A little myth geeking today, if you don't mind.
Since I have over 500 posts on this blog, many of them date-non-sensitive, I now and then get a stray comment on an old post.
This morning I checked my comments to find two extensive ones on this post about Odysseus' death.
Image: Klimt, The Kiss
The commenter, who apparently is a Greek national, wanted to correct me on my details. He began his first comment this way:
You are wrong my friend.
He then goes on to retell what he considers to be the actual version, and supports his comment thusly:
I don't know where you heard that but I'm Greek and I study Odysseus from a little child.
He also added another comment with more story details that began this way:
This as far mythology counts. Historical facts are that Odysseus had advisers that explained him a dream he saw. They told him that he would be killed by his own son...
Two things interested me about these comments. First, Greeks are famous for claiming to know the real scoop about Greek Mythology. Scott Huler, who wrote this book about retracing the path of Odysseus in the modern day, encountered a Greek woman who was absolutely sure that Odysseus existed the same way that George Washington existed. My commenter, likewise, makes sure that we know that there are "historical facts" involved with Odysseus' life.
Second, as I looked back at my sources of this story, I realized I had included or created a mystery version which I now can't find.
Originally I said that Telegonus, the son of Odysseus by Circe, killed Odysseus, then took his corpse, along with his wife Penelope and son Telemachus, back to Circe, who made all three immortal.
I now don't know where I got this story.
There are lots of versions of Odysseus' death, but the closest to the one above are, first, from Pseudo-Apollodorus: Telegonus takes the corpse of Odysseus and Penelope to Circe, who marries Telegonus and Penelope together and sends them to the Isles of the Blessed, a kind of Greek heaven. That version is here.
The other is from a scholar's note appended to a text of the poet Lycophron. In that version, Circe brings Odysseus back to life with a potion and marries Telegonus to Penelope and Telemachus to a woman named Kassiphone. That quartet goes to the Isles of the Blessed, and the implication is that Odysseus stays with Circe. Fun times for Circe.
So, I probably should change that post of mine on Odysseus' death, but I don't know how yet. There are other versions besides the ones quoted, and if you want to read them, look (for example) in Timothy Gantz' Early Greek Myth (Volume 2), pages 711-713.
And thanks to my Greek commenter for loving Greek Mythology.
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