Homer's Odyssey-How Xenia Is Shown In The Odyssey

How Xenia is Shown in The Odyssey

What is xenia? Xenia is the Greek custom of hospitality and protection shown to strangers. Greek’s would practice xenia to build a bond between themselves (the host) and the guest to ensure that the person traveling would be treated with kindness and respect. The Greek’s believed that by showing hospitality to the strangers they were honoring the gods and would be rewarded. In the epic poem The Odyssey the concept of xenia plays a very important role and is one of the central themes throughout the story. It was through the practice of xenia that many of the events in the book unfolded. The Odyssey shows the story of Odysseus trying to get home, and while he’s doing that he forms relationships with people

It was quite the opposite of xenia, actually called hubris. Hubris is a term the Greeks used to describe excessive ignorance, or pride in an individual. Many Greeks believed that hubris was a serious character flaw and the individuals that showed it were trying to put themselves above the gods. Hubris was shown in Odysseus’s encounter with Polyphemus. Odysseus and his men decided to go to a cyclops named Polyphemus’s cave in desperate need of food and shelter. The men had been traveling back from the Trojan war and were looking for a place to rest and recover before going back to Ithaca. When they entered the cave of Polyphemus they were not met with hospitality, but instead was met with his unfriendly and unwelcoming attitude. Odysseus tried to reason with him, but Polyphemus clearly had no intention of following the rules of xenia, probably because his father is Poseidon and thinks that he can protect him. Polyphemus trapped the men in his cave and started eating them (2 at a time) as meals. “You order me to fear the gods! My people think nothing of that Zeus with his big scepter, nor any god; our strength is more than theirs.” This quote shows Polyphemus’s hubris and how he thinks he is above the gods and stronger than them. Due to the circumstances of Odysseus’s men being eaten and the cyclops showing no hospitality, he had to come up with a plan to escape. He came up with a plan where he got the

In this paragraph I will write about a type of twisted hospitality through the stories of Odysseus and Circes. Odysseus and his men arrived at the island of Aeaea, where they were greeted by the witch Circe. Circe shows them xenia by offering them food and drink and inviting them into her village. But when the men eat her food, she drugs them and turns them into pigs. Odysseus resisted this by a herb that Hermes gave him, and overpowered her, forcing her to turn his crew back. Soon after this the two of them fall in love, and Odysseus and his crew stay there for a long time and Circes was an amazing host. She provided them with food, drink and shelter for a year. She also gave them instructions on how to get home and go to the underworld. Circe realized that she needed to be a good host or she would be punished, which she had already been punished by the gods before and did not want to upset them