(5) NOSTOS

“I have returned”

Nostos, literally meaning return home in Greek, is “a theme used in ancient Greek literature, which includes an epic hero returning home, often by sea”.- “in the Odyssey, Homer has nostos being the return home from Troy by sea”.

But wait a minute, I hear you say, haven’t I already included the homecoming of Odysseus in Books 13-24 as my second-place odyssey within the Odyssey?

Well yes, but I include nostos here as its own entry for four reasons.

Firstly, Odysseus has a threefold return in the Odyssey – his return home from Troy by sea (throughout the Odyssey in general but particularly Books 13-24), his return from the mythic realm of his fantastic voyage to the mundane one (within his return from Troy), and his return from the underworld or katabasis (within his return from the mythic realm).

Secondly, unlike the return of other heroes from Troy, Odysseus faces not only mortal dangers in the path of his return(s) but also temptations to entice or take him away from that path altogether, as an alternative to nostos.

Thirdly, there is more than one nostos in the Odyssey, arguably even for Odysseus himself as it has different aspects or “meant several different things in the epic” – “escaping death, safe landings, returning home from war, and being back home”. The lone nostos of Odysseus also contrasts with the lost nostos of his crew or men, since only he survives to return. He is also not the only narrator of nostos in the Odyssey – Nestor and Menelaus also tell Telemachus of their happy returns, while the unhappy returns of heroes like Agamemnon are warnings, including by Agamemnon himself in the underworld to Odysseus.

Fourthly and finally, the Odyssey is one of many nostoi from Troy, with other such nostoi being the subject of another poem of that title (Nostoi) within the eight or so books of the larger Epic Cycle or Trojan Cycle – of which now only the Iliad and Odyssey survive intact.