Anticlea

Anticlea was the mother of Odysseus in Greek mythology, the daughter of Autolycus and the wife of Laertes, king of Ithaca. In Homer’s Odyssey she is already dead when her son travels to the underworld; her shade tells him that she died of longing for him. Her father, Autolycus, gave Odysseus his name.

Family

Homer calls her “Anticlea, daughter of great-hearted Autolycus” (Odyssey 11.85). Autolycus, a master of theft and of oaths, was given those gifts by the god Hermes himself, to whom he burned thigh pieces of lambs and kids (Odyssey 19.394–398). Later writers make Autolycus a son of Hermes, so that Anticlea was the god’s granddaughter (Apollodorus, Library 1.9.16; Ovid, Metamorphoses 11.312–315). Autolycus’ wife was Amphithea, who in the poem is Anticlea’s mother and Odysseus’ grandmother (Odyssey 19.416). Anticlea married Laertes and bore Odysseus. Eumaeus says that she also bore a daughter, Ctimene, the youngest of her children, and that Anticlea herself brought him up together with Ctimene until Ctimene was married to a man of Same (Odyssey 15.363–367).

The Sisyphus tradition

Some writers made Sisyphus, not Laertes, the father of Odysseus. In Sophocles’ Philoctetes the wounded hero speaks of Odysseus as the man whom Sisyphus sold to Laertes (Sophocles, Philoctetes 417), and in Euripides’ Iphigenia at Aulis, when Achilles says that Odysseus will come to take Iphigenia, Clytemnestra asks, “the son of Sisyphus?” (Euripides, Iphigenia at Aulis 1362). These are hostile remarks made in the mouths of characters. Homer never suggests that Odysseus was not the son of Laertes.

The Naming of Odysseus

When Odysseus was newly born, Autolycus came to Ithaca. Eurycleia set the baby on his knees after supper and asked him to find a name for his daughter’s son, whom they had prayed for. Autolycus said, addressing Laertes and Anticlea as “my son-in-law and my daughter”, that the child should be called Odysseus, because he himself had come to this place hating (odyssamenos) many people. He promised the boy gifts from his property on Parnassus when he grew up and came to his mother’s family home (Odyssey 19.399–412). The poem describes a later visit to Autolycus on Parnassus, where Amphithea embraced her grandson (Odyssey 19.413–417).

Anticlea in the Underworld

In the eleventh book of the Odyssey, Odysseus digs a pit at the edge of the world and pours blood for the dead. After the shade of his companion Elpenor, the shade of his mother comes, and he weeps to see her, having left her alive when he sailed for Troy. Even so he does not let her come near the blood until he has spoken to the seer Tiresias (Odyssey 11.84–89). After the prophecy he asks how he may make her recognize him; Tiresias tells him that any shade he allows to drink the blood will speak truly (Odyssey 11.140–149). Anticlea drinks, knows him at once, and asks how he came down living into the darkness (Odyssey 11.152–159).

How she died

Odysseus asks whether a long illness or Artemis killed her. She answers that neither did; it was longing for him and his counsels, and his gentle ways, that took away her life (Odyssey 11.171–203). Eumaeus gives the same account to the disguised Odysseus: she died of grief for her glorious son (Odyssey 15.355–360). The poem does not mention her burial.

News of Ithaca

She tells Odysseus that Penelope waits in his halls, with nights and days wasting in tears; that no one has taken his place, and Telemachus holds the estates in peace and is invited to feasts; and that Laertes stays in the country and no longer goes to town. In winter he sleeps among the slaves in the house, in the dust by the fire, in poor clothes, and in summer he makes his bed of fallen leaves in the vineyard, grieving and longing for his son’s return (Odyssey 11.181–196).

The embrace

Odysseus tries three times to embrace her, and each time she slips through his hands like a shadow or a dream. She explains that this is the way of mortals when they die: the sinews no longer hold flesh and bones together, the fire destroys them once the spirit leaves the bones, and the soul flits away like a dream (Odyssey 11.204–222).

Anticlea Sources

Homer, Odyssey 11.84–89, 11.140–222, 15.355–367, 19.394–417; Apollodorus, Library 1.9.16; Ovid, Metamorphoses 11.312–315; Sophocles, Philoctetes 417; Euripides, Iphigenia at Aulis 1362.

See Also: Autolycus, Hermes, Laertes, Odysseus, Telemachus, Tiresias, Penelope, Eumaeus