Three times in “The Odyssey” does our hero, Odysseus, say these words when he arrives on a new island. Prof. Vandiver says that Odysseus lands on many more than three islands over the course of the epic, but he says these words only three times. This is what Homer is doing here: comparing the xenia – hospitality — that Odysseus receives in each place. As I’ve mentioned here earlier, xenia is, for the ancient Greeks, a basis for civilization. It’s how you tell the civilized from the barbarians: by the way they treat strangers who come to their land.
The first time we hear Odysseus say these words, it’s on the island of Scheria, where the inhabitants give him the best xenia imaginable. The second time is in Odysseus’s recollection of landing on the island of Polyphemos, the cyclops, who gives him and his men the worst possible xenia (he kills and eats six of them). The third and final time we hear him speak these words is when he arrives home on Ithaca, though he doesn’t at first realize where he is (hence these words). Vandiver explains that Ithaca is in the mess that it’s in not because of the lack of xenia, as on the cyclops’ island, but because of its perversion by the suitors. That is, they have taken a great good but twisted and abused it, creating injustice and disorder. They have exploited the privileged position they have as guests in Odysseus’s house, and used it to mistreat his wife and son, to bleed down his wealth, and to cause doubt and disorder among the populace.
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