"Don't kill the man, don't touch his wife, or face a reckoning with Orestes the day he comes of age and wants his patrimony. Now he has paid his reckoning in full." Homer (2) Theses words spoken by Zeus portray his feeling how mortals reproach everything on the gods although absent minded of their own greed and folly. Homer, in his epic poem The Odyssey, uses imagery to show how essential it was in ancient Greece to uphold the social order. The three most consequential examples of Greek social order are the interference of gods in the affaires of mortals, rules of hospitality for strangers, and showing respect for the gods.
It is outrageous on how many accounts the gods have managed to intermingle as far as mortal business. An example of such an account is shown in book V when Calypso tells Odysseus she will help him return to Ithica. Poseidon unknowing of all the actions present is returning from Ethiopia, when he sees Odysseus sailing along. His anger is aroused and he raises his trident and stirs up a savage storm with the aide of Athena and Leucothie, he manages, despite great danger and suffering, to reach land on the island of Scheria.
They stood up now, and called to one another
To go back . Quite soon they led Odysseus
Under the river bank, as they were bidden;
And there laid out a tunic, and a cloak,
And gave him olive oil in the golden flask.
"Here," they said, " go bathe in the in the flowing water.'
But heard now from that kingly man, Odysseus:
" Maids," he said, " keep away a little; let me
wash the brine from my own back, and rub on
plenty of oil. It is long since my anointing.
I take no bath, however, where you can see me-
Naked before young girls with pretty braids." (104)
Here imagery is used to describe the "golden" flask given to Odysseus filled with olive oil, and told to go bathe in the " flowing" water. Slowly Odysseus is lavished by Athena as her hair "cris...