ABSTRACT
After a note on comparative method, the chapter summarizes the encounter between Odysseus and the aged Argos in Od. 17 and that between Bhīma and the aged Hanumān in Mbh. 3. Giving a cursory list of nineteen differences, it then explores seventeen similarities between the two encounters, before turning to a complex rapprochement involving adjacent parts of the two texts. After the Argos episode, Odysseus suffers an unprovoked attack by Melantheus, against whom Eumaeus invokes punishment. After the first ‘Flower Journey’ (which includes the Hanumān encounter), during the second Flower Journey, the sage Agastya suffers an unprovoked attack by the demon Maṇimat, who is punished by a curse, and only a little later in Mbh. 3, the text mentions Agastya being kicked by Nahuṣa, who is also cursed. Regarding location, the aggression, and the curses, rapprochements are presented between the Melantheus story and the three interlinked Sanskrit stories. Note that, here, it is Bhīma and not Arjuna who parallels Odysseus; also, that in this case, the proto-narrative participants are probably better preserved by the Greek dog than by the monkey – an idea supported by the dog who accompanies the Pāṇḍavas to heaven in Mbh. 17.
