Motivi della poesia nuziale in Odissea VI 149-185

This paper aims to analyze Odysseus’ speech in Odyssey VI 149-185, investigating the presence of topoi typical of nuptial poetry. Hymenaioi were very popular in ancient Greece, and even if most of them are nowadays irreparably lost, nevertheless most of their themes were borrowed and shared by late nuptial rhetoric, as we can detect in Choricius’ wedding orations or Menander’s treatises. The encounter between Odysseus and Nausicaa has often been regarded by the critics as a primeval example of erotic poetry, but Odysseus’ speech of vv. 149-185 is characterized by more specific traits: in fact, it presents a great amount of elements that can be classified as nuptial topoi and can be traced into the wedding songs, such as the praise of the bride’s beauty and her comparison to a goddess, the makarismos of the groom, the vegetal similes and the wish of homophrosyne.