Sharing the Blame

            Throughout the past few chapters of The Odyssey, Odysseus has proven to be a rather unlucky fellow, and because of his misfortune, Odysseus labels himself as being cursed by the gods. While I share the belief with Emma that several of his predicaments are the fault of Odysseus’s apparent self-centeredness and poor judgment, as opposed to being curses from the gods, I think that his crew is of equal blame here. Throughout Odysseus’s recollection of his voyage, there are two major in which he was acting in a perfectly logical manner, while his men committed a stupid act of greed that resulted in dire consequences.

            An obvious example of such an occurrence is when Odysseus and his crew win the battle against the Cicones. Once the battle is won, Odysseus divides up the loot, and urges his men to move out. We are then told by Odysseus that instead of following his orders, his crew acted like “mutinous fools” (Book 9, Line 51), and became distracted by the bounty that had not already been taken. Due to their greed, the Cicones are able to rally together their allies for a counter attack, and eventually kill off some of Odysseus’s crew. In this case, it was Odysseus who was the strategic leader (or at least, he was trying to be), and his men were the ones who thought only of themselves.          

            The other occurrence in which Odysseus’s crew is to be blamed for a mishap takes place after Aeolus gives Odysseus a bag of wind. Upon seeing the bag, they greedily declare “’let’s see what loot is in the sack, how much gold and silver. Break it open-now!’” (Book 10, Lines 49-50). They then open the sack, which releases a hurricane that blows the ship back to Aeolus. Upon requesting that he be given another gift to compensate for the one his shipmates ruined, Aeolus, believing him to be cursed, turns him down, saying “’it’s a crime to host a man or speed him on his way when the blessed deathless gods despise him so’” (Book 10, Lines 80-81). So by the end of this encounter, the greed of Odysseus’s men have cost him not only his bag of wind, but it allowed for Odysseus to be humiliated in front of Aeolus.

            I’m not saying that Odysseus isn’t worthy of a certain amount of blame, I just think that said blame should also be put on his crew, which I don’t really see happening. I would imagine that any group of people this concerned with their own well being would be rather unpleasant to have as a crew, so I am actually rather impressed that Odysseus puts up with them for so long.