“Inasmuch as I am come hither as one that has been angered with many” – supposedly said Autolycus upon being asked to be the godfather, “therefore let the name by which the child is named be Odysseus.” By this etymology, Odysseus comes from odussesthai, “to be wrought against, to be at odds with someone, to hate.” Odysseus’ Scar Odysseus seems to have spent some of the most defining moments of his childhood with Autolycus, who, in addition to passing on to him his craft, may have even given Odysseus his famous name. Now, this Autolycus, Odysseus’ grandfather, was a son of Hermes and was widely renowned as so skillful a thief that he could not be caught, being “able to change whatever he stole into some other form – from white to black, or from black to white, from a hornless animal to a horned one, or from horned one to a hornless.” However, later authors didn’t seem too content with a genealogy which makes the cunning Odysseus a relative of a thief only on his mother’s side, so they started spreading a rumor according to which his father wasn’t Laertes, but none other than the master-trickster Sisyphus, who supposedly bargained a night with Anticlea from her father after he had finally caught Autolycus stealing his cattle. Odysseus was – almost certainly – the only son of Laertes of Ithaca, a former Argonaut, and Anticlea, the only daughter of Autolycus. Odysseus Before the Trojan War Odysseus’ Family
0 kommentar(er)
