Examples Of Lightning In The Odyssey

Another natural phenomena that occurs in The Odyssey is when lightning rains down from the sky and kills every man, except Odysseus. Greeks would say that Odysseus’ men had angered Zeus, causing him, god of lightning, to kill all the shipmates with lightning. “Oh for shame, how the mortals put the blame on us gods, for they say evils come from us, but it is they, rather, who by their own recklessness win sorrow beyond what is given …” (Homer 12). A Greek would say this to be true. He would say this because, again, they did not have the technology that we have today. They would say this because at the time the crewmates that had died had done something inexplicable. They had eaten a sacred thing of the gods. They had eaten the sacred cows of

Modern day people would easily argue and state that a lightning storm could have just taken place in that area. “It's such a small sample and short time frame; let's not get alarmed” (Yan 1). With the modern science that we have today, we know that lightning is not thrown by Zeus, but when ice particles start to form in a thunder cloud instead. We also know that Zeus was not displeased with a certain group of people, or boat, but actually, possibly there was a lightning storm scheduled for that time in that area, or some other logically possible explanation for what had happened. A Greek would probably be offended by this in many ways. Greeks would argue that there was no way there was a coincidence. They would say that lightning could only come from Zeus, and that it made no sense since Odysseus was the lone survivor on the lightning storm. “Father Zeus, and you other everlasting and blessed gods, punish the companions of Odysseus, son of Laertes; for they outrageously killed my cattle, in whom I always delighted, on my way up into the starry heaven, or when I turned back again from heaven toward earth” (Homer 12