Public index · Cipher
ITHACA
42
English ITHACA, ordinal; Greek Ἰθάκη does not pair
English ITHACA ordinal is 42. The island is a home after a road. Greek Ἰθάκη is 48.
Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
English ordinal
ITHACA
A=1 · Z=26
- I9
- T20
- H8
- A1
- C3
- A1
42
A child can hear a home that is also a road. Odysseus is trying to get back. Cavafy says the island is why you walked. The English letters of that island’s name add to forty-two. The Greek name does not. Memory’s English name, Mnemosyne, reduces to forty-two on another face. Forty-two wilderness stations are a different walk. Cipher is a door, not a hammer. Homer’s return is one shape of a hero’s journey. Cavafy almost turns it: Ithaca is why you walked, and she is poor when you arrive. Campbell’s map lives in another house.
Open Cavafy’s Ithaka →CIPHER · Ithaca →The Hero’s Journey →
Walks
Journey. Remembrance. Home.
Several 42s sit near a road, a memory, or a return. English ITHACA ordinals to 42. Greek Ἰθάκη does not. Numbers 33 lists forty-two stations. Egypt walks forty-two nomes. The Vedic home fire is twenty-one, then twenty-one, tended for a life. Mnemosyne reduces to 42 in English. Cavafy: Ithaca gave you the marvelous journey. That is a poem about a name. Homer’s nostos is one hero’s road home. Cavafy’s island is why you set out, and poor when you arrive. Campbell mapped leave, suffer, return. Three shapes. Not a law that 42 means journey. Correspondence noticed later. Keep the rooms apart.
42Ithacahere
The English name of home after the road.
- 42Stations
A recorded walk. Rameses to Moab.
- 22 + 20Nomes
A walk of both lands.
- 21 + 21Hearth
A fire kept through a life.
- 42Mnemosyne
Memory’s English name.
What it supports
A child can hear Odysseus trying to get home. Cavafy, 1911: Ithaca gave you the marvelous journey. Without her you would not have set out. The English letters of that name add to forty-two. I 9, T 20, H 8, A 1, C 3, A 1. Reduction 24. Memory’s English name, Mnemosyne, reduces to 42 on another face. Numbers 33 lists forty-two stations. The Vedic hearth is twenty-one, then twenty-one, kept for a life. Several 42s sit near a road or a remembrance. They did not hire each other. Cipher is a door, not a hammer.
What it does not
Not Homeric isopsephy. Greek Ἰθάκη is 48. Not Ithaca, New York, which sits near 42°26′ N on another card. Not proof that 42 means journey, memory, or home. Cavafy does not print 42. He prints the name.
Calculation
I9+T20+H8+A1+C3+A1 = 42. Reduction 24. Greek Ἰθάκη = 48.
English ordinal; Greek Milesian compared
ExactnessCipher result
Form42
Unitcipher
Strengthreproducible