Tēs tou Homērou Odysseias

Της του Όμήρου Ίλιάδος ό τόμος πρότρος Δεγτερος

by Homer

Tēs tou Homērou Odysseias
Title page from Tēs tou Homērou Odysseias, George Wythe Collection, Wolf Law Library, College of William & Mary.
Author	Homer
Editor	James Moor and George Muirhead
Translator	{{{trans}}}
Published	Glasguae:: In aedibus Academicis, Excudebant R. et A. Foulis
Date	1758
Edition	{{{edition}}}
Language	Greek
Volumes	2 volumes in 1 volume set
Pages	{{{pages}}}
Desc.	Folio (34 cm.)
Location	[[Shelf {{{shelf}}}]]
	[[Shelf {{{shelf2}}}]]

Bookplate of William Danby, front pastedown.

Little is known about the life of Homer, the poet responsible for the Iliad and the Odyssey. Herodotus claimed Homer lived around 850 BCE, while modern scholars usually date his poems to the second half of the eighth century BCE. The Trojan War is estimated to have occurred at the end of the Mycenaean Age in Greece, around 1200 BCE, meaning that Homer was looking back four centuries to a heroic world much greater in his esteem, than the contemporary world. Homer relied on oral history to compose his poems; this provides some of the basis for the "separatist" view that the two epic poems were not written by the same person, but possibly by a combination of poets. The mixed dialect of Ionian Greek in which each poem was originally written indicates that both poems were written in the east Aegean. This is supported by contextual clues in the poems themselves. The two most plausible locations for the birth of Homer are Smyrna and Chios, but ancient Greeks viewed the poet as a blind minstrel wandering while he composed the poems, which were sung or chanted, accompanied by a lyre.

Homer’s Odyssey is an epic poem consisting of 24 books telling the story of the Trojan War hero Odysseus ten-year journey trying to get home to his wife Penelope and son Telemachus in Ithaca, where Odysseus is king. This epic is distinct from the Iliadin that it is a more romantic than heroic/tragic poem. It is clear in the Odyssey who the “good” and “bad” characters are, and therefore with whome the readers (or more accurately the listeners, as it was intended to be recited orally) should emphathize. Odysseus is shown through much of Greek mythological writing as intelligent and crafty individual. He tricked Achilles into agreeing to join the Greeks against the Trojans, and tricked the Trojans with the giant wooden horse that helped to end the war. In the Odyssey, Odysseus familial devotion and "eternal human quality[y] of resolution" contrast with the barbaric creatures he meets on his adventures, as well as with the suitors attempting to woo his wife. Odysseus humaneness served as a model to Greek men, just as Penelope’s devotion to her husband and home showed Greek women how to behave. The strong moral themes in the Odyssey in no way take away from the exciting adventures Odysseus encountered, from the Cyclopes to the Lotus Eaters to the Sirens, and to tricking and defeating Penelope’s suitors.

Bookplate of Lytton Strachey, front pastedown.

Evidence for Inclusion in Wythe's Library

Listed in the Jefferson Inventory of Wythe's Library as "[Homeri] Odysseus. Gr. 2.v. fol. Foulis" and given by Thomas Jefferson to Dabney Carr. Both the Brown Bibliography and George Wythe's Library on LibraryThing list the 1758 Greek version of the Odyssey published by the Foulis Press. The Wolf Law Library purchased the same edition.

Description of the Wolf Law Library's copy

Bookplate of Roger Senhouse, front pastedown.

Bound in contemporary full diced brown calf with wide gilt tooled borders and five gilt stamped raised bands. Spines feature gilt lettered and elaborately gilt decorated and ornamented compartments. The edges are gilt-rolled. Includes the bookplates of William Danby, Lytton Strachey, and Roger Senhouse on the front pastedown. Signature "W Danby, Chris. Coll. 1772" on front flyleaf. Part of a combined set with Tēs tou Homērou Iliados. Purchased from David Brass.

Inscription, front flyleaf.