0:00:02 > 0:00:06Sirens screaming, a warrior, driven by revenge,
0:00:06 > 0:00:13a son in search of a father and the trickiest journey home you could ever imagine.
0:00:13 > 0:00:18This, ladies and gentlemen, is not some 21st-century urban rhyme.
0:00:18 > 0:00:21It's one of the greatest stories ever told.
0:00:21 > 0:00:24Homer's Odyssey has been ricocheting around the world for thousands of years...
0:00:26 > 0:00:30..capturing the imagination of millions of people along the way
0:00:30 > 0:00:34and it all started right here in the Greek shrine of Delphi,
0:00:34 > 0:00:40when "The Blind Bard", Homer, travelled here from his far-away home island and stood up for
0:00:40 > 0:00:44the first time to share his masterpiece with the expectant crowd.
0:00:45 > 0:00:47Except it's not like that at all.
0:00:47 > 0:00:50We know almost nothing about who composed The Odyssey,
0:00:50 > 0:00:53when it was first composed or even when it was first sung.
0:00:53 > 0:00:56Yet despite all of that, for almost 3,000 years,
0:00:56 > 0:00:59it has exerted tremendous influence over world literature,
0:00:59 > 0:01:02inspiring writers from Virgil and Dante to Margaret Atwood,
0:01:02 > 0:01:05James Joyce and Ralph Ellison
0:01:05 > 0:01:06and now me.
0:01:08 > 0:01:12I want to know, what is it about this work that has made it such a classic
0:01:12 > 0:01:15and why its origins have been shrouded in mystery for so long?
0:01:17 > 0:01:20The ancients believed that The Odyssey was a true story and that
0:01:20 > 0:01:23its main character, Odysseus, really existed.
0:01:23 > 0:01:27But what do we actually know about this ground-breaking text
0:01:27 > 0:01:29and its mysterious author?
0:01:29 > 0:01:33In this film, I'm following in the footsteps of the Odyssey,
0:01:33 > 0:01:35across the Mediterranean, as part of my quest
0:01:35 > 0:01:39to compose my response to Homer's epic call.
0:01:39 > 0:01:41Why is the story told?
0:01:41 > 0:01:42What is the teller's mission?
0:01:42 > 0:01:45What is the ultimate source of our deepest intuition?
0:01:47 > 0:01:48To create this work,
0:01:48 > 0:01:52I'll need to find out exactly what we know about its mysterious author...
0:01:52 > 0:01:54We have the name, we have the poems,
0:01:54 > 0:01:56and we have lots of stories,
0:01:56 > 0:01:59but these immediately show us that people are speculating.
0:01:59 > 0:02:03..come face-to-face with some of the main characters from the story...
0:02:03 > 0:02:06This is the so-called mask of Agamemnon.
0:02:06 > 0:02:11..hear how The Odyssey might have sounded to its first audiences...
0:02:11 > 0:02:14HE SPEAKS ANCIENT LANGUAGE
0:02:15 > 0:02:18..and discover how Homer's works helped the ancients
0:02:18 > 0:02:21understand both life and death.
0:02:22 > 0:02:25You're cutting into the heart of a really fundamental question,
0:02:25 > 0:02:29aren't you, about what it means to be human?
0:02:29 > 0:02:31The central theme of The Odyssey is
0:02:31 > 0:02:34the irresistible urge to return home.
0:02:34 > 0:02:37And so, to help complete my new song,
0:02:37 > 0:02:40my journey culminates on the island of Ithaca,
0:02:40 > 0:02:44the homeland which Odysseus spent so long striving to return to.
0:02:46 > 0:02:50How will seeing the world of the Odyssey first-hand influence the way
0:02:50 > 0:02:54I craft this 21st-century response?
0:02:54 > 0:02:56This is my Odyssey.
0:03:03 > 0:03:08The ability of language to change people's lives has always struck me as magical.
0:03:08 > 0:03:12# Two households, both alike in dignity... #
0:03:12 > 0:03:15It's one of the reasons that I became a hip-hop artist.
0:03:15 > 0:03:18It's long been clear to me that poetry,
0:03:18 > 0:03:21literature and music are all interconnected.
0:03:21 > 0:03:24I've always loved the power of words and the beauty of poetry and
0:03:24 > 0:03:28that's been exemplified with my work with the Hip-hop Shakespeare Company,
0:03:28 > 0:03:31but there is one poet who's one of the daddies of the whole tradition
0:03:31 > 0:03:33and that is, of course, Homer.
0:03:35 > 0:03:38I didn't get the chance to study much of The Blind Bard's work
0:03:38 > 0:03:42when I was at school here in Tufnell Park.
0:03:42 > 0:03:46But right around the corner is a bookshop specialising in texts from
0:03:46 > 0:03:48around the ancient world.
0:03:48 > 0:03:51This is a treasure trove, which, as you can see, it's pretty big,
0:03:51 > 0:03:53but the Homer that you're after is down here.
0:03:53 > 0:03:56- That's a lot of Homer!- Enjoy.
0:03:56 > 0:03:59It really makes you think about how many different translations there's been,
0:03:59 > 0:04:04and for how long and, for some reason, the old dusty books,
0:04:04 > 0:04:06even though I know they were printed recently, they kind of...
0:04:06 > 0:04:09they feel almost like secret.
0:04:09 > 0:04:14The Odyssey is an epic poem spread across 24 books that appears to date
0:04:14 > 0:04:16back to the eighth century BC.
0:04:18 > 0:04:20It begins with the lines "Sing, muse,
0:04:20 > 0:04:22"of the man of many ways
0:04:22 > 0:04:27"who suffered so much after he destroyed the citadel at Troy."
0:04:27 > 0:04:30Words that immediately grab you and set up the grand nature of the story
0:04:30 > 0:04:33that is about to unfold.
0:04:35 > 0:04:38Though The Odyssey and another epic poem about the Trojan War called
0:04:38 > 0:04:42The Iliad are most often attributed to the poet Homer,
0:04:42 > 0:04:46we're still pretty much in the dark about who he was or whether the same
0:04:46 > 0:04:48person even wrote both texts.
0:04:49 > 0:04:53So what do we actually know about this literary genius?
0:04:53 > 0:04:55We have the name, we have the poems
0:04:55 > 0:04:58and we have lots of stories from antiquity about who Homer was,
0:04:58 > 0:05:03but these stories immediately show us that, in antiquity, people were speculating
0:05:03 > 0:05:07about Homer, trying to imagine him, rather than knowing facts.
0:05:07 > 0:05:10But what interests me is that through these stories,
0:05:10 > 0:05:14we can get a sense of what Homer meant to people in antiquity,
0:05:14 > 0:05:17the fact that he was a traveller, that he was poor,
0:05:17 > 0:05:21that he was disabled, he couldn't see, but he had this great poetic vision.
0:05:21 > 0:05:24So, in terms of The Iliad and The Odyssey and the Homeric epics,
0:05:24 > 0:05:28do they have any connections to motifs or ideas or influences from
0:05:28 > 0:05:30other cultures and other epics?
0:05:30 > 0:05:36Well, this is very interesting. So one thing was when finally Akkadian was the cipher,
0:05:36 > 0:05:39the cuneiform script of the Babylonians,
0:05:39 > 0:05:43and the epic of Gilgamesh came back to light, and lo and behold,
0:05:43 > 0:05:46there were many similarities with the Homeric poems.
0:05:46 > 0:05:50Dating from at least 1,000 years before the works of Homer,
0:05:50 > 0:05:54the epic of Gilgamesh is the central text of ancient Babylonia,
0:05:54 > 0:05:57present-day Iraq.
0:05:57 > 0:06:00Throughout its 12 books, we see stories of a mighty king
0:06:00 > 0:06:03battling monsters as part of a series of epic journeys
0:06:03 > 0:06:05to learn the truth about himself.
0:06:07 > 0:06:09So this really baffled people,
0:06:09 > 0:06:12because the epic of Gilgamesh was composed a lot earlier,
0:06:12 > 0:06:17somewhere else, in the Near East and also in a completely different language
0:06:17 > 0:06:19and yet we have similes of the lines,
0:06:19 > 0:06:23we have bigger stories such as the descent into the underworld.
0:06:23 > 0:06:27These are motifs that repeat in different cultures,
0:06:27 > 0:06:31partly because they're interesting to people belonging to different cultures.
0:06:31 > 0:06:36So, do you believe that The Iliad and The Odyssey are the work of one single author?
0:06:36 > 0:06:37Well, that's a difficult question.
0:06:37 > 0:06:39They are well structured.
0:06:39 > 0:06:44They have an incredibly complex and well thought out architecture
0:06:44 > 0:06:47and they were clearly meant for re-performance.
0:06:47 > 0:06:50Then the question is, did they improve in re-performance,
0:06:50 > 0:06:55or was there a work of an original genius that was then diluted
0:06:55 > 0:06:58and became worse in the course of time?
0:06:58 > 0:07:02- And that is where scholars argue a lot.- OK.
0:07:02 > 0:07:07That's what scholars in general think, but what do you think?
0:07:07 > 0:07:12I'm quite open-minded about this. I do think that the Greeks
0:07:12 > 0:07:15didn't want these poems changed too much.
0:07:15 > 0:07:17What we have is pretty uniform,
0:07:17 > 0:07:22but the tradition out of which they emerge is vast.
