Krissia Palucho
Mythology
April 14, 2015
Odysseus: A hero Heroism was not an invention of the Greeks. Yet, through the first hundreds years of their civilization, the Greek literature has already given birth to highly polished and complex long epics that revolved around heroes. I chose Odysseus as my favorite hero for the following reasons.
The Greeks required that all heroes must have courage. Odysseus, was constantly expected to be a true hero, always obey the rules laid down by the immortals, and possess wisdom and courage. The Greeks believed that all heroes must always obey the Guest/Host relationship rule, which all guest must treat the host with courtesy, and the host must treat the guest properly, laid down by the gods and goddesses. Those who did not obey the rule would be punish severely. Odysseus throughout the epic, demonstrated that he obeyed the Guest/Host relationship rule. By him following the rules, made him a good man and a great characteristic that all heroes must have according to the Greek’s tradition. If he wouldn’t have followed that rule, he would not be looked at as a hero, since he would have been punish by the immortals.
A hero in the Homer’s world entails many attributes other than physical strength including, but not limited to, courage, honor, respect, intelligence and good morals. From my point of view Odysseus has a lot of those characteristics, and I enjoyed reading the stories about him, also what I find very interesting about Odysseus is that he starts out wanting nothing but to return to his family and his homeland. That to me is very important, it describes how much he loves his family and also the land that he is from.
Odysseus is a very interesting man, throughout
