Episode 72O – Homeward Bound – Myths Your Teacher Hated

Episode 72O Show Notes

Source: Greek Mythology

This week on MYTH, it’s time for Odysseus to make a final push towards home. You’ll see that Odysseus is a liar, that not all goddesses are jealous, and that rafts can be fancy. Then, in Gods and Monsters, it doesn’t pay to brag about how many kids you have. This is the Myths Your Teacher Hated podcast, where I tell the stories of cultures from around the world in all of their original, bloody, uncensored glory. Modern tellings of these stories have become dry and dusty, but I’ll be trying to breathe new life into them. This is Episode 72O, “Homeward Bound”. As always, this episode is not safe for work.
When we left the story last time, we’d picked up just after the end of the Trojan War. . Things had gone bad almost immediately, and wise Odysseus had led his men into disaster after disaster: getting bloodied after raiding a random city for shits and giggles, getting his men stoned on premium lotus, getting men killed in the home of Polyphemus the Cyclops and then getting cursed by said Cyclops because Odysseus was too prideful not to reveal his real name, almost getting home before getting blown off course again, getting most of the crew eaten by cannibal giants, cavorting with a sorceress for a year, traveling to the Underworld for some advice that they’re all going to ignore, surviving the sirens but losing more men to Scylla and Charybdis, and then getting everyone but Odysseus himself killed after eating the sun god’s cattle (despite having been warned not to in the Underworld). Floating aimlessly on the shattered remains of his ship, Odysseus drifted to the island of the nymph Calypso where he became her boy toy for seven long years until Athena finally convinced the other gods to cut the guy a break. We then headed to Ithaca, where Odysseus’ son Telemachus (with some prompting from a disguised Athena) failed to talk the suitors sniffing after his mother and his inheritance into leaving. After some dire warnings, Telemachus hopped on a ship and sailed off in search of news of his father. He heard a lot of stories, especially from the ginger king Menelaus, before heading back for home. Meanwhile, Penelope learned that her son had sailed off into the wild blue yonder and had gotten super upset about it before being calmed by Athena in disguise (again). The suitors meanwhile were setting up an ambush to murder Telemachus before he could go home again.
We left Odysseus back in Episode 72J stuck on the island of Calypso the nymph while Hermes, messenger of the gods, winged his way to earth with good news. Well, mixed news. See, Zeus had decreed that Odysseus would finally get to go home, but in deference to Poseidon’s continuing lust for vengeance (at this point, pretty out of proportion to the original crime but that’s the gods for you) the final leg was going to suck.
In his winged sandals, Hermes soared down to the island of Ogygia. In his hands, he bore his magical wand that made people take a little nappy nap until Hermes was ready for them to wake up again (he is the god of thieves, after all). Surf spraying behind him as he skimmed the waves, Hermes zoomed up to the island and then the spacious cave where Calypso made her isolated home. A fire was burning on the hearth, filling the air with the clean smell of burning wood. The ethereal voice of the immortal nymph wove through the smoke as the woman herself sat at her loom, her golden shuttle weaving deftly back and forth.
It was a very comfortable kind of cave, I daresay a hobbity sort of cave, the mouth lined with a green vine heavy with ripe grape clusters for making wine. Thick woods filled with exotic trees dotted the island around her home, hiding nests for owls and hawks and ravens, hunters all. Between the intermittent forests burbled four fresh springs of cold, clear, sweet water, winding their way past soft meadows ablaze with the riotous colors of many flowers. Hermes found himself pausing to stare at this incredible place in breathless awe, deathless god though he was. Even he had not seen its like before. He did still have a job to do though, so after a few moments, he winged off again towards the cave proper.
Calypso looked up at the entrance of her unexpected visitor and she immediately knew Hermes for who he was. All of the immortals know each other and are never strangers, no matter how far apart they may live (unless someone is engaging in deliberate sneakiness, and not even always then). He looked around the space, but he didn’t see Odysseus, the man he’d come here to find. Calypso noticed him peering about. “Nice to see you, Hermes. You are my honored friend and guest, as always. What brings you all the way out here to my humble island? I’m assuming you need something from me so come on: out with it. It gets boring out here in the middle of nowhere, so I’d be happy to help with whatever you need.”