0:07:23 > 0:07:28When The Odyssey was first composed over 2,500 years ago,
0:07:28 > 0:07:31it wasn't through the written word the audience first heard it.
0:07:31 > 0:07:36It was through public performances of travelling bards throughout Greece.
0:07:36 > 0:07:42In many ways, this tradition is alive and well with today's performance poets.
0:07:42 > 0:07:43# The galaxy stars surround you
0:07:43 > 0:07:46# Space dust illustrates every step you walk
0:07:46 > 0:07:49# The air that you dread to breathe, is the air that you make. #
0:07:49 > 0:07:51Tonight, I'm in East London,
0:07:51 > 0:07:53checking out some up-and-coming young talent
0:07:53 > 0:07:59at an event organised by my friend, the writer and poet Anthony Anaxogorou.
0:07:59 > 0:08:01# Don't you dare duck, because you were born to rise. #
0:08:01 > 0:08:03AUDIENCE APPLAUDS
0:08:05 > 0:08:07What do you think about the relationship between the spoken word
0:08:07 > 0:08:10performance poetry and hip-hop or rapping?
0:08:10 > 0:08:12Well, I think that's essentially what the debate comes down to -
0:08:12 > 0:08:15different styles of poetics and nuance and references.
0:08:15 > 0:08:19Obviously, there is a lot of hip-hop that is very pun heavy,
0:08:19 > 0:08:24and hip-hop has its own distinct style of using poetry.
0:08:24 > 0:08:29Hip-hop as a poetic medium is constantly being undermined by those
0:08:29 > 0:08:33who deem more traditionalist styles of poetry as being acceptable.
0:08:33 > 0:08:36But, when we look at something like The Odyssey, for example,
0:08:36 > 0:08:38those epics were originally composed as songs,
0:08:38 > 0:08:41essentially performed as the popular songs of their day.
0:08:41 > 0:08:46The spoken world held a kind of reverence that we might not
0:08:46 > 0:08:50necessarily see today and that's really what poetry's supposed to do,
0:08:50 > 0:08:54to reactivate language and give it back to people
0:08:54 > 0:08:55in a more exciting way.
0:08:55 > 0:08:59She never likes to go back or look herself in the eye
0:08:59 > 0:09:03Never learnt to move her body to a rhythm or forgive.
0:09:03 > 0:09:06Just as people here listen to these poets tonight,
0:09:06 > 0:09:09the first audiences of The Odyssey would have sat around taking in
0:09:09 > 0:09:12performances quite like this.
0:09:12 > 0:09:16From these beginnings, The Odyssey has echoed around the world,
0:09:16 > 0:09:19inspiring writers and artists to dream up their own versions.
0:09:21 > 0:09:26I first discovered this work through Ralph Ellison's novel, Invisible Man,
0:09:26 > 0:09:31which takes Homer's plot as its main structure, a device that is used,
0:09:31 > 0:09:33too, in James Joyce's Ulysses...
0:09:34 > 0:09:37..or even in the Cohn Brothers film, O Brother, Where Art Thou?
0:09:37 > 0:09:40I think we should start quiet and build probably with...
0:09:41 > 0:09:44..vocal and cello, I think...
0:09:44 > 0:09:45..is my instinct.
0:09:45 > 0:09:49Responses like these have inspired me to write my own new song
0:09:49 > 0:09:51as a homage to Homer.
0:09:52 > 0:09:57The impact of The Odyssey has been so great that when you think of The Odyssey, a poem about Odysseus,
0:09:57 > 0:10:01it's become a byword for a challenge, a saga, trials and tribulations,
0:10:01 > 0:10:03a journey. All of those things,
0:10:03 > 0:10:07The Odyssey evokes and I think so many people have tried to recreate
0:10:07 > 0:10:11or been influenced by it because it's been important for so long.
0:10:11 > 0:10:13It was already an important text in the ancient world
0:10:13 > 0:10:16and it has continued to hold that power and I think
0:10:16 > 0:10:19there'll be loads more reactions to it.
0:10:20 > 0:10:22As I craft my new work,
0:10:22 > 0:10:26I'm going to head out to the lands of Homer to help me understand just
0:10:26 > 0:10:28how The Odyssey was first created.
0:10:31 > 0:10:36My first point of call has to be the centre of the ancient Greeks' world...
0:10:37 > 0:10:39..the sacred Shrine of Delphi.
0:10:40 > 0:10:43Today, we all know about the Olympic Games,
0:10:43 > 0:10:47the ancient Greeks' athletic competitions,
0:10:47 > 0:10:49but in the sanctuary here at Delphi, a rival festival,
0:10:49 > 0:10:52known as the Pythian Games,
0:10:52 > 0:10:56not only hosted religious celebrations and athletic tournaments,
0:10:56 > 0:11:00but also encouraged poets and singers to compete head to head
0:11:00 > 0:11:03in recitations of Homer.
0:11:03 > 0:11:06I wonder what it must have been like to see poets take on one another as
0:11:06 > 0:11:09part of these competitions.
0:11:11 > 0:11:14Tell me a little bit more about the poetic element of the Pythian games.
0:11:14 > 0:11:17Our understanding is that there were contests,
0:11:17 > 0:11:22maybe held at the theatre or the stadium or in some location within the sanctuary.
0:11:22 > 0:11:25They had to write songs in praise of Apollo and perform them.
0:11:25 > 0:11:27So two and a half thousand years ago,
0:11:27 > 0:11:30when the Pythian games were happening and all this was going on,
0:11:30 > 0:11:34could you say there was such a thing as Greece as a nation at that point?
0:11:34 > 0:11:36There was not such a thing as a Greek nation,
0:11:36 > 0:11:39but there was such a thing as a Greek identity and that's actually
0:11:39 > 0:11:41what's really interesting about Homer's era,
0:11:41 > 0:11:45about those eights and sevens and even six centuries BC,
0:11:45 > 0:11:48because what you see happening at that time in literature and also in
0:11:48 > 0:11:52archaeology, you see how across the Greek world,
0:11:52 > 0:11:54from Italy to mainland Greece, to the islands,
0:11:54 > 0:11:59to what's now western Turkey, people are making an effort,
0:11:59 > 0:12:01in a way, to define an identity
0:12:01 > 0:12:05and they're doing this through literature, language,
0:12:05 > 0:12:09poetry, sculpture, architecture, religion.
0:12:09 > 0:12:13They're even developing the same style of warfare across this region,
0:12:13 > 0:12:16so they're basically trying to be compatible.
0:12:16 > 0:12:17So, to put it another way, then,
0:12:17 > 0:12:20what was Homer's role in the creation of this Greek identity?
0:12:21 > 0:12:24I think Homer was in a way, um...
0:12:25 > 0:12:27..a sounding board.
0:12:27 > 0:12:32He was an instrument that expressed that identity.
0:12:32 > 0:12:34Basically, what Homer did,
0:12:34 > 0:12:38whoever he was and whether there was one Homer or several Homers,
0:12:38 > 0:12:42is that he took this long-standing, epic, oral tradition
0:12:42 > 0:12:45and he formed the epic tradition,
0:12:45 > 0:12:49choosing two epics that we know, The Iliad and The Odyssey,
0:12:49 > 0:12:52and he made them something new. He made them into literature
0:12:52 > 0:12:55and I think Homer, by producing both of those epics,
0:12:55 > 0:13:00basically gives the Greeks some body of material that they can occupy
0:13:00 > 0:13:04their minds with and that they can use to...
0:13:05 > 0:13:08..to play off their differences and their similarities,
0:13:08 > 0:13:12essentially, for the longest part of 1,000 years.
0:13:12 > 0:13:15Do we know anything about audiences, both at the Pythian Games
0:13:15 > 0:13:18and in terms of reception of Homeric epics generally?
0:13:18 > 0:13:21Our understanding is that this was not like modern people
0:13:21 > 0:13:24going to the opera. It was a lot more raucous
0:13:24 > 0:13:26and there was a lot more participation,
0:13:26 > 0:13:29in that people were actually experiencing the drama,
0:13:29 > 0:13:34the dilemmas of the tragedies themselves, or the comedies, for that matter.
0:13:34 > 0:13:38The ancient Greeks don't really distinguish high culture and other cultures
0:13:38 > 0:13:40in a way that the modern western world does.
0:13:40 > 0:13:43And so the audience was much more like Elizabethan English theatre
0:13:43 > 0:13:47or a modern rock concert or a pop concert or a hip-hop concert even,
0:13:47 > 0:13:48than traditional theatre today?
0:13:48 > 0:13:51That's what I would imagine. Look, it's a religious festival,
0:13:51 > 0:13:54so you have to imagine a mix of Lourdes and Woodstock,
0:13:54 > 0:13:56- if you can.- OK.
0:13:57 > 0:14:00I like that. I'm enjoying that. All right.
0:14:02 > 0:14:05I think among the many interesting things that I took away from Heinrich
0:14:05 > 0:14:09were really how little has changed or how much is continuous.
0:14:09 > 0:14:13How human beings still do the same things, dancing, athletics and of course,
0:14:13 > 0:14:17most interestingly from my perspective, competitive performance poetry,
0:14:17 > 0:14:20which has obvious echoes with rap battles or poetry slams.
0:14:20 > 0:14:24It was also interesting to hear about how much Homer was central to
0:14:24 > 0:14:27the formation of this emerging Greek identity and hearing about the atmosphere
0:14:27 > 0:14:32here at these Pythian games and other public festivals within the Greek world,
0:14:32 > 0:14:34this kind of comparison that Heinrich made
0:14:34 > 0:14:37of comparing Lourdes and Woodstock
0:14:37 > 0:14:40in a fusion of the religious and spiritual.
