Arête And Metis In Odysseus, The King Of Ithaca

Arête and Metis

Odysseus, the king of Ithaca, has been blessed with magnificent abilities, cunning wits and combat superiority. Throughout his journey, he showed many examples of excellence and wits, or what Greeks called Arête and Metis. He battled giant Cyclops and he even fought a whole army of suitors with only the help of his son and two loyal herds. Not only did he display amazing skills, or Arête, he also showed great Metis. He tricked a Cyclops into thinking that his name is “Nobody,” and he disguised himself as a beggar to test the loyalty of his people. Although he performed many of these remarkable acts, the dominance of one trait over another is still debated. Can he survive with only one of these abilities? Without both of these

There is one man out there that displays both of these and his name is Odysseus, the king of Ithaca. An example of when Odysseus needs both Arête and Metis in order to establish his heroism was when he battle the Cyclops, Polyphemus. Polyphemus was planning to eat Odysseus, so his plan was to make the Cyclops drunk and injure his eye. On page 223, Odysseus said “Nobody-that’s my name. Nobody- so my mother and father calls me, all my friends” (223).This just shows how quick of a thinker Odysseus is. He was able to quickly make a name that would later help him escape. Then, while the Cyclops was sleeping, Odysseus “Hoisting high that olive stake with its stabbing point, straight into the monsters eye they rammed hit hard” (223). Now this is the Arête part of Odysseus we see. He stabs the monster’s eyes with no fear and no trouble and still Odysseus manages to escape. His high courage and excellence wounded the cyclops allowing time to run. The cyclops then bellowed “Nobody is killing me!”(224). Thanks to Odysseus quick and clever name he was able to prevent Polyphemus from getting help because the other cyclops just thinks that “nobody” is attacking him. After that, Odysseus again use his metis to escape. “I took them three by three; each ram in the middle bore a man while the other two rams either side would shield him”(225). With this plan Odysseus was able to escape flawlessly, without

The first thing that Odysseus does when he get home is disguise himself as a beggar. “First I [Athena] will transform you, no one must know you…I’ll dim the fire in your eyes, so shining once-until you seem appalling to all those suitors, even your wife and son you left behind at home” (299). Being a beggar helped keep his identity a secret and it allowed him the chance to test the loyalty of his people. There he discovered the cruelness of the suitors. They were taking the wealth of his palace, courting his wife, and worse of all trying to kill his son. Once Odysseus discovered this he decided to kill them all, showing how true of a warrior he is, “Odysseus aimed and shot Antinous Square in the throat and the point went stabbing clean through the soft neck” (440). With great mastery of the bow Odysseus was able to smoothly send an arrow through Antinous neck, displaying his superior excellence in combat. Also, Odysseus “in the same time loosed an arrow ripping Eurymachus breast beside the nipple so hard it lodged in the man’s liver” (442). With such great accuracy, Odysseus once again shows his excellence in combat. Without both he would have either been spotted or overthrown by the suitors and he would have gotten killed trying to fight the suitors single-handedly. His great skills of Arête and Metis helped him survive once more in the