Dante and Odysseus: comparative analysis of epic journeys

Divination and Revelation in the Epic Katabasis:

The Odyseey and the Inferno

The journey to the underworld or katabasis is a standard feature of the epic genre. While there is none in the Iliad (although the journey by mule-cart of Priam to the tent of Achilles has many features of a katabasis), two occur in the Odyssey: Odysseus' trip to the underworld to consult Teiresias for divination concerning his voyage home, and the description of the journey conducted by Hermes of the souls of the massacred suitors to the underworld. Virgil inevitably incorporated the theme of the katabasis into the Aeneid in the sequence in which Aeneas is given a tour of the underworld and shown the future history of the Roman Empire by the Sibyl of Cumae. The prominence of the theme in the Aeneid would have solidified for the Renaissance humanists, even more than the Odyssey, the importance of the theme of a katabasis for purposes of divination.

In book eleven of the Odyssey, Odysseus is directed (but not guided) by Circe to journey to the underworld and consult the shade of Teiresias whose prophecy will give him the knowledge he needs to return to his home in Ithaca. The underworld is conceived of as a physical place on the western edge of the world which Odysseus reaches simply by sailing. Once his boat is moored and he and his men go ashore, they find themselves surrounded by the shades of the dead like twittering bats. Once he sacrifices an animal, however, and the shades drink the blood, they are able to take on the semblance of human form and communicate with Odysseus. This nekuia is probably related to various features of the contemporary cult of the dead in Homer's Greece which included the consultation of the dead for divination.

Teiresias is in fact able to use the same prophetic powers he had in life and provide Odysseus with the knowledge he requires. Odysseus also encounters the shade of his own mother who informs him, not of the future, but of spatially distant events, namely the crisis associated with Penelope's suitors on Ithaca. Unlike Teiresias, she does not use divination or prophecy but only her memory of events on earth. Finally, Odysseus sees the shades of various prominent characters from the Iliad and learns from this the manner of their deaths.

Dante is led to the Inferno (described as a physical journey under the earth, but, by this late date, clearly the journey is metaphorical) by Virgil. He does not seek divination, but does encounter (Canto XX) diviners, who, in poetic justice, are forced to walk with their heads turned backwards because, while on earth, they could not see the future as they claimed. Like Odysseus, Dante sees the eschatological fate of many recently deceased contemporaries. But in this case, the theme is used by Dante to suggest that his and his family's political enemies (he was a White Guelph) were, literally, damnable.