blinds Polyphemus to get everyone out of there,
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: out of the cave, and they are able to flee
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: the Cyclops and then suffer another attack by a tribe
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: of giant cannibals called.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: The Laestrygonians.
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, nice work.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: So I just want to go back to, is it
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: Polyphemus or Polyphemus?
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: I would say Polyphemus.
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: Okay. So, like you said, he's the son of Poseidon.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: I read that Odysseus and his men came onto the
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: island of the Cyclops and just started eating all of Polyphemus'
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: sheep and basically made terrible guests of themselves. Is that
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: not correct?
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: Well, I don't know if that's in the movie. I
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: can't remember.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: Okay. But either way, I read that it wasn't just
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: completely one-sided, that Polyphemus was wronged first. At any rate...
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: After they escaped the Lestrigonians, which is another tribe of giants,
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: but I believe they're more human-like, right?
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: They're not in the movie either. Okay. Everything I know
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: about the Odyssey, I know from a little research and
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: then seeing that movie.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: Okay, gotcha. So in the book, the Lestrigonians, they come
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: right after the Cyclops, and they're another tribe of giant cannibals.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: But from what I saw, they're more human-like. They're like soldiers,
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: but giant. They eat a bunch of guys. And after that,
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: there's the shipwreck. And the reason why there's the shipwreck
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: is because Polyphemus, son of Poseidon, prays to his father
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: and says, please mess Odysseus' junk up.
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: That's right. And so they end up on the island
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: of Circe, who was a goddess, sort of enchantress, sort
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: of portrayed like, sort of witch-like.
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: And she falls in love with Odysseus. Um, she turns
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: the guys, his, his dudes into pigs and Odysseus gets
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: a little help from the gods and forces her to
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: turn them back into men so they can get on
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: with stuff.
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: I saw, I've read that that was like the coolest,
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: most disturbing scene in the whole movie. Is that right?
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know. It was great.
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: Okay, so Odysseus ends up getting kind of hooked up
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: by Circe, who basically says, head on to the land
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: of the dead, because you're going to get a lot
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: of important, valuable information there. He meets Agamemnon there, who
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: was killed in the Iliad, and he meets his mom there,
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: which is nice. And then, most importantly, he meets Tiresias,
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: who is a prophet of Apollo, who, as a side note,
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: became a woman for seven years, which is kind of interesting.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: And then Tiresias basically says, you really need to make
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: an offer to Poseidon, some sort of sacrifice or something,
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: because he's really mad that you blinded Polyphemus, his son,
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: the Cyclops. And one other thing, this is very important.
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: Do not let anyone eat the sun god's sacred cattle
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: on the island of Helios. You're going to end up
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: on Helios, by the way. I'm a prophet, so I know.
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: So he says, all right, check. Do not eat sacred cattle.
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: Got it. So before going on to Ithaca, Odysseus goes
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: back to Circe's island. She's like, I'm going to hook
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: you up even further. Here's some beeswax because you're not
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: going to want to hear that siren song.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: Protect all your guys. You need to steer towards Scylla because,
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: as we'll see, there's a very narrow sort of passage
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: that's very fraught.
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: And she says, go towards Scylla and not Charybdis because
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: that's the bad way. Mm-hmm. And also, by the way,
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: I don't know if anyone's mentioned this, but man, do
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: not eat any of that guy's cattle.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: So now the second person to mention this, which suggests
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: strongly that they are definitely going to eat the cattle.
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: So after leaving Circe's island and setting sail, remember, every
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: time they set sail, they're going toward home, toward Ithaca.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: They just keep getting delayed and shipwrecked. And Poseidon's really
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: messing with them as per Polyphemus's request. The next challenge
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: that they go to is the Sirens, which is why Circe's,
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: like you said, gave Odysseus earwax. And Odysseus is like,
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: I got to see what all this is about. So
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: he gives the earwax to all of his men. And says,
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: lash me to the mast. I want to hear it.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: But no matter what I say, while I'm under the
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: spell of the siren song, do not untie me. And
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: apparently it works out pretty great.
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah. He makes it through that. They all survive. And
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: then they reach that strait that Cersei had warned him about,
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: which has monsters on both sides. That's Scylla and Charybdis.
