Canto I Loyalty Quotes

If Odysseus is anything, he's a loyal friend. That's why he's so shocked when he finds out that his buddy Elpenor has come to the "dark coast" of the Greek underworld. The first thing he wants to know is how the heck this whole thing happened. Last he checked, Elpenor was still alive on Circe's island.

It turns out the Elpenor didn't approach Odysseus in the underworld just for the sake of saying hello. He actually wants Odysseus to turn his ship back the way he came so he can go get Elpenor's body and give him a proper burial. The Greeks were really big on proper burials, you see. But Elpenor is really testing Odysseus' loyalty here, asking him to put a whole bunch of men at risk just to bury a guy who's already dead.

In case you didn't know, Anticlea is Odysseus' dead mother. Now most of us might think that if we saw our mothers in heaven, we'd go running into their arms, but not Odysseus. He's got other fish to fry, and doesn't want to have a long conversation with his mom about how he doesn't visit her grave often enough. Right now, getting home to his wife and son is his major priority, not his mother.