Paper short abstract:

We want to explore the role of the water as flux in Homer's Odyssey in the context of Ulysses' journey to Hades: here, we will argue, the aquatic element is a symbol for the physical and mental vitality of life and the flow of temporality that opposes the stasis and mental paralysis of death.

Paper long abstract:

Within the larger narrative of Ulysses' great voyage back to Ithaca we can also find the episode of the more restricted journey to Hades. Although there are a number of other

characters in this sub-plot, Ulysses's goal is to talk to Tiresias - a fascinating character who himself embodies the concept of inner journey, just think of him as inspiration for Virginia Wolf's Orlando - which will point the way to the success of the central plot. It is by water, descending the river Oceanus, that Odysseus can reach Hades, because, in the economy of the Odyssey, the meaning of water is fundamental: it separates but unites; it is an obstacle but is also a way of accessing the central goal of returning home.

Besides that central role the relation between this and the concepts of death and truth as lucidity has, in the Odyssey, a very special meaning: after death one's whole biography is fixed, a nunc stans of immutability. In Hades there is no true becoming, that is, there is neither movement, nor growth or corruption. Each is a fixed image of what was, a shadow or phantasmagoria because that temporal immobility is also a mental paralysis.

In the symbolic game which is the Odyssey, this idea of ​​the flow of temporality is represented by the aquatic element which is simultaneously the means of access and image of that mutability that is lost with one's death.