Odysseus the reluctant hero

Odysseus the reluctant hero.
Before the Trojan War when Helen is abducted, Menelaus calls upon the other suitors to honor their oaths and help him to retrieve her, an attempt that leads to the Trojan War. Odysseus tries to avoid the quest by feigning lunacy, as an oracle had prophesied a long-delayed return home for him if he went. He hooks a donkey and an ox to his plow (as they have different stride lengths, hindering the efficiency of the plow) and (some modern sources add) starts sowing his fields with salt. Palamedes, at the behest of Menelaus' brother Agamemnon, seeks to disprove Odysseus' madness and places Telemachus, Odysseus' infant son, in front of the plow. Odysseus veers the plow away from his son, thus exposing his stratagem. Odysseus holds a grudge against Palamedes during the war for dragging him away from his home. This tale is attributed to the mythographers Pseudo-Apollodorus and Hyginus, who lived many centuries after Homer.


Image: Odysseus recognized by his aged dog Argos plaster relief by Pierre Amedee Durand, 1810, (PD).

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