Being a gracious host, Calypso prepared a place for Hermes as she spoke. She drew up a chair to her small table heaped high with ambrosia, food of the gods, and mixed him a deep-red nectar, drink of the gods. Hermes dug in happily; Calypso set a good divine table. Once he had downed it all, he answered her questions. “Good to see you too, Calypso. I’m here on Zeus’ orders. I mean, you’re great and all but you’re right that it’s one hell of a trek to get out to see you, and that’s not something I’m interested in doing very often. Who would be? There’s not a city for hundreds of miles, not a single living soul to offer us a sacrifice. Or rather, there’s just the one right now. I know he’s here, Calypso, and you know that you can’t keep him if Zeus says otherwise. He’s been fine with you keeping him here as your pet for these last few years, but it’s time that the old sailor be set free. His destiny still calls him home to Ithaca.”
Calypso shuddered at these words. She’d expected something like this from the moment Hermes had appeared in her cave, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t still salty about it. “You immortal Olympians are a bunch of selfish asshats. You all act so scandalized when a goddess fucks a mortal (even though Zeus does that like every other week), even when that goddess made the man her husband (which the rest of you wandering dicks never even consider doing). Aurora fell in love with the great hunter Orion, and you clutched your pearls and sent Artemis to hunt him down and turn him into a pincushion of arrows. When Demeter fell in love with Iasion and made sweet love to him three times out in the plowed fields (a definite fertility analogy), Zeus blasted the man to ashes with a thunderbolt! And now, you come for me. Why shouldn’t I keep a mortal lover? As you yourself just noted, I don’t get a lot of visitors out here. It’s so lonely here, so when a mortal man washed up on my shores half dead, I took him in. I saved his life and I nursed him back to health. He raved in his delirium, ravaged by many days on the endless sea without food or water or shade, about how Zeus had shattered his boat with a bolt of lightning, killing the last of his companions.
“I saved him, held him, cherished him. I promised that I would make him immortal and that we could live out eternity here in a paradise that would be a lot better with someone to share it with.” She sighed morosely. “Not that you care. Not that Zeus cares. If he’s already made up his mind enough to send you all the way out here to deliver this message, then I don’t have a chance of changing his mind. I’ll have to let him go, to watch him ride out onto the endless expanse of the sea alone, with no way to ever know whether he made it or not. I don’t have a ship, nor a crew to ply the oars, so it’s not like I can go with him, or send anyone to carry him safely across the ocean, but I will gladly provide Odysseus with any advice that I can think of to help him make it home.”
Hermes nodded in agreement. “You understand then, Calypso. Let him go, at once. Steer clear of even a hint that you’re attempting to cross Zeus or he’ll carry a grudge down through the very ages and make your life a living hell for decades, centuries to come.” With this final word of warning, Hermes sped away back towards his home.
The thought probably crossed her mind that Odysseus hadn’t heard a word of Hermes’ message, so there was nothing except honor preventing her from just ‘forgetting’ to mention it to him. Well, that and the very real threat that Zeus would make an example out of her for disobeying a direct order. Fighting back tears, both of sorrow and of anger, she went out to the spot where she knew Odysseus would be. He was where he always was – sitting on the rocks of the beach that, as far he could reckon, were the closest place on the island to Ithaca. He was weeping and staring off into the endless distance between himself and his home.
Ever since Calypso had nursed the man back to health and he’d realized that he was trapped here with no way off this rock, he hadn’t stopped crying. He was a shattered wreck of a man. Not only had literally all of the men under his command been killed because of his own hubris and bad decisions, it had all been for nothing. Hope was gone – he’d spend the rest of his days wasting away here on this island and not even his bones would ever see his home again. I mean, don’t get me wrong – Odysseus still slept with Calypso in her bed every night and they still fucked, but his heart wasn’t in it (hers definitely was). He knew he made this mysterious woman happy by being in her life, but it wasn’t enough. He wanted to go home to his wife and son. Being kept as a sex slave on an island paradise by an inhumanly beautiful nymph who adored him just wasn’t as much fun as it sounded.
