I saw The Odyssey today. I had no choice but to honor my alma mater, USC, as a faithful Trojan.
I forked over $28 for two tickets and traded my 80-inch television for an 80-foot screen and a vibrating armchair. Every crashing wave, charging army and angry god was transmitted directly to my lumbar spine.
It gave me a new appreciation for the expression “having a bad day.”
Odysseus spends ten years trying to sail home from Troy—a trip that should have taken weeks. Unfortunately, there was no GPS, Coast Guard or maritime safety board.
His TripAdvisor review would have been devastating:
“Captain resourceful but unnecessarily antagonized several deities. Crew reduced from 600 to one. Would not sail again.”
Along the way, he encounters cannibalistic giants dining on human tartare, shipwrecks, whirlpools and Circe—a beautiful hostess who turns his companions into swine. His men also discover the lotus, an ancient mind-altering plant that makes them forget about going home. Apparently, marijuana dispensaries are not as modern as we thought.
Then there is Calypso, the beautiful goddess who keeps Odysseus on her island for seven years and offers him immortality. Seven years on a tropical island with a goddess may not sound like captivity, but eventually even paradise becomes a timeshare presentation you cannot escape.
As a USC graduate, I found the sack of Troy particularly upsetting. I know Homer was not writing about college football, but watching Troy burn was almost as painful as USC losing the 2006 Rose Bowl to Texas.
The Greeks conquer the city by hiding inside a wooden horse. It was ingenious, although I kept wondering about the ventilation and restroom arrangements. The Trojans’ decision to drag a suspicious oversized package through their gates may also be history’s first great failure of homeland security.
But beneath the monsters and spectacle, The Odyssey is about the longing to come home.
Its most powerful moment belongs not to a warrior, but to Argos, Odysseus’ dog. When Odysseus finally returns after 20 years, disguised as an old beggar, almost no one recognizes him.
Argos does.
Old, neglected and near death, the dog sees his master, lifts his head, wags his tail—and dies. After cannibals, battles and shipwrecks, that is the moment that breaks you. Homer understood 2,800 years ago what every dog owner knows: a faithful dog needs no explanation or proof. He simply knows you.
Argos had waited a lifetime for one last glimpse of Odysseus. Once he saw him, his watch was over.
So yes, I paid $28, surrendered my television for a giant screen and allowed a mechanical chair to shake me across the Mediterranean. I came home grateful for GPS, modern maritime rules—and slightly suspicious of tropical islands offering complimentary plants.
I remain upset about the sack of Troy.
But most of all, I came home thinking about Argos, the quietest and most faithful hero in The Odyssey.
Fight On!