0:14:40 > 0:14:43Greece today is seen, ancient Greece as the epitome of high culture,
0:14:43 > 0:14:46yet that wasn't really a concept the ancient Greeks had themselves.
0:14:46 > 0:14:48It was just culture.
0:14:51 > 0:14:54It's mad to picture bards performing Homer's epic to
0:14:54 > 0:14:58its earliest audiences at a location as spectacular as Delphi.
0:14:59 > 0:15:03# It's the word, the word, the word carries on
0:15:03 > 0:15:07# It's our first, at birth, the search that we on... #
0:15:07 > 0:15:08As part of the oral tradition,
0:15:08 > 0:15:11the text of these poems wouldn't have been set in stone
0:15:11 > 0:15:14from the very beginning.
0:15:14 > 0:15:18Different performers would have been able to freestyle their way through the story.
0:15:18 > 0:15:20A fact that tallies interestingly
0:15:20 > 0:15:22with the way that I compose my own work.
0:15:22 > 0:15:27# The Blind Bard's vision The Blind Bard's vision. #
0:15:29 > 0:15:32There's worse places in the world to do your writing.
0:15:32 > 0:15:34My writing process is quite strange.
0:15:34 > 0:15:38So, when I was a much younger man
0:15:38 > 0:15:40and I first started getting into making music for a living,
0:15:40 > 0:15:44it was Jay-Z that I heard first saying that he doesn't write anything down on paper.
0:15:44 > 0:15:46I thought, he's chatting rubbish. That's impossible
0:15:46 > 0:15:49and also then I heard that Biggie did the same thing
0:15:49 > 0:15:51and I started trying it.
0:15:51 > 0:15:54I'd get a rhythm and then I'd get a line and then I'd get a few lines
0:15:54 > 0:15:56and I'd get the building blocks of what I want to say
0:15:56 > 0:15:59and then eventually, the benefit of writing this way,
0:15:59 > 0:16:01by the time you've finished the composition process,
0:16:01 > 0:16:05you know the whole thing off by heart, inside out. You've practised all the flow and all of that,
0:16:05 > 0:16:08because you're saying it over and over to yourself so much and,
0:16:08 > 0:16:11you know, in terms of inspiration, I've just been at Delphi all morning.
0:16:11 > 0:16:13I've been soaking up all this ancient history
0:16:13 > 0:16:16I can see the temple of Athena right down there, you know.
0:16:16 > 0:16:18In terms of locations,
0:16:18 > 0:16:21to walk round and mumble to myself and practise my craft, well,
0:16:21 > 0:16:24I've been in worse places, so I'm going to get back to work.
0:16:29 > 0:16:33But what did those early performances of The Odyssey actually sound like?
0:16:38 > 0:16:41We know that Homer's works were originally sung,
0:16:41 > 0:16:44but those first melodies have sadly long since been lost.
0:16:46 > 0:16:51But some musicians today are hard at work creating replicas of instruments
0:16:51 > 0:16:54from Homer's time to try and recreate those sounds.
0:16:56 > 0:16:58This is the Phorminx.
0:16:58 > 0:17:03This is the instrument of Phemius, of Demodocus,
0:17:03 > 0:17:06maybe the instrument of Homer, if Homer existed.
0:17:07 > 0:17:12It is always a question, if the ancient Greeks used to play chords,
0:17:12 > 0:17:16but we can see, from the depictions, they muted some strings,
0:17:16 > 0:17:20and the plectrum strummed.
0:17:42 > 0:17:45These instruments were developed through the use of 3-D scanning
0:17:45 > 0:17:49technology, based on depictions from ancient pots and vases.
0:17:49 > 0:17:53In ancient times, musicians were restricted to gut strings only,
0:17:53 > 0:17:57but today, this instrument is strung with nylon.
0:17:57 > 0:17:59Recreating these sounds,
0:17:59 > 0:18:04somehow evokes images of those ancient times making them feel even more real.
0:18:04 > 0:18:09Talk to me about the performance of poetry in ancient Greek culture.
0:18:09 > 0:18:11My understanding is that it was all performed with music.
0:18:11 > 0:18:14There wasn't this separate category that we have today.
0:18:14 > 0:18:15That came much later.
0:18:15 > 0:18:20In ancient times, when we say the word "music",
0:18:20 > 0:18:24it means three things altogether.
0:18:24 > 0:18:30It is music as we can understand the music today, dance and poetry.
0:18:30 > 0:18:35And poetry was the first thing. In the beginning was the word.
0:18:35 > 0:18:37This is very Greek, as you can understand.
0:18:37 > 0:18:39Today, there is almost a certain snobbery.
0:18:39 > 0:18:43For example, when Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize for Literature.
0:18:43 > 0:18:46A, there was a question that music lyrics are not literature, but in
0:18:46 > 0:18:50general, I have been part of many debates and it's a big debate now
0:18:50 > 0:18:55in modern academia, where people feel that music performed to poetry
0:18:55 > 0:18:58is lesser poetry and what's ironic is that this is coming often from
0:18:58 > 0:19:03the same people who would elevate the Homeric epics as the greatest example of
0:19:03 > 0:19:06poetry ever, but they were set to music in their own time.
0:19:06 > 0:19:11You're right that this differentiation exists today.
0:19:11 > 0:19:16But in ancient Greece, they had contests for music.
0:19:16 > 0:19:22A poet-musician had to stake his fame
0:19:22 > 0:19:25because they were the most famous.
0:19:25 > 0:19:27Interesting. So, they were almost like early...
0:19:27 > 0:19:29I don't want to say pop stars, but they were very, very popular.
0:19:29 > 0:19:31Exactly, pop stars!
0:19:31 > 0:19:34They were pop stars!
0:19:44 > 0:19:47HE SPEAKS ANCIENT LANGUAGE
0:20:49 > 0:20:52Anyway, just messing around.
0:20:52 > 0:20:54Trying to come up with some little flavours and vibes.
0:20:54 > 0:20:57I'm obviously, I'm a novice when it comes to this stuff.
0:20:57 > 0:20:59But it's really beautiful just to sit and play.
0:20:59 > 0:21:01And it was really interesting to hear, A,
0:21:01 > 0:21:05the continuity between ancient performances of poetry and music,
0:21:05 > 0:21:09but also art and music have had this tremendous power to evoke emotion
0:21:09 > 0:21:12and reaction and behaviour in its audience. And just again, as an artist, to me,
0:21:12 > 0:21:16it speaks to this tremendous power that art has within human society,
0:21:16 > 0:21:18and music in particular.
0:21:18 > 0:21:21But it was really interesting also to hear about how much details we
0:21:21 > 0:21:25still know about how these very, very ancient instruments were played
0:21:25 > 0:21:27and how similar it really is to modern forms of music.
0:21:27 > 0:21:29So, again, a real interesting lesson,
0:21:29 > 0:21:33and this particular instrument being the instrument of Homer,
0:21:33 > 0:21:35if Homer existed.
0:21:37 > 0:21:39If we can resurrect the sounds of Homer,
0:21:39 > 0:21:42maybe we can resurrect his original locations, too.
0:21:47 > 0:21:50Next up, I've come to the great citadel of Mycenae...
0:21:52 > 0:21:55..home to some of the most well-known archaeological discoveries
0:21:55 > 0:21:57of the past two centuries.
0:22:00 > 0:22:02In The Iliad and The Odyssey,
0:22:02 > 0:22:06this is the home of the general Agamemnon,
0:22:06 > 0:22:09ally of Odysseus and leader of the Greek army at Troy.
0:22:13 > 0:22:16For hundreds of years, it was believed that
0:22:16 > 0:22:19the palaces of Homer belonged only in the realm of myth,
0:22:19 > 0:22:23but when German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann dug up this site
0:22:23 > 0:22:24150 years ago,
0:22:24 > 0:22:28he thought he had found the legendary fort described in Homer's poems.
0:22:30 > 0:22:33Could this really be the case?
0:22:35 > 0:22:37The world of Homer, as far as we can tell,
0:22:37 > 0:22:39was what we would call the world of the late Bronze Age,
0:22:39 > 0:22:42what he might have called the Age of Heroes.
0:22:42 > 0:22:47And that notion that the Homeric poems actually described,
0:22:47 > 0:22:51or were about, a real period in history,
0:22:51 > 0:22:55is something that has been sort of debated back and forth
0:22:55 > 0:22:59for centuries, really. But particularly came to a head in the late 19th-century,
0:22:59 > 0:23:03when Heinrich Schliemann excavated first at Troy in north-west Turkey,
0:23:03 > 0:23:09and then here in 1876, and discovered the remains that we see around us,
0:23:09 > 0:23:14which he thought demonstrated the reality, the historical reality,
0:23:14 > 0:23:19if you like, of the Homeric poems. And for probably for about 50 or 60...
0:23:19 > 0:23:21maybe a century after Schliemann's discoveries,
0:23:21 > 0:23:25that was pretty much an accepted opinion.
0:23:25 > 0:23:26What kind of things were found here?
0:23:26 > 0:23:29Well, erm, one of the most famous discoveries...
0:23:29 > 0:23:32- Ah.- ..is this.
0:23:32 > 0:23:34This, I hasten to add, is a replica.
