In this recorded Socratic conversation, facilitator Michael Strong guides a 13‑year‑old student (Speaker B) through Books 6‑12 of Homer’s Odyssey. The dialogue touches on several recurring themes: the ancient Greek practice of hospitality (xenia) as shown by the Phoenician king and queen; the narrative pacing of Odysseus’s long voyages, especially his year‑long stay with Circe, contrasted with the student’s modern sense of time; the moral dissonance between ancient customs—particularly the routine enslavement of women after war—and contemporary values. The conversation moves to a discussion of patriarchy, noting Athena as a powerful female exception, and explores whether modern readers should critically interrogate or simply accept such historical gender hierarchies. The student expresses a view that the core human story—Odysseus’s struggle to return home—transcends cultural differences, and that reading myths should focus on universal human experience rather than on “weird” practices. The facilitator probes the student’s awareness of current university debates about whether classic texts that portray women as powerless should be censored or emphasized, and the student acknowledges the debate but does not fully endorse it. The session ends with a mutual agreement to continue reading later books.
Chapters
So this week we were supposed to have read books 6 through 12 of the Odyssey. Were you able to get to those?
Yes.
And what comes up for you? A lot happened. What are the themes that you find most interesting, engaging?
Well, for starters, just to recap a little bit, Odysseus gets to— I think today we call it Phoenicia, but they call it a bit different in the books, I forget how. And he's taken under their wing by, you know, the king and the queen, and Athena leads him in, things like that. So they are really hospitable and generous because he's a beggar or a stranger, and I think you were supposed to be really kind to beg people who come to your door because they were like brought by Zeus or something. I don't know if it's mentioned in there, but that's One thing I think about. And then so they host like games. One of the interactions I've read in every single retelling I've heard about the Odyssey, and I think it's kind of interesting, about how I think the prince challenges Odysseus in some sort of sport, and then he mocks him when Odysseus like doesn't want to, just wants to relax because he's, you know, been on this 15-year journey back home, or 20 or whatever. But then he mocks him because he doesn't know his story, and then Odysseus gets mad and then defeats them all in discus throwing, I think it is, or some sort of sport like that. And then at the end, the prince is like, "Oh shoot, I'm sorry," and then he gives them a sword as a gift. Yeah, but I always thought that interaction was interesting because, I mean, if you're supposed to be generous and hospitable to strangers, then don't mock them. But I don't know if that's what he was thinking or not. But anyways, I thought that was interesting. And then there's a couple different scenes where the musician is playing, or the bard is playing the story of the Trojan War, and when he hears that, Odysseus starts to cry, and then the king notices, and I'm not sure if that's— I don't remember if that's exactly how it went in this telling, but then he asks Odysseus to tell his tale. Or he asks like, "Oh, where are you from?" He says, "Oh, I'm Odysseus, son of Laertes. I'm from Ithaca. I'm trying to get back home from Troy." And then he starts telling his tale, basically all of his adventures. And then He tells of Cyclops, of the cannibals that they first encountered, and then I think it ends— oh, and Circe, Kirke. And then it ends when he's in the underworld talking to everybody. He's about to go back up.
Got it. Um, and any of those themes that you especially liked or didn't like?
Um, I thought it was interesting how they are taking so long going from one place to another, probably just because I'm used to like planes and cars and stuff and going so fast everywhere. But he spent a whole year with Circe, which I thought was interesting because I don't know if she like trapped him under a spell or whatever, even though he was supposed to be invincible to that. I don't know, he spent— he spent so much time in this book thinking about going home that he like completely forgot about home there and decided to stay with Circe for a whole year. I think they use the term until the year was fat or something. So I don't know, that was interesting.
And given that you're only 13, Odysseus has been traveling more years than, than you've been alive. So yeah, it's a very different pacing. I want to kind of go to the, you know, difference in moral framework from their time to ours. So earlier we were talking about you know, we know that he's going to go and slaughter all the suitors when he gets back home. And my recollection is that your take was, even though that's not something we would do today, that it's somehow morally or dramatically satisfying to think of Odysseus doing that. Is that— am I correctly reflecting your take?
Yes.
Yeah. Something that I noticed, and it was just in passing here in this section, So very small, not a major plot detail. But in a couple of points, they mention either one girl being enslaved or enslaving a bunch of girls. I think in, with the Odyssey, I mean, with the Trojan War, they enslaved a bunch of girls. And then there are other references to girls being enslaved. And so it seems to be a world where at least in battle, it was routine to enslave girls. And, you know, as a girl, what are your thoughts on that? You just sort of read that and that's part of the story, or it's like, wait, or how do you manage? How do you think about that kind of thing?
