Salvete, Auditores! Quanta miseria! Quanta calamitas! Ego sto in loco prope Vesuvium montem sito. Ubique ignes flammaeque. Ingenti vi e monte erumpunt et magnam nubem in caelum iactant. De caelo summa copia terrae et cineris decidit et homines, vias, villas tegit. Loca tremere non desinunt. Ubique clamores miserorum hominum, saepe voces audio: «Date auxilium!» – «Adeste nobis!» – «Quis me, quis liberos meos adiuvat?»
Audite ipsi, auditores mei! Homines magna voce clamant: «O di, quam crudeles estis! Quam atrox est fatum!» Vix possum videre aedificia, campos, agros. Sol abest. Nox adest. Specto fumum tantum et ignem. In nube magis magisque densa et fervida homines non iam possunt spiritum ducere. Multi ad mare currunt navesque petunt. In mari fuga salutem petere volunt. Cinis, fumus, ignis omnes opprimunt. Ubique corpora mortuorum iacent. Numquam calamitatem tam ingentem neque ego vidi neque alii viderunt. O di, cur hanc summam miseriam Romanis attribuistis? Cur vestro consilio hic dies ater accidit?
Writer and hip-hop artist Akala voyages across the Mediterranean and beyond to solve some of the mysteries behind Homer’s monumental poem, the Odyssey. Travelling between spectacular ruins, such as the sacred shrine of Delphi or the Greek colonies on Sicily, Akala’s journey culminates on the small island of Ithaca, where he ponders the theory that this is the destination which Homer had in mind as he composed the epic.
Along the way, he finds out what Homer’s works may have sounded like to their first audiences, discovers how the rhythm of those ancient words connect to the beats of modern hip-hop and comes face to face with the characters from the masterpiece. He also investigates how this epic poem became the cornerstone of Western literature and how his own experiences as an artist have been impacted by a 3,000-year-old classic. Akala has undertaken this quest as part of his mission to compose his own response to the Odyssey – a new hip hop track called Blind Bard’s Vision, which turns the tale on its head all over again. This is Akala’s Odyssey.