0:23:34 > 0:23:36- We didn't thief it, we promise! - Yeah!
0:23:36 > 0:23:39This is the so-called mask of Agamemnon.
0:23:39 > 0:23:43When Schliemann excavated the grave circle which is just below us here,
0:23:43 > 0:23:47Grave Circle A, he found a number of gold masks,
0:23:47 > 0:23:51which had clearly sat on the faces of some of the people buried there.
0:23:51 > 0:23:55And this one has become associated with the most famous occupant of
0:23:55 > 0:23:57Mycenae, Agamemnon.
0:23:57 > 0:24:01But if we follow the strict chronology of the Trojan War,
0:24:01 > 0:24:05which many people place around about 1150-1200 BC,
0:24:05 > 0:24:09the grave circle belongs to somewhere around about 1600 BC,
0:24:09 > 0:24:13so by definition, unless he'd lived a very, very long time, Agamemnon,
0:24:13 > 0:24:16if he was buried there, couldn't have been the person in the Trojan War,
0:24:16 > 0:24:19or the Agamemnon of the Trojan War couldn't have been the person buried here.
0:24:19 > 0:24:22So, how come it still stands that people think of this as the
0:24:22 > 0:24:26- mask of Agamemnon?- He was one of the most famous inhabitants of Mycenae,
0:24:26 > 0:24:31and therefore it's natural that Schliemann claimed to find the face of Agamemnon
0:24:31 > 0:24:34on one of the tombs in Grave Circle A.
0:24:34 > 0:24:36So, it's the mask of question mark, really?
0:24:36 > 0:24:41It's the mask of some anonymous Mycenaean ruler of the 17th century BC.
0:24:42 > 0:24:45So, we can't say for certain if Homer's works were based on these
0:24:45 > 0:24:47mysterious Mycenaeans,
0:24:47 > 0:24:50despite some similarities between them and his characters.
0:24:52 > 0:24:56One of the main reasons we know so little about the people here is that
0:24:56 > 0:25:00the writing system they invented seems to have disappeared at the collapse
0:25:00 > 0:25:03of their civilisation, around 1200 BC.
0:25:05 > 0:25:07With that expertise lost,
0:25:07 > 0:25:10Greece appears to have become illiterate for hundreds of years.
0:25:14 > 0:25:16Perhaps if the writing skill they had created was retained...
0:25:17 > 0:25:20..we'd have more to help us understand their times
0:25:20 > 0:25:23than the mysteries and myths in the tales of Homer.
0:25:25 > 0:25:28Arguably, we live in an age of anti-intellectualism,
0:25:28 > 0:25:30of contempt for experts.
0:25:30 > 0:25:31Me, I'm a fan of the experts.
0:25:31 > 0:25:35And you know what, what came out of talking to John for me was really how
0:25:35 > 0:25:37contentious and contested everything is,
0:25:37 > 0:25:42how much in the rush of the 19th century to name everything specifically,
0:25:42 > 0:25:43things were assumed to be a particular way
0:25:43 > 0:25:44that may not have been.
0:25:44 > 0:25:47The mask of Agamemnon was the most obvious example.
0:25:47 > 0:25:49I still believed until just that conversation that it was actually
0:25:49 > 0:25:52the mask of Agamemnon. It turns out it probably wasn't.
0:25:52 > 0:25:55It turns out a lot of the things we thought we knew are a bit more vague,
0:25:55 > 0:25:58and that's fine. That's the grey space of history and archaeology and
0:25:58 > 0:26:01ancient civilisation. And in many ways what Homer was doing was
0:26:01 > 0:26:04speculating. There were things that perhaps that he felt that he knew
0:26:04 > 0:26:07about the Trojan War, things that he knew about that period.
0:26:07 > 0:26:09And then there were many parts that,
0:26:09 > 0:26:11clearly, he filled in.
0:26:11 > 0:26:15But how could The Odyssey itself have been written down once the Greeks
0:26:15 > 0:26:19had lost the skill of writing at the demise of the Mycenaean Empire?
0:26:23 > 0:26:25There's a clue on the sleepy island of Ischia...
0:26:26 > 0:26:29..in the bay of Naples, a far-off Greek colony.
0:26:31 > 0:26:35After a 400-year silence, here in the eighth century BC,
0:26:35 > 0:26:38the Greeks started to become literate again,
0:26:38 > 0:26:41pioneering a new system known as the alphabet,
0:26:41 > 0:26:45to replace the hieroglyphic-like symbols of the Mycenaeans.
0:26:47 > 0:26:51In a little cabinet in the small, unassuming museum here,
0:26:51 > 0:26:55there's one object which speaks volumes about the dawn
0:26:55 > 0:26:58of the alphabet and the origins of Homer.
0:26:58 > 0:27:00Seeing precious items like this makes me think
0:27:00 > 0:27:03of what a revolutionary innovation writing is.
0:27:05 > 0:27:07While it may not look like much,
0:27:07 > 0:27:11this little pot right here is arguably right up there with the Rosetta Stone
0:27:11 > 0:27:16and the Cascajal Block, in terms of global cultural and literary significance.
0:27:16 > 0:27:18Found in a nearby burial chamber,
0:27:18 > 0:27:22it may be the oldest example of Greek alphabetical writing that we know of.
0:27:22 > 0:27:26Inscribed on its side are a series of letters declaring it to be
0:27:26 > 0:27:28the cup of the Homeric hero Nestor,
0:27:28 > 0:27:32proving that these tales and stories were reaching the farest-off colonies
0:27:32 > 0:27:34of mainland Greece,
0:27:34 > 0:27:37right at the time that the technology of writing was being resurrected.
0:27:40 > 0:27:43If it wasn't for the Greeks' development of the alphabet
0:27:43 > 0:27:45and its system of vowels and consonants,
0:27:45 > 0:27:48our method of writing might be vastly different today.
0:27:51 > 0:27:53When this humble cup was first uncovered,
0:27:53 > 0:27:57some scholars believed that the alphabet may actually have been invented
0:27:57 > 0:28:00purely to record the works of Homer,
0:28:00 > 0:28:04though that view is a bit old-fashioned nowadays.
0:28:04 > 0:28:06From what we can tell,
0:28:06 > 0:28:09the Greek alphabet arose from their trading connections with the most
0:28:09 > 0:28:12powerful merchant civilisation in the Mediterranean...
0:28:14 > 0:28:16..the Phoenicians of the Middle East and North Africa,
0:28:16 > 0:28:20who were based mostly in today's Lebanon.
0:28:20 > 0:28:24They had their own hieroglyphic-like style of writing featuring symbols
0:28:24 > 0:28:27such as aleph, bet, gimel and dalet,
0:28:27 > 0:28:33which clearly inspired the Greek letters alpha, beta, gamma and delta,
0:28:33 > 0:28:35as well as Arabic letters, too.
0:28:35 > 0:28:39Finds throughout the rest of the museum here at Pithecusae show that
0:28:39 > 0:28:42this island, a stone's throw from Naples,
0:28:42 > 0:28:44was not just one of the oldest Greek colonies,
0:28:44 > 0:28:48but was also an important trading outpost with the Phoenicians.
0:28:50 > 0:28:53Just as important as the presence of letters, though,
0:28:53 > 0:28:56is their rhythm and pace, too.
0:28:56 > 0:29:01These short lines carved on the side of the pot have their own curious sound.
0:29:03 > 0:29:07What's really interesting about Nestor's cup is probably the fact
0:29:07 > 0:29:09that we've got some hexameter on it.
0:29:09 > 0:29:14So, it's one of the earliest examples of the dactylic hexameter
0:29:14 > 0:29:17written in Greek.
0:29:17 > 0:29:20So, what is the relationship between hexameter and Homer?
0:29:20 > 0:29:25Homer and Hesiod are the two poets that first kind of lay down the
0:29:25 > 0:29:26great hexameter poems,
0:29:26 > 0:29:31and because they become these massively authoritative texts in the ancient world,
0:29:31 > 0:29:34it becomes the meter that's associated with those
0:29:34 > 0:29:37high forms of poetry.
0:29:38 > 0:29:43Dactylic hexameter is a type of poetic meter or rhythm that was widespread
0:29:43 > 0:29:44in the ancient world.
0:29:44 > 0:29:47It's a much older rhythm than iambic pentameter...
0:29:47 > 0:29:50# Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
0:29:50 > 0:29:52# Thou art more lovely and more temperate. #
0:29:52 > 0:29:55..which I use regularly when I perform the works of Shakespeare.
0:29:55 > 0:29:57# Too short a date
0:29:57 > 0:29:59# Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines
0:29:59 > 0:30:01# And often is his gold complexion dimm'd. #
0:30:01 > 0:30:04Why does the pentameter most famously used by Shakespeare work so
0:30:04 > 0:30:07much better in English than the hexameter?
0:30:07 > 0:30:09Because it follows the stress patterns in English.
0:30:09 > 0:30:14And with hexameter, so, you've got six feet in a line.
0:30:14 > 0:30:16What are feet, for the people at home?
0:30:16 > 0:30:21So, feet, it's a way of breaking up a line, erm,
0:30:21 > 0:30:25and it means it's like a collection of a sound.
0:30:25 > 0:30:30- Yep.- So, you've got two long sounds or a long and two shorts.
0:30:30 > 0:30:35So, it's like... Daa-da-da-daa-da-da-daa-da-da.
