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The erotic adventures of Ulysses

2020-08-17T11:46:01.284Z


It is surprising to find in the 'Odyssey' passages with quite explicit sexual contentIllustration by Javier OlivaresJavier Olivares I said in the last installment of this series, which seeks to combine the classical world with the summer holidays in Formentera, that I have found a lot of sex in the Odyssey . Let's see, eight years Ulysses spends with Calypso on her island, Ogygia ... the nymph would retain him with something more than magic. But it is that Homer makes it explicit...


Illustration by Javier OlivaresJavier Olivares

I said in the last installment of this series, which seeks to combine the classical world with the summer holidays in Formentera, that I have found a lot of sex in the Odyssey . Let's see, eight years Ulysses spends with Calypso on her island, Ogygia ... the nymph would retain him with something more than magic. But it is that Homer makes it explicit. "Retiring to the bottom of the concave grotto they enjoyed the loving treatment, lying down together," he writes in song V. Underlining passages like this I hope to do my bit in spreading the classics. To highlight, by the way, the character of Calypso, who not only retains Ulysses because he likes it, what's wrong, but he also released an indignant protofeminist speech to the Olympians when Hermes, with his "beautiful sandals, of gold, imperishable" (Homer describes them in influencer detail), brings him the command of Zeus to let the hero go so he can return home. "You are cruel, envious gods in the extreme, who are irritated against goddesses who sleep with men without qualms, when one of them makes one a bedmate."

Apart from Calypso, who promises an immortal fuck, Circe is the other great erotic scale of Ulysses, lavish in tricks: "Then I got into Circe's very beautiful bed," explains the hero, who stays with her for a year. also doing more than just enjoying banquets. The hero is credited with having had at least one son with the magician, Telegonus, who in other poems kills Ulysses without knowing he is his father and using a spear with a stingray thorn. In this way, the prophecy of Tiresias in canto XI of the Odyssey that death would come to Ulysses from the sea would be fulfilled .

  • The antiquity in flip flops 1 | The 'Odyssey' fits in Formentera

While Ulysses travels and allows himself to be seduced, in Ithaca, Penelope fights the lubricity of the Suitors, very explicit too. When she appears before the group dressed up, “their members were shaken, and passion disturbed their spirits. They all yearned to lie down next to her on a bed. " But probably the most erotic scene in the Odyssey is that of Ulysses naked before Nausicaa and her maids. The hero has just experienced one of his worst episodes, the Robinson Crusoe shipwreck, from which he narrowly saves himself from drowning and then, thrown on the beach, finds the princess and her friends. It is easy to share that fortunate but embarrassing moment -Ulises is in a chopped ball, Homero dixit : showing “his male shame” -, if you have emerged from the waves in, say, Migjorn at the height of Pelayo, where the swimsuit is still It is a rarity, and you run into a group of young women who, like those in the Odyssey, play ball. "Thus Odysseus was going to approach the girls with beautiful braids, even being naked, because necessity forced him." Today the need may be to retrieve your swimsuit and go for a drink at the beach bar. "Terrible appeared before them, disfigured by the saltpeter, walking like a wild lion, confident in his strength."

A monk in Formentera

While the sensual image of the Odyssey increases with this intense rereading, that of Formentera, paradoxically, today pales a point with the narrowness imposed by the covid-19. Few effusions and advances are seen. In fact, the erotic reference remains in Lucía y el sexo (2001). I have gone even further back to 1340 to find a highly sexually charged story. The account José Luis Gordillo in the so essential as unfindable Las leyendas de Formentera (Valencia, 1987), and surely he invented it, but it has a great air as well as the Decameron . It is about the legend of a monk in Formentera, who is already penance, emulate of the hermit Rústico from El infierno de Alibech , one of the most intense tales in Boccaccio's book. Our man, Guiu, is overcome by lust -which is not uncommon on the island in summer- when he sees a young and attractive neighbor next to his monastery in La Mola every day. The monk seeks peace of mind in prayer and discipline, as paddle surfing does not yet exist . But the news that the girl is getting married drives him out of his mind and he goes, charges the boyfriend, a native of Es Caló, and rushes with lustful intention into her home. He sees her naked on the bed, tries to get in through the window and then notices that an unusual torpor spreads through all of her limbs. And it becomes a tree, a juniper, which can still be seen, it is said, in the ruins of a house next to the few remains of the Monestir d'es frares ...

