Using clues from stars and the Sun’s positions mentioned by the ancient Greek poet Homer, scholars think they have determined the date when King Odysseus returned from the Trojan War and slaughtered a group of suitors who had been pressing his wife to marry one of them. It was on April 16, 1178 B.C. that the warrior struck with arrows, swords and spears, killing those who sought to replace him, a pair of researchers said in the online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. Experts have long debated whether the books of Homer reflect the actual history of the Trojan War and its aftermath. Marcelo O. Magnasco of Rockefeller University in New York and Constantino Baikouzis of the Astronomical Observatory in La Plata, Argentina, acknowledge they had to make some assumptions to determine the date Odysseus returned to his kingdom of Ithaca. But interpreting clues in Homer’s “Odyssey” as references to the positions of stars and a total eclipse of the Sun allowed them to determine when a particular set of conditions would have occurred. “What we’d like to achieve is to get the reader to pick up the ‘Odyssey’ and read it again, and ponder,” said Mr. Magnasco, adding: “And to realise that our understanding of these texts is quite imperfect, and even when entire libraries have been written about Homeric studies, there is still room for further investigation.” …    more »

The present narrative in 40 stanzas composed in August 1998 was first published in my book Passing Moments a selection from which appears here: http://www.sciy.org/blog/_archives/2008/5/12/3686764.html Opportunity is taken to lightly revise it before posting at the sciy. The extensive use and adaptation of Google Images to illustrate some of the themes is the added feature. The narrative concludes with the following stanzas describing the work the Protagonist came here to do.

Even his body’s cells shone
As if countless suns were lit;
The Transcendent’s powers he housed
Where purple majesties sit.

To him thoughts came in serene
Intuitions from the original fount;
Calm words he spoke were words
That had strength death to surmount.

Truth’s abidingnesses he affirmed
In mortality’s devious ways,—
Made his breast a diamond cup
To hold its bliss, its rain and rays.

Nightly aeons had elapsed
For the day of all-love to dawn;
Now in its great resplendence
The wonder of wonders moves on.

Mortal birth he lifted to the sun
And the Will of the High in it willed;
A presence leaned down and things
Promised long ago got fulfilled.
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