When Odysseus discovers that his companions have eaten the sacred cattle of Helios, he blames the gods for sending sleep over his eyes. This instance of divine intervention combined with the severity of the companions’ punishment paints a complicated picture of divine justice, which this lecture aims to elucidate by putting the Odyssey in conversation with the Epic of Gilgamesh. Sleep plays a prominent role in both poems: Gilgamesh’s failed sleep trial nullifies his quest for immortality, and Odysseus’ supernatural rest enables the rebellion of his men at the cost of their lives. Studying these moments of crisis side by side, this lecture demonstrates how the poems parallel each other in attributing a moral dimension to sleep. A comparative study of the characters’ interactions with the gods of the sun reveals that sleep plays no arbitrary role but rather serves a distinct purpose within the poems’ respective ethical frameworks as a motif metonymic for mortality.
Sponsored by the Department of Classics, the Franco Family Institute for Liberal Arts and the Public Good, and the College of Arts and Letters.