Athena's plea.

"Olympian Zeus have you no care for him in your lofty heart? Did he never win your favor with sacrifices burned beside the ships on the broad plain of Troy? Why, Zeus, so dead set against Odysseus?" (The Odyssey, Book 1, translation by Robert Fagles)

(I want to think about Robert Fagles for a brief second here. His translation of the Odyssey was the first book I ever read at Princeton, and it was to his work and ideas that I turned when I finally did a translation piece as thesis work at Princeton. He died a month or two before the thesis was done, but in a strange, possibly self-important way, I always feel like his legacy at Princeton was the reason I was able to do what I did.)

These particular lines in Athena's prayer to Zeus stood out to me this morning because of the sense of desperation that is so perfectly communicated in them. Unlike the rest of her carefully marked and calculated speech to Zeus, her father, these are lines that I imagine would be sobbed, screamed out by a woman tearing her hair, uttered by someone at the complete end of their wits and wisdom. Zeus' heart is care-less for this mortal, its divine height blinds and hardens it. Odysseus, the man's, constant sacrifices to this god of god's go unnoticed. But most importantly, mercy, at this point, appears to be a cheap virtue-- and it is only a god who is "dead set" against a man that does not show pity to a man in suffering.

Of course, we know that there are other powers, Poseidon among them, who plot against Odysseus (who isn't called the man of twists and turns for nothing), and in Zeus's reply to Athena we learn that he is not not into Odysseus but kind of for him... and hence the Odyssey goes. But let's come back to Athena and her cry for mercy.

Athena's is possibly one of the more desperate, least intricate, and thus, in my eye, most artistic of the mercy pleas. Hers are the words that despite existing on the page force the reader to hear them out loud-- they are horribly common, and that's why we can hear them... because we do hear them and at some point, utter them. They follow the all too common sequence of the call to a god, a higher power, the reminders to this supposedly forgetful god of the goodness of the supplicant, and finally, the rock-bottom point of why me, what is it in particular that I have done.

I'm not sure what the answer to this is, but before I even attempt to posit one, I do want to visit another, probably better-known, mercy plea: Portia's in The Merchant of Venice.

PORTIA: The quality of mercy is not strain'd,

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:

...But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this,
That, in the course of justice, none of us
Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy...

Now mercy is placed alongside justice-- the first is an attribute of god and godliness, and the second, justice, belongs to man. Justice, according to Portia, can fail. It is a human and thus limited in its abilities to do right by humankind. It is when the human invention fails that we turn to the divine. Thus "mercy seasons justice," and when there is no "salvation" in the "course of justice," we can only "pray for mercy." This is the case of Odysseus also-- indeed, Poseidon's justice for Odysseus is his Odyssey, his endless, relentless wandering. And it is Athena, who unknowing of Zeus's predilection for Odysseus, is forced to the point where the absence of justice forces her to fall for mercy.

But mercy is not a human attribute, Portia learns. It belongs mostly to the gods, who as we see in the Odyssey can only work it in unseen ways. Instead, it is justice that must be clawed at to yield what Portia terms "salvation." In the Merchant of Venice, it is the law that savess Antonio-- a pound of flesh means not a drop of blood-- and in the Odyssey, it is the twists and turns of Odysseus that allow him to make the final journey to Ithaca.

Of course, at this point, we leave this realm of the literary for the ethical, maybe the philosophical:

Mercy: Justice :: God: Man

I'm inclined to think not. Here's my conclusion: It is Portia's and Athena's recognition of what is godly that allows them entry to this select club of humanity. Can Portia and Athena function in a lawful society where Odysseuses must be punished and Antonios be defleshed? I think mercy has ways of negotiating justice, or as Portia says, "mercy seasons justice."

That's it for O. and his troubles. Demain, c'est l'Iliad.