Odysseus was a rat. I often think that the worthy Oriental gentlemen who tabled the characteristics of the Rat Person had Odysseus in mind.

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When the Emperor Huang Ti introduced the first cycle of the Chinese zodiac in 2600 BCE, it was a good many years after the elderly Odysseus had met his peaceful death, but the Emperor must have known of my wily old compatriot.

Last evening, in an idle moment, I dusted down the Chinese Scrolls section at the back of my cave, and unrolled the astrological information on the Year of the Rat .. and it was all so clear.

Rat people are recorded as possessing an uncanny eye for detail, good memories, keen intuition, foresight, incredible inquisitiveness and sharp business acumen. They are active and pleasant, tactful and fantastic, able to grasp opportunities and have interests in almost everything under the sun. They are courageous, enterprising people, clever and bright, sociable and family-minded. They have broad interests, strong ability in adapting to the environment and able to react adequately to any changes. Adversity merely serves to sharpen their wits and they are always busy cooking up some scheme.

And above all, they are crafty.

A perfect description of Odysseus!

Odysseus had brains as well as muscles. He was a man of inquiring mind, of outstanding prowess and bravery, with a gift for evaluating the situation. (He was a first-class athlete too.)

So what if he had a couple of minor weaknesses that prolonged his voyage back to Ithaca. Are they really so important? Pride is natural to have, although some might say that in Odysseus’ case he had too much of it.

They refer, of course, to the incident on the Cyclopes’ island when Odysseus bragged a little loudly about his exploits and just missed being flattened by giant boulders hurled by Polyphemus. It was then that Odysseus unwisely revealed his name to the round-eyed brute and with that, Polyphemus called upon his father, Poseidon, to punish the man who had harmed him.

This regrettable lapse of his usual intelligence hurt Odysseus more than losing a few men, because Poseidon (one of the nastiest gods I ever knew) made the poor man’s journey home ever so longer and more arduous.

Yet another weakness of my old friend was his partiality to the fairer sex. Odysseus certainly enjoyed his women. But you must remember that he was away from home for a long time, and, although he stayed with Circe for a year and Calypso for seven, he went home to Penelope in the end.

Odysseus survived all that happened to him. His courage, wits, and endurance carried him through each and every difficulty and didn’t desert him when he finally reached Ithaca again. Courage, wits and endurance. The marks of the Rat.

And please don’t sneer at Penelope, imagining her sitting at the loom with only an old dog for companionship.

She anchored the kingship of Ithaca. She was the queen. The system was matrilinial and Odysseus became king only by marrying her. If Penelope had given up hope of Odysseus returning, then the man she married would become king. The men who sat around in her hall eating her food (the kitchen bill for the suitors and their armies was horrendous) were hoping she would choose one of them.

She didn’t. She confounded them instead, for twenty long years.