| |
 |
 |
|
|
Caves
at the Marathonissi islet, Zakynthos.
|
|
On closer examination
these mythological figures recurrent in homeric poems are to be understood
in the precise sense they had for the audience of these poems sung and played
by actors, for this audience that knew their content and appreciated the
quality of the performances. A nymph like Calypso also meant for a navigator
a welcoming figure, an allusion to a possible stopover on a sea route, the
name given to a source, information on the way to worship it, on the possible
resources in drinking water of a given place. The mention of a cave like
that of the Cyclops or the Nymphs at Ithaka was also a precious information
for the crew of merchant ships, pirates' boats or warships who found there
a propicious place for disembarking a cargo of merchandise, a troup of slaves
or a war booty. Any site named after a mythological figure is therefore
a marked site connected with a story that characterises it and facilitates
its remembering. The name calls the meaning. It prefigures a welcoming or
dangerous, quiet or threatening place. It signals a climate of feelings
and emotions, pleasures and fears. It is from this general perspective that
I propose to interpret passages of Homer's poem on navigation, sea routes
and stopovers and to confront them once more with the knowlegde that sailors
of today have of these places and with their experience of navigation.  |
