The Ritual Of Homer's Epic

Homer’s epics contain thick descriptions of rituals. This paper selects and meticulously focuses on the most representative rituals in the epic. This paper takes Book Ⅲ of Odyssey that refers to the greatest number of rituals of the two epics as the major analysis object to analyze the ancient Greek sacrifice, libations and purification rituals.The first chapter introduces conceptual definition, research status, and literature review and research methods. In the second chapter, from the perspective of the text narrative of the epic, ten different rituals in Book Ⅲ of Odyssey are collated and categorized. Based on the previous chapter, the third chapter mainly discusses the last ritual of Book Ⅲ; explain this whole ritual start from preparing the sacrifice, proceeding to altar, and executing sacrifice end up with sharing sacrifice. Based on the epic text, the fourth chapter discusses the libations in the epic. The fifth chapter probes into two forms of purification rituals seen in Book Ⅲ and clarifies the ancient concepts of purity and sin and discusses the meanings of the different forms of purification rituals, thereby providing a possibility to interpret Odysseus’s last exile. The sixth chapter summarizes the function and significance of the rituals mentioned in this paper, and further develops a brief outlook of the religious and cultural research in Homer’s epics...