THE CATTLE OF THE SUN (ODYSSEY)

 The Cattle of the Sun
A Little Known Cautionary Tale from the Odyssey

Retold by Carlos Goñi, translated by Sandra Dermark (27th of November, 2022)

Times of plenty call for one kind of self-discipline (as in the story of the goose that laid the golden eggs). Times of hardship call for other sorts of self-restraint. During tough times, people are tempted to put aside social and moral codes. In this episode from Homer's Odyssey, the crew of Odysseus does not have the self-control to pass a tough test...

One of the crossroads through which the forlorn Odysseus has to pass is described by Homer in Canto the Twelfth of the Odyssey. Landing on the island where the Cattle of the Sun pasture, and not to starve to death, Odysseus' crewmen, disobeying their leader's advice, devoured the flesh of those sacred horned heads. The sovereign luminary, seized with terrible sorrow, swore revenge to Zeus, who caused the wreck of the ship. Only the king of Ithaca, who had abstained from eating beef, could arrive safe on land; the rest "a god deprived them of return."

After coasting past the islet of the Sirens, Odysseus' ship was brought by the gods to the bottleneck of the strait, the dwelling place of Charybdis and Scylla, sea monsters who devoured anyone who came too close. However, the expedition was able to pass through the bottleneck unscathed and came to Thrinacria, a flat and green island.

Odysseus and his crew had spent many days without eating, so they landed on that shore that promised to harbour enough provisions to satisfy their hunger for the rest of the journey. They ventured inland with bows, swords, and spears in hand in search of some deer or some boars. Soon they realised that pastures and freshwater were abundant, but that, however, there were no fruit trees or edible tubers. They crested a small hill and came to a mesa as flat as the palm of a hand, where they discovered, to their great elation, a herd of beautiful white cows. The starving sailors readied their spears, about to pounce at the placid cattle, but Odysseus, who knew the horned heads were divine, stopped them saying:

"You may take as much as you want from this island, but leave these cows be, since they are the Cattle of the Sun. Whoever eats of their flesh will have to confront the god of the stars himself."

Upon hearing their captain's order, the sailors grew sad and sat down on the grass, contemplating the enormous white cows that grazed meekly in front of their eyes. Odysseus saw them looking so disappointed that he left them to rest and left to explore the island on his own in search for as much provisions as they needed for the journey ahead.

For a whole day, Odysseus crisscrossed the island of Thrinacria without finding anything else than green meadows. When he returned to the spot where he had left his crewmen he found them eating beef from the sacred cows. They had sacrificed two heads of cattle, one of which had sated their hunger, and the other was being prepared for a whole burnt offering. Upon beholding such a sacrilege, Odysseus flew into a rage: harshly addressing the heavens:

"What are you doing, you fools?! Are you by chance intending to provoke the fury of the gods?! Are you perhaps thinking that by offering one of their sacred beasts as a whole burnt offering, you are going to appease the fury of the king of the heavens?! You have made a terribly stupid mistake. What kind of men are you that have not been able to remain fasting?! Do your guts rule more than your heads?! Then let me be your head and let us flee ere the vengeance of the All-Seeing One falls upon all of us."

Having finished his tirade, the skies darkened and strong winds picked up. Everyone began to run desperately towards the coast. They climbed on board and set sail without delay. A strong gust made the sails swell and suddenly left them far from the island. When they were in open waters, the sky roared with thunder and a huge wave swallowed up the ship. The whole crew perished smashed by the wave, except Odysseus.

The bold sailor king was able to clutch a piece of mast. As he passed once more the bottleneck of the strait, by Charybdis and Scylla, he was nearly sucked up by Charybdis. Luckily, he was able to clutch a fig tree that grew at the entrance to the cave, and thus avoided to enter the grotto of the dreadful monster. When the sea beast spewed out all the saltwater she had sucked in, Odysseus was shot out with such good luck that he was able to seize the piece of mast from before once again. In such precarious conditions, he drifted away with the currents until he landed on a beach near the mouth of a river. There he remained unconscious, hidden among the reeds and shrubbery.

Suggestions

There is some morality, some coded message for humans in relation to the cattle in this mythological excerpt. The explicit interdiction against eating beef from the Cattle of the Sun (which appears both in the Odyssey and in the Hindu belief on sacred cattle) has a clear moral sense. It reminds us of some pretty elementary principles of behaviour, such as: "do not wish to satisfy your appetite immediately," "if you eat the cow, you will not be able to drink the milk," "a cow in the stable is worth two steaks in the barbecue (read "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush")," ... with the aim of not thinking only of "right here right now" (ie instant gratification), but of the future. Whoever is unable to put a stop to instinct, whoever cannot say no or accept no for an answer, whoever cannot see beyond the immediate present, is not human.

Speaking of the divine horned heads brings obvious and irrepressible thoughts of mad cow disease, that years ago dealt a heavy blow to livestock-based British economy and kept half Europe on tenterhooks. Every now and then, nature protests with a new epidemic. Who knows? Maybe these cows are demanding respect, like the Cattle of the Sun?