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: On the Scylla side, you've got a six-headed beast who
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: is going to eat you. On the Charybdis side, you're
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: going to encounter some massive whirlpools that will destroy your
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: ship like it's going down a toilet. And so Odysseus
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: is like, all right, she said to steer, to avoid
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: that whirlpool and steer toward that monster, toward Scylla. And
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: they do that, and the monster eats a lot of
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: those guys. But Odysseus managed to escape with all but
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: I think like six guys that get eaten.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: Right, which is a pretty good trade-off. It's like a
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: utilitarian lesser of two evils, right? Lose the whole ship
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: to the Whirlpool or lose six guys to Scylla. It's
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: a pretty smart move, honestly. And if you're like, wow,
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: he really didn't have a good option, that's because caught
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: between Scylla and Charybdis is the original version of caught
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: between a rock and a hard place. That's where that
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: came from.
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: That's right. So they eventually land at Helios. The sacred
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: cattle are everywhere. They've gotten the two warnings by now. And,
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: of course, like Josh said, Odysseus' men eat that cattle
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: pretty quickly. And more divine punishment is wrought upon them.
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: And Zeus, because Helios is like, you've got to do
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: something here, Zeus. Zeus destroys the ship when it departs
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: the island. And at this point now, Odysseus is the
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: only one still living. And he washes ashore to meet Calypso.
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: And that is where the flashback ends.
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: Right. And then so let's go take a break and
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: we're going to come back and wrap up the Odyssey
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: and talk a little more about what it means for everybody.
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: All right. We'll be right back.
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: Learning stuff with Joshua and Charles. Stuff you should.
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: Okay, Chuck, now we're at book 12. The last 12
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: books are about his homecoming, his nostos, which shares the
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: root with nostalgia. And like you said, the Fascians are
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: excellent hosts. So they get him directly to Ithaca, finally
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: get him home. But his homecoming is not just him
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: showing up and everything's great. Like his kingdom has fallen
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: to shreds. In the 20 years that he's been gone,
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: Penelope's been doing everything she can to hold it all together,
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: but she can only do so much. So he's got
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: to disguise himself, which he does as a beggar, to
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: kind of get the lay of the land to figure
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: out how to put things right again.
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: That's right. So in disguise, only his old dog and
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: his childhood nurse, played by John Leguizamo, recognize him. But,
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: you know, he doesn't sell him out. He keeps it
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: a secret. And he is being mistreated at the palace
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: by the suitors, of course, who I think we've established
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: are big jerks.
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: Telemachus returns from his journey and he's like, all right,
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: this is my son. He's a grown up Spider-Man now.
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: And when I left him, he was just a little kid.
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: And so I got to like at least meet this
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: guy and reveal myself to him. And he does that.
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: So he reveals himself to his son at least.
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: He does. And his son's like, great, let's figure out
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: how to get the house back, right? And your kingdom
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: and everything. So they get together and start planning how
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: to get everything back. And meanwhile, Penelope's finally like, okay,
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: my husband is dead. And I'm going to hold a
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: contest for all of you suitors. Whoever can shoot an
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: arrow through 12 axe heads in a row, which only
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: Odysseus has been able to do, whoever can do that,
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: I will marry. And so they hold a contest, or
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: she does, and every single one of the hundred suitors misses.
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: Can't do it. Then Odysseus is the beggar, is like,
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: can I have my try? And she allows it. And
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: he successfully shoots the arrow through the 12 axe heads.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: And she knows that that's Odysseus, but she still has
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: a test for him.
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: That's right. Well, before that, though, the big part of
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: that is being able to string that bow. Because apparently
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: it's just some bow that's so powerful that no one
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: has ever been able to even string it.
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: So Odysseus, of course, once he strings that thing, everyone's like, oh,
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: is that the dude? Okay. And then the shooting the
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: arrow through is almost like the cherry on top.
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: Gotcha. Okay.
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: And then, of course, the suitors are like, well, if
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: they suspect who he is or now they know who
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: he is, a huge battle takes place with Odysseus and Telemachus.
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: vanquishing is probably the best word for it. All hundred suitors, right?
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: And I'm sure it's very satisfying to see them all
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: get their due.
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they get their due. And after the battle, Penelope,
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: who is at this point, she's like, I think that
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: might be my guy. Like, first of all, he looks
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: just like him.
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: And second of all, he could string that bow and
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: no one else could. And then he made that shot.
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: So it's just one of those things where you have
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: to suspend disbelief a little bit. It's an ancient text.
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: You know, Because you would think as soon as her
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: husband walks through the door, he'd be like, honey, I'm home.
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: And she's like, oh my God, it's you. But she
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: suspects that it's him and confirms it in this way.
