Source-groundedThe Odyssey
All entities

Character · Individual

enslaved mother of Ulysses’s Cretan persona

Published entity metadata

Read-only identity and editorial metadata.

Canonical name
enslaved mother of Ulysses’s Cretan persona
Disambiguator
None
Kind
Character
Scope
Individual
Editorial note
This unnamed woman exists only within Ulysses’s lying Cretan biography.

Aliases

0

No aliases recorded.

Location presence

Phase 6 currently covers 24 processed books.

0

No presence observations in the processed scope.

Claims

1
·Disguised

The persona’s mother is an enslaved woman purchased by Castor as a concubine.

See evidence text
“I was the son of a slave whom he had purchased for a concubine”

Additional evidence

Evidence records not already represented by a claim.

1
·Disguised
“the son of a slave whom he had purchased for a concubine”

Passage preview

Book 14 · Passage 12

‘I am by birth a Cretan; my father was a well to do man, who had many sons born in marriage, whereas I was the son of a slave whom he had purchased for a concubine; nevertheless, my father Castor son of Hylax (whose lineage I claim, and who was held in the highest honour among the Cretans for his wealth, prosperity, and the valour of his sons) put me on the same level with my brothers who had been born in wedlock. When, however, death took him to the house of Hades, his sons divided his estate and cast lots for their shares, but to me they gave a holding and little else; nevertheless, my valour enabled me to marry into a rich family, for I was not given to bragging, or shirking on the field of battle. It is all over now; still, if you look at the straw you can see what the ear was, for I have had trouble enough and to spare. Mars and Minerva made me doughty in war; when I had picked my men to surprise the enemy with an ambuscade I never gave death so much as a thought, but was the first to leap forward and spear all whom I could overtake. Such was I in battle, but I did not care about farm work, nor the frugal home life of those who would bring up children. My delight was in ships, fighting, javelins, and arrows—things that most men shudder to think of; but one man likes one thing and another another, and this was what I was most naturally inclined to. Before the Achaeans went to Troy, nine times was I in command of men and ships on foreign service, and I amassed much wealth. I had my pick of the spoil in the first instance, and much more was allotted to me later on.