Old Man of the Sea

Mythology

In book 4 of Homer's Odyssey, Menelaus recounts to Telemachus his journey home, and how he is obliged to seek the advice of the Old Man of the Sea. The Old Man will answer truthfully any questions put to him when captured. Capturing him, however, entails holding on to him as he changes bewilderingly from one form to another in his attempts to break free from his interrogator. The dogged Menelaus succeeds in hanging on to the slippery god throughout all his transformations and, in the course of the following interrogation, is able to obtain an answer to his question as to whether Telemachus's father Odysseus is still alive.

Sinbad

Sinbad the Sailor encountered the monstrous Old Man of the Sea () on his fifth voyage. The Old Man of the Sea in the Sinbad tales was said to trick a traveller into letting him ride on his shoulders while the traveller transported him across a stream. However, the Old Man would then not release his grip, forcing his victim to transport him wherever he pleased and allowing his victim little rest. The Old Man's victims all eventually died of this miserable treatment, with the Old Man either eating them or else robbing them. Sinbad, however, after getting the Old Man drunk with wine, was able to shake him off and kill him.

References in poetry

The Old Man of the Sea is alluded to in Edwin Arlington Robinson's book-length narrative poem King Jasper. In part 3 of the poem, King Jasper dreams of his deceased friend Hebron (whom Jasper betrayed) riding on his back. "You cannot fall yet, and I'm riding nicely," Hebron tells Jasper. "If only we might have the sight of water, / We'd say that I'm the Old Man of the Sea, / And you Sinbad the Sailor." Hebron then turns to gold (a symbol of Jasper's motivation for betraying him) and coaxes Jasper to leap across a ravine with the heavy, golden Hebron on his back.

The Old Man of the Sea also figures in the work of West Indian poet Derek Walcott. In a 1965 paper, "The Figure of Crusoe", writing about the poem "Crusoe's Journal", Walcott notes:

Referencing the figures of Adam, Christofer (Columbus) and Friday in succession, the poem's narrator remarks, "All shapes, all objects multiplied from his,/our ocean's Proteus;/in childhood, his derelict's old age/was like a god's."

References

References

1. ''[[Iliad]]'', Book I, line 588 ([[Stanley Lombardo]]'s notation)
2. {{cite Nuttall. Old Man of the Sea
3. Robinson, Edwin Arlington. ''King Jasper'', New York, The Macmillan Company, 1935.
4. (1997). "Critical perspectives on Derek Walcott". Rienner.