Calypso And Laistrygones In Homer's Odyssey

Homer’s Odyssey can teach us about culture in ancient Greece through Odysseus’ voyage home. In the epic poem hospitality, or “xenia,” is expressed as a reoccurring theme. Throughout the epic poem, there are different examples of hosts and guests. Firstly, the poem presents bad hosts such as Calypso and Laistrygones. Calypso is considered a bad host because she held Odysseus prisoner in her home for several years. In Book Five, Athena said to Zeus, “Now he’s left to pine on an island, racked with grief in the nymph Calypso’s house -- she holds him there by force. He has no way to voyage home to his own native land, no trim ships in reach, no crew to ply the oars and send him scudding over the sea’s broad back” (Odyssey, Book 5, lines 12-19)
. While he is held there, Calypso sleeps with him and offers him immortality if he will stay with her. When Zeus tells Calypso to release him, she is enraged.
She says, “I’ll send him off, but not with any escort. I have no ships in reach… But I will gladly advise him—I’ll hide nothing—so he can reach his native country all unharmed” (Odyssey, Book 5, lines 156-157, 159-160). Her hospitality is not the respectful type that guests are supposed to receive; another example of bad hospitality is Laistrygones. Odysseus and his men find their way to an island and seek shelter in a cave that seems to be the home of a giant. Expecting the normal kindness that guests would receive, they let themselves in and offer wine to the gods and then drink some themselves. When Laistrygones returns home and finds strangers there, he is not the type of host they suspected he would be. He greets them by saying, “Stranger, you must be a fool, stranger, or come from
nowhere, telling me to fear the gods or avoid their wrath! I’d never spare you in fear of Zeus’s hatred, you or your comrades here, unless I had the urge” (Odyssey, Book 9, lines 306-308, 312-3113). After their introduction, he attacks the men, Homer says,
“Lurching up, he lunged out with his hands toward my men and snatching two at once, rapping them on the ground he knocked them dead like pups—their brains gushed out all over, soaked the floor—and rigging them limb from limb to fix his meal he bolted them down like a mountain-lion, left no scrap, devoured entrails, flesh and bones, marrow and all!” (Odyssey, Book 9, lines 324-330).
This is not at all how strangers are expected to be treated as guests. Laistrygones and Calypso are perceived as bad hosts. In The Odyssey Homer also shows examples of good hosts as well. When Odysseus crashes on another island, he is greeted by Princess Nausicaa of the Phaeacians, she says, “Stranger, friend, you’re hardly a wicked man, and no fool, I’d say— But now, seeing you’ve reached our city and our land, you’ll never lack for clothing or any other gift, the right of worn-out suppliants come our way.
I’ll show you our town, tell you our people’s name” (Odyssey, Book 6, lines 204-205, 210-213). This is the proper way a guest was expected to be treated in Ancient Greek times. She welcomes him to their land and offers him clothing. Later when the maids are being disrespectful to Odysseus, Nausicaa tells them, “Enough. Give the stranger food and drink, my girls” (Odyssey, Book 6, lines 272-273). This is another example of good hospitality in the epic poem. This is how guests were expected to be treated. At one point on his visit there, Echeneus tells King Alcinous, “This is no way, Alcinous. How indecent, look, our guest on the ground, in the ashes by the fire! Your people are holding back, waiting for your signal. Come, raise him up and seat the stranger now, in a silver-studded chair, and tell the heralds to mix more wine for all so we can pour out cups to Zeus who loves the lightning, champion of suppliants—suppliants’ rights are sacred. And let the housekeeper give our guest his supper, unstinting with her stores” (Odyssey, Book 7, lines
189-198).
Guests were to receive a host’s utmost respect. Elements of good hospitality in this time were things such as: immediate welcoming, shaking their hand, helping him carry in his belongings, bathing and washing their hands, offering new clothes, offering a meal and wine, then questions about the guest and discussion among the guest and hosts. Both good and bad guests were portrayed in Homer’s epic poem as well. The suitors at Ithaca are portrayed as bad guests. They abuse Penelope’s hospitality by slaughtering their animals, refusing to leave, bullying Telemachus, and behaving riotously. Odysseus, being the hero of the story, is portrayed as a good guest when he stayed with King Alcinous and Princess Nausicaa. Homer says, “He launched in at once, endearing sly and suave: ‘Here I am at your mercy princess— are you a goddess or a mortal?” (Odyssey, Book 6, lines 162-164). He opens up by saying that he is at her mercy and pleading for help because he has suffered so much disaster, then he compliments her beauty hoping that will help him along further. Later on again he shows his respectfulness to them by saying, “Alcinous, cross that thought from your mind. I’m nothing like the immortal gods who rule the skies, either in build or breeding. I’m just a mortal man” (Odyssey, Book 7, lines 243-246). He is the example throughout the epic poem of a good guest. Hospitality in the ancient world was considered highly important and often sacred. Homer teaches about both good and bad hospitality in The Odyssey through Odysseus and the trials he endures on his journey home. This hospitality shown throughout the epic poem is a picture of what Ancient Greek hospitality was expected to be.