Homer's Odyssey arguably stands out head and shoulders above any other piece of epic literature produced by Western civilization for nearly three millennia.

And Athene, she who was born from Zeus, made him
Bigger to look at and stouter, and on his head
Made his hair flow in curls, like the hyacinth flower . . .
So she poured grace upon his head and shoulders. (6.229-35)

In anointing Odysseus in similar fashion throughout the tale of his arduous journey homeward, the ancient as well as modern reader cannot help but look to Odysseus as a role model. Implicit in this behavioral model is one of Homer's many subtexts, namely that having one or more of the gods on one's side is not enough to guarantee even a partial success in one's endeavors. The god Poseidon stands in direct opposition to Odysseus' goal of reaching Ithaca, yet his attacks upon the hero always fall just short of actually killing him. Instead, with each calamity that befalls Odysseus at Poseidon's hand, the hero is faced with a parallel inward struggle. Surviving the physical realm at first seems to be the test when actually it is Odysseus' mental fortitude and perseverance which prevent him from going insane in the face of his physical predicaments; his true victory lies in not giving up his sanity, that part of him which he identifies as himself, his ego. The sea goddess, Leucothea gives voice to Odysseus' singular ability to survive on both land and sea, in the physical and in the psychological realms:

Ill-fated man, why is the earth-shaker Poseidon
So strikingly angry that he spawns you these many ills?
He will not wear you down, however he may desire it. (5.339-41)

The tempering and strengthening of ego by the forces which the gods unleash upon Odysseus function to cement his inward journey along with the external evolution he undergoes from sacker of cities to a man of deep feeling. The end product of such an evolution comprise what was in Homer's time, and remains in ours, the new hero. Odysseus' challenge is not only to think on his feet in battle but to reach a depth of soul engendered from the threats and creatures which defy the ordinary imagination. The Odyssey is the story of one man's encounter with the unconscious and his subsequent survival.

The myth of the new hero, as embodied by Odysseus, stands in sharp relief to the poignant lamentations uttered by Achilles' shade in the underworld:

Noble Odysseus, do not commend death to me.
I would rather serve on the land of another man
Who had no portion and not a great livelihood
Than to rule over all the shades of those who are dead. (11.488-91)

For Achilles, no personal reward has been won from the Trojan war. He is dead, a fate he would gladly trade for the meanest of lives back in the world of the living. The lessons of The Iliad are learned in the realm of Ares where he "rage(s) helter skelter" on the battle field (11.537). The paradigm of The Odyssey is moreover defined by Athena's love of mind and culture. Athena is "the bright-eyed goddess" whose energy is directed outwards from the realm of ideas and the intellect into the physical world, much as she herself was born out of Zeus' head (1.178). The Odyssey, therefore, epitomizes Western civilization's obsession with the questions concerning the ego and its relation to society and to the cosmos.

The Odyssey encompasses and speaks to a tremendous range of real life situations through the principle of mimetic distortion, that is, the portrayal of ordinary events, such as the returning sea voyage of a war hero longing for home, in such a way that we see it for the first time. In Odysseus' encounter with the Cyclopes, for example, the reader confronts another species whose loner existence stands in direct opposition to a pro-polis attitude which promotes the dissemination and sharing of culture embodied in the modern city state to which classical Greece and modern nations strive. Polyphemos does not discriminate between animal and human flesh; he eats what is in front of him. He cares not to honor the gods as is the human custom. His home is a trap for Odysseus' troop of men, possibly signifying that the inner experience of such a loner attitude is also a trap for humankind and one which is to be avoided.