0:30:35 > 0:30:37That's if you've got dactyls.
0:30:37 > 0:30:41If you've got spondees, then it's daa-daa-daa-daa.
0:30:41 > 0:30:42It's much slower.
0:30:44 > 0:30:45And you can do that in Latin and Greek,
0:30:45 > 0:30:47because you can follow the quantity,
0:30:47 > 0:30:52the long sounds in words and kind of make sure that the rhythm fits.
0:30:52 > 0:30:56So, if you think about the opening half line of the Odyssey,
0:30:56 > 0:30:59you'll be able to hear the sound that I'm talking about.
0:31:02 > 0:31:04Or the opening section of the Iliad...
0:31:07 > 0:31:13You can feel that the sound and it's matching onto the long sounds in the
0:31:13 > 0:31:14Latin and the Greek.
0:31:14 > 0:31:17What I find really fascinating about pentameter poetry is obviously the...
0:31:17 > 0:31:19..da-dush-da-dush...
0:31:19 > 0:31:21The rhythm of the human heart, which...
0:31:21 > 0:31:23What I found really interesting about that form,
0:31:23 > 0:31:25especially for modern music, is,
0:31:25 > 0:31:27it fits over so many different kind of beats.
0:31:27 > 0:31:30If you take any different kind of speed of instrumental,
0:31:30 > 0:31:34as long as it's not in a waltz or some 6/8 or some kind of weird time
0:31:34 > 0:31:37- structure...- Yeah.- Anything that's in 4/4, no matter what the speed,
0:31:37 > 0:31:40you can transfer pentameter poetry over it.
0:31:40 > 0:31:43And I believe that part of that is this kind of human heart
0:31:43 > 0:31:46- centre of the rhythm.- Yeah, and I suppose as well -
0:31:46 > 0:31:49because you've got much more regularity there, haven't you? -
0:31:49 > 0:31:51in dactylic hexameter,
0:31:51 > 0:31:54you've got options as to what you can do in every foot.
0:31:54 > 0:31:58So, sometimes, if you wanted to convey something very serious,
0:31:58 > 0:32:01then you might use lots of long sounds, and lots of spondees.
0:32:01 > 0:32:05So, it would be like... daa-daa-daa-daa.
0:32:05 > 0:32:07Whereas if you wanted to give the impression of speed,
0:32:07 > 0:32:11then you'd use lots of dactyls, so...daa-da-da-daa-da-da-daa.
0:32:11 > 0:32:14So, the fact that there's that flexibility within hexameter means
0:32:14 > 0:32:20it doesn't offer the same immediate regularity that maybe you're talking
0:32:20 > 0:32:23about there. And it's also why it's a little bit harder to grasp,
0:32:23 > 0:32:26until you've got something in front of you and
0:32:26 > 0:32:28you can feel the rhythm there.
0:32:28 > 0:32:31My friend is a Brazilian-Portuguese rapper.
0:32:31 > 0:32:34And it's weird, they can't rap in double time because Portuguese words
0:32:34 > 0:32:37- are so long.- Right, yeah.- So, like, the English accent lends itself...
0:32:37 > 0:32:40- Yeah.- That's why we have, like, grime, because it's 140 bpm.
0:32:40 > 0:32:42You can rap very, very quickly in an English accent,
0:32:42 > 0:32:43- because we squash our vowels.- Yeah.
0:32:43 > 0:32:46And our consonant pattern is very, er, percussive.
0:32:46 > 0:32:49And so that's actually why the English accent lends itself to
0:32:49 > 0:32:52rapping a lot faster than even American, but especially than the Portuguese.
0:32:52 > 0:32:55- Oh, that's really interesting. - Because the words are so much longer
0:32:55 > 0:32:56and stretched out.
0:32:57 > 0:33:01Having discovered the context behind the Odyssey, from what music,
0:33:01 > 0:33:05archaeology and rhythm can tell us about how it connected with its
0:33:05 > 0:33:09first audiences, it's time to get to grips with some of the individual
0:33:09 > 0:33:11tales from this masterpiece.
0:33:15 > 0:33:18Many of the most well-known moments from the Odyssey,
0:33:18 > 0:33:21such as the encounters with the Cyclops or the Sirens,
0:33:21 > 0:33:23and even the descent into the Underworld,
0:33:23 > 0:33:27are first told in a key section of the poem,
0:33:27 > 0:33:31where Odysseus attends a banquet and tells his fellow guests
0:33:31 > 0:33:35about the many trials and tribulations he has endured thus far
0:33:35 > 0:33:38on his epic journey home to Ithaca.
0:33:39 > 0:33:43The others seated around him are amazed to hear these fantastical
0:33:43 > 0:33:46tales of bizarre creatures and supernatural happenings.
0:33:47 > 0:33:51Because the ancient Greeks believed the Odyssey literally took place,
0:33:51 > 0:33:55the tales of these adventures sparked much debate about the exact
0:33:55 > 0:33:57locations where they occurred.
0:34:07 > 0:34:09Writing my new work in answer to Homer,
0:34:09 > 0:34:13I'm travelling to some of the places later linked with those stories to
0:34:13 > 0:34:17find out their significance to the Odyssey's first audiences.
0:34:20 > 0:34:23The most famous incident in Homer's Odyssey has to be the encounter with
0:34:23 > 0:34:24the Cyclops.
0:34:24 > 0:34:27Odysseus and his crew land on a strange island
0:34:27 > 0:34:32and find a cave brim-full with fresh produce and tasty cheeses.
0:34:32 > 0:34:34But they soon find out that the cave
0:34:34 > 0:34:37is also home to a terrifying one-eyed monster
0:34:37 > 0:34:41who traps them inside and begins to eat them one by one.
0:34:43 > 0:34:46Odysseus manages to get the Cyclops drunk,
0:34:46 > 0:34:50and then plunges a burning torch into his one eye, blinding him.
0:34:52 > 0:34:55Once our hero makes his getaway back on board his ship,
0:34:55 > 0:34:59the giant hurls boulders out to the sea in a futile bid to destroy
0:34:59 > 0:35:01Odysseus's ships.
0:35:02 > 0:35:04For generations,
0:35:04 > 0:35:08these stacks of basalt poking up off the eastern coast of Sicily have led
0:35:08 > 0:35:11many to believe that the home of the Cyclops may have been here.
0:35:14 > 0:35:17The fact that so many people have spent energy looking for the origins
0:35:17 > 0:35:21of the Cyclops, and even claiming that these rocks here are the very
0:35:21 > 0:35:23rocks that the Cyclops threw in the sea after Odysseus,
0:35:23 > 0:35:26tells you something about the enduring power of the Odyssey.
0:35:26 > 0:35:29I myself, obviously I don't believe the Cyclops existed,
0:35:29 > 0:35:32but I have always wondered if the Cyclops, like so much else in mythology,
0:35:32 > 0:35:34is a metaphor for something deeper.
0:35:35 > 0:35:39One of the reasons why stories like the Cyclops came to be associated
0:35:39 > 0:35:42with Sicily is because the island was a colony of the Greeks.
0:35:44 > 0:35:48In recent years, some have wondered whether the story is a critique of
0:35:48 > 0:35:52the colonial experience, with Odysseus representing the greedy
0:35:52 > 0:35:56invader, plundering another's land and disrespecting the customs
0:35:56 > 0:35:58of the local people.
0:36:06 > 0:36:10Later readers also like to think of Sicily's Straits of Messina,
0:36:10 > 0:36:13its closest point to mainland Italy, as the location of some of the most
0:36:13 > 0:36:15terrifying monsters from the Odyssey...
0:36:16 > 0:36:19..including the haunting tale of the Sirens.
0:36:20 > 0:36:24This is one of the episodes in the Odyssey, I'm most fascinated by -
0:36:24 > 0:36:27the tale of these mythological creatures who tempt sailors in with
0:36:27 > 0:36:31their singing only to cruelly dash them to their death upon the rocks.
0:36:31 > 0:36:35Odysseus was forewarned of the danger before sailing by,
0:36:35 > 0:36:38and so he stuffed his crew's ears with wax and tied himself to the
0:36:38 > 0:36:43ship's mast. Despite pleading with his crew to sail toward the Sirens' call,
0:36:43 > 0:36:44they could not hear his cries,
0:36:44 > 0:36:47and thus escaped a narrow brush with death.
0:36:51 > 0:36:55Though Odysseus's crew were never able to hear the Sirens' song,
0:36:55 > 0:36:59the stories tell us that many other ships were thought to have been
0:36:59 > 0:37:02destroyed once they followed these destructive goddesses' seductive call.
0:37:06 > 0:37:08For the Greeks of thousands of years ago,
0:37:08 > 0:37:11with much of their world still uncharted,
0:37:11 > 0:37:14Homer's Sirens were a potent reminder of the danger of the seas.
0:37:18 > 0:37:22With today's readers, though, the most powerful story from Odysseus's
0:37:22 > 0:37:28wanderings is his descent into the realm of dead souls - the Underworld...
0:37:30 > 0:37:33..which some believe to have taken place at Lake Avernus,
0:37:33 > 0:37:36near Naples and the ancient Greek colony of Cumae.
0:37:38 > 0:37:40As part of his journey home to Ithaca,
0:37:40 > 0:37:44he is sent there to hear the advice of a long dead prophet about how to
0:37:44 > 0:37:47navigate past some of his most perilous obstacles.
