How Not to be a Modern Day Lotus-Eater
A Commentary on Odysseus and the Lotus-Eaters in Book 9 of the Odyssey
Pleasure can dehumanize you.
Homer, the philosopher, presents a subtle allegory of the soul in his brief story of Odysseus and the Lotus-Eaters.
The sluggish soul longs to wallow in pleasure and purposelessness—but the mind must sometimes lash the lower parts into obedience if it is to save itself from an inhuman existence.
There are other lessons here too—on violence, rhetoric, and political rule.
Homer is a teacher—and he teaches you how to save your soul from a purposeless life.
Do not become a “Nobody.”
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The Story of the Lotus-Eaters
In the tenth year after the sacking of Troy, Odysseus washes up on the shore of the Phaeacians. King Alcinous welcomes him as a guest-friend and, after feasts and games, Odysseus, the “man of twists and turns,” finally tells his story. After the fall of Troy, Odysseus and his fleet raid the Island of Ismarus and then suffer both a “demonic gale” and a terrible tide—and after ten days of suffering “deadly winds,” Odysseus and his fleet land on an unknown island.
Odysseus sends out men to scout the land, and they meet the “lotus-eaters” who “gave them the lotus to taste… any crewmen who at the lotus, the honey-sweet fruit, lost all desire to send a message back, much less return, their only wish to linger there with the Lotus-eaters, grazing on lotus, all memory of the journey home dissolved forever” (9.105). In this narrative, it is Odysseus that reminds his men of their journey home, for he tells the Phaeacians: “But I brought them back, back to the hollow ships, and streaming tears—I forced them, hauled them under the rowing benches, lashed them fast” (9.110). The men, under Odysseus’ commands, depart the island so quickly they “churned the water white with stroke on stroke” (9.116).
The episode of the Lotus-eaters is one of eleven (or twelve, depending on how you count) narratives Odysseus tells the Phaeacians about his journey home.
It is a simple narrative but one saturated with meaning—and an important moral drama for your soul.1
How to Read Homer as a Philosopher
Homer is a philosopher—a subtle one. It is claimed that Plato learned the art of dialectic from Homer and the poets, and that an attentive read of Homer can discover a “poetic dialectic.”
What does this mean in simpler terms?
It means that what Plato accomplishes in his dialogues by having two or more people in conversation to explore a truth, Homer does through contrasting poetic images—and Odysseus is probably the best example of this. You are probably aware of the debates of whether Odysseus is a good man. Many find him heroic and point to many examples in the text, yet many others find him villainous and point to many counterexamples in the text.
Yet, what if Homer’s point is not to present Odysseus as clearly heroic or villainous, but to contrast these ideas in a single character—to hold observations in tension, and it is in that tension, that dialectic, that Homer’s lessons on the human person can be seen. It is in exploring the contrasts that Homer makes you ask questions about what it means to be a good person, a man of excellence (arete). Odysseus the character raises human questions.
In all, this means that Homer is very intentional about the narratives he presents, and it means that his narratives are pedagogical—they are there to teach you about the human condition. To wit, it is impossible to read Homer without a moral layer. Once the dialectics are seen and tensions explored for a commentary on mankind, the next natural question is how does this apply to my life?
It should be recalled that it was the Greek practice of reading Homer (and other texts) in various layers that helped develop the Early Church’s understanding of how to read the Bible according to the four senses—the literal, the allegorical, the moral, and the anagogical. Christianity owes a debt to Homer.
Homer is a philosopher.
Taking him seriously will make you a better person and a better reader of Scripture.
And the narrative of the Lotus-eaters is nothing less than a drama of the human soul, a subtle allegory of the fight against becoming a “nobody” and being dehumanized.
And further still… it may be a drama on how men must be ruled.
Our modern culture offers us many lotus fruits.
Do not become a slave.
Homer shows you how to fight back.
