Tim Severin. The Ulysses Voyage. Dutton, 1987.
Tim Severin began his primitive-style sailing adventures with The Brendan Voyage. In that case, he proved that it was possible to sail a large, seaworthy leather curragh across the Atlantic from Ireland to North America. He made a case then that the story of Brendan the Navigator could be historical or based on historical events.
Ironically, in The Ulysses Voyage, which Severin and his crew undertook on a Mycenaean-style sailing galley, he does the opposite. Instead of sailing a vessel built in an ancient manner across the Mediterranean Sea to the traditional sites of the Odyssey, he believes that the Odyssey was a much shorter voyage, pretty much restricted to the west coast of Greece. Instead of “Tales of Brave Ulysses,” we get a summer excursion.
The obvious question becomes this: If Odysseus-Ulysses was so close to his home of Ithaca, why did it take him nine years to sail back from Troy? Severin’s answer is simple—the epic is based on a series of folk tales, perhaps with a historical framework, so look for exaggeration, repetition, and later additions. That could be.
He notes, for example, that many cultures have stories of a hero who outsmarts a monster or villain by saying his name is Nobody. The witch house in a wooded clearing like Circe’s is stock in many folk tales—think even of Hansel and Gretel. To him, the story is merely an exaggeration of Greek geography.
I cannot help comparing The Ulysses Voyage with Mauricio Obregon’s Ulysses Airborne. For the most part, Obregon takes the long voyage view with traditional sites like Malta for Calypso’s Island or Sicily for Thrinacia and the Cattle of the Sun.
Both authors confess to problems. If the island home of Aeolus was the Spanish Isla del Aire as Obregon believes, then it would have been nearly impossible to be blown to within sight of Ithaca and then back to Aeolia. Obregon hypothesizes that it must have been some Italian island that resembled Ithaca from a distance.
On the other hand, if the Phaeacians lived on Corfu and Calypso lived on an island in southern Albania, then why did Odysseus sail east for seventeen days to get from Calypso to the Phaeacians? He gives two explanations—the whole business with Calypso is magical and “a later addition to the story.”
Severin does translate some names for us, often to emphasizes his choice for the location but also to note the significance of the person or place. For example, he notes that the names of most of the Phaeacian men he meets have names translated to naval names like Pilot or Coxswain. A recent translation of the Odyssey notes this and gives the men their English job titles rather than Greek names.
Severin’s strongest case is perhaps that Crete also has legends of caves with giant cannibals, and that could have been where the Cyclops was. Of course, most places around the world have stories of monsters and man-eaters. Many places in North America have stories of Bigfoot or Sasquatch. Even where I live in middle class, suburban, sheltered Connecticut, my students tell of dangerous cul-de-sacs where the Melonheads prey on unsuspecting passers-by. Severin’s case is not unreasonable, but what places in the world do not have similar tales?
The island of Gramvousa near Crete used to be called by a name that meant “leather bag,” which suggests the story of Aeolus as much the Spanish Island of the Breeze. We learn that Calypso’s island of Ogygia means “ancient place” and Apollonius’s Argonautica places it in the Adriatic Sea near “the other identifications of the Odyssey which cluster around north-western Greece.”
That can be tricky. Obregon, for example, claims Circe’s island is one off the coast of Italy which in Greek was known as Pithekousa, or “land of the apes.” Barbary Apes still reside on Gibraltar and were found around the northern rim of the Mediterranean in historical times, and monkeys resemble a cross between humans and other animals.
Sicily has usually been viewed as the island of Thrinacia (“three axes”) because it is triangular in shape. The Cattle of the Sun inhabited Thrinacia. That is Obregon’s view. Severin finds a small island with three small capes and identifies that as the Sun God’s pastures.
Another possible case he makes which has little to do with the Odyssey is that some Greek place names dedicated to Elijah or St. Elias were originally dedicated to the Sun, Helios in Greek. The words do sound similar. Some of us remember the father in My Big Fat Greek Wedding who “proves” that the word kimono comes from the Greek word for winter. Still, it is possible.
Severin does point out accurately that the River Acheron, which is one of the named rivers of Hades, is the name of a stream in “north-western Greece.” If nothing else, that may demonstrate the origin of the infernal river myth. Still, that location is a long distance from the “River of Ocean,” the Atlantic, where Ulysses sails to go to Hades according to Homer.
The model galley Severin and his crew sail was built for an earlier adventure, The Jason Voyage, for crossing the Black Sea to duplicate the voyage of Jason and the Argonauts in search of the Golden Fleece. But unlike that trip or The Brendan Voyage, he does not sail the length of the Mediterranean to see if it were possible to do so. Since he had already sailed the Black Sea with it, that feat sounds reasonable to complete if one were motivated to try it. Instead, he sails the boat around Greece—a leisurely trip that takes a few months. The only cool factor is that they travel in an ancient style galley.
The track of Obregon’s Ulysses Airborne is much cooler, more adventurous, even if he uses an airplane to travel. It is much easier to imagine his route taking nine years to get back to Ithaca from Troy.
Will we ever know?
If Severin is correct, then the Odyssey is simply a pastiche of folk tales attached to a return story. The Iliad and some other stories of the Trojan War appear to be at least based on historical events. If that is true of the Odyssey, then Obregon’s route makes more sense. Like Scheherazade’s Sinbad or Melville’s Ishmael, Homer’s Ulysses is the sole survivor. And Dante places Ulysses in the Eighth Circle of The Inferno with all the liars.