If you have ever heard that Ulysses' mark is "cunning," it is worth pausing before accepting the word as it stands. In English, cunning suggests trickery, an advantage taken over someone else by less than clean means. That is not what the poem describes. The Greek word is métis, and it names something nobler and more useful: the intelligence that works in the moment, in the middle of the problem, with whatever is at hand.
What "cunning" hides
Every translation simplifies, and this one simplifies too much. Calling Odysseus cunning suggests a character who deceives out of habit, who takes advantage because he enjoys it. The poem shows something else: a man who thinks well precisely when conditions are at their worst, with no resources, no time, no army. Strength belonged to Achilles, and Achilles died at Troy. Odysseus' excellence is different, and it is what brings him home alive.
The intelligence that works in the moment
Métis is situational intelligence: the pilot who feels the wind change before any instrument can warn him, the doctor who notices in a patient's eyes that something is wrong before the test confirms it, the craftsman who knows the wood by its weight before he cuts it. None of these three is deceiving anyone. They are reading the real situation and responding to it with what they have on hand. It is this kind of knowledge, practical and immediate, that the Greek word names, and that "cunning" does not cover on its own.
Polytropos: the man of many turns
Homer sets the standard in the very first line of the poem:
"Speak to me, Muse, of the versatile man who wandered so long, after he destroyed the sacred citadel of Troy." (Odyssey, Book I, based on the Portuguese translation by Frederico Lourenço)
"Versatile" translates polytropos, and one of the most beautiful renderings of the term is "the man of many turns": turns of path, because he wanders the whole Mediterranean before reaching home, and turns of manner, because he changes approach with every new obstacle. There is no single tactic that belongs to Odysseus. There is a disposition to find, every time, the answer the situation demands.
Achilles teaches you how to die well, Odysseus teaches you how to return
Here lies the poem's editorial courage, and it is easy to miss because today it has already won. The Greek world before Homer worshipped pure strength: the warrior who dies young, in glory, and becomes legend. That is Achilles' model. The Odyssey takes that world and proposes another hero, the one who thinks better, and says that he, not the strongest, is the one who manages to get home. Achilles teaches you how to die well. Odysseus teaches you how to return.
The difference matters outside the poem too. No real situation waits for brute force: it waits for whoever reads the wind, the look, the weight of the wood, and adjusts their own way of acting to what the moment demands. This is the intelligence the Odyssey chooses as the one that survives, and it is the one that gives its name to the most remembered hero in Western literature.
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See recommended readingsFrequently asked questions
What does métis mean in the Odyssey?
It is the intelligence that works in the moment, in the middle of the problem, with whatever is at hand, like the pilot who feels the wind change or the craftsman who knows the wood by its weight. It is not trickery: it is the practical excellence Odysseus has in place of Achilles' brute force.
What is the difference between métis and cunning?
In English, cunning suggests malice or cheap deception. Métis is broader: it is the ability to think well inside the real situation, with the concrete limits it imposes, and not a morally suspect virtue.
Why does Homer call Odysseus polytropos?
Polytropos, in the poem's first line, means "the man of many turns": turns of path and turns of manner. It is the most economical portrait that exists of the character, and explains why he solves everything by changing approach, never by insisting on force.
Continue: Nobody is my name: Odysseus and the Cyclops · Mentor: the origin of the word in the Odyssey · The Odyssey, by Homer: summary and analysis · Psalm 51: the penitent's prayer
Source class: Odisseia, de Homero