Homer's Childhood GamesAuthor(s): Alex EpsteinSource: The Iowa Review, Vol. 38, No. 2 (Fall, 2008), p. 84Published by: University of IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20537011 .

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Homer's Childhood Games

Nor will this story have enough room to answer the question of

what is so true about a true story. According to one version, Homer

lost his sight at the age of two. According to another version, he was blind from birth. At the age of six, over the course of long months, he learned the rules of chess, the terrain of the board and the shapes of the pieces; how to make an opening move without

looking and then without feeling his way. Of course, chess had not

been invented in those days?this needs to be told another way: in

childhood he had already learned to unravel the braid of January's last rain into the threads of a dozen plots. But January also had yet to appear. Nor will any answer to the question of what is the story in a true story be found here. Like many blind storytellers, already in his childhood Homer knew, without looking at the heavens,

when the moon waned, and when it filled.

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