“I’ve got news, Odysseus, and I think it will dry your tears for the first time since I’ve known you. I’m letting you go, you unlucky soul. I’ll lend you the finest bronze tools to fashion yourself a raft from the fine tall trees on my island, and I’ll help you stock it with food and water for your long trek across the watery wasteland beyond my island. I’ll give you clothing as well, and even send a stiff breeze at your back to help you get started. I can’t promise that you’ll make it, but I think that the gods finally mean for you to go home, so at least I’m not sending you to certain death as I would have been before this.”
Odysseus shuddered at the honeyed words of his jailer. “Passage home? Bullshit. What’s your angle, goddess? You’re sending me out onto the enormous waves and vast gulfs of the ocean on a fucking raft to make a journey that even the best ships would struggle to survive? Hell no. I’m not taking one step of this gods damned island until I have your binding oath that you’re not now nor ever will again in the future plot some new intrigue against me.” The story doesn’t say, but I have to wonder if Calypso might have toyed with him a little over the last few years. Given how homesick he is and how certain Calypso is that Posiedon would have taken the chance to finally kill Odysseus if given the chance, I can’t help but wonder if she’s staged some fake ‘you’re going home’ expeditions before to try and cheer him up. I’m personally imagining some complicated piece of sitcom theater where she makes him think he’s been transported back to Ithaca, only instead of Penelope in his castle, it’s Calypso in a wig.
She’s not an evil woman by any stretch of the imagination, just lonely and completely in love with a man who doesn’t love her back but they’re still stuck living together due to broader circumstances. She chuckled at the dead serious tone Odysseus struck here, certain that he was being fucked with (and for good reason, given his past history with the gods). She held his hand in hers, caressing his skin absently. “No trick, my dear. You are a wicked man, Odysseus, always thinking strategically. You really are going free this time and I’ll happily swear to the same. Let the earth below and the sky above and the dark cascading waters of the Styx witness my unbreakable oath – I am not now and never will plot some new intrigure to harm you. Never. All that I have in mind for you are the same that I would if it were me in your place. I know that you don’t love me, but know that I love you and I would never hurt you, Odysseus. Let me help you. Please.”
Her earnestness convinced him. Taking her hand, Odysseus let Calypso lead the way and he followed in the footsteps of a melancholy goddess. She led him back to the cave and, by chance or by fate (or maybe from a lack of chairs), Odysseus sat in the very chair that Hermes had just vacated. She cleared away the used plates of god food and replaced them with fresh ones for mortals, then sat down across from her reluctant lover. Much like with Circe, Calypso had her collection of immortal female servants, so she wasn’t entirely alone out here, just mostly.
Her servants set out Calypso’s meal while she and Odysseus discussed next steps. “So, my dear Odysseus, son of Laertes and the most interesting man in the world, are you still sure you want to leave me, to leave all this, and sail back to the uncertainty that awaits you in Ithaca?” He sat in stone-faced silence, still suspecting a trick of some kind, but he nodded resolutely just the same. “Then I wish you well, my beloved. I wish I could make you really, really understand just what torment awaits you out there before you reach the shores of your homeland again. If you knew how bad it was going to get, you’d realize that you’ll be happier staying here with me and being my immortal lover in paradise. I know you long to see your wife, but am I not at least as beautiful as she is? I mean, I am a goddess, however minor, and it hardly seems fair that I have to compete with a mortal. It’s unseemly. So what is it? What does she have that I don’t? Why don’t you love me?”
Odysseus considered this for a long moment. “That’s hard to answer, my goddess. I mean, objectively you’re not wrong. Penelope is not nearly as beautiful as you, neither her face nor her figure. She is mortal, and like me, she is no longer young while you are ageless, eternal. The thing is – it’s not really about that. It never was. I don’t love my wife for her face or her body, but because she is my wife. We built a family, a history, a life together! I love her, Calypso; I always have and always will. And as lovely as your island is, much fairer and kinder than my Ithaca, it isn’t home and it never will be. If I stay, I’ll always be a prisoner here and you’ll always be my jailer. I long for home, goddess. And if some god decides to smash my raft to splinters on the wine-dark sea, then so be it. I’ve suffered so greatly and lost so much already between the wars and the waves. Fuck it. If I need to heap more hardships on my weary back to make it home again, then bring it on.”
