Blood for the Dead: Homeric Ghosts Speak up

Abstract

But merely 'approaching' the blood is not enough. After Tiresias departs, Odysseus waits until his mother 'came forward and drank the dark blood' (152-3). Only upon imbibing does Anticleia recognize and speak to her son. So what, exactly, is the function of the sacrificial blood? Does the ghostly imbibing enable the Homeric dead to regain some form of consciousness, or does it allow the shades to speak intelligibly with the living? Or both? Does this rule always apply, or only in certain circumstances or with specific individuals? The Homeric picture of the dead is notoriously complex, ambiguous, and even contradictory. Indeed, the fate itself of the dead is variously depicted in the epics with several alternatives to the predominant shadowy world of the dead of Odyssey 11. In addition to the uncomfortable double post-mortem life of Heracles at Od. 11 .601-626, one learns of alternative afterlives provided or offered to Ganymede (II. 20.231-5), Menelaus (Od. 4.561-9; cf. Calypso's offer of immortality to Odysseus, 5.206-10, 23.336), Leucothea (Od. 5.333-5), Castor and Polydeuces (Od. 11.299-304), and Cleitus (Od. 15.250-1). Things are even more manifold once one considers other early Greek epics (see below on Achilles). A familiar critical approach to such contradictions surrounding the Homeric dead has been to try to separate out the various strands of thought into chronological layers, to attempt to tease out the development of Greek beliefs about death and dying from the Mycenaean through the Archaic Age.' Take the notorious issue of witless shades, for example. Circe tells Odysseus that Tiresias is the one