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Return of the Master, Readiness to Fight

‘You, herdsman, and you, too, swineherd… Would you be men enough to stand by Odysseus if he came back? Would you bear arms for him…?’ The cowherd said: ‘Ah, let the master…
John CuddebackNovember 6, 2013

‘You, herdsman, and you, too, swineherd… Would you be men enough to stand by Odysseus if he came back? Would you bear arms for him…?’
The cowherd said: ‘Ah, let the master come! Father Zeus, grant our old wish! Some courier guide him back! Then judge what stuff is in me and how I manage arms!’
Likewise Eumaeus fell to praying all heaven for his return, so that Odysseus, sure at least of these, told them: ‘I am at home, for I am he. I bore adversities, but in the twentieth year I am ashore in my own land. I find the two of you, alone among my people longed for my coming.’
Homer, Odyssey, Bk XXI

At last the time has come. Up to now disguised as a lowly beggar, Odysseus reveals himself, the returned lord of Ithaka. He has work to do, and he needs … Read more of this Wednesday Quote and commentary at Bacon From Acorns.

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A stack of three Local Culture journals and the book 'Localism in the Mass Age'

John Cuddeback

John A. Cuddeback is a professor and chairman of the Philosophy Department at Christendom College in Front Royal, Virginia, where he has taught since 1995. He received a Ph.D. in Philosophy from The Catholic University of America under the direction of F. Russell Hittinger. He has lectured on various topics including virtue, culture, natural law, friendship, and household. His book Friendship: The Art of Happiness was republished in 2010 as True Friendship: Where Virtue Becomes Happiness. His writings have appeared in Nova et Vetera, The Thomist, and The Review of Metaphysics, as well as in several volumes published by the American Maritain Association. Though raised in what he calls an ‘archetypical suburb,’ Columbia, Maryland, he and his wife Sofia consider themselves blessed to be raising their six children in the shadow of the Blue Ridge on the banks of the Shenandoah. At the material center of their homesteading projects are heritage breed pigs, which like the pigs of Eumaeus are fattened on acorns, yielding a bacon that too few people ever enjoy. His website dedicated to the philosophy of family and household is baconfromacorns.com.

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