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: In front of Odysseus, she's asked for a servant to
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: move their marital bed. Like, hey, can you move this
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: over here? I'm doing a little redecorating. And Odysseus knows,
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: he was like, You can't move that thing. I carved
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: that bed from a still live olive tree. So that
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: thing is still like literally rooted to the ground. And
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: I know that it can't be moved. And she's like,
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: it is him. Yeah.
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: And so they get back together. It's very sweet, I'm sure.
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: Telemachus is there. Everything's going really great. Then a civil
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: war breaks out among the Souter's families, who many of
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: them are ready to avenge the death of their family members.
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: And before things can get really out of hand, Athena,
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: who's also the goddess of war in addition to wisdom,
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: steps in and says, stop this war. That's enough war
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: for now. And everybody lays down their arms and Odysseus
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: is finally home and things are back to normal. It's
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: like the end of a Brady Bunch episode. Everything's just
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: back to normal.
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: That's right. Except Cousin Oliver's there. So everyone's kind of
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: wondering where he came from. So we should probably talk
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: a little bit more about.
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: Just the history, because I wondered after I saw it, because, again,
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: I hadn't studied this, so I didn't know a lot
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: about it. I was like, I mean, what about like
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: was any of this true? Was there a sort of
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: stand in for Odysseus? And was there even a Trojan
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: War and all this stuff? And it turns out like
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: probably not. Right.
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: Well, they do think that there is probably a Trojan War.
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: They do think that they've kind of identified Troy. Now,
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: it's a town that's called Hizarlik. There's a mountain nearby
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: called that Hizarlik. And they're like, we're pretty sure this
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: is the actual Troy that was originally discovered in the
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: 19th century by Heinrich Schliemann. And it shows evidence of
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: having been burned and rebuilt time after time after time.
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: But there's one layer, layer seven, That they're like, this
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: coincides with Homer's time. And they found some things like
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: they found a pile of rocks that they think is
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: slingshot ammunition outside of the city. And they're like, evidence
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: of war. So historians seem to think that this is
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: probably Troy. And it conceivably gives some backup to the
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: idea that there was a Trojan War and it did
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: take place during Homer's time. Right.
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: Whether or not there was a Trojan horse, there have
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: been some archaeological finds that were pre-Odyssey that depicted men
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: climbing out of a giant wheeled horse. So you might
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: think like, boom, of course there was.
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: But a lot of people think it was probably like
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: symbolic or maybe a metaphor that Homer adapted. There are
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: definitely routes and paths that they sail that are, you know,
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: historically accurate throughout the Mediterranean Sea. Right. although they don't
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: know the exact path and if that's a real thing.
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: But they think that a lot of the stuff, like
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: the monsters, may be, again, symbolic about seafaring things that
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: you had to navigate around, basically. Like Scylla and Charybdis
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: are the opposing currents of the Strait of Messina, or
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: the Sirens are maybe the shoals along the Mediterranean that
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: are dangerous.
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: Right. Somebody pointed to Mount Etna on Sicily as the Cyclops,
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: one-eyed Cyclops, which was really destructive. Sure it does. It
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: seems like a stretch to me. But the idea that
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: these are metaphors for navigating conditions that you have to
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: look out for makes a lot of sense because these
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: stories were told by seafaring people. So that definitely holds
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: a lot of weight for sure.
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: So my initial question is like, why is this thing
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: still interesting? people and it's you know, it's because the
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: story like it is a truly timeless story because and
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: it has a lot of Universal appeal because it's it's
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: about homecoming and everyone can identify with that kind of
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: thing at one point You know a hero struggle. That's
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: certainly nothing new like that's still a thing and you know,
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: almost every movie You know, there's coming of age there's
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: there's regret there's adventure Uh, there's family, there's, there's good
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: guys and bad guys. It's like a lot of just
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: the tenants of great movie making, uh, are just kind
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: of right there in black and white, or I guess
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: papyrus and whatever color they printed, uh, ink with.
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: And I think it also goes to show like it
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: touches on values that are so universal, at least, you know,
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: to Western eyes and ears that they, we still hold
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: those same values today. They still make sense to us.
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: They don't seem totally foreign.
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Exactly.
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: Uh, what else you got? Anything else? Yeah.
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: I mean, there's been adaptations over the years, uh, beyond
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: this movie, obviously, uh, 1922, the novel Ulysses by James
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: Joyce was a big one because Ulysses is the Latin
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: version of Odysseus. So that's what he's writing about in that. Yeah. Uh,
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: there was a great novel. Um, I haven't read it yet,
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: but I want to Margaret Atwood in 2005 wrote a
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: novel called, uh, the Penelopiad? The Penelopiad? How do you
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: say that?
