Expert: Francesco Marchesani - 2/25/2008

Question
I seem to remember a prophecy or punishment that Odysseus, having returned home, would be doomed to set out again on a second set of wanderings, not to remain in Ithaka. Is this actually told anywhere?

Answer
Hello,
in the eleventh book of the Odissey, Odysseus meets Tiresias (the most famous, mythological seer of the Greek world) in Ades (the Underworld); Tiresias tells Odysseus that he will not stay at home for long: he will have to travel carrying an oar on his shoulders, till he finds people who don't know what he's carrying, people who don't know what a ship is and who have never seen the sea nor eat food seasoned with salt. Only then, after sacrificing to Poseidon, he would be allowed to return home and die in his house, by a "death coming from the sea" in serenity.
I wouldn't see the prophecy as a punishment, but simply as Odysseus' destiny: Odysseus represents the man who searches for knowledge and travels the world to acquire it, and his second voyage is the desire of mankind to never stop searching for knowledge, discovering new worlds, new peoples, new cultures till reaching something as impossible as a people who doesn't know salt.