The Name of Odysseus
Language, modern linguists assure us, is an arbitrary system of signs. The Greeks were not so sure. The debate between those who maintain that language is purely conventional and their opponents who believe that language is "by nature" has a long history which cannot be traced here. But most early etymological speculation presupposes that a name and the thing denominated are closely related, i.e., that a name, correctly understood, indicates the nature of the thing named. The fact that many Greek proper names have transparent meanings (e.g., Aristodemus 'Best-of-the-people,' Telemachus 'Far-fighter,' and Patroclus 'Glory-of-the-father') lends powerful support to such a view. The more opaque names and epithets of the most mysterious of beings, the gods, and the famous heroes of the past tease the ingenuity of the Greeks from the earliest times. When Sappho ponders the meaning of Hesperus, the evening star, or when Aeschylus has the Chorus of the Agamemnon pause to reflect on the name of Helen, or when, in the same play, Cassandra recognizes the source of her destruction in the of Apollo, they are not indulging in mere punning or wordplay. Rather, they manifest a time-honored conviction that a proper understanding of a name will reveal the hidden nature of what the name designates. Such a name is called an onoma epnumon, a name that corresponds appropriately to the person or object designated. Homer and Hesiod offer numerous examples of this kind of etymological thinking, and it is not surprising that Homer should allow himself to speculate about the meaning of Odysseus.
Our attention has already been drawn to that name indirectly through its omission in the proem, which introduced an anonymous hero whose polytropic character is revealed in his passive ability to endure great suffering and in his active role as the man of metis. The same double perspective is retained at the end of the poem. After Odysseus and Penelope are finally reunited and have taken their pleasure in lovemaking, they each tell their stories. Odysseus' summary of his long travels and adventures - of his odyssey - is introduced as follows:
But Zeus-born Odysseus told her all - all the troubles he set upon men, and all that he himself had suffered in misery. (23. 306-308)
Troubles inflicted and troubles endured - these are the two-fold aspect of the hero. The name itself, Odysseus, embraces both and is profoundly ambiguous in its significance.
The Wrath of Athena: Gods and Men in The Odyssey, Jenny Strauss Clay (1996)
