Thorwald C. Franke on Classical Wisdom

More often than not, the ancient texts themselves reveal how to read them appropriately. Ithaka is known to be a real place (like Troy), but concerning the adventures in the middle between start and end point of the Odyssean journey, the locations are ...... to be deciphered. The cipher is given in the talks of Odysseus when he arrives in Ithaka. Because here, Odysseus is telling lies about his alleged journey, but the lies are realistic, while the "real" stories are fantastic - and both realistic lies and fantastic "real" stories are pointing to each other. Quite an ingenious literary construction, and this in the very first piece of Greek literature.