Even as he made this stirring declaration of devotion and determination, a vow to cast his defiance into the teeth of anything that stood between Odysseus and his beloved wife and home, the sun set and darkness swept across the island. It was all very dramatically cinematic and it was all immediately ruined. Night time was sexy time, and the supposedly reluctant Odysseus proved that he was, as usual, a liar as he rushed into the arms of Calypso. They retired to her bed inside the cave to fuck like especially horny bunnies because neither seems to see any reason to let a silly thing like ‘a wife you supposedly can’t wait to get back to’ stand in the way of adultery.
When the sun rose on the sleeping lovers in the morning, both rose and dressed (with Calypso apparently choosing a very loose, thin, provocative robe, possibly in a last-ditch attempt to remind Odysseus of what exactly he was trying to give up). Together, they got down to the business of building the means of the old trickster’s escape from Ogygia. From what I can only assume is her tool shed, she procured for her lover a heavy double-bladed bronze axe and an adze for polishing the wood. Tools in hand, she led Odysseus to a small copse of woods near the island’s edge where alders, poplars, and firs grew tall and straight and strong. Some of these trees had been drying for years and were now well-seasoned, which made them ideal raft material.
Once he was settled, Calypso left Odysseus to his work and headed back home. The axe was as fine a thing as he had ever wielded and, in no time flat, 20 trees lay felled, cleaned, and split into planks. With divine timing, the nymph returned with drills for the next stage. Everyone keeps calling it a raft, but that’s only in comparison to the finely crafted black ships the Ithacan is used to. This vessel was broad and flat, with multiple half-decks, gunwales, a steering oar, and a sail (thanks to another timely visit from Calypso with more supplies). As usual, Odysseus was as good at building ships as he was at literally anything he decided to do, and the final product was something to be proud of. The whole endeavor took four days, start to finish, which is pretty damned impressive.
On the fifth, he put to sea. Freshly bathed and dressed by Calypso as a farewell gift, Odysseus rode out on the tide with wind in his sails and plenty of provisions in his hold. It felt good to have the sea surging beneath him again after so many years ashore. In a feat of superhuman endurance, Odysseus stayed at the helm of his new ship the entire time, never resting and never sleeping. He steered by the sun during the day and the stars at night for 17 long days across the tractless expanse of the open ocean.
On the 18th, land appeared on the horizon. Shadowy mountains loomed up beyond the curve of the earth, filling the old mariner’s heart with joy. There was the island of the Phaeacians, rising like a shield over the crashing breakers. This was the first time he had seen a place he knew even by reputation in years. This was the closest he had been to going home. Obviously, things were going far too well for old Odysseus and just as obviously, it couldn’t last.
It was just about then that Poseidon noticed his old foe’s progress towards home. He had spent a nice little vacation down in Ethiopia being honored and sacrificed to during the festival there that came up in Episode 72J. The sight of Odysseus sailing blithely across his ocean against his express wishes infuriated the god of earthquakes, and his rage boiled the sea around him. “This fucking figures. I take one lousy little trip to relax from the stresses of being an all-powerful deity and the other gods go behind my back and change their minds! Those assholes are clearly helping the bastard now, and look – he’s almost reached Phaeacia’s shores. I know, even if that mere mortal doesn’t, that he’ll slip free of my grasp and escape my torments if and when he reaches that place.” He chuckled maliciously. “Of course, he’s not quite there yet. I still have time for one more dirty trick.”
Raising his trident aloft, Poseidon struck the air and smashed the clouds together in fury. Then, he rammed his weapon into the sea and churned the waves into utter chaos. Sudden gales sprang up across the sea from every direction all at once, a devastating maelstrom of divine wrath. The bright sunny day sunk into abrupt darkness as storm clouds covered the sky and lashed the breakers into towering monstrosities.
