Odyssey 'Round the World: Rhapsody 20
Channel: The Center for Hellenic Studies
Date: 2020-12-09

A reading of Rhapsody 20 of the Odyssey, organized by Rachele Pierini (University of Bologna). 

Book 20 opens on an empty space, during a sleepless night. Although the following morning the scene comes alive, a deep sense of alienation and eerily foreboding keeps permeating the whole book. Odysseus is still in disguise and prepares for the massacre of the Proci. 

We chose two devices to convey estrangement: archaic languages in the dialogues to underline the lack of communication between characters, and a white background to boost the disorientation in which the narration is set. 

We read the text in Ancient Greek, a Latin translation by Raffaele Maffei (ca. 1510), an Italian translation by Ippolito Pindemonte (ca. 1800), an English translation by Thomas Hobbes (1673), and a Spanish translation by Carlos García Gual (2016, with permission of the author).

In order of the characters’ appearances:

Rachele Pierini: Narrator (Ancient Greek – hexameter, English, Spanish)
Lucia Raggetti: Odysseus and Penelope (Italian)
Marco Ercoles: Athena, Eurycleia, Melanthius (Ancient Greek – hexameter)
Gabriele Ferrerio: Eumaeus, Philoetius, Amphinomus, Antinous, Agelaus, a young (Italian)
Vincenzo Carlotta: Telemachus, Ctesippus, Theoclymenus, Eurymachus (Latin)

Riccardo Finamore: Videomaker