I was re-reading The Odysseia, as I am prone to do when life gets hectic. It's a gentle refuge for my mind. I grasp at it in the hopes of clutching calm, and gaining a soothed mind. The Odyssey (Ὀδύσσεια) is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work ascribed to Homeros. The Odyssey was composed near the end of the 8th century BC and focuses mainly on the hero Odysseus, king of Ithaca, and his journey home after the fall of Troy. It takes Odysseus ten years of perilous journeying to reach his beloved Ithaca again.

In the Odysseia, Homeros describes the intense longing to be with someone who has departed, in this case Odysseus tells the story of how he spoke to the ghost of his mother and lamented that he wished to hold her. It rang true for me yesterday, at least the part about longing. That's why I'm sharing it with you today.

“So she spoke but as I pondered this in my thoughts,
I wanted to clutch the soul of my departed mother.
Three times I reached out as my heart urged me to embrace her,
And three times she drifted from my hands like a shadow
Ora dream. The grief in my heart only grew sharper
And I spoke to her, uttering winged words.
“Mother, why don’t you wait as I come to hold you,
So we may even in Hades throw our arms around another
And have our fill together of cruel grief?
Or is it that dread Persephone sends only this ghost to me
So I may groan, grieving still more?”
So I spoke and my lady mother responded right away:
“Oh, my child, most ill-fated of all men,
Zeus’ daughter Persephone does not allow you things,
This is the law of mortals whenever they die.
We possess no tendons, flesh or bones—
Those things the strong force of burning fire
Consumed, and when the spirit first leaves its white bones,
The soul flits about and flies like a dream.”
[Odyssey 11.204-222]

The ancient Hellenes believed in ghosts; they were the people who could not find the entrance to the Underworld or who didn't have the money to pay Kharon for their passage. Those who were not properly buried were also doomed to wander the Earth for a hundred years. Interestingly enough, Hellenic heroes were also considered ghosts and were honored in the same type of rites as other types of ghosts. These ghosts, like Odysseus' mother, were summoned from the underworld with libations of animal blood, milk and honey, undiluted red wine, and water.

It's a scary world we live in today, isn't it? I long for quiet and safety, for reassurance, like Odysseus longs for his mother. Reading Homeros gave me a little respite from reality and for that I will always be grateful.