Returning to the Odyssey, after twenty years of absence, the return of Ulysses to Ithaca also has an erotic climax when recovering lost time with Penelope. After massacring the Suitors and dealing with the misgivings of his wife, who seems to have seen The Return of Martin Guerre many times , "they returned happily to the custom of their old bed", to "enjoy the pleasant love." After which, Homer tells us, they indulged in the "delight of stories" and a cigarette (I imagine the latter).

The sirens

Many readers have always seen erotic figures in the mermaids of the Odyssey . It is the influence of the many images that the episode has produced, in song XII. For example, the famous painting by Herbert James Draper, with the beautiful creatures getting on the ship naked or almost before the bewildered gaze of Ulysses, who does not hear them, but seeing them sees them for a while. In reality, the Odyssey does not describe mermaids for us. He tells us that there are only two of them, who enchant with their beautiful voice, with their fascinating song and that they live on an island, in a flowery meadow. Around them a huge pile of bones turns yellow and blackened rotten human hides accumulate, which does not contribute to their good reputation, precisely. Later mythographers consider them half woman and half bird (and thus Waterhouse painted them), but since Homer does not describe them to us we can imagine them however we want.

Curiously, there is little remembrance of another creature from the Odyssey that more closely resembles the popular idea of ​​mermaids, Ino Leucótea, daughter of Cadmus who was metamorphosed into a nereid and who appears to Odysseus in song V when the hero is passing. those of Cain on a raft that is dismounted in the midst of the storm unleashed by Poseidon's trident, nicknamed, like Rocky Marciano, the Shaker. Leucótea, a former mortal who has become a protective divinity for sailors, emerges from the waters, "similar to a flying seagull", and, like The Little Mermaid , gives the castaway a magical veil that is the first life jacket in literature. Ulises takes off his clothes, puts the veil under his chest like a surf board "and dived head first into the sea, putting his hands in front of him, ready to swim" (we are not told with what style). The protagonist suffers a great deal to reach land, and Homer describes his swimming odyssey in a way that is recognizable to anyone who has experienced such a trance. He does not find a point to get out of the raging water because all he sees are obstacles. Finally, a large wave throws him against the rough shoreline, literally leaving his skin on the rocks he desperately clings to.

We cannot dismiss this rereading of the Odyssey without mentioning some of the most curious characters in the poem. One of them is the unfortunate Elpénor, whom Ulysses himself says was "not too brave in combat or very balanced in mind." The very ashy man breaks his neck when he falls drunk from the roof of Circe's house - what a heroic death, he can be eaten by Scylla or gutted by Polyphemus - and then appears to the hero when he visits Hades, hell, and he he asks that they give him a dignified burial, as they had left him unburied in Circe's patio. Also painful is the case of Éurito de Ecalia, whom Ulysses mentions with admiration when speaking of the few who handled the bow better than he (Hercules, Philoctetes). The great Éurito died soon as Apollo, fussy, killed him for recklessly challenging him to see who would shoot better. And it is that according to who it is better not to shoot at goal. Also Apollo, it is explained in the Odyssey , assaulted another interesting character in the poem, Frontis Onetórida, the best navigator in the world and who fell down the arrows of the god, without specifying why, while he piloted the ship of Menelaus when passing in front at Corporal Sounion. This summer in Formentera, with so much marine drama, fires and crashes of sailboats and boats (the boat traffic is intense despite everything), it is not a bad idea to entrust yourself to this Frontis Onetórida when navigating the blue waters.

Next installment: Crassus, the Roman who lost his head one hot day

Source: elparis

All news articles on 2020-08-17

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