Seth Benardete Memorial Remarks by Michèle Lowrie When Seth Benardete turned back to Homer, forty years after writing his dissertation on the Iliad, he found the pivotal moment of the Odyssey in Odysseus’ rejection of immortality, which is somehow his destiny and his deliberate choice at once — and which expressed, in Benardete’s understanding, the core of what it is to be human. I’m going to read to you from the fifth book of the Odyssey and I’ll start with Odysseus’ response to Calypso — a few lines in Greek, and then I’ll read a few pages from Mandelbaum’s translation to put these lines in context. Read in Greek: Odyssey, 5.214-225, in the Oxford Classical Text, ed. Thomas W. Allen. Read in English: from the Mandelbaum (Penguin Classic) translation of the Odyssey, 5.77-225, from “Calypso, brightest goddess, seeing Hermes...” (p. 97), through “These were his words. The sun sank. Darkness came.” (p. 102). [The readings will be posted if permission is obtained from the publishers.] Back to Top Back to Memorial Service Program Back to About Seth Benardete Back to What’s New