The Odyssey

Odysseus tells of “all the trouble Zeus / has caused” him on his journey home from Troy, devoting the majority of his story to his encounter with a Cyclops called Polyphemus (241). The book is presented as Odysseus’s dialogue.

Odysseus introduces himself as “Odysseus, Laertes’ son, / known for my many clever tricks and lies,” adding, “My fame extends to heaven, but I live in Ithaca” (241). Though two goddesses, Calypso and Circe, wanted him for their husbands, his heart never wavered. A man who travels far and wide, Odysseus says that nothing is sweeter “than his own native land and family” (241).

When they first set off, Zeus sent a wind to blow them off course, and they ended up in Ismarus, the land of the Cicones. Odysseus and his men sacked the city and captured the Cicones’ riches and women. He spared Apollo’s priest, as well as his wife and son, and the priest gifted him high-quality wine as thanks. Odysseus urged his men to leave immediately, but they lingered to drink and feast. Dawn brought bad luck from Zeus, as surviving Cicones assembled and fought hard, killing some of Odysseus’s men. After performing a religious ritual for the lost, the crew set off again.

A Zeus-sent typhoon had the men scrambling for shore, this time on the island of the Lotus Eaters. They were peaceful, but everyone who ate of the lotus fruit forgot home and their desire to return there. Odysseus recovered his men who had partaken, and they set off again, eventually landing in the Cyclops’ territory. The Cyclops do not farm, make ships, or hold assemblies. Each family lives by its own rules. Their lands are bountiful owing to “rain by Zeus” (243).

Bringing the wine that Apollo’s priest had gifted him, Odysseus took a small crew and boat to see whether the Cyclops were “wild, / lawless aggressors, or the type to welcome / strangers, and fear the gods” (245). Odysseus and his crew discovered a cave by the coast, with a courtyard and a herd of sheep and goats, the home of “a massive man” (246). The crew wanted to raid the cave and run, but Odysseus hoped to establish a relationship. He and his men made themselves at home in the cave but were terrified when the Cyclops named Polyphemus returned. He blocked the cave’s entrance with an enormous boulder, did his chores, then noticed Odysseus and his men.

He asked who they were, and Odysseus identified them as suppliants, Greeks traveling back from Troy who had hit on hard times. Polyphemus said that his people were stronger than the gods and did not fear them, then he ate two of Odysseus’s men. Odysseus wanted to kill him but realized that it would be suicide, since he and his men could not move the boulder from the entrance.

The following morning Polyphemus ate two more of Odysseus’s men then left the cave, trapping the men inside. Odysseus plotted how to avenge the dead and save himself and his men. He instructed them to transform a club into a stake. When Polyphemus returned, he ate two more of Odysseus’s men. Odysseus offered him wine, saying it was “a holy offering” (251) that he hoped would inspire Polyphemus’s pity and help. Polyphemus drank the wine then demanded more. He asked Odysseus for his name so that he could give him a gift. Odysseus identified himself as “Noman,” and Polyphemus’s gift was to eat him last. Odysseus continued plying him with wine.

After Polyphemus passed out, Odysseus heated the stake and, with his men’s help, drove it into Polyphemus’s eye, blinding him. He woke up screaming. When other Cyclops called out to him, he cried out, “Noman is killing me by tricks, not force” (253), and they replied that if no man was making him sick, then he should appeal to his father Poseidon, as Zeus must have been making him sick. When Polyphemus moved the stone to let out his sheep and goats, Odysseus and his men escaped by tying themselves under the herds, with Odysseus hiding under Polyphemus’s favorite ram.

Odysseus and his men drove Polyphemus’s herds onto their boat. As his men rowed, Odysseus taunted Polyphemus, who threw a boulder at the sound of his voice. The back flow pushed the ship back toward land, but Odysseus continued his taunting. His crew begged him to stop, but in his fury, he could not resist boasting by revealing his true identity. Polyphemus prayed to Poseidon to avenge him, and the god heard his son’s prayer. When his crew made land, Odysseus sacrificed Polyphemus’s favorite ram to Zeus, but he ignored the offering, plotting more ruin and suffering for Odysseus and his men.

Odysseus continues his story, recounting his experiences with Aeolus, the Laestrygonians, and Circe.

Odysseus and his men landed on “the floating island of Aeolus,” “the steward of the winds” (259-60). He welcomed them warmly, wrapping the winds into a bag that he entrusted to Odysseus and sending them on their way with a helpful breeze. Eager to get home as quickly as possible, Odysseus insisted on steering throughout the journey until he finally fell asleep from exhaustion. While he slept, his men wondered what gift Aeolus gave him, suspecting it was more treasure from which they were excluded. Just as Ithaca appeared on the horizon, they opened the bag, unwittingly releasing the winds and sending their ships back from where they came.

Odysseus, distraught, considered drowning himself but decided to endure. His ships landed back on Aeolus’s island, and Odysseus again asked for his help, blaming himself and his men for the mishap. Aeolus, however, sent them away, refusing to help men who were clearly marked by the gods for punishment. They sailed away, next landing on the island of the Laestrygonians, a race of giants who feed on men. Only Odysseus moored his ship beyond the harbor. When the Laestrygonians attacked, only Odysseus’s ship survived. The survivors were devastated but rowed quickly away.

