A Different Look at the Homeric Epos in Antiquity: Porphyry the Neoplatonist’s Explanation of “The Cave of the Nymphs -Water Fairies-” in Odyssey

A Different Look at the Homeric Epos in Antiquity: Porphyry the Neoplatonist’s Explanation of “The Cave of the Nymphs -Water Fairies-” in Odyssey

Didem Demiralp

Abstract

The thinkers of antiquity tried to give different meanings to the stories that were narrated in Iliad and Odyssey. This effort was one of the signs of the importance which the Homeric epics had in antiquity. Porphyry the Neoplatonist was one of these thinkers. In Odyssey; Homer related the return travel of Odysseus the Achaean hero after the Trojan war. In the book of thirteen; he told the way the hero was brought back by the Phaeacian sailors to his native land and left near to a cavern on a shore while he was asleep. This place which was also known as the cave of the Water Fairies (Nymphs) was interpreted by Porphyry in an allegorical way. So he gave a very different meaning to the story. 

Keywords: Homeros; Odysseia; Nympha; Porphyrios; alegori.

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Journal of Gazi Academic View is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY NC)

ISSN: 1307-9778 E-ISSN: 1309-5137

 

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