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By Root 427 0

one, condition—that he would slay the suitors. Ulysses, as we know, was not in the least bloodthirsty or vindictive; he would perhaps have preferred to dismiss the suitors by gentler means, by persuasion. But this time he made up his mind, knowing, in fact, that upon killing of the suitors depends the esteem of Penelope and consequently her love also. So he kills them. Then, and only then, does Penelope cease to despise him, only then does she love him again. And so Ulysses and Penelope are again in love, after all those years of separation, and they celebrate their true marriage—their ‘Bluthochzeit,’ their blood-marriage. Well, do you understand, Molteni? Now to sum up! Point one: Penelope despises Ulysses for not having reacted like a man, like a husband, and like a king, to the indiscreet behavior of the suitors. Point two: her contempt causes the departure of Ulysses to the Trojan War. Point three: Ulysses, knowing that he is awaited at home by a woman who despises him, delays his return as long as he can. Point four: in order to regain Penelope’s esteem and love, Ulysses slays the suitors. Do you understand, Molteni?”

I said I understood. All this was not very difficult to understand. But now, the feeling of aversion I had had for Rheingold’s interpretation from the very beginning sprang up again, stronger than ever, and it made me perplexed and bemused. In the meantime Rheingold was explaining pedantically: “Do you know how I arrived at this key to the whole situation? By means of a simple consideration of the slaughter of the suitors, as it is told in the Odyssey. I observed that this slaughter, brutal, ferocious, ruthless as it was, was in absolute contrast to the character of Ulysses as hitherto presented to us: cunning, flexible, subtle, reasonable, cautious...and I said to myself: ‘Ulysses might very well have politely shown the suitors the door...he had the possibility of doing this; being in his own house, and being king, all he had to do was to show himself as such. As he doesn’t do it, it is a sign that he has some good reason for not doing it. What reason? Obviously Ulysses wishes to prove that not only is he cunning, flexible, subtle, reasonable, cautious, but also, if necessary, as violent as Ajax, as unreasonable as Achilles, as ruthless as Agamemnon. And to whom does he want to prove this? Obviously to Penelope—and so: eureka!’ ”

I said nothing. Rheingold’s argument was very nicely worked out, and fitted in perfectly with his inclination to transform the Odyssey into a psychoanalytical case-history. But, precisely because of that, it gave me a feeling of great repugnance, as though I were confronted with a kind of profanation. In Homer, everything was simple, pure, noble, ingenuous, even the astuteness of Ulysses, poetically contained as it was within the limits of an intellectual superiority. In Rheingold’s interpretation, on the other hand, everything was debased to the level of a modern play, full of moralizings and psychologizings. In the meantime Rheingold, extremely pleased with his own exposition, was concluding: “As you see, Molteni, the film’s already there, in all its details...all we have to do is to write it down.”

I broke in, almost violently: “Look here, Rheingold, I don’t care for this interpretation of yours at all!”

He opened his eyes very wide, more astonished, one would have said, by my boldness than by my disagreement. “You don’t care for it, my dear Molteni? And why don’t you care for it?”

I answered with an effort, but with an assurance that grew steadily as I spoke: “I don’t care for it because your interpretation implies a complete falsification of the original character of Ulysses. In the Odyssey Ulysses is described, certainly, as a man who is subtle, reasonable, astute if you like, but always within the bounds of honor and dignity. He never ceases to be a hero, that is, a brave warrior, a king, an upright husband. Your interpretation—if you will allow me to say so, my dear Rheingold—runs the risk of making him into a man without dignity, without honor, without decency...apart