Their next landfall was on Aeaea, the island of the sorceress Circe. Odysseus encountered a stag, which he said must be a gift from the gods to feed his men, and prepared a meal. After they ate, he split them into two parties to scout the island, one led by Odysseus and the other by Eurylochus.

Eurylochus’s group discovered Circe’s palace. In the courtyard tame wolves and lions gamboled around the men, terrifying them. They heard a woman, Circe, singing and called out to her. She invited them in, but Eurylochus was suspicious and lagged behind. She drugged the men’s food, struck them with her magic wand, and turned them into pigs. Eurylochus rushed back to the ship to deliver the news to Odysseus, who resolved to investigate. On his way to the palace, he encountered Hermes, who warned him that he could not best a goddess without the help of the gods. He gave Odysseus Moly, an herb to counteract the effects of Circe’s drugs, and warned him to draw his sword when Circe attempted to strike him with her wand. She would invite Odysseus to bed, which he could not refuse because she is a goddess, but he must first make her swear an oath not to harm him. Otherwise, she would unman him once he was naked.

Heart pounding, Odysseus proceeded to the palace and followed Hermes’s advice. When Odysseus drew his sword, Circe fell to the ground and grabbed Odysseus’s knees, asking him who he was, who his parents were, and where he was from. Before he could tell her, she realized that he was Odysseus, who Hermes warned her would come, and invited him to bed. Odysseus made her swear the oath that she would not harm him. After they went to bed together, Circe instructed her slaves to bathe him, rub him with oil, and prepare a feast. Odysseus refused food and drink until his men were freed. Circe agreed to turn them back into men, then instructed Odysseus to bring the rest of his men to the palace.

He returned to his ships to collect his men, but Eurylochus, still suspicious, warned the men against listening to Odysseus, who got six men killed at the Cyclops’s hands. Odysseus considered killing him, but his men held him back. They left Eurylochus to guard the ships and proceeded to the palace, where Circe had freed, bathed, and dressed the men. The crew wept as they were reunited and remained in Aeaea, feasting for a year.

At the end of the year, the men reminded Odysseus that they must continue their journey home. Odysseus touched Circe’s knees and asked her to fulfill her promise to help him get home. She told him that he must first visit the underworld and seek the advice of the prophet Tiresias. Odysseus was afraid, but Circe told him to go the boundary of the earth and the underworld, offer libations and sacrifices, and ask Tiresias how to get home. When Odysseus told his men what they must do, they wept with fear, but “all their lamentation did no good” (277).

In Book 11 Odysseus recounts traveling to the border between earth and the underworld, consulting with Tiresias, and speaking with his mother and warriors he fought with at Troy.

Circe sent a friendly wind to guide Odysseus and his men, who were afraid. They arrived at the appointed spot and made the sacrifices as Circe instructed. Spirits approached the sacrificial blood, but Odysseus held them back from partaking until Tiresias arrived.

Tiresias told Odysseus that he would have to suffer for incurring Poseidon’s anger. If Odysseus could control himself and his men, they would return home safely. They would first land on Thrinacia, the island where the Sun God’s cattle grazed. If they left the cattle alone, they would survive. If not, disaster would strike. If Odysseus survived, he would return home to find the suitors besieging his palace and wife, and he would kill them. Odysseus would still have to go on a quest inland, to a place where people do not have knowledge of seafaring. There, he must make a sacrifice to Poseidon, after which he could return home and live into peaceful old age.

After Tiresias departed, Odysseus allowed the spirits to drink the sacrificial blood, enabling them to recognize him. Odysseus’s mother, Anticleia, arrived. She told Odysseus that Penelope remains loyal to him, Telemachus tends his father’s estate and feasts “as lords should” (285), and Laertes lives among the slaves, longing for his son’s return. Anticleia herself died from this same longing, for her son, her “sunshine” (285). Odysseus tried to hug her but was unable because spirits no longer have physical bodies.

After Anticleia, warriors’ wives appeared, including Heracles’s mother, Alcmene, and wife, Megara; Oedipus’s mother, Epicaste, who hung herself from despair after realizing that she had married her son; Nestor’s mother, Chloris; Castor and Polydeuces’s mother, Leda; and Minos’s daughter, Ariadne.

Saying that he saw more women than he could name, Odysseus broke off his story and reiterated his desire to return home. Arete compliments him and instructs the nobles to provide him with gifts since he was “in need” and they were “rich in treasure, through the will of the gods” (290). An elder commends her wisdom but says that “first Alcinous must speak and act” (290). The king affirms Arete, and Odysseus notes that returning home with treasure will inspire his people to honor and welcome him. Alcinous compliments Odysseus’s honesty and poetic skill and asks him to tell more stories.