Odysseus watched in terror and horror as once again, his hope of making a simple, safe trip was dashed to kindling by the anger of a god. He shook from a combination of terror and icy chill as he stared out at the hellscape he now had to try and sail through on a boat that suddenly seemed a lot smaller and flimsier than it had a few moments before. “Fuck me, Calypso was right. She warned me that I wouldn’t reach home without suffering even more. Is this it? Is this how I die, after so long and so many narrow escapes from certain death? Has fate finally caught up to me? Shit, look at the lightning crackling through those ugly purple thunderheads. Zeus is gonna fry my ass with another thunderbolt, I just know it. Those poor sods who died on the terrible, blood-drenched fields of Troy were the lucky ones. They got to die in a quick, glorious death with their swords in their hands, facing down the enemy with bravery and honor. If I’d died then, during that whole squabble over the corpse of proud Achilles, I could have had a hero’s funeral, a towering pyre bright enough for them to see it all the way back in Ithaca! Instead, I get a miserable, lonely death, unseen and unmourned. No one will ever know what happened. My doom is at hand.”
As if on cue, a monstrous wave crashed down onto the deck of his little boat and smashed it with explosive force beneath him. Odysseus was tossed from the deck like a ragdoll as the crashing wave, the howling wind, and a blistering lightning bolt all struck at once with deadly fury. He hurtled high into the raging storm and then crashed down, down, down into the boiling sea. Odysseus struggled desperately to surface, to breathe, to survive, but he was dragged down by the sodden weight of the fine clothes Calypso had gifted him. Blackness was creeping in at the edges of his vision and, through the panic, the idle thought crossed his mind that this final act of charity from the woman whose love he had enjoyed and scorned would be his death. Ironic, really.
And that’s where we’re going to leave Odysseus. His death is certain without some kind of literal divine intervention, and so close to the home he’s spent so long trying to return to, which means it’s time for Gods and Monsters. This is a segment where I get into a little more detail about the personalities and history of one of the gods or monsters from this week’s pantheon that was not discussed in the main story. This week’s victim is Niobe.
Niobe was yet another unlucky member of a family line who have been central to both the Iliad and the Odyssey – the house of Atreus. The earliest member of this ill-fated family was the infamous Tantalus, who we discussed back in Episode 26O, who was the father of today’s cursed notable – Niobe. Her mother is usually cited as Dione, though some sources claim Niobe’s mother to be either Euryanassa (daughter of the minor river god Pactolus), Eurythemista (a Caledonian princess), or Taygete (one of the Pleiads). Like her father, she hailed from the historical city of Tantalis (essentially, the city of Tantalus), which was located near the foot of Mount Sipylus near Manisa in modern day Turkey (a real place, though very little remains today).
Being a princess of a powerful family, Niobe was married to Amphion, ruler of Thebes (his twin brother Zethus ruling alongside him). They were big deals themselves, having created the legendary fortifications that surrounded Cadmea, the citadel of Thebes. In his youth, Amphion had been a favorite lover of Hermes, who gave the young mortal man a golden lyre and taught him to play. Although Apollo is usually the one pictured with the lyre as god of poetry and music, it was actually Hermes who had invented the instrument and gifted it to Apollo in the first place. Amphion became a talented singer and musician, while Zethus devoted his interest to hunting and cattle breeding. Zethus had struggled to carry the massive stones that made up the thick walls, so Amphion took out his golden lyre and played it so beautifully that the very stones followed after him and glided gently into place.
As noted before, the terrible deeds of the wicked Tantalus cursed his descendants for generations (an intrical part of the whole Trojan War thing) although it initially seemed as though the curse had passed her by. The couple was quite happy together and had a large family, although the sources vary quite a bit on the actual number. The Iliad specifies that she has six sons and six daughters, though others claim up to 20; almost all agree that there were always an equal number of sons and daughters (Hesiod claimed there were nine boys and ten girls, although the Roman writer Aelian cast doubt on whether this was actually from Hesiod). Everything was coming up Niobe right up until she went to a party.
A grand festival was held in Thebes in honor of Leto, mother of Artemis and Apollo (which admittedly makes the chronology a little confusing, since it really seems like Apollo’s birth should be farther in the past if someone the same age as his mother was already being seduced by Hermes, who is younger than Apollo by a fair bit). We discussed her story in Episode 72H, and the fate of the giant Tityos at the bows of the twin gods. Niobe apparently became jealous of all the attention being paid to Leto (maybe she wasn’t used to someone else being the center of attention, what with being a princess of privilege and all), and she did a Bad Thing: she insulted Leto. “Why is everyone going so apeshit over a woman who only had two children? I mean, I have six times as many sons and six times as many daughters as she, so that must make me six times the woman she is, right? My father was one of the only mortals invited to dine with the gods, and my mother was herself a goddess, daughter of Zeus himself. My husband built this city and is one of its rulers, and I am a princess in my own right. And just look at me? I’m hot as hell. Why is this daughter of a mere Titan with her two measly children being worshiped as the fucking goddess of motherhood and not me?”
