Examples Of Virtues In The Odyssey

Michael Laughlin

Mr. Sherman

Honors English 1, C3

8 March 2023

Prized Virtues

Virtues are the qualities that make one a good person, virtues always better a person’s life, even when it seems it won’t. Virtues and vices people construct the opinions people have on themselves, and other people. There are many different ideas on which virtues are valued and what a virtuous person looks like. Here, in today’s world, society’s ideas of virtues and goodness have altered over time. In Homer’s The Odyssey, the characters in the epic display a variety of virtues such as bravery, loyalty, courage, and cunning, but also vices such as pride and disloyalty that convey contradicting views of virtues compared to the ideas in the modern world.

In Homer’s

“Athena wheeled on Odysseus, crying, ‘Royal son of Laertes, Odysseus, master of exploits,/ hold back now! Call a halt to the great leveler, War/ don’t court the rage of Zeus who rules the world!’” (Homer XXIIII. 594-597). A key virtue that some readers overlook in The Odyssey, which displayed prominently by Odysseus, is cunning, which is a skill in achieving one's goal by deceit or evasion, one can only achieve effective cunningness by being smart, having the ability to critically think and make the correct decisions under stress, and having the courage along with bravery to go through with frightening scenarios. The mastering all these great skills makes one a “master of exploits.” However, Odysseus isn’t all good either, he has character flaws that most struggle with like pride and disloyalty. “So they begged/ but they could not bring my fighting spirit round./ I called back with another burst of anger, 'Cyclops-/ if any man on the face of the earth should ask you/ who blinded you, shamed you so say Odysseus,/ raider of cities, he gouged out your eye,/ Laertes' son who makes his home in Ithaca!'” (Homer IX. 556-563). When Odysseus was on his initial journey back home, he formulated a cunning scheme to deceive a cyclops. Instead of leaving with his victory, his pride and ego took over and told the cyclops his identity to take credit for his feat which got him stuck on the

Today, a quality like cunningness is perceived as shady, sly, sneaky, and deceptive. However, in the Odyssey the character Odysseus is praised, being referred to at the end as a “‘master of exploits,’” (485). Cunningness is a misunderstood quality that can be used for good and bad, because the definition it’s not as clear cut as loyalty or courage. Cunningness is only virtuous when used in a positive way. Cunningness takes advanced intellectual skills and courage to do. However, today corrupt people use cunning tactics for bad reasons and give cunningness a bad reputation. Another one of Aristotle’s ideas on virtues and vices from Nicomachean Ethics suggests similar arguments about how virtues are applied and if it’s virtuous or not. “Virtue lies in our power, and similarly so does vice; because where it is in our power to act, it is also in our power not to act...” (Aristotle). What makes an action virtues is how one acts, if it’s virtuous it’s out of good, if it’s not it’s a