odyssey's end

CAN THE ODYSSEY END?She sang beyond the genius of the sea. / The water never formed to mind or voice, / … and yet its mimic motion

Made constant cry, caused constantly a cry, / That was not ours although we understood, / Inhuman, of the

veritable ocean.

Europe

Africa

WHAT LIES BEYOND?

“Licence my roving hands, and let them go”

—John Donne, ELEGY XX “To His Mistress Going to Bed”

WHERE ELSE CAN ONE GO?

HOME AT LAST?Is the long-awaited reunion of Penelope and Odysseus final?

Why is it so postponed?

RECOGNITION AND REST

…THE PROPHET SAID

that I must rove through towns on towns of men,

that I must carry a well-planed oar until

I come to a people who know nothing of the sea,

whose food is never seasoned with salt, strangers all

to ships with their crimson prows and long slim oars,

wings that make ships fly. And here is my sign,

he told me, clear, so clear I cannot miss it,

and I will share with you now. . .

When another traveler falls in with me and calls

that weight across my shoulder a fan to winnow grain,

then, he told me, I must plant my oar in the earth

and sacrifice fine beasts to the lord god of the sea,

Poseidon- a ram, a bull and a ramping wild boar-

then journey home and render noble offerings up

to the deathless gods who rule the vaulting skies,

to all the gods in order.

And at last my own death will steal upon me. . .

a gentle, painless death, far from the sea it comes

to take me down, borne down with the years in ripe old

age

with all my people here in blessed peace around me.

(XXIII 304-324) / (Cf. XI 79-89 & XI 136-157)

SIGNS - SÊMA

THE ENDS OF THE EARTH

The Pillars of Hercules

The Rock of Gibraltar

Textual voyages beyond the

pillars of Hercules: early

literary encounters with the

unknown (Maria Salenius)

LIMITS OF KNOWLEDGE

FEARING LIMITSSEEKING LIMITS

Francis Bacon, 1620

Instauratio Magna (“Great Renewal” -

Novum)

“MULTI PERTRANSIBUNT ET AUGEBITUR SCIENTIA" ("MANY WILL PASS THROUGH AND KNOWLEDGE WILL BE THE GREATER”)

Francis Bacon, 1620

Instauratio Magna (“Great Renewal” -

Novum)

“Ithaca,” Cavafy

“Ulysses,” Tennyson

“Odysseus,” Merwin