Free essays on Homer's Odyssey: Ulysses and Medea"Do not allow me to hear from you calm speeches about death, Odysseus, light of advice. Better, I say, break the clods like a farm laborer for some poor farmer, with iron rations, then lords over all the exhausted dead "Just before the restless Odysseus leaves Circe, he tells him that he must go down to Hades to visit the shadow of Tiresias, the blind prophet who warns Ulysses of his return home (the Peregrinare). Then he encounters the shadows of the queens and lovers of the dead heroes and finally the heroes themselves. In the quoted quote, Odysseus talks to Achilles, the greatest hero of the Trojan War. Achilles, while alive, was fully aware of his choice between a long life spent in obscurity or a short life filled with glory. He chose the latter. I suppose Achilles realized soon after his death that fame means nothing to you after death. In retrospect, he understood that death gives meaning and fills the passion for life. Every action, no matter how trivial, is filled with the miracle of life and is completed when you interact with others. This is what Achilles meant when he asks Odysseus about his son and his ancient kingdom: never mind the dead, what are the living doing? Achilles wishes to return to the living. This theme of death giving meaning to life is prevalent throughout the Odyssey. Hell is death, heaven is now, in life, in the field of time and action. Odysseus nearly died of homesickness (or boredom) when Calypso kept him on her island, hoping to make him her immortal husband. Odysseus knew that if he drank that ambrosia, life would be eternal, you would have a nice house and a child for a wife, but after a certain point things would become terribly dull. Immortality is death, in this sense. Finally, it is Athena (thought, action) who convinces the gods (who, I believe, are jealous of us mortals) to let Odysseus leave the island and return to her life. Interestingly, Hermes also couldn't wait to leave Calypso's island: "who would willingly come here? There is no city of men nearby... Ultimately, Odysseus' journey to Ithaca means embracing his own life, accepting the challenges, dangers, pitfalls and joys, with courage, tenacity and a keen sense of what it takes to maintain balance in one's life.