Elusive and difficult to pinpoint, the ‘Old Man of the Sea’ may take on many names in mythology. He embodies the virtues of truth and justice, until he was usurped by a sinister character who made a nuisance of himself by latching on to men, like an irritating conscience, which one could only be rid of by inebriation.
The fourth book of Homer’s Odyssey says that: “when the sun hath reached mid-heaven, the unerring Old Man of the Sea is wont to come forth from the brine at the breath of the West Wind, hidden by the dark ripple.” In the same work, the sea-nymph Eidothea identifies her father Proteus as, “an old immortal who lives under the sea”. Proteus is the righthand man of Poseidon and knows every inch of the seabed. If a traveler manages to capture and restrain him, Proteus can answer any questions they may pose about their voyage, which course to follow and how to sail to reach home. He can even inform them of all that has happened at their homes during their absence. However, capturing the willy sea god means holding on tightly as he is a shape shifter and transforms easily from one form to another.
The title of the ‘Old Man of the Sea’ does not seem to be confined to just one being. Although Homer is adamant that the old man of the sea is Proteus, Hesiod’s Theogony refers to the Nereids (sea nymphs) as daughters of, “Nereus, the Old Man of the Sea”. In a completely different Middle-Eastern culture, the ‘Old Man of the Sea’ is described as a rather more sinister figure. In the tale of Sinbad the Sailor he is said to trick a traveler into allowing him to ride on his shoulders while the traveler transports him across a stream. However, the old man would then not release his grip, forcing his victim to transport him wherever he pleases and he allows his victim little respite.
Proteus and Nereus, Prophetic Old Men of the Sea
Oceanus, one of the old sea-gods, was a Titan who aided Zeus in the great war of the gods. When Poseidon became the new god of the sea, Oceanus and his many children were subjugated to Poseidon, in ruling the great ocean and the other waters of the earth. One of the many children of Oceanus was Proteus. Proteus’ duty was to care for Poseidon’s sea-calves. Proteus would lead the sea-calves up on the land every day where they would lay down to sleep on the rocks and bathe in the sun on the warm shore. He was a very old man with long gray hair, his body covered with the foam of the ocean and his beard covered in seaweed.
Although Proteus had knowledge of all things past, present and future, he disliked divulging what he knew. Those who wished to consult him had to tie him up before he awoke from his afternoon slumber. When Proteus was awake, he would try to escape by adopting all kinds of different shapes. However, if his captor held him fast, Proteus would at last return to his proper body, provide the answer requested and plunge into the sea. Few heroes have managed to catch him. In the Odyssey, it was Menelaus, the king of Mycenaean Sparta and the husband of the legendary Helen of Troy, who managed to restrain Proteus. In Virgil’s Georgics, it was Aristaeus, the son of Apollo and the huntress Cyrene, who was credited with the discovery of the art of beekeeping, among other things, who tried to capture Proteus.
Sinbad Meets the Old Man from the Sea
A Middle-Eastern variety provides a slightly different depiction of the ‘Old Man of the Sea’. In “A Thousand and One Nights” Sinbad the Sailor, is a fictional mariner and the hero of a story-cycle, described as hailing from Baghdad during the early Abbasid Caliphate (8th and 9th centuries AD). As the most famous sailor of his age, he tried to retire and live in comfort on the land, but the calm and ordinary lifestyle soon bored him. Sinbad then decided to return to the sea. On his fifth voyage, Sinbad’s ship was destroyed in a violent storm and his crew were missing or dead. Sinbad, the only survivor, clung onto flotsam, until he was swept by the tide onto an island’s shore.
When he was rested, Sinbad began to explore the island. The island contained all kinds of fruits and he could hear beautiful birds singing in the trees. As he walked around the island enjoying the view and searching for a way home, he noticed grove of willows and saw an old man sitting there peacefully. The man never said a word, wearing an outfit made of leaves. He beckoned Sinbad to approach and stared into the distance. Never answering Sinbad’s questions, the man wordlessly showed Sinbad his wish to be carried across the island to the other side.
Thinking that the poor man must have lost the use of his voice and legs, Sinbad knelt down. The man jumped on Sinbad’s back and, carrying him, Sinbad began crossing the island. When they reached the far fruit orchard, Sinbad halted and knelt again, but the old man did not climb off his back and just gripped him tighter. Anxiously Sinbad begged the man to climb down, but each time he spoke, the man’s grip grew tighter until Sinbad could barely breathe.
Thinking that he had carried the man to the wrong destination, Sinbad asked again where the man wished to go. The old man pointed in another direction, and again Sinbad walked. However, by now the weight of the man was making him more tired than he had ever been. Still the old man would not let go. Sinbad carried the man for days, while the man happily reached up to pick fruit from the trees. One day, Sinbad spotted a big gourd (a fleshy, edible large fruit with a hard skin) lying on the ground. With the old man on his back, Sinbad gathered clusters of red grapes. Returning to the gourd, he took his knife and slit a lid from the gourd’s top. He crushed the grapes into the gourd and placed the lid back before leaving the gourd in the sun to ferment. A few days later, Sinbad carried the man to the gourd and lifted the lid and took a long drink. The old man snatched the gourd from his hands and began to drink. By the time the old man had finished the contents of the gourd, Sinbad could feel his tight grip loosening. He heard the old man mumble and after a short while the old man fell asleep and relaxed his hold of Sinbad. Noticing joyfully that the man had been pointing him to the direction of the ocean, Sinbad ran to the shore and dove into the sea, swimming as fast as he could, hoping that someone would come to rescue him.