0:37:50 > 0:37:54It's here that he meets many of his fallen allies from the Trojan War,
0:37:54 > 0:37:58in an episode that echoes a similar tale in the Babylonian epic of Gilgamesh.
0:38:00 > 0:38:04Odysseus's encounters with the ghosts of his fellow Greek generals
0:38:04 > 0:38:08offer a profound insight into how people in the ancient world
0:38:08 > 0:38:09understood life after death.
0:38:11 > 0:38:15As Odysseus is seeing all of these ghosts come forward,
0:38:15 > 0:38:17one of the figures he sees is Achilles.
0:38:17 > 0:38:22So, Achilles has been the most famous warrior in the Iliad.
0:38:22 > 0:38:28And he's this figure that exemplifies everything about what it means to
0:38:28 > 0:38:30live fast and die young.
0:38:30 > 0:38:34But there's a moment when Odysseus sees him and he says, you know,
0:38:34 > 0:38:37"You were so famous in life that shouldn't look so sad,
0:38:37 > 0:38:41"because you've got to have the same sort of kudos down here as well."
0:38:41 > 0:38:46And Achilles basically says, "You don't know what you're talking about, Odysseus.
0:38:46 > 0:38:50"I would rather work for a man that doesn't own his own land than
0:38:50 > 0:38:53"be king of all the dead." And it's such a powerful moment,
0:38:53 > 0:38:57where you've got Achilles saying that life is the thing.
0:38:57 > 0:38:59You know, death is...
0:38:59 > 0:39:02It's just a shadow, and life is the thing that you should be really
0:39:02 > 0:39:05focused on. And life at any cost, almost.
0:39:05 > 0:39:09And that's obviously something that has a real resonance with the Odyssey,
0:39:09 > 0:39:13where you've got Odysseus, who's going to be in some really
0:39:13 > 0:39:16humiliating positions across the course of the poem,
0:39:16 > 0:39:19and it kind of justifies it, in a way, for Achilles to say to him,
0:39:19 > 0:39:22you know, "Anything that you have to do to stay alive,
0:39:22 > 0:39:23"that's what you should do."
0:39:23 > 0:39:27It seems almost like Shakespeare reverses that in tomorrow and
0:39:27 > 0:39:30- tomorrow and tomorrow...- Yeah.- Life is but a joke, a poor player...
0:39:30 > 0:39:33- Yeah.- And actually, death is the big joke that life is playing on us,
0:39:33 > 0:39:36so he almost reverses the importance and kind of dismisses life as
0:39:36 > 0:39:37completely unimportant.
0:39:37 > 0:39:40And, obviously, he was massively influenced by particularly Ovid,
0:39:40 > 0:39:43- but that whole tradition.- Yeah, exactly. Well, it's a funny thing, isn't it?
0:39:43 > 0:39:45Because there's always this tension.
0:39:45 > 0:39:48We live as if we might live forever, and we don't.
0:39:48 > 0:39:52And, actually, this is exactly what the poet Lucretius,
0:39:52 > 0:39:54who's writing in the first century BC, picks up on.
0:39:54 > 0:39:58He takes this Homeric idea about life after death,
0:39:58 > 0:40:01and he uses it to say that it's wrong.
0:40:01 > 0:40:06He's arguing for a universe where everything is made up of, erm,
0:40:06 > 0:40:08atoms of... You know, it's a materialistic universe.
0:40:08 > 0:40:10And he says, people are getting mixed up
0:40:10 > 0:40:12when they talk about the Underworld,
0:40:12 > 0:40:15when we hear those stories about what it's like to go down,
0:40:15 > 0:40:18we're just reflecting something of life at that moment.
0:40:18 > 0:40:20It's not true that there's anything after death,
0:40:20 > 0:40:24and if we live as if there is something after death,
0:40:24 > 0:40:27then we're actually missing out on the really important stuff,
0:40:27 > 0:40:28- which is now.- We see in, you know,
0:40:28 > 0:40:31several traditions this idea of the hero making a journey
0:40:31 > 0:40:34to the Underworld in ancient Egypt, in Gilgamesh...
0:40:34 > 0:40:37Are you saying that there was a direct transmission to the Homeric
0:40:37 > 0:40:40tradition or it was more these were general motifs that were out
0:40:40 > 0:40:41there that were picked up on?
0:40:41 > 0:40:47So, this is part of a wider debate regarding Homer.
0:40:47 > 0:40:49Some people have argued that we should see direct connections
0:40:49 > 0:40:53between these, and that actually, the stories of Homer,
0:40:53 > 0:40:54the Iliad and especially the Odyssey,
0:40:54 > 0:40:58emerge directly from this kind of Middle Eastern poetic tradition.
0:40:58 > 0:41:02And some people have argued that we should see this as part of a more
0:41:02 > 0:41:03general picture.
0:41:03 > 0:41:07There's something that's important across all cultures when it comes to
0:41:07 > 0:41:11thinking about what might happen when we die.
0:41:11 > 0:41:16And what we have in the Odyssey is a kind of crystallisation, I suppose,
0:41:16 > 0:41:19of one idea about what death might look like,
0:41:19 > 0:41:21and what the afterlife might look like.
0:41:21 > 0:41:25When we talk about those other poems, Gilgamesh and so on,
0:41:25 > 0:41:28it's absolutely the case that it's the Homeric version of things,
0:41:28 > 0:41:31no matter who he was or how we understand him,
0:41:31 > 0:41:35it's his version that becomes famous, and it's his version,
0:41:35 > 0:41:37and the way that we understand Homer,
0:41:37 > 0:41:41that affects later authors and makes them want to engage with the poetry
0:41:41 > 0:41:44- and also with the man.- So, sort of like cover versions of songs.
0:41:44 > 0:41:49Absolutely. So, if you think of Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan, for example,
0:41:49 > 0:41:54you would never suggest that All Along The Watchtower was anything
0:41:54 > 0:41:55other than Jimi Hendrix's.
0:41:55 > 0:41:58- Of course not!- So...!- With the greatest of respect to Jimi, no,
0:41:58 > 0:42:01- you wouldn't!- Absolutely, because that's the version that pins it down.
0:42:01 > 0:42:03- Yeah.- That is the one that matters.
0:42:07 > 0:42:11It's always tempting to see Homer as the colossus at the dawn of the epic tradition.
0:42:11 > 0:42:14But he's responding to what has gone before,
0:42:14 > 0:42:18just as countless artists and writers have responded to his works.
0:42:19 > 0:42:23I had known about the more recent examples, but to hear about ancient
0:42:23 > 0:42:25Romans like Lucretius is a bit of an eye-opener.
0:42:27 > 0:42:32To learn from Katharine that the appropriation of ancient Greek culture,
0:42:32 > 0:42:37and Homer in particular, seeking that tradition as a source of legitimacy,
0:42:37 > 0:42:39was not just something that began
0:42:39 > 0:42:43with 19th-century European and, in particular, British imperialism,
0:42:43 > 0:42:45it's been going on for thousands of years.
0:42:45 > 0:42:48Homer was already seen as a source of legitimacy for particular
0:42:48 > 0:42:50cultures or colonies back then.
0:42:50 > 0:42:52And that was really interesting to learn.
0:42:52 > 0:42:56And then to get a broader sense of the Greco-Roman pantheon of poetry
0:42:56 > 0:42:59beyond Homer has really made me rethink my own writing process,
0:42:59 > 0:43:02and I need to go and visit some of those other texts,
0:43:02 > 0:43:04the Virgils of this world,
0:43:04 > 0:43:08to get a context in which to place my own response to Homer's Odyssey.
0:43:08 > 0:43:12So, really kind of a lot to think about and a lot of provocation
0:43:12 > 0:43:15coming from Katharine, and I'm really looking forward to getting into...
0:43:15 > 0:43:19Sort of maybe put together now a plan, a map for my own writing,
0:43:19 > 0:43:21based in some of the things that I've learnt there.
0:43:21 > 0:43:23So, looking forward to it.
0:43:24 > 0:43:26# Is the teller's mission
0:43:26 > 0:43:31# What is the ultimate source of our deepest intuition... #
0:43:31 > 0:43:35From the sounds and rhythm of the first performances of the Odyssey,
0:43:35 > 0:43:38to its main themes, plot and enduring archetypes...
0:43:40 > 0:43:43..there is a lot to keep in mind as I write my new track.
0:43:46 > 0:43:49Exploring these places associated with the Odyssey,
0:43:49 > 0:43:52I have to admit that it might well be a waste of time to try and figure
0:43:52 > 0:43:56out whether any of them are the real places Homer had in mind,
0:43:56 > 0:43:58regardless of whether or not he really existed.
0:44:01 > 0:44:04But as I prepare to complete my own new homage to the Odyssey,
0:44:04 > 0:44:07there's one final stop-off I have to make.
0:44:11 > 0:44:14The tiny island off the west coast of Greece that Odysseus was so
0:44:14 > 0:44:16desperate to get home to.
0:44:20 > 0:44:22I am almost at Ithaca.
0:44:22 > 0:44:26You know, I feel a real sense of achievement, I imagine this epic journey,
0:44:26 > 0:44:29which is actually a simple journey now, before the age of steam power,
0:44:29 > 0:44:32and I genuinely feel a little bit like Odysseus coming to reclaim my
0:44:32 > 0:44:37kingdom, or at least coming to seek answers in this final chapter of my Odyssey.
