Random Note On The Iliad And The Odyssey

Andrew Dalby will opine that The Iliad and The Odyssey were most likely written down by a woman.

I happened to re-read this post regarding Keld Zeruneith's The Wooden Horse:

Odysseus does not get his cunning from strangers. Its genetic source can, as we heard, be traced back to his grandfather Autolykos ("the wolf himself"). It has the result that he is always the subject of suspicion and hatred, even among his own in the Iliad.

Seen from the viewpoint of the heroic, it is impossible not to think precisely of the feminine in relation to cunning and the negative assessment of it. It is said that female cunning is the strongest weapon in the world. And the two female characters who are supremely skilful at employing this strategy are Penelope, who uses cunning to keep her husband, and Klytemnestra, who does the same to kill hers. Women use cunning for at least two reasons. First, because they do not have a man's physique. Secondly, their insight is based on the fact that they are not at one with the male world of action. They can contemplate it from without and then devise their schemes in relation to the motives that make a man act more or less consciously -- especially the latter. In this way, Klytemnestra in the Orestia can manipulate Agamemnon through his vanity to his death.  

I will have to go back and read both books. I will start with The Wooden Horse.

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I first talked about this in a note to my granddaughters:  I am absolutely convinced The Iliad and The Odyssey were written (down) under the editorship of a woman, and that the two-volume epic was to be the Greek Bible to be placed in Athene's/Athena's temple. Dalby's book first suggested this; re-reading Zeruneith's book supports this view.