Odysseus relates his meeting with the spirit of Agamemnon, who revealed that Aegisthus, with Clytemnestra’s helped, killed him and his men at a banquet after they returned home. Clytemnestra killed Cassandra and turned away from Agamemnon as he died. He called wives betraying their husbands the most “disgusting act” that taints all women, “even the good ones” (293). He warned Odysseus to return home in secret, never revealing all to his wife or treating her “too well,” though he admitted that “wise / Penelope is much too sensible” to betray her husband (293). Agamemnon asked about Orestes, but Odysseus did not yet know that he had already avenged his father.

Seeing Achilles, Odysseus told him how lucky he was on earth to be honored like a god and in death to have great power among the other spirits. Achilles disagreed, saying that he would rather be “a workman / hired by a poor man on a peasant farm” than ruling over all the dead (295). He asked if his father, Peleus, continued to be treated well now that his strong son was dead, but Odysseus did not know. He told Achilles that his son, Neoptolemus, spoke confidently in assembly and demonstrated bravery in battle, causing Achilles to rejoice at “the glorious prowess of his son” (297).

Other warriors’ spirits told Odysseus their stories, but one refused: Ajax, who was still angry that Athena helped Odysseus win a contest for Achilles’s armor. Odysseus saw heroes of still earlier generations, including Zeus’s son Minos, who arbitrates disputes among the dead. He saw Tityus, Tantalus, and Sisyphus being punished and encountered Heracles’s glowering phantom, who recognized Odysseus and identified with him since both were “tortured by the weight of fortune” (299). Many more approached him, but fearing retribution from Persephone, Odysseus left the underworld, sailing away with his men.

Odysseus continues his story in Book 12, explaining that he and his crew returned to Aeaea to prepare for their journey. On Helius’s island, the crew disobeyed Odysseus and slaughtered the Sun God’s sacred cattle. Zeus sent a storm to drown them, leaving Odysseus the only survivor.

After Odysseus and his men returned to Aeaea, Circe promised to provide them with a safe route to follow home. She warned Odysseus about the sirens, who would attempt to lure him with their song, and instructed him to fill his crewmen’s ears with wax. If he wished to hear the sirens’ song, he should instruct his crew to tie him to the mast and pull the ropes tighter if he asked to be released. After passing the sirens, they would have two choices. They could attempt to bypass the Wandering Rocks, through which only one ship, the Argo, has ever passed, or they could choose to sail by Scylla and Charybdis. Scylla lives in a cave set in the middle of a sheer, towering rock and uses her six heads to eat passing sailors. Despite this, she is preferable to Charybdis, who lives under an adjacent rock. Three times a day, she sucks down the water, and ships along with it, then spurts them out. Odysseus wondered if he could somehow defeat Scylla, but Circe warned him that he “must surrender to the gods” (305).

Their next port would be Thrinacia, the island where the Sun God, Helius, keeps his sheep and cattle. If they “remember[ed] home” (305) and did not harm the herds, they would return to Ithaca, but if they ate his cattle, disaster would ensue. Circe warned that he may return home, but he would have caused his men’s deaths.

As Odysseus and his men departed, he told them that he would share Circe’s warnings, but he did not tell all. He shared only the threat of the sirens, saying that Circe said he “alone should hear their singing” (306). He followed her instructions, and they passed the sirens successfully, though they tempted him with knowledge about “whatever happens anywhere on earth” (307). As they approached Scylla and Charybdis, they heard a roar, saw smoke, and became terrified. Odysseus rallied his men with reminders of how he guided them past Polyphemus. He armed himself, hoping somehow to defeat Scylla, but when his and his men’s eyes were on Charybdis, Scylla swooped down and grabbed six of them. In their last moments they cried out Odysseus’s name, which he calls “the most heartrending sight I saw / in all the time I suffered on the sea” (309).

They reached Helius’s island, and Odysseus shared Circe and Tiresias’s warnings, suggesting they bypass it. Eurylochus objected that the men were exhausted, and Odysseus grudgingly relented. He made them swear that they would not harm the god’s herds. As soon as they landed, Zeus sent a storm that stranded them on the island for a month. After Circe’s supplies run out, the men hunted for fish, leaving the cattle alone since they “hoped to save their lives” (311). Odysseus left them to pray to the gods, but they caused him to fall asleep.

While he was gone, Eurylochus convinced the men to raid the herds since a quick death at sea was preferable to slow starvation on the island. They sacrificed to the gods but had to make substitutions since they did not have all that they needed. When Odysseus woke up, he smelled meat cooking and complained to the gods that they blinded his “mind with that infernal sleep” (313). He claims he later learned from Calypso that after Helius discovered the slaughter, he ordered the gods to punish Odysseus’s men, threatening to take light away from the world. Odysseus scolded his men, but it was too late. The raw and cooked hides mooed, lowed, and twitched, signs from the gods.

The storm on the island subsided, but another one hit when they set sail. It tore the boat apart and drowned Odysseus’s men. He managed to create a raft from the broken parts, but the currents carried him back to Scylla and Charybdis. He leapt onto a tree above Charybdis while she sucked down his raft with the water. When she sent it back up, Odysseus dropped into the water and climbed on, rowing with his hands. After 10 days, he arrived on Calypso’s island.