View source for Elpenor

{{Short description|Greek mythological figure in the Odyssey}}
[[File:Ulysses Burning.jpg|thumb|upright=1.35|Odysseus cremating the body of Elpenor ([[Theodoor van Thulden]], c. 1630)]]
'''Elpenor''' ({{IPAc-en|ɛ|l|ˈ|p|iː|n|ə|r}}; [[Ancient Greek]]: Ἐλπήνωρ, [[genitive case|gen]].: Ἐλπήνορος), also spelled '''Elpinor''' {{IPAc-en|ɛ|l|ˈ|p|aɪ|n|ə|r}}, was the youngest comrade of [[Odysseus]] in [[Greek mythology]].  While on the island of [[Circe]], he became drunk and decided to spend the night on the roof.  In the morning he slipped on the ladder, fell, and broke his neck, dying quickly. <ref name=":0">Odyssey, Book X, 552–560</ref>

==Mythology==
Elpenor was not especially notable for his intelligence or strength, but he survived the [[Trojan War]], and appears in the ''[[Odyssey]]''. He is the youngest man to survive the [[Laestrygonians]]. While Odysseus was staying on [[Aeaea]], [[Circe|Circe's]] island, Elpenor became drunk and climbed onto the roof of Circe's palace to sleep. The next morning, waking upon hearing his comrades making preparations to travel to [[Hades]], he forgot he was on the roof and fell, breaking his neck and dying.  Odysseus and his men apparently noticed his absence, but they were too busy to look for him. When Odysseus arrived in Hades, Elpenor was the first shade to meet him, and pleaded with him to return to Aeaea and give his body a proper cremation and burial. After finishing his task in the underworld, Odysseus returned to Aeaea and cremated Elpenor's body, then buried his ashes with his armour and marked the grave with an oar of his ship.

==Later historic uses==
The story of Elpenor was the model for the story of [[Palinurus]] in Virgil's ''[[Aeneid]]''. In the ''Aeneid'', Palinurus, one of Aeneas' men, falls overboard and ends up swimming to an island nearby. He is killed on the island by the natives that live there. Later on in the story, Aeneas travels to the underworld where he sees Palinurus. There, Palinurus pleads with Aeneas to give him a proper burial.

The story of Elpenor might be the basis of the story of [[Eutychus]] in the New Testament.<ref>{{cite journal |url=http://depts.drew.edu/jhc/mcdonald.html |title=Luke's Eutychus and Homer's Elpenor: Acts 20:7-12 and Odyssey 10-12 |editor-first=Dennis R. |editor-last=MacDonald |editor-link=Dennis R. MacDonald |publisher=[[Drew University]] |year=1996 |journal=[[Institute for Higher Critical Studies]] |pages=4–24 |first=Darrell J. |last=Doughty |author-link=Darrell J. Doughty |access-date=2 October 2018}}</ref>

==Modern uses==
The character of [[Patrick "Paddy" Dignam]], whose funeral is the focus of Episode 6 ("Hades") of ''[[Ulysses (novel)|Ulysses]]'' by [[James Joyce]], is a modern counterpart to Elpenor. This chapter of ''Ulysses'' is a main inspiration for the film ''[[Bye Bye Braverman]]''.

Elpenor is the subject of the short novel ''Elpénor'' by [[Jean Giraudoux]], published in 1919, which retells some of the stories of the ''Odyssey'' in humorous fashion.

[[Derek Mahon]] suggests Elpenor (but does not name him specifically) in his poem "Lives". Mahon talks of a decaying oar, planted in a beach, thinking of Ithaca. [[Ezra Pound]] references Elpenor in his poem [[Hugh Selwyn Mauberley]] by having the eponymous poet's grave marked by an oar, with an [[epitaph]] that recalls Elpenor's. Pound also makes use of Elpenor in the first of his Cantos: "But first Elpenor came, our friend Elpenor / Unburied, cast on the wide earth, / Limbs that we left in the house of Circe, / Unwept, unwrapped in sepulchre, since toils urged other."

[[Archibald MacLeish]] wrote a poem about Elpenor published in 1933. Nobel laureate [[Giorgos Seferis]] wrote a poem "Sensual Elpenor".<ref>George Seferis, Edmund Keeley, Philip Sherrard. George Seferis: Collected Poems, 1924-1955. Bilingual Edition, Princeton University Press,  2014, p. 322.</ref> [[Takis Sinopoulos]] also wrote a poem called "Elpenor".<ref>Σινόπουλος Tάκης, "Ελπήνωρ" in Συλλογή, I, Eρμής 1976 [Sinopoulos Takis, "Elpenor" in Syllogi, I., Ermes, 1976.]</ref> [[Helen Dunmore]] included a poem "Odysseus to Elpenor" in her last published collection "Inside the Wave", 2017 Bloodaxe Books Ltd.

The video game ''[[Rock of Ages 3: Make & Break]]'' has a story mode where Elpenor is the main protagonist, after Odysseus (the traditional hero of Homer's epic poem the Odyssey) is flattened by the eponymous Rock of Ages.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://modusgames.com/news/rock-of-ages-3-story-characters/|title=Introducing the Story and Characters in Rock of Ages 3: Make & Break|website=Modus Games|language=en-US|access-date=2020-04-13}}</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist}}

{{Characters in the Odyssey}}

[[Category:Characters in the Odyssey]]