Before long, a ship passed by and the sailors pulled him on board. When he told them his tale, the sailors informed him that the old man was the Shaykh al-Bahr (sheik of the sea) and congratulated him as being the only man ever to survive an encounter with him.
Archetype of the Reluctant Helper
In many myths, legends and folktales, one finds an archetype of unexpected development where the otherworldly helper figure becomes the antagonist, or an initial antagonist becomes an unexpected helper. Rumpelstiltskin, for example, is an otherworld figure who, having helped the heroine to accomplish her impossible task, turns into a source of danger by way of his demands. Patterns of a similar nature can also be found in several Greek myths which feature otherworld figures. When Jason and the Argonauts embarked on their quest for the Golden Fleece in the distant East, they met an elderly seer named Phineus. In gratitude for Jason and his men ridding him of the Harpies that had been polluting his food, Phineus imparted valuable information about the direction they had to take to obtain the Golden Fleece.
When the Greek expedition charged with recovering Helen from Troy inadvertently came to Teuthrania in Asia Minor, they met Telephus, the local king. Telephus was wounded by Achilles in the consequent battle. When the Greek fleet sailed back home to re-equip, Telephus made his way to Greece in disguise as he was told by an oracle that only the spear that had wounded him originally could now cure him. When his would was healed, Telephus guided the Greeks to Troy.
When Heracles encountered Nereus, the ‘Old Man of the Sea’, he managed to compel him to impart vital information about his quest, in spite of Nereus’ shape shifting. Phineus, Telephus and Nereus represent the role of the reluctant helper from whom the hero has to extract information by force. When Menelaus wanted to learn how to escape from Egypt, or when Aristeas wanted to learn how to replenish his store of bees, they both had to ambush Proteus, the ‘Old Man of the Sea’, master him despite his many changes in shape and obtain the information they need. Nereus’ daughter Thetis, was likewise a skilled shape shifter. The hero Peleus, king of Phthia and later the father of Achilles by Thetis, wrestled with her on the beach and, after overpowering her despite her metamorphoses, eventually married her.
Justice of the Old Man of the Sea
Hesiod lists the descendants of Pontus, beginning with the eldest and most venerable, Nereus, the Sea’s Ancient or the ‘Old Man of the Sea’: “But Pontos, the great Sea, was Father of apseudes (truthful) Nereus alethes (who tells no lies) eldest of his sons. They call him the old Gentleman because he is nemertes (trustworthy), and gentle, and never forgetful of what is right, but the thoughts of his mind are mild and righteous.” The three epithets, apseudes, alethes and nemertes, indicate exceptional importance of Nereus and his role. The figure of the ‘Old man of the Sea’ thus seems to cover two domains: prophecy and justice – both of which are, like the ‘Old Man of the Sea’, always elusive and difficult to pin down.
In Hesiod’s Theogony, Nereus administered justice. However, he also embodied a prophetic power whose wisdom the ancients always praised, preserved and passed on. Moreover, Nereus was the head of a lineage of oracular deities. Most of Nereus’ 50 daughters have names associated with navigation and sea trading (such as Actaea, which means sea-shore and Eione, which means beach) while a dozen or so bear the names of political virtues such as Agave (the illustrious) and Autonoe (with her own mind). His daughter, Eido, was called Theonoe because, according to Euripides: “she knew all divine things, the present and the future, a privilege she inherited from her forebear Nereus.” When Glaucus, the mortal-born prophetic sea-god, appeared to the Argonauts, he declared himself to be the prophet of the ‘Old Man of the Sea’ and the husband of Panteidyia, the All-Knowing One.
Gods such as Nereus, Proteus and Glaucus live within the depths of the sea, from where they dispense a special kind of justice – the kind of justice that was beyond the capacity of human judges to deliver. These gods were patrons of sea justice and ancient ritual ordeals. When a conflict arose between the hero Theseus and Minos of who was guilty of violating a virgin, the matter was decided by the sea. Theseus dove into the waves and recovered the ring he had just thrown into the bottom of the ocean. He entered the world of the gods and proved his own divinity by surfacing the waters, safe and in possession of the ring.
In Histories, Herodotus tells about Phronim, the wise virgin who was slandered by her stepmother and given by her father to the merchant Themison, the dispenser of justice. Once at sea, Themison attached a rope to the girl, flung her into the waves and then pulled her out alive. By allowing her to emerge from the waves safely, the sea had pronounced its verdict. The ‘Old Man of the Sea’, therefore, embodied the gravest and most solemn form of justice – that by sacrifice and ordeal.
Martini Fisher 