0:44:39 > 0:44:42When Odysseus himself returned home after 20 years,
0:44:42 > 0:44:46he found that his palace was under siege by a gang of local nobles.
0:44:46 > 0:44:50Disguised in beggar's clothes, Odysseus watched them try to
0:44:50 > 0:44:54convince his wife, Penelope, to give up on the hope of her husband ever
0:44:54 > 0:44:56returning home and marry one of them instead.
0:44:58 > 0:45:03In the poem's gruesome climax, the returned hero teams up with his son,
0:45:03 > 0:45:06and together they violently slaughter the men and string up
0:45:06 > 0:45:08the female slaves who had supported them.
0:45:12 > 0:45:14One thing you can't help but reflect on when you read the Odyssey,
0:45:14 > 0:45:17particularly toward the end with the slaughter of the suitors and the
0:45:17 > 0:45:20hanging of the maids, is the question of violence within human
0:45:20 > 0:45:24culture and human entertainment, from the gladiators to Shakespearean
0:45:24 > 0:45:28plays to modern video games, or hip-hop, or many other forms, MMA.
0:45:28 > 0:45:30We have this strange relationship with violence, where,
0:45:30 > 0:45:33on the one hand, no-one really wants violence to be done to them or
0:45:33 > 0:45:36their loved ones, on the other hand we have this perverse fascination
0:45:36 > 0:45:38and even delight, including myself sometimes,
0:45:38 > 0:45:40in violent stories and in violent entertainment.
0:45:40 > 0:45:43And I'm sure the debate about the morality of violence within
0:45:43 > 0:45:47entertainment will continue as long as there's entertainment and human beings.
0:45:47 > 0:45:49But regardless of those questions,
0:45:49 > 0:45:53the quality of this poetry and the merits of the story will stand.
0:45:54 > 0:45:59The Odyssey is reborn each time a new work is created in response to it.
0:45:59 > 0:46:02# Size up of 108, about time we got done with these fakes
0:46:02 > 0:46:04# I want to carve these bastards' names
0:46:04 > 0:46:06# In the marble of my father's grave... #
0:46:06 > 0:46:10One that I'm particularly interested in is that of my friend, the Greek
0:46:10 > 0:46:13Australian rapper, Luka Lesson.
0:46:13 > 0:46:16So, tell me a little bit about your Odyssey project, where you're at now,
0:46:16 > 0:46:19the conception of it, how long you've been working on it?
0:46:19 > 0:46:23Yeah, it's been about two years since the very first idea came up.
0:46:23 > 0:46:25I was offered to do a collaboration
0:46:25 > 0:46:28with a composer at the Sydney Conservatorium.
0:46:28 > 0:46:31And instead of just making some small idea,
0:46:31 > 0:46:34I thought I'd just take on the biggest epic ever known to man!
0:46:34 > 0:46:38So, it involves a full orchestra and choir and me telling the story of
0:46:38 > 0:46:42the Odyssey in rap and spoken word poetry.
0:46:42 > 0:46:44And projections on stage.
0:46:44 > 0:46:50But at its essence, it's basically a storyteller recounting the journey
0:46:50 > 0:46:53- of Odysseus in his own words. - Amazing, amazing.
0:46:53 > 0:46:57And so what made you want to engage with the Odyssey in particular?
0:46:57 > 0:47:01Man, I don't know. I think maybe because I come from a Greek background,
0:47:01 > 0:47:05I kind of feel like I get sick of seeing these stories be told in
0:47:05 > 0:47:09a Hollywood way, with not one Greek person on the crew or in the writing
0:47:09 > 0:47:11team or anything like that.
0:47:11 > 0:47:15And this idea that people have got that the Odyssey
0:47:15 > 0:47:19or that ancient Greek culture is Western culture also kind of
0:47:19 > 0:47:21irked me for a little bit.
0:47:21 > 0:47:24But for me, I was like, what can I reinfuse into the Odyssey if I spoke
0:47:24 > 0:47:28classical Greek onstage or I spoke modern Greek onstage, or I could
0:47:28 > 0:47:32feel it in my bones as someone who feels like an ancestor of that?
0:47:32 > 0:47:35You're not the first person to respond to the Odyssey in
0:47:35 > 0:47:37a range of creative mediums, right?
0:47:37 > 0:47:41It's interesting because for me, my way into the Odyssey came actually
0:47:41 > 0:47:43via other people that had responded.
0:47:43 > 0:47:44Derek Walcott, Ralph Ellison...
0:47:44 > 0:47:48- Nice.- What do you make of some of those responses, and do you feel any
0:47:48 > 0:47:51pressure being in this kind of long list of incredibly
0:47:51 > 0:47:53talented people from all over the world, really,
0:47:53 > 0:47:55who've been inspired by this text?
0:47:55 > 0:47:57I feel pressure!
0:47:57 > 0:48:01Which is why I don't read anybody else's interpretation!
0:48:01 > 0:48:03I try not to get hung up about it.
0:48:03 > 0:48:05It is a reinterpretation of a classic.
0:48:05 > 0:48:10I see it as a... Really like a rite of passage for some artists that
0:48:10 > 0:48:11choose to take it on.
0:48:11 > 0:48:16It is such a historic story that we also feel like we have to do it
0:48:16 > 0:48:19justice, and maybe that brings some greatness out of us that we may not
0:48:19 > 0:48:22have had if it wasn't a project on this.
0:48:22 > 0:48:26I saw when I first started doing this, that Prince actually did
0:48:26 > 0:48:28- a response to the Odyssey.- I had no idea...
0:48:28 > 0:48:33Called Glam Slam Ulysses, with Carmen Electra dancing on stage.
0:48:33 > 0:48:36Before she got famous. I don't know anyone other than the people
0:48:36 > 0:48:38in that room that might have seen it.
0:48:38 > 0:48:42But, like, a lot of people have dealt with this thing,
0:48:42 > 0:48:48and it seems to be like an essential part of many artists' movement and growth.
0:48:48 > 0:48:53Despite his Greek heritage, Luka has never been to Ithaca.
0:48:53 > 0:48:56But he does have a little bit of local info to share.
0:48:56 > 0:49:01Do you know there's a rumour that Ithaca's not actually Odysseus's home,
0:49:01 > 0:49:05and that actually it was in Cephalonia next door, the other island?
0:49:05 > 0:49:09- What?!- Yeah, because Cephalonia has like different groves
0:49:09 > 0:49:12and forests and stuff, and in the early part of the Odyssey,
0:49:12 > 0:49:17they talk about Odysseus hunting and running through forests and all this type of stuff.
0:49:17 > 0:49:20So, Ithaca's not big enough to have that, so some people
0:49:20 > 0:49:24say that actually, ancient Ithaca was Cephalonia.
0:49:24 > 0:49:25That's mad.
0:49:25 > 0:49:30So what if I'm actually not in Odysseus's home?!
0:49:30 > 0:49:32Wow, all right! Well, I'm going to have to look into that.
0:49:32 > 0:49:37Thanks a lot, bro. Thanks for taking the time to speak to us.
0:49:37 > 0:49:41Could Luka be right? Is the island that's called Ithaca today not the
0:49:41 > 0:49:43place that Homer had in mind?
0:49:44 > 0:49:45I've been digging a bit deeper
0:49:45 > 0:49:48and I can see why some readers might have their doubts.
0:49:49 > 0:49:52And that's because the description we see in the text again and again
0:49:52 > 0:49:55and again is of a low-lying piece of land,
0:49:55 > 0:49:57the most westerly of a group of islands.
0:49:57 > 0:50:02Yet when I look around me, it's clear that there are mountains everywhere.
0:50:02 > 0:50:05And according to the map, this is definitely not the most westerly.
0:50:05 > 0:50:10So, is this definitely the island that the ancient Greeks were referring to?
0:50:10 > 0:50:14To compose my own Odyssey, I started this journey in the footsteps of
0:50:14 > 0:50:18Odysseus to find out more about the blind bard who first sang his tale.
0:50:22 > 0:50:25Though the ancient Greeks believed that the events in the Odyssey
0:50:25 > 0:50:29actually took place, and that Homer himself was a single poet...
0:50:31 > 0:50:34..everywhere I've come, I've found that the truth is not so clear.
0:50:38 > 0:50:41Even here, on the Western tip of Cephalonia,
0:50:41 > 0:50:45I still can't know for certain whether this was the home which
0:50:45 > 0:50:47Odysseus wanted so badly to reach.
0:50:47 > 0:50:50I have to ask myself whether any of these questions of geography,
0:50:50 > 0:50:52debated by scholars for centuries,
0:50:52 > 0:50:55are relevant to understanding the text or informing my new song.
0:50:58 > 0:51:03Is part of the beauty and intrigue of these ancient stories the fact
0:51:03 > 0:51:06that they are now so shrouded in myth and mystery, and would more
0:51:06 > 0:51:10specific knowledge actually take away a little bit of their magic?
0:51:11 > 0:51:14And as Dublin's WB Stanford tells us,
0:51:14 > 0:51:17"The uncertainty is caused by the fact that though Homer is probably
0:51:17 > 0:51:20"describing actual places, he gives them a poetic and not
0:51:20 > 0:51:22"precisely topographical description.
0:51:22 > 0:51:24"For appreciation of his poem and story,
0:51:24 > 0:51:27"it makes little difference whether Ithaca is Thiaki
0:51:27 > 0:51:29"or the Isle of Man or Rhode Island.