On the level of parable, The Odyssey represents everyone's journey homeward towards what a Jungian would call an individuated state where the pantheon of one's own unconscious characters are integrated with the ego in such a way that a mid-point of the personality is established somewhere between the ego and the Self,

where the centre of the total personality no longer coincides with the ego, but with a point midway between the conscious and the unconscious. This would be the point of new equilibrium, a new centering of the total personality, a virtual centre which, on account of its focal position between conscious and unconscious, ensures for the personality a new and more solid foundation. (Jung 7: 365)

For Odysseus, this mid-point is eventually attained at the very end of the epic when he literally is a stranger amongst what is familiar to him. His matter-of-fact attitude concerning the quick dispatching of the suitors and the licentious servant girls shows a man who does what needs to be done but who does not relish the act of killing for its own sake. The absolute last scene wherein Athena warns Odysseus and his family to lay down his arms and desist from fighting, encapsulates the new attitude of longing for life.

Zeus-born son of Laertes, Odysseus of many wiles,
Hold off and cease from the strife of impartial war,
Lest Zeus, the broad-seeing son of Cronos, in some way get angry.
So Athene said. He obeyed, and rejoiced in his heart. (24.542-45)

Here, Zeus and Athena take a strong stand towards ending the bloodshed and indicate the Self's influence upon Odysseus who otherwise is so easily swayed by the clamor and glory of bloodshed—the physical embodiment of the chaos of the unconscious.

In describing the archetype of the anima, Jung could have been writing about the Odyssey when he said, "Life is crazy and meaningful at once" (Jung 9,i: 65).

It is just the most unexpected, the most terrifyingly chaotic things which reveal a deeper meaning. And the more this meaning is recognized, the more the anima loses her impetuous and compulsive character . . . In this way a new cosmos arises. (Jung 9,i: 64)

Of the many beings, both mortal and immortal, dead and alive, monstrous and human who populate the surreal landscape of The Odyssey, perhaps the most beguiling and consistently evocative forces which act upon Odysseus are manifest in what Jung would call the epic's primary anima figures: Circe, Calypso, Nausicaa and Penelope. Each in her specific way exemplifies an aspect of the anima archetype, for

the anima is bipolar and can therefore appear positive one moment and negative the next; now young, now old; now mother, now maiden; now a good fairy, now a witch; now a saint, now a whore. (Jung 9,i: 356)

The first two anima figures are immortal, the third a maiden princess and the fourth, Odysseus' faithful wife. For the purpose of this essay, I will deal with only the second of the immortal anima figures, Calypso.

The reader's first encounter with Odysseus occurs in book five upon Calypso's remote island. Although a lover to his host by necessity, Odysseus takes no pains to hide the fact that he is being held against his will. In fact, the first image the reader receives of Odysseus finds "the man weeping, seated on the beach where he had been before / Shattering his heart with tears and laments and groans" (5.82-83). Wracked with grief for what one would expect to be the greater part of his seven years on the island, one would expect to find Odysseus completely demoralized or insane. Nevertheless, Odysseus' grief does not overcome him.

Homer's narrative does little to illustrate the enormous inertia which one would expect to have accumulated for a man trapped on an island with a goddess and her accompanying nymphs for all of that time. The story simply picks up with the arrival of Hermes and the announcement that the Olympians now see fit for Odysseus to continue his voyage homeward. It is as if these seven years with Calypso, as expression of the anima, existed outside of time and space, much as Jung says ". . . she [the anima] always has a peculiar relationship to time: as a rule she is more or less immortal . . . and consequently immensely old or a being who belongs to a different order of things" (Jung 9,i: 356). These seven years, however lightly dealt with in the narrative, must serve a purpose for Odysseus. At least on the level of physicalness of place, Ogygia is constant in its beauty.

Calypso's cave and Odysseus' home for his seven years is described as a paradise:

On the hearth a big fire was burning, and the smell from afar
Of cedar and easy-split citron was exhaled through the island. . .
Where the birds with their long wings went to sleep,
Horned owls and hawks and, with their long tongues
Salt water crows, who are busy with the things of the sea. . .
Four springs one after another flowed with white water
All close together; one turned one way, one another. (5.59-72)

The locale is surely the enchanted dwelling of a nymph; it is an abode for a goddess within which Odysseus possibly never feels at home. Calypso's home perhaps serves as metaphor for Odysseus' psychological state - all is clean, perfect and cared for but it is not a human woman who carries his anima projection and cares for his house. Calypso, to the extent that she is ultimately unattainable, possibly provides a fertile environment for Odysseus to explore other, psychological realms. The environment is, after all, supernatural, greater than nature. What better environment than this to commune with soul. What Odysseus attains from his stay there may not be as tangible as the rest of the story and thus defies linear description.