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: The Penelopiad is what I'm going with.
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: The Penelopiad, I guess.
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like the Iliad and Penelope. It's Penelope. She combined
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: those two because it's the Odyssey told from Penelope's point
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: of view.
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's kind of cool.
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: And then, oh, brother, where art thou? is obviously an
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: allegory for the Odyssey. I've never noticed it before. I've
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: heard that ever since the movie came out, and I
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: still didn't ever notice it. But I wonder now if
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: I went back and watched it, if I would get it.
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: I think so. I mean, it opens with a quote
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: from Homer on screen. So they clearly tell you like
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: what this is.
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: Up front. And, you know, George Clooney's characters name Ulysses,
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: which is, again, the Latin version of Odysseus.
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: It's their journey home.
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: Very, you know, sort of plainly. Penelope in the movie,
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: his wife's name is Penny, Holly Hunter.
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: There are suitors trying to. Take her hand that he
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: has to fight.
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: Stay out of Woolworths.
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: Exactly. There's a blind prophet that is, you know, there's
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: just a blind prophet in the movie. There's just like
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: a blind seer.
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: The Cyclops is Big Dan Teague, John Goodman's character.
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: Why is he the Cyclops? Oh, he has a patch
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: over his eye. That's right. I forgot.
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So he's a Bible salesman. Uh, the sirens are
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: like very clearly in there. They're like literally singing at
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: the Creek and like they're under their trance. Uh, Circe
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: and the pigs is more like the toad. They told
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: us you was a toad.
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right.
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: So it turns John Turturro into a toad instead of
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: a swine in this case.
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: I guess I'm convinced now.
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And there's also like, uh, Poseidon's wrath is in there. Uh,
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: there's the, the song, the suitors in the song when
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: they sing man of constant sorrow, it's like, It's very
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: kind of directly taken from the Odyssey and only the
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: way that the Coen brothers could do something like that.
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: They're great.
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: They're so great. And there's a sequel too, right?
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: To the O Brother, Where Art Thou?
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: No, to the Odyssey.
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the Telegony, which is about Odysseus' other son that's
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: not mentioned in the Odyssey. But it supposes that he
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: had a son with Circe on that island and they
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: produced the son Telegonus. And Telegonus is not quite as
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: loyal to his father as Telemachus is because he goes
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: home and kills Odysseus and he marries Penelope. Telemachus just
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: shrugs and says, OK, well, I guess I'll marry Circe's
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: to get back at you. And they all become immortal.
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: That's right. They believe it was written by a Greek
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: poet named Eugamon of Cyrene. The funny thing about this
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: one is it was actually lost to history. So what
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: we know about the telegony is references from other writings
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: about it.
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: Maybe one day, if the Odyssey is ever truly lost
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: to history, it will listen to this podcast.
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: To write the next version.
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: Man, that was amazing. That's it for the Odyssey. We
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: could turn this into a 20-part series if we wanted to,
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: but we don't. And if you're like, I really like
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: the movie, I really like this episode, there's so much
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: to read about interpreting the Odyssey that's just super fascinating.
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: So go forth and multiply your awareness of the Odyssey.
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: And in the meantime, everybody, I think it's time for
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: Listener Mail.
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: This is about rope. Hey, guys. Longtime listener. I love
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: the rope episode. I especially enjoyed the history of rope making,
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: the explanation of how something so seemingly simple is actually
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: a pretty ingenious piece of technology. Mm-hmm. I do think
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: you guys missed a cool opportunity, though, to talk about
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: rope as a transformative lifting technology. I think we might
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: have briefly said something about raising houses, but maybe not even.
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: While sailing ships were undoubtedly critical to connecting the world, rope,
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: especially combined with pulleys, is what allowed us to turn
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: human and animal muscle into something enormously more useful. Think
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: about how much of ancient civilization depends on moving very
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: heavy things upward. Temples, city walls, aqueducts, bridges, you name it.
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: Rope didn't just rig the ships and build civilizations. help
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: build the civilizations themselves. Anyway, great episode, guys. Thanks for
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: making me spend the rest of the day thinking about rope.
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: Not something I expected to do. That is from Jonathan.
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: Thanks a lot, Jonathan. You make a great case, just
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: like you did, Chuck, with comparing your brother, Warthog, and
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: the odyssey okay uh if you want to be like
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: jonathan and send us an awesome email we love that
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: kind of thing uh you can wrap it up Stuff
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
• 49:41
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• 49:45
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