the Odyssey begins with a pun on the name of its hero

[Hen Hanna]

in English, [(the) drunk] is the man/men, not the [thing drunk]

nouns like Comida, Bebida, ...
(French nouns Fait, vue, venue, avenue, ...)

So this seems to be a pattern in Latinate languages.




https://bibliot3ca.com/prolegomena-to-work-in-progress-by-stuart-gilbert/

Footnote [1] Quoi de plus divertissant et de plus instructif, tout ensemble, qu’un beau calembour étymologique? (Victor Bérard: l’Odyssée, p. 106) The importance of Homeric influences on James Joyce’s work can hardly be overestimated, and it is- noteworthy that the Odyssey begins with a pun on the name of its hero:

[ The Greek text is at ] https://i.imgur.com/6fp3RfY.png


Could someone tell me what the pun is? Thank you. HH

[Ed Cryer]

Athena addressing her father Zeus on Olympus; pleading for him to let
Odysseus get back home.
Why do you hate him so much?
*ὀδύσσομαι or *ὀδυίομαι, Ep. Verb, :—to be wroth against, hate

Ed

[Hen Hanna]

thank you so much!!!

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/odious seems to be related to that Greek word.


it'd be easy to preserve the pun as:

Why then do you find him so odious, O Zeus ?


https://archive.org/stream/odysseydoneinto00homegoog/odysseydoneinto00homegoog_djvu.txt

ODYSSEY /, 52-83.

who knows the depths of every sea, and himself upholds
the tall pillars which keep earth and sky asunder. His
daughter it is that holds the hapless man in sorrow : and
ever with soft and guileful tales she is wooing him to
forgetfulness of Ithaca. But Odysseus yearning to see if it
were but the smoke leap upwards from his own land, hath
a desire to die.

As for thee, thine heart regardeth it not at
all, Olympian! What! did not Odysseus by the ships of
the Argives make thee free offering of sacrifice in the wide
Trojan land ? Wherefore wast thou then so wroth with him, <--------
O Zeus ? '



And Zeus the cloud-gatherer answered her, and said, * My
child, what word hath escaped the door of thy lips ^ ? Yea,
how should I forget divine Odysseus, who in understanding
is beyond mortals and beyond all men hath done sacrifice
to the deathless gods, who keep the wide heaven ?

Nay, but
it is Poseidon, the girdler of the earth, that hath been wroth
continually with quenchless anger for the Cyclops' sake
whom he blinded of his eye, even godlike Polyphemus whose
power is mightiest amongst all the Cycl6pes. His mother
was the nymph Thoosa, daughter o...........

[Ed Cryer]

It makes you wonder just how Odysseus' name sounded to Greeks.
Homer calls him "polumetis" and "polutropos" (cunning and crafty), but I
wonder if "hater" came through.
And that reminds me of Catullus' masterly two-liner;
Odi et amo. quare id faciam, fortasse requiris.
nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.

Ed