As a number, seven is "symbolic of perfect order, a complete period or cycle. It comprises the union of the ternary and the quaternary, and hence it is endowed with exceptional value" (Cirlot 233). For this period of time, Odysseus has no contact with men. His comrades have all died as the reader learns later when Odysseus tells his story to the Phaeacians. Other than the immortal Calypso and her accompanying nymphs, Odysseus has the sun, sea, beach, trees, birds and heavens for company. Being restricted to a visual language with such basic images for so long no doubt forces Odysseus to journey inward and relive his life and possibly rethink some of his actions. For the most part, his seven years with Calypso must be comprised mostly of reflection. Perhaps in this scenario, Odysseus has an opportunity to experience what Hillman calls the "relativization of the ego:"

. . . that work and that goal of the fantasy of individuation, is made possible, however, from the beginning if we shift our conception of the base of consciousness from ego to anima archetype, from I to soul. Then one realizes from the very beginning . . . that the ego and all its developmental fantasies were never, even at the start, a fundament of consciousness, because consciousness refers to a process more to do with images than will, with reflection rather than control, with reflective insight into, rather than manipulation of, 'objective reality.' (Hillman 93)

In this respect, the duration and effect of Odysseus' stay with Calypso offer many intriguing possibilities. Perhaps this seven year imaginal period seemingly designed for Odysseus to embark upon and inward voyage of soul-making is left to the imagination of the reader for the express purpose of removing any ego centered expectations or restrictions from it. In the mind of the modern man, Calypso and her island draw more poetic imaginings than Penelope does waiting at home in Ithaca. Perhaps this phenomenon arises in direct compensation for what the hero myth still calls for; leaving.

Eagerly, Odysseus builds a raft and leaves Calypso's island. After eighteen days upon the sea without mishap and within sight of the land of the Phaeacians, disaster strikes in the form of Poseidon returning from the Ethiopians. Upon seeing Odysseus, "The god in his heart / Got very angry . . . He stirred up whole storms / Of all the winds and covered earth and ocean alike /With clouds. And night rose up from the heaven" (5.284-93). At first, Odysseus is weighed down by the clothes which Calypso has given him. This image suggests that Odysseus still does not know what to do with what he has learned from his time on Ogygia; he must loosen the clothes of his persona once again and allow his ego to suffer vulnerability in the face of the gods. Ultimately, Odysseus escapes this calamity with the help of Leucothea who gives him an immortal shroud which he is to drape across his chest while swimming for land.

Naked and exhausted "his own heart was downed by salt water. / All his skin was swollen, and much seawater oozed / From his mouth and his nostrils. Breathless and voiceless / He lay with slight strength, and dread fatigue came upon him" (5.454-57). Odysseus finds himself at a turning point in the narrative. Arguably, these images suggest a death of sorts for, after all, he has had a long, rough trip. His condition evokes the words Jung uses to describe one's encounter with the archetype of meaning:

We are caught and entangled in aimless experience, and the judging intellect with its categories proves itself powerless. Human interpretation fails, for a turbulent life-situation has arisen that refuses to fit any of the traditional meanings assigned to it. It is a moment of collapse. We sink into a final depth . . . It is a surrender of our own powers, not artificially willed but forced upon us by nature; not a voluntary submission and humiliation decked in moral garb but an utter and unmistakable defeat crowned with the panic fear of demoralization. Only when all props and crutches are broken, and no cover from the rear offers even the slightest hope of security, does it become possible for us to experience an archetype that up till then had lain hidden behind the meaningful nonsense played out by the anima. This is the archetype of meaning, just as the anima is the archetype of life itself. (Jung 9,i: 66)

