This landscape painting by the American artist Robert Seldon Duncanson (1821–1872) alludes to the ancient tale of Odysseus and the land of the Lotus Eaters. Odysseus’ encounter with these people served as a turning point in his journey home that marked the start of a gradual transition of events out of the realm of the ordinary and into the extraordinary. Prior to his encounter with the Lotus Eaters, Odysseus had only just set out to sea from defeated Troy, and he subsequently raided the Trojan-aligned lands of the Cicones—actions that were quite mundane and ordinary in the grand scheme of The Odyssey. Then, however, Odysseus’ fleet was harassed by storms and winds for nearly two weeks, pushing the hero and his crew into uncharted waters. After the storms was when the weary Greeks found themselves in the land of the Lotus Eaters. Instead of familiar war and raiding, the Lotus Eaters were, contrastingly, a mysterious people with a fantastical fruit that possessed magical properties. Odysseus, in The Odyssey poem by Homer, recalled:
“[W]e reached the country of the Lotus-Eaters, a race that eat the flowery lotus fruit…Now these natives had no intention of killing my comrades; what they did was to give them some lotus to taste. Those who ate the honeyed fruit of the plant lost any wish to come back and bring us news. All they now wanted was to stay where they were with the Lotus-eaters, to browse on the lotus, and to forget all thoughts of return. I had to use force to bring them back to the hollow ships, and they wept on the way…” (Homer, The Odyssey, book 9, approximately between lines 80-100).
Given the friendliness and pacifism of the Lotus Eaters, they did not pose much of a threat to Odysseus. He was easily able to drag his crew away from the mysterious civilization and the threat of the lotus fruit’s addictive magical stupor. It is this early tale from Odysseus’ long Odyssey that lent its name to the landscape painting by Robert Seldon Duncanson. The first contact between the explorers and the Lotus Eaters can be seen playing out at the lower center region of the painting, with figures visible on either side of the central river. After that encounter, Odysseus’ experiences would become increasingly fantastical, supernatural and grandiose. He would go on to clash with the Cyclopes, meet the wind god Aeolus, survive the mighty Laestrygonians, meet the magical goddess Circe, converse with shades of the dead, withstand the song of the Sirens, navigate between monstrous Charybdis and Scylla, witness the cattle of sun god Helios, live alongside the nymph and goddess Calypso, and find companionship and aid with the godly Phaeacians, who helped Odysseus return to his homeland of Ithaca.
Written by C. Keith Hansley
Sources:
- The Odyssey by Homer, translated by E. V. Rieu and edited by D. C. H. Rieu. New York: Penguin Classics, 2009.
- https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Robert_Duncanson_-_Land_of_the_Lotos_Eaters.JPG
