Odysseus The Sailor - Tumblr Posts

Hope you enjoy it and wear it with proud!

If in two years I still like tattoos then I'm going to have one too; don't know where but i'm dying for a traditional one.

And If Odysseus has inked an olive branch; I'm dead, absolutely dead or a dear or something!

Oh god what a about matching tATTOS???? Aahhh!!!.

Ody's inker comes to Ithaca and the two have a matching one where only can be formed with the two together and it looks like a scar or something when not together. I'm not sorry this is my new Headcanon for now on!.

I have had my first tattoo yesterday ☺️ and that had me thinking about the Odyssey hahaha 😆 (I have had an Ancient themed tattoo to connect me with my homeland Greece)

Tattooing in classical Greece was kinda shady subject and usually it was linked with prisoners slaves or foreigners (for example Skythians ) but was this the same in homeric times or much more to bronze age Greece? Hehehe

And now I imagine Odysseus had gotten inked while he was at war or going to war and returning and Penelope giving him a shady look 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

(Of course she would smile if our boy told her it symbolizes her and Telemachus 🥰)

Hope you liked the idea, and oh yeah Telemachus is for sure too, maybe as buds and flowers to for him also.

oh god penelope flower, Telemachus buds and He olives!!!! ahhhh.

And for me, I´m from the Mediterranean but from the west coast (Spain) and I was thinking one of Posidonia oceanica, rays, corals or whatever; but also flowers cause I´m a gardener. and the two years is because my family is not really into tattoos and I want to first convinced them. I've always wanted one or more, a sleeve would be fire.

And I would like to know, if it´s not personal, what do you have inked?

I have had my first tattoo yesterday ☺️ and that had me thinking about the Odyssey hahaha 😆 (I have had an Ancient themed tattoo to connect me with my homeland Greece)

Tattooing in classical Greece was kinda shady subject and usually it was linked with prisoners slaves or foreigners (for example Skythians ) but was this the same in homeric times or much more to bronze age Greece? Hehehe

And now I imagine Odysseus had gotten inked while he was at war or going to war and returning and Penelope giving him a shady look 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

(Of course she would smile if our boy told her it symbolizes her and Telemachus 🥰)

You're one if not the most influential person in my headcanons, first the skythian tattoo, now this, oh god... So much inspiration!!!!!!

Isn't it freaking adorable how both Odysseus and Penelope could remember down to exact detail what clothing she had packed for Odysseus before he left for war even 20 years later?!

😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

And she packed them herself. She didn't use the help of any servant or slave to do it. She wanted to prepare her husband herself. What is even more is that all the clothes were of vibrant colors which had me thinking;

What if Penelope deliberately prepared vibrant colored clothes for Odysseus solely so that she could see him from afar for as long as possible?! And man I can so imagine her doing the same! Like standing on the top of the hill where the palace is, wearing a vibrant dress that floats in the wind, holding baby Telemachus in her arms and watch Odysseus's bright tunic on the ship and Odysseus turning his head to look up at that aetherial figure on the hill almost leaning over the ship to see her JUST FOR A LITTLE LONGER until he cannot see her anymore and this is where he keeps looking at his island becoming smaller and smaller to the horizon, shedding tears of goodbye

🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

Man ninjas are cutting onions around me again!!!

As you may have seen @katerinaaqu and I have been discussing about a head canon of hers, tatted Odysseus.

For a while we searched for Scythian tattoos as they are the closest society that allowed tattoos, we weren´t sure if in Mykenean Greece they were frowned upon but in classical Greece they were (criminals, shady or barbaric people wore them).

So to make it plausible we came up with this idea: in the middle of the Troyan war in a resupply day, Menelaus and Agamemnon find Odysseus been tattooed an olive tree by a Scythian, perplexed by this they told him that it was a nothing a king should do, shady look.

But Odysseus told them it was a memory of his home of Penelope and Telamachus, that at least if he died there it would have died with his family. Also is a display of Ody´s more flamboyant personality traits, he didn´t tattoed a small olive or branch, nonono, he tattoed a whole tree!.

As the real design is composed of branches inspired by Scythians tattoos of deer´s antlers, (the lack of trees in the steppes prevented them from forming a more floral and plant style; being deer's antlers where we find more plant 'like designs),

The olive flowers are simplifications of the actual flower,

Flowers for my beautiful wife, whom I longed for, for years

The leaves are blackouts of the originals and the olives are also simplifications.

The sweet fruit of my dear Telemachus whom I never saw growing

The images below are the sketches I made for having an idea of the placement and elements we wanted to include.

We chose the upper arm as it was more concealable and only be fully revealed to Penelope.

As you can see there´s a swallow drawing, it has it reasons, swallows (Hirundo rustica) have a year migration and came back to Europe and Greece in spring, being heralds of the season and all that entails (hope, regrowth, fertility...) but the most important attributes for us were; (Athena transforms into a swallow and flies away from Telemachus in the Odyssey). Also it is mentioned that the chord of Odysseus's bow "sang like a swallow" when he used it to kill the suitors symbolizing his homecoming.

Swallows have always been linked to journeys specially to homecoming. They idea was of one swallow (Odysseus) but swallows are paired and as a small reminder, the biggest and most ornate is Penelope, fully in flight and more artistically and Odysseus is the one below more naturalistic as he is lesser in his eyes than her. The swallows are more linear and not painted as it also seems more secretive and blank spaces for everyone except him (So he can say everything I have been writing to her)

These is the final rendition of the idea!

I hope you have enjoyed and that it becomes your new headcanon!

@katerinaaqu thank you so much for everything! It has been a pleasure!