Friday, May 20, 2011

Allusions in Ithaka

The poem "Ithaka" (printed below) by Cavafy, a modern Greek poet, makes several references to the Odyssey. What are some of those allusions and how do they help us understand the poem?

As you set out for Ithaka
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
angry Poseidon-don't be afraid of them:
you'll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
wild Poseidon-you won't encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope your road is a long one.
May there be many summer mornings when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you enter harbors you're seeing for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind-
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to learn and go on learning from their scholars.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you're destined for.
But don't hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you're old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you've gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you wouldn't have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won't have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you'll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

(1911)

4 comments:

  1. In this poem as many allusions in this. The allusions are the Laistrygonians, Cyclops, Poseidon, Ithaka, Odysseus, and length of journey, wealth and age. Thought the poem there are many specific lines with allusions. Most of the allusions refer to Odysseus’s journey. When it says,” As you set out for Ithaka hope your road is a long one, full of adventure, full of discovery.” This is referring to Odysseus. This is taking about his journey home to Ithaka. Thought his journey it was long, and defiantly full of adventure and full of lessons. This refers also to life to. I feel that life is a journey. I feel like Ithaka is the goal and in life to achieve your goals you go on a journey. You would want your journey to be long with adventure and lessons.

    There are also other allusions. When it says, “Keep Ithaka always in your mind Arriving there is what your destined for. But don’t hurry the journey at all. Better if it lasts for years, so you’re old by the time you reach the island, wealthy with all you have gained on the way, not expecting Ithaka to make you rich. Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey. Without her you wouldn’t have set you out. She has nothing left to give you now.” When it says keep Ithaka in mind, it means keep your goals in mind. Just like Odysseus does, with wanting to get home. When it says,” But don’t hurry the journey at all.” This means do not rush to achieve your goals, take you take and learn all the lessons on the way. This is just like Odysseus when the journey takes him 10 years, he wants to rush it, but he learns a lot of lessons on the way. When it says, “Wealthy will all you have gained on the way.” This means wealthy with all the knowledge you have gained. Just like Odysseus he did not come back wealthy in money, but wealthy will knowledge and lessons. Lastly when it talks about, “Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey. Without her you wouldn’t have set out. She has nothing left to give you now.” This means that your dream is what got you on your journey, without it you would not have learned and achieved all you have. When it says she has nothing left to give you now, it means it is your job to determine what to do with what you have gained. This also refers to Odysseus, because if he never wanted to go home to Ithaka, then he wouldn’t have set out on his journey he wouldn’t have learned achieved everything he did.

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  2. Some of the main allusions in this poem reference Odysseus’ problems with the Laistrygonians, the man-eating giants who devoured all but one ship of men, the Cyclops Polythemus who also ate some of Odysseus’ men, and Poseidon, who blew Odysseus off course in vengeance of his son’s brutal attack. The poem says “Laistrygonians, Cyclops/Poseidon –don’t be afraid of them:/ you’ll never find things like that on your way/as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,/as long as rare excitement/stirs your spirit and your body.” Because we know of these events from reading the odyssey, we can understand this poem in more depth. We know how terrible these events were to Odysseus, and how a lot of men were killed in the process. But, with our understanding of these terrible events during their journey home, we can understand that when the poem says “you’ll never find things like these on your way” that obstacles in our life will never be as bad as those in the life of Odysseus.

    However, I disagree with Meredith about the allusion in the line where the poem reads “wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way”. I believe that this line does indeed refer to the wealth that Odysseus brings home to Ithaca as well as the knowledge that he has gained on the way. As Odysseus and his crew finally land in Ithaca, the crew “then hoisted out the treasures proud Phaeacians, urged by open-hearted Pallas, had lavished on him [Odysseus], setting out for home. They heaped them all in the olive’s trunk, in a neat pile, clear of the road for fear some passerby might spot and steal Odysseus’ hoard before he could awaken” (13. 235-141). This quote explains that Odysseus did indeed bring home treasures from his journeys, so much valuable treasure that it had to have been hid from the villagers to prevent it from being stolen. This line from the poem refers to the wealth that Odysseus acquired during his journey as well as the wealth of knowledge and life lessons that he learned from his many strange and difficult situations.

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  3. The poem “Ithaka” makes several allusions, references to a known text, to the epic the Odyssey. One example is a list of Odysseus’ major obstacles, the “laistrygonians, Cyclops, angry Poseidon”. These beasts controlled Odysseus’ journey and set him off course. The laistrygonians murdered all of his fleet except for the men on his vessel, the Cyclops ate his men two at a time, and Poseidon killed the remaining part of Odysseus’ men and stranded Odysseus on a foreign island. These are major points in Odysseus’ journey, yet the poem states, “don’t be afraid of them; you’ll never find things like that on your way as long as you keep your thoughts raised high, as long as a rare excitement stirs your spirit and your body… you won’t encounter them unless you bring them along inside your soul, unless your soul sets them up in front of you.” This is criticizing Odysseus, proclaiming that he is the reason for his men’s death and for being marooned on distant island. The poem suggests that the only way one runs into these hurdles is if one is scared of them and is obsessed with them. Thus, the poem is saying it is Odysseus’ fault that he encountered these enemies because he was scared and kept them in his mind.

    The poem also alludes to the extreme length of Odysseus’ journey, around ten years. The poem does not speak ill of the length; however, it condones it, speaking as if it were necessary. “Keep Ithaka always in your mind. Arriving there is what you’re destined for. But don’t hurry the journey at all. Better if it last years.” This quotation suggests that one must always be looking forward to one’s destination, like Odysseus and Ithaca. If one is privileged to partake in a journey one should not waste it and rush to one’s destination, but rather linger and make it into a voyage, for the journey is half the excitement. One should,” hope your road is a long one”, much like Odysseus’ massive expedition home to Ithaca. In conclusion this poem would not thoroughly be understood if the reader had not had knowledge of the ancient Greek epic. The meaning would not be the same; one would be unable to make the connections needed for complete understanding.

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  4. Y’all are so helpful!!! I cannot express how helpful this is

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