The theme of hospitality in greek culture is consistent through the reading of the odyssey. provide at least one example of hospitality in the epic and one example of characters being inhospitable. what is the typical punishment for not adhering to divine rules of hospitality? use at least 5-7 sentences in your response.
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Like all epic poems, The Odyssey is a cultural document that embodies the values of the society that created it, providing insight into ideas of heroism and virtue during the poet’s day. The most important value at the core of The Odyssey is hospitality, a social custom common to nearly all pre-modern societies and essential to ancient Greek social structure. Hospitality, also called “guest-friendship,” was a social ritual expected of men in the Greek world. Under the rules of hospitality, men would be expected to host visitors, providing them with food, a bath, friendship gifts, the promise of safety for the night, and safe escorted travel to their next destination. In return, guests would be expected to pose no threat to the life or property of their hosts and to return the favor if their hosts should turn up at their homes in the future. This idea underlies nearly every section of Odysseus’s journey, from his encounter with the Cyclops to his stay among the Phaeacians to his defeat of the greedy suitors. The Odyssey can be thought of as a manual for a host of how to (and how not to) show hospitality to a guest and vice versa.
Telemachus, the focus of the first four books of The Odyssey, provides an early example of good hospitality as both a host and a guest. In Book 1, Athena comes to Ithaca in disguise as the hero Mentes to convince Telemachus to go in search of news of Odysseus. The narrator makes it clear that Telemachus is the only one in the household to treat the guest with the proper respect: “straight to the porch he went, mortified that a guest might still be standing at the doors…he clasped her right hand and relieving her at once of her long bronze spear, met her with winged words: ‘Greetings, stranger! Here in our house you’ll find a royal welcome. Have supper first, then tell us what you need.’” As is proper for hosts, Telemachus welcomes his guest and provides food and drink before even asking the guest’s identity. Telemachus’s behavior is especially notable because of the lack of attention paid by the rest of the household. Likewise, Telemachus displays proper behavior for a guest at the courts of Nestor and Menelaus in Pylos and Sparta, respecting his hosts’ households and treating them with honor.