0:51:29 > 0:51:32"We have only ourselves to blame when we try to accommodate poetry to
0:51:32 > 0:51:34"science and find it perplexing and troublesome.
0:51:34 > 0:51:37"The poet did not write for geographers."
0:51:39 > 0:51:40And that really eloquently sums it up.
0:51:40 > 0:51:43We may never know whether Homer was man or woman,
0:51:43 > 0:51:47group of people or individual, blind bard or fully-sighted athlete,
0:51:47 > 0:51:49ancient Greek or ancient Egyptian.
0:51:49 > 0:51:52These are all theories that were advanced from the most ancient of times.
0:51:52 > 0:51:55We probably will never even know if there was a real Odysseus.
0:51:55 > 0:51:58And over the last week or so, when I've travelled to Greece and its
0:51:58 > 0:52:01former territories, I've concluded it doesn't really matter.
0:52:01 > 0:52:04The Odyssey is one of the great epics of world literature.
0:52:04 > 0:52:07It managed to soak up influences from all around the world and
0:52:07 > 0:52:11itself has continued to influence people for over 2,500 years.
0:52:11 > 0:52:14Again I say, this is my Odyssey.
0:52:17 > 0:52:18# Yo, listen
0:52:19 > 0:52:21# Yo, yo
0:52:21 > 0:52:23# Yo
0:52:29 > 0:52:31# Why is the story told?
0:52:31 > 0:52:33# What is the teller's mission?
0:52:33 > 0:52:36# What is the ultimate source of our deepest intuition?
0:52:36 > 0:52:39# Why does the audience come and why did they listen?
0:52:41 > 0:52:43# The blind bard's vision
0:52:43 > 0:52:45# Why is the story told?
0:52:45 > 0:52:46# What is the teller's mission?
0:52:46 > 0:52:50# What is the ultimate source of our deepest intuition?
0:52:50 > 0:52:53# Why does the audience come and why did they listen?
0:52:55 > 0:52:57# The blind bard's vision
0:52:57 > 0:53:00# The sweetest siren call, that spans time and distance
0:53:00 > 0:53:03# The poet speaks the building blocks of our existence
0:53:03 > 0:53:07# Who said it's master masons that build the base of nations
0:53:07 > 0:53:10# Without the word there's nothing else, you can't replace it
0:53:10 > 0:53:15# When all the towers fall, and all the powerful kings crush into dust
0:53:15 > 0:53:17# Things left there to rust
0:53:17 > 0:53:20# It's the word, the word, the word carries on
0:53:20 > 0:53:24# And our thirst give birth to the search that we on
0:53:24 > 0:53:27# Seeking solace with myths that promise
0:53:27 > 0:53:31# If we just give our attention it will astonish it
0:53:31 > 0:53:34# A bit of politics, splash of the supernatural
0:53:34 > 0:53:38# Stitched together by syllables, weave a tapestry
0:53:38 > 0:53:41# That's broad enough to span minds and generations
0:53:41 > 0:53:45# Still it cannot be touched by much but contemplation
0:53:45 > 0:53:46# You want to make a statement?
0:53:46 > 0:53:48# Better you write a verse
0:53:48 > 0:53:50# Want to create a nation?
0:53:50 > 0:53:51# Better recite it first
0:53:51 > 0:53:55# Preferably epic with no pen, let the mind collect it
0:53:55 > 0:53:57# Practise it hundreds of times until it's time
0:53:57 > 0:54:00# Perfected by the time they write it down
0:54:00 > 0:54:02# They'll doubt that you're real
0:54:02 > 0:54:05# Cos we're great at questioning other people's skill
0:54:05 > 0:54:08# Yet we seek it still, the Mahabharata
0:54:08 > 0:54:13# Virgil, Milton, Lucretius, the epic of Sundjata
0:54:13 > 0:54:14# Gilgamesh
0:54:14 > 0:54:17# Committed coffin text, yeah
0:54:17 > 0:54:19# It's the blind bard we know best
0:54:19 > 0:54:23# Is it cos your word was twinned to empires' wings?
0:54:23 > 0:54:26# Or that we touched something deep within?
0:54:26 > 0:54:30# Cos when you boil it down beyond mythology and God you find something
0:54:30 > 0:54:32# That is just so human, do you not?
0:54:32 > 0:54:35# A son in search of a father that he has lost
0:54:35 > 0:54:39# A father trying to get back to his family at any cost
0:54:39 > 0:54:42# A woman that's besieged by men with bad intentions
0:54:42 > 0:54:46# And she does not want to be with them, but they won't accept it
0:54:46 > 0:54:49# Cos there's men and gods, the pen and its gob
0:54:49 > 0:54:52# There's a mind and a mouth that spout where you dare not
0:54:52 > 0:54:56# The poet sings and speaks from streets to ancient Greece
0:54:56 > 0:54:59# Defeat, then, is what you meet if competing is what you seek
0:54:59 > 0:55:02# Whether the beat or lyre strings
0:55:02 > 0:55:07# We are leviathans that speak sagas of this great species of hirelings
0:55:07 > 0:55:09# Posing like we're highest kings
0:55:09 > 0:55:12# To get as high as wings of God but we do not
0:55:12 > 0:55:14# Do nothing but try a thing
0:55:14 > 0:55:18# The poet sees how the falcons sees a view from the balcony
0:55:18 > 0:55:19# No doubting he
0:55:19 > 0:55:20# Pages are a alchemy
0:55:20 > 0:55:24# And the magician is politician and prophet
0:55:24 > 0:55:25# Premonition we got it
0:55:25 > 0:55:27# Television and pocket couple queens
0:55:27 > 0:55:29# That will keep us going flowing
0:55:29 > 0:55:31# Yeah, we eat from poems
0:55:31 > 0:55:34# If the teacher don't speak, how could we keep on knowing?
0:55:35 > 0:55:38# What these questions to these answers are
0:55:38 > 0:55:39# Curses and our blessings
0:55:39 > 0:55:41# Confessions are just how deaf we are
0:55:41 > 0:55:45# And obsessed with death, despite all our best attempts
0:55:45 > 0:55:48# The Odyssean Underworld is the best we're left
0:55:48 > 0:55:50# The same one from the book of the dead
0:55:50 > 0:55:54# Who the myths, millennia hasn't put them to bed
0:55:54 > 0:55:58# Philosophy is not the laws of motion, logic can't explain emotion
0:55:58 > 0:56:02# So it makes sense, we come up with some other type of notion
0:56:02 > 0:56:05# A myth is not a lie, it's a disguise from the truth
0:56:05 > 0:56:08# So the wise can recite to the youth
0:56:08 > 0:56:11# If the lines in our rhymes are to find any use
0:56:11 > 0:56:15# It's the tries of our mind to decipher the clues
0:56:15 > 0:56:17# Give my mind this thing called living
0:56:17 > 0:56:20# Season the rhythms, turn of the earth to announce the beginning
0:56:20 > 0:56:22# Look how we bounce on the rhythm
0:56:22 > 0:56:24# Man could rap about all of the family
0:56:24 > 0:56:26# Whole of your humanity, whole of the galaxy
0:56:26 > 0:56:28# You want to talk about cars, that's fine
0:56:28 > 0:56:29# Yes, you could say it is a chariot
0:56:29 > 0:56:32# Carried on the wings of the night, even Zeus don't attack the skies
0:56:32 > 0:56:34# Where the truth in the chapter lies
0:56:34 > 0:56:36# I don't know, it's just a fact of life.
0:56:36 > 0:56:38# The search of the journey, permanent purgatory
0:56:38 > 0:56:39# Driven a Finca from Inca to Germany
0:56:39 > 0:56:41# So what you gonna do? You gonna search?
0:56:41 > 0:56:43# Or gonna stand on the side and rehearse?
0:56:43 > 0:56:45# There's finding the time since your birth is so insignificant
0:56:45 > 0:56:46# There's barely any worth
0:56:46 > 0:56:48# Yeah, the heroes, faces are thousands
0:56:48 > 0:56:50# If you listen you will hear what they're shouting
0:56:50 > 0:56:52# They ain't telling you to listen to the doubting
0:56:52 > 0:56:54# They're trying to get us ready for the outing
0:56:54 > 0:56:56# But you would swear poets are mortal
0:56:56 > 0:56:58# But we're not the same I assure you
0:56:58 > 0:57:00# Cos we make words and portals, 26 letters and we will teleport you
0:57:00 > 0:57:02# We're not the same, I assure you
0:57:02 > 0:57:03# 26 letters and we will teleport you
0:57:03 > 0:57:05# Why is the story told?
0:57:05 > 0:57:07# What is the teller's mission?
0:57:07 > 0:57:10# What is the ultimate source of our deepest intuition?
0:57:10 > 0:57:14# Why does the audience come and why did they listen?
0:57:15 > 0:57:17# The blind bard's vision
0:57:17 > 0:57:19# Why is the story told?
0:57:19 > 0:57:21# What is the teller's mission?
0:57:21 > 0:57:24# What is the ultimate source of our deepest intuition?
0:57:24 > 0:57:27# Why does the audience come and why did they listen?
0:57:29 > 0:57:30# Blind bard's vision
0:57:33 > 0:57:34# The blind bard's vision
0:57:36 > 0:57:38# The blind bard's vision
0:57:40 > 0:57:41# The blind bard's vision
0:57:43 > 0:57:45# Blind bard's vision... #
0:57:46 > 0:57:50HE MOUTHS