ἴσκε ψεύδεα πολλὰ λέγων ἐτύμοισιν ὁμοῖα
‘He made likenesses [eïskein], saying many deceptive [pseudea] things looking like [homoia] genuine [etuma] things.’
This verse, which closes the Third Cretan Tale, signals that Odysseus has been speaking as a poet whose art can be understood only by those who are qualified. Most comparable are the verses that are said to be spoken by the Muses to Hesiod in the Hesiodic Theogony, 26–28:
|26 ποιμένες ἄγραυλοι, κάκ᾿ ἐλέγχεα, γαστέρες οἶον, |27 ἴδμεν ψεύδεα πολλὰ λέγειν ἐτύμοισιν ὁμοῖα, |28 ἴδμεν δ᾿, εὖτ᾿ ἐθέλωμεν, ἀληθέα γηρύσασθαι.
|26 Shepherds camping in the fields, base objects of reproach, mere stomachs [gasteres]! |27 We know how to say many deceptive [pseudea] things looking like [homoia] genuine [etuma] things, |28 but we also know how, whenever we wish it, to proclaim things that are true [alēthea].
(What follows is epitomized from MoM 2§§22–28.) In these Hesiodic verses, what is deceptive is not the fact that some things ‘look like’ other things. Rather, what is deceptive is that pseudea ‘deceptive things’ can look like etuma ‘real things’. On this point, see also the comment at O.14.124–125. And even deceptive things that look like real things can still be equal to real things, the same as real things. As I indicated in my comments at O.16.172–212, for example, Odysseus is really ‘equal to the immortals’ when he looks like an immortal in ritual contexts. As I also indicated in those comments, the contexts of eïskein ‘make likenesses, liken’ at O.16.187 and O.16.200 show that Telemachus was justified in saying that Odysseus looks the same as a god after being touched by the wand of Athena. If Telemachus was at first deceived by the looks of Odysseus in such contexts, then the deception was happening from the viewpoint of an uninitiated beholder who could not yet distinguish between what is deceptive and what is real. Similarly in the Hesiodic Theogony, the figure of Hesiod has been such an uninitiated beholder before his poetic initiation into the art of the Muses. After his initiation, however, he can now envision what is real even when he beholds things that can be deceptive. The same principle holds whenever Odysseus utters words to be envisioned only by those who have already been initiated into the art of the Muses of poetry. That is what happens here at O.19.203. What is deceptive about the deceptive things that Odysseus is saying in his Third Cretan Tale is not the fact that some things ‘look like’ other things. Rather, what is deceptive is that pseudea ‘deceptive things’ look like etuma ‘real things’. And, once again, even these deceptive things that look like real things can still be equal to real things—the same as the real things that are seen by those who are initiated into the art of the Muses. This art is the art of poetic imagination, which can make even deceptive things look like real things, be equal to real things, be the same as real things. Such is the art that is borrowed by the alluring figure of Helen when she makes her voice identical to the voice of any wife of any Homeric hero: see the comment on eïksein ‘liken’ at O.04.279. Helen’s voice, borrowed from the poetry of the Muses, has the power of conjuring the voices of the wives themselves. And, by extension, her poetic voice has the power of conjuring the very images of the wives. True, Helen means to deceive, but her deceptive words in this narrative frame are the same as the real words of Homeric poetry in the overall narrative frame of that poetry—real words that activate visions of the real things of Homeric poetry. These real things are whatever is real for this poetry, which is figured as true overall, even if it contains things that seem at first to be deceptive. For Homeric poetry, whatever is divinely true can contain deceptions and still be true.