Um, well, I don't, I guess I don't think very much of it because I know that people did that back in that time. And I know people mostly don't do that now today. I hope they don't. Um, and obviously I don't know how that feels because I was born here and not there. But, um, I'm aware that, like, what, on cam— in campaigns and wars, and I guess just in life back in that time, it was normal for people to do that. I don't know if normal is the right word, but I'm familiar with it, so that's why I wasn't really making a big deal of it, I think.
So you kind of have a moral framework where we have a certain stance of morals morals today. They had a very different set of morals then. And you kind of just accept that the moral framework was very different then as part of how we read and understand old things. Is that accurate?
Pretty much. And I'm not saying what they're doing is good or bad or anything. I don't know. I mean, I've never done it. I've never experienced it, so I wouldn't know. Um, but yes, I think so.
So this is of interest because there are some people who think we shouldn't read, uh, things where these bad things happen, or we should be acutely critical of them as we read them. Do you think that it's important to be critical of them as we read them, or even not read them, or that doesn't make sense to you?
Um, first of all, what do you mean by critical? Like criticizing what they're doing and then saying that's wrong.
Yeah, so for instance, have you heard the term patriarchy?
Um, yes.
Do you have any idea what it means?
Um, I'm not sure if this is the meaning because I know I've heard words that sound familiar. Actually, I think I might be thinking of hierarchy. Never mind.
Okay.
No, I haven't.
Hierarchy is, you know, some people or things are higher than others. And others are lower, but patriarchy is basically a world ruled by men.
Oh, yeah, I haven't heard that before.
Yeah. Again, Athena is a really interesting exception here because Athena is clearly very powerful. Of course, she's a goddess. But other than Athena, and there are a few powerful women who have some independence and power, but certainly when the men are killing the other men and enslaving the women. Women are not very powerful there. And so there's some people who think that we should be, that it's a problem to read things from this time when the world was ruled by men or mostly ruled by men, and that somehow we should be criticizing that. And does that perspective make any sense to you at all? Or you're happy just, hey, that's the way it was and we're different now.
I don't think it really makes sense because, A, there's no moral of the story here that says all men should rule the world and, you know, read this book so that you understand that. And, you know, maybe some guy right now goes and reads, um, some— I don't know, The Odyssey— and goes, hey, there aren't any women leaders, that's how this world should be. But I don't think anybody's going to do that. Um, that's not the point of the story. The point is Odysseus getting home. Um, and that's what we're reading about. And since this book is— was written or based on not our time, based on different people with living in different areas with different religions and things like that, then I don't think we should— well, um, well, I was gonna say I don't think we should be too critical, but I'm not sure what should— what we should be critical about. I know that there's no, like, queens ruling countries and things like that, but it's not such a bad thing where we should stop reading books like these. I think that's my point.
Got it. What I would maybe rephrase what you're saying is that the human essence of this story is Odysseus' return and all of the challenges, and then what happens when he gets back. And that is, that's the That's the kind of dramatic thread throughout the story. And that, that's true even if there are various things about the story that are different from our world and that we can relate to the human element separately from things about the world that are different from us. Am I kind of getting you accurately?
Yes.
Which actually makes a lot of sense to me. I mean, I guess I'm thinking of to use different examples, when we read, say, Native American myths or myths from any culture, I think I'm most interested in the myth as the human side of it, how— what I'm learning about being human and how their experience of being human are related to mine, and not about any kind of weird or different practices they have. Does that sound right?
Yeah, that sounds right.
Okay. No, it makes a lot of sense to me. Um, and I'm so— this is one of those situations where I am so aligned with you. Um, it would feel artificial for me to kind of push you on, no, be more critical of them. But, you know, I'm aware of all these debates, like at universities and things. Um, and so I thought I'd sort of check to see your take on these issues that become much, much bigger at universities, at least right now. They may or may not be big issues when you get to university. But had you been aware of any of this kind of controversy at all, or not a trace?
Um, well, I didn't know that there were debates at universities about this kind of stuff, about whether or not we should read books that have this element in it. Um, I know that people think that, um, like nowadays people think that places where women were like insignificant or didn't have any power is a bad thing because women should be like equal as men or whatever their thought process is. But, um, I didn't know people were debating about it in universities.
Oh, we are. It's very, very big. And again, it is the notion that if we want to empower women, then maybe do we need to have only stories that empower women? That is, is it bad to have, uh, men and women today, or girls and boys today, read stories where women are not empowered? And you could, it sounds like you don't think it's a problem, but you could see why if somebody's full on, we need to empower women, then maybe we only allow stories where women are empowered. Do you at least see where they're coming from in that kind of an argument?
I see where they're coming from. I just don't totally agree with it.
Yeah. I know. I don't either. That's why I'm not going to push it on you. Sometimes, you know, when I do Socratic questioning, I push harder, push less, but sometimes it feels false for me to push hard on something if I don't really agree with it. Makes sense?
Yeah.
Cool. In which case, I'm going to let you go for the week and have a great week. And next time we will do books 12 to 18. And then one more time, we'll be done. Okay.