As we’ve seen again and again and again, you Do Not brag about being better than the Greek gods. Nothing good ever happens. Spoiler alert – nothing good is about to happen. After the festival, Leto had a little talk with her two children – who just happened to be literal gods, complete with divine wrath. Some sources say that Leto was the one who was offended and sent her children to avenge her; others claim that the two young gods were outraged on her behalf all on their own. As soon as this little tidbit reached their ears, Artemis and Apollo sped down to the mortal world, finding Niobe and her many children gathered just outside the city walls.
Niobe saw the twins appear, but she barely had time to even register their sudden appearance before the two divine archers drew their weapons and launched a volley of deadly arrows. Artemis took the daughters and Apollo took the sons, each slaughtering the innocent children with a single arrow to the heart apiece. It was over in seconds, and Niobe was left standing amidst the carnage, weeping in horror at the corpses of all of her beloved children. Some versions, notably that of Apollodorus, mention the survival of a single daughter (Chloris, who married Neleus and became the mother of our old pal Nestor) who it is said stayed pale from horror the rest of her life. Amphion came out to see what the commotion was about, and was stunned to see his beloved wife spattered with the gore of their slaughtered family. In most cases, including Ovid, this sight was too much for the shattered musician, and he took his own life in grief. Hyginus says that instead, Amphion’s mind broke under the weight of his grief and he swore revenge. He rushed to the temple of Apollo and attacked, but was cut down by the swift arrow of Apollo before he could do more than scream.
Niobe was understandably wrecked by all of this. She went into the city to try and find someone to bury her children, but even this was denied her. In defense of his immortal children and their mother, Zeus had turned everyone in Thebes to stone, leaving Niobe to wander a dead city with the corpses of her children rotting in the streets for nine days. Too bereft to eat or sleep or even sit down, Niobe wandered aimlessly, weeping, for the entire nine days. On the 10th, the gods found some small measure of pity and buried the innocent dead themselves before returning the citizens of Thebes back to being fleshy and alive. In days long past, there was even said to be an actual tomb in Thebes where the children, known as the Niobids, were buried though it is long since lost to time.
In an unrelated tragic twist of the knife, Amphion’s brother Zethus lost his only son Itylos when his wife killed the child in a fit of madness before transforming into a nightingale (according to the Odyssey). Having lost his son, brother, and wife in quick succession, Zethus followed his brother’s example and took his own life. As for Niobe herself, she couldn’t bear to stay in the city where everyone she had loved was now dead. She returned to her home on Mount Sipylus and begged Zeus to end her misery. Zeus heard her prayers and answered her, turning her into a stone on the mountain. Even so, her grief persisted and the rock continued to weep bitter tears. This stone, known as the Weeping Rock, actually exists today. It is a porous limestone formation that roughly resembles a woman’s face and, whenever it rains, it absorbs water and weeps over the long dead children of Niobe.
That’s it for this episode of Myths Your Teacher Hated. Keep up with new episodes on our Facebook page, on iTunes, on Stitcher, on TuneIn, on Vurbl, and on Spotify, or you can follow us on Twitter as @HardcoreMyth and on Instagram as Myths Your Teacher Hated Pod. You can also find news and episodes on our website at myths your teacher hated dot com. If you have any questions, any gods or monsters you’d want to learn about, or any ideas for future stories that you’d like to hear, feel free to drop me a line. I’m trying to pull as much material from as many different cultures as possible, but there are all sorts of stories I’ve never heard, so suggestions are appreciated. The theme music is by Tiny Cheese Puff.
Next time, Odysseus is literally going to be stripped of everything he still has. You’ll discover where anime princesses come from, where you should tie a veil for best magical effect, and how to hide from wolves using only leaves. Then, in Gods and Monsters, you’ll see that most babies are slacking off on the job. That’s all for now. Thanks for listening.