Manifestation in Various Situations of Hospitality in the Odyssey

My essay discuss hospitality in the Odyssey and how it manifests in different situations. Hospitality is the friendly and generous reception and entertainment of guest. Hospitality has a positive effect on everyone and in the odyssey the people find out they get good things in return. Odysseus shows hospitality to a lot of people in the odyssey, even without knowing who they are. Hospitality can we shown in the smallest ways. Throughout the book Telémakho shows hospitality and also gets it shown back to him by different people.

Telémakhos shows hospitality no matter who it is. For example, Telémakhos reacted to Athena showing up like this, “straight to the door he came, irked with himself to think a visitor had been kept there waiting, and took her right hand, grasping with his left her tall bronze-bladed spear. Then he said warmly: “Greetings, stranger! Welcome to our feast. There will be time to tell your errand later.” In the first line it says Telémakhos went straight to the door irked with himself to think a visitor had been waiting.

Telémakhos doesn’t even know who the person at the door is, but he already is treating them well. He says greeting stranger, this proves that Telémakhos doesn’t know whether they are a god or not. He is welcoming the person into his home not know who they are. He is treating the person the same without knowing their title. He always doesn’t know the person reason for coming to his house, but they don’t change his way he acts towards him.

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Telémakhos shows hospitality in the smallest ways. He doesn’t let knowing if they are a god or not affect the way he treats them. He finds out Athena is a god right when she leaves his house. Telémakhos sees her Athena away.

Odysseus tries to show hospitality to the Cyclopes and the cyclopes shows it back to him. For example the cyclopes says this to Odysseus ‘Give me another, thank you kindly. Tell me, how are you called? I’ll make a gift will please you. Even Kyklopes know the wine-grapes grow out of grassland and loam in heaven’s rain, but here’s a bit of nectar and ambrosia!’ Polyphemus is thanking Odysseus for giving him a glass of wine in the first line. Odysseus offers the wine even after the cyclopes eats his men. The cyclopes also shows hospitality towards Odysseus because he says he will give him a gift in return for the wine. Odysseus is showing hospitality because he treats the cyclopes kindly after he kills his men. Odysseus knows he can’t escape the cyclopes. If he kills him there is nobody to more the boulder. Odysseus is nice to him to trick him. The cyclopes ends up revealing his true self and tells Odysseus later on that it isn’t really a gift. Odysseus is still going to die but the Cyclopes is saying him for last.

Telémakhos shows friendly gestures to Athena many times. He starts out asking if this will offend her “Dear guest, will this offend you, if I speak? It is easy for these men to like these things, harping and song; they have an easy life, scot free, eating the livestock of another— a man whose bones are rotting somewhere now, white in the rain on dark earth where they lie, or tumbling in the groundswell of the sea.

If he returned, if these men ever saw him, faster legs they’d pray for, to a man, and not more wealth in handsome robes or gold. But he is lost; he came to grief and perished, and there’s no help for us in someone’s hoping he still may come; that sun has long gone down. But tell me now, and put it for me clearly— who are you? Where do you come from? Where’s your home and family? What kind of ship is yours, and what course brought you here? Who are your sailors? I don’t suppose you walked here on the sea. Another thing—this too I ought to know— is Ithaka new to you, or were you ever a guest here in the old days? Far and near friends knew this house; for he whose home it was had much acquaintance in the world.” In the first line Telémakhos says this “Dear guest, will this offend you, if I speak?

It is easy for these men to like these things, harping and song; they have an easy life, scot free, eating the livestock of another— a man whose bones are rotting somewhere now, white in the rain on dark earth where they lie, or tumbling in the groundswell of the sea.” He has Athena in his home and doesn’t know who she is but he is voicing his opinion to her and treating her like he has known her for years and knows everything about her which he knows nothing. This shows because Hospitality because Telémakhos treats Athena like family even though he doesn’t know anything about her. In the next line Telémakhos starts to question Athena about who she is. He says, “ But tell me now, and put it for me clearly—who are you? Where do you come from? Where’s your home and family? What kind of ship is yours, and what course brought you here? Who are your sailors? I don’t suppose you walked here on the sea.

Another thing—this too I ought to know— is Ithaka new to you, or were you ever a guest here in the old days? Far and near friends knew this house; for he whose home it was had much But tell me now, and put it for me clearly— who are you? Where do you come from? Where’s your home and family? What kind of ship is yours, and what course brought you here? Who are your sailors? I don’t suppose you walked here on the sea.

Another thing—this too I ought to know— is Ithaka new to you, or were you ever a guest here in the old days? Far and near friends knew this house; for he whose home it was had much acquaintance in the world.” in the world.” He says put it for me clearly, who are you? This proves that Telémakhos has no idea who she was. This proves his hospitality was real, and he wasn’t just saying things and acting a certain way because she was a god.

Hospitality is used many times throughout the odyssey in different ways. Hospitality is important because in the Greek society people would act very different towards gods. Hospitality in the odyssey is like a “friendship with the guest” each time they build friendships with the person before they find out their role.