What do the legendary voyager and the Crocodile Hunter have in common?
They were both fatally impaled upon a sting-ray barb.
The September 2006 death of Steve Irwin was, perhaps, no less tragic than that of Odysseus, who according to the lost Telegony, perished at the hands of his son by the witch Circe, Telegonus. The battle between father and son, neither who recognized the other, culminated in Odysseus's death on the his son's spear point--a sting-ray barb.
That bit of Classical lore is from M.L. West's Indo-European Poetry and Myth.
1 comment:
I was unaware that Odysseus ever died. Back in 9th grade when I put down my (apparently shoddy) prose translation of the Odyssey, Odysseus was alive and well. I just assumed he lived happily ever after.
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