It is at this point that Odysseus makes a symbolic movement back to the womb by burying himself under the shelter afforded by mounds of fallen leaves he finds between two bushes, "And so godly Odysseus, who had suffered much, slept there, / Worn out with fatigue and sleepiness" (6.1-2). Odysseus sleeps deeply and eventually is woken by the shouts of Nausicaa and her servant girls playing ball near where he has found refuge. In approaching Nausicaa, Odysseus looks as much like a wild animal as he ever will. He holds a branch in front of his nakedness and "Right at once he made a soothing and a wily speech" (6.148). He likens Nausicaa to Artemis in appearance and flatters her in other ways. The primary request he makes of her is for clothing, "Give me a rag to throw on, / If perhaps when you come here you had some wrapper for the clothing" (6.178-79). Odysseus' tone borders on the obsequious and rightly so, for the clothes, or persona, he took from his last anima projection (Calypso) weighed him down. In asking Nausicaa for clothing, this purely logistical act can be seen to symbolize the reverse of what happened to him at sea; in removing his clothing he was able to survive what turns out to be a death-like experience. His rising up from under the pile of leaves can be likened to a re-birth. Asking Nausicaa, his latest anima projection, for clothing may symbolize his taking control of who he will be as sourced by the archetype, i.e., he is learning to work alongside his anima instead of grudgingly beside her as was the case with Calypso.

The narrative gives the reader much more information about Nausicaa than it does about Calypso. From it, we learn that Odysseus' anima projections are becoming more grounded. The move from the isolated island of Ogygia with the immortal daughter of Atlas to the land of the Phaeacians whose introduction comes via a very human princess shows that Odysseus is creating a more realistic bridging over to his anima; she is becoming more accessible to him. Marrying Nausicaa would most likely provide an excellent way to appease the wrathful god Poseidon whose great-granddaughter she is. That such a marriage could work out and prevent the imminent isolation of Scheria is an example of one of the little quirks which the anima can add to a situation. Nevertheless, Nausicaa's primary purpose lies in guiding Odysseus to Alcinoos so that he may begin to tell his story and secure safe passage for himself to Ithaca.

Of all three anima figures, Penelope represents the ensouled woman fixed in the real space of Ithaca. Although most distant on the physical plane, the closeness with which Odysseus holds her memory to himself provides the best metaphor through which anima can express herself. Calypso and Nausicaa, do not go beyond the role of anima women for Odysseus. Calypso remains forever without a true physical referent in context with others, i.e., her island is but a speck lost amongst the enormity of the unconscious. Nausicaa, on the other hand, is too real for any kind of actual ensoulment to occur via Odysseus' projection as she is actually flesh and blood on the threshold of her adult life.

Penelope represents the anima for Odysseus in such a way where projection is not necessary. C. G. Jung would call this marital reunion with Penelope an example of a coniunctio oppositorum, or a union of the opposites.

Nor does the coniunctio take place with the personal partner; it is a royal game played out between the active, masculine side of the woman (the animus) and the passive, feminine side of the man (the anima). Although the two figures are always tempting the ego to identify itself with them, a real understanding even on the personal level is possible only if the identification is refused. (Jung 16: 469)

Perhaps The Odyssey, when seen from the perspective of Jungian and post-Jungian psychology, offers the reader a rich model for their own psychological development and an opportunity to re-examine the hero archetype in Western civilization.

Works Cited

Cirlot, J.E., A Dictionary of Symbols. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1971.

Hillman, James. Anima: An Anatomy of a Personified Notion. Dallas: Spring Publications, 1985.

Homer. The Odyssey. Trans., Ed. Albert Cook. New York: W.W. Norton, 1993.

Jung, C.G. Collected Works. 20 vols. Trans. R.F.C. Hull. Princeton: Princeton U P, 1954.

Copyright 1996 Mark Greene. All rights reserved.

Mark Greene: metamercury@hotmail.com