Hospitality In Homer's The Odyssey

Hospitality is a courteous way that guests are treated in a stranger’s home. When a person enters someone’s home for the first time, their first impression will be based off the owner’s hospitality. If the host shows respect and care for the guest, the guest will feel admired. If the host shows discourteous, lack of respect, the guest will have a negative impression of the host. In Greek mythology, showing good hospitality (or also known as xenia) was important. Throughout Homer’s epic “The Odyssey” there were good Hospitality is a key variable in the tradition of Xenia. One of the Greek characters, who display Xenia, is Telemachus. “Greetings, strangers! here in our house you’ll find a royal welcome. Have supper first, then tell us what you want.” (Homer I.145). Telemachus’ actions, demonstrates the second step of Xenia which is to allow the stranger into one’s home. Telemachus didn’t know the stranger was Athena; he shows respects towards others, does not discriminate against strangers. Telemachus’ politeness may have given Athena a good impression of him, making her eager to assist him find news about his father.

When Polyphemus first meets Odysseus, he does not welcome Odysseus and his men properly, but instead frightens his men’s instead. “We Cyclops never blink at Zeus and Zeus’s shield” (Homer IX.309). “He bolted them down like a mountain-lion, left no scrap, devoured entrails, flesh and bones.”(Homer IX.329).It also seems that there are no rules or laws on Polyphemus’ island (since hospitality is not part of his culture) Cyclops lack respects towards the gods; offer visitors hospitality, but instead, the Cyclops sees them as “food”. “Ignorance is voluntary misfortune” (Nicholas Ling) Substandard xenia can lead to misfortune. Polyphemus’ iniquity towards Odysseus’ men caused him to be misfortune, having him blinded in the