Truth and Lies

The Theme in the Work

In Ithaca almost no one tells the whole truth, and the reason shows up early. In Sparta, Helen asks her husband whether she will speak the truth or lie, and her spirit tells her to speak; Menelaus promises not to deceive the young man and tells what Proteus told him (Book IV). Telemachus asks, in Pylos and in Sparta, that no one soften the news for him (Book III, Book IV).

The hero is the great liar of the poem, and the poem knows it. To the Cyclops he says that the ship was wrecked and that his name is Nobody (Book IX). To the Phaeacians he hides his name until the end and, when he makes a decision that was Nausicaa's, says he told the truth (Book VII). To Athena, disguised as a shepherd, he tells a story about Crete, and the goddess laughs and says that he does not give up deception even in his own land (Book XIII). To Eumaeus and to Penelope he tells stories of Crete (Book XIV, Book XIX), and to Laertes, the tale of a guest coming from Sicania (Book XXIV).

Those who listen also know how to doubt. Eumaeus refuses the beggar's news about the master, because vagrants lie to the queen for clothing, yet he welcomes him out of fear of Zeus (Book XIV). Penelope weeps at a lie that seems true, distinguishes the dreams that deceive from those that come true (Book XIX), and tests her husband with the order to move the bed (Book XXIII). Alcinous says that the guest does not look like a deceiver, and Agamemnon advises Odysseus to tell his wife only part of what he knows (Book XI).

Sometimes the truth is said as a hypothesis. Odysseus swears to Eumaeus that the master will return this very year, and Eumaeus does not believe it (Book XIV); he tells Eurymachus that if Odysseus came, the doors would be too narrow for him, and Eurymachus replies by throwing a footstool (Book XVIII).

The poem does not condemn Odysseus's lie: Athena loves it as a kinship of cunning between the two (Book XIII), and the narrator says he tells lies similar to truths (Book XIX). What the text separates is the lie of one who tells it out of poverty and the one that serves a plan, and the line in which Odysseus says he hates whoever yields to poverty and tells falsehoods is ironic, spoken by one who is about to tell an invented story (Book XIV). The cost of the lie appears in the body: the eyes like horn or iron before a weeping Penelope, the father who weeps truly before an invented story (Book XIX, Book XXIV).

Where It Appears

• Book IV: Helen asks her husband whether he will speak the truth or lie, and Menelaus promises not to deceive Telemachus and tells what the old man of the sea Proteus told him in Egypt.
• Book VII: Odysseus answers Arete only what she asks, does not say his name and, before Alcinous, takes on a decision that was Nausicaa's, saying he told the truth.
• Book IX: Odysseus tells the Cyclops that the ship broke and that his name is Nobody, lies that save him, and the other Cyclopes understand that no one attacks him.
• Book XI: Alcinous says that the guest does not seem a deceiver or an impostor, and Agamemnon advises Odysseus to tell his wife only part of what he knows.
• Book XIII: Odysseus invents for Athena, disguised as a shepherd, a story about Crete, and the goddess smiles and says he will not give up deception even in his own land.
• Book XIV: Eumaeus refuses the beggar's news about the master, because vagrants lie to the queen in exchange for clothing, and Odysseus tells an invented story to win a cloak.
• Book XVIII: Odysseus warns Eurymachus, in the form of a hypothesis, that the doors would be too narrow for him if Odysseus came, and no one hears the sentence as a warning.
• Book XIX: Odysseus tells Penelope a Cretan story made of possible truths, and she weeps, while he keeps his eyes still like horn or iron.
• Book XXIII: Penelope has the bed moved to test her husband, and Odysseus answers with the description that only the true owner would know.
• Book XXIV: Odysseus invents for his father Laertes the story of a guest from Sicania, and the old man pours ash on his head before the son reveals himself.

Passages

Athena laughs at the first lie he tells in Ithaca.

Eumaeus is not persuaded, but accepts the guest.

The narrator denounces the lie to the reader and makes it work before Penelope.

The price of the disguise appears in the eyes.

A truth in the form of a hypothesis is not heard as a warning.

Penelope sets up the test of the bed.

Before his father, Odysseus hesitates and chooses to begin with mockery.