report in humanities- odyssey
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Odyssey
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The Odyssey(a long wandering and eventfuljourney) is one of two major ancient Greek
epic poems attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a
sequel to the Iliad, the other work traditionallyascribed to Homer. The poem is fundamental
to the modern Western canon. Indeed it is the
secondthe Iliad being the firstextant workof Western literature.
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The poem mainly centers on the Greek hero
Odysseus (or Ulysses, as he was known inRoman myths) and his long journey home
following the fall of Troy. It takes Odysseus ten
years to reach Ithaca after the ten-year TrojanWar. In his absence, it is assumed he has died,
and his wife Penelope and son Telemachus must
deal with a group of unruly suitors, the
Mnesteres or Proci, competing for Penelope's
hand in marriage.
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Major characters:
Odysseus:Odysseus is the maincharacter of the Odyssey, a tale
which chronicles his homecoming
and his journeys since his
departure from Troy. The story
focus on his trials at sea and on
land and how, once he gets home,
he must avenge his family's honorfrom the suitors who have been
besieging his house waiting for his
wife to choose a new husband.
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Penelope: Odysseus' wife and mother of
Telemachus. She remains loyal to Odysseus
even after he is gone for twenty years. She
constructs elaborate ruses such as weavingand unweaving at a loom. She has trouble
believing that her husband has returned when
she first sees him and is very cold until shegets undeniable proof of his identity.
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Zeus: Father of Athena and King of the gods,
Zeus appears frequently in this poem but
mostly to give assent to another god who
either wants to help Odysseus or hinder him.
He gives Athena license to help Odysseus butalso strikes Odysseus' ship with lightning
after he has committed wrongs against the
gods. He gives frequent signs to Odysseusand others in the forms of lightning or storms
throughout the poem.
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Poseidon: Zeus' brother and the god of the
sea, he is upset with Odysseus first for not
offering sufficient sacrifices to him. He is
even more unhappy after Odysseus blindshis son Polyphemus. It is Poseidon that
Odysseus still must appease at the end of
the poem. Poseidon keeps Odysseus frommaking it home on multiple occasions.
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Minor Characters:
Mentes(Mentor): An older man of Ithacawhose form Athena takes first to help
Telemachus travel to Pylos and then to
help Telemachus and Odysseus fight thesuitors.
Phemius (Phemios): Minstrel who sings at
the house of Odysseus He begs for his lifeand Telemachus tells Odysseus that he
doesn't deserve to die.
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Nestor: Old king of Pylos who entertains
Telemachus and advises him to go seek news
for his father from Menelaus.
Peisistratos: Nestor's son who accompanies
Telemachus to Sparta.Menelaus (Menelaos): King of Sparta and
husband of Helen for whom the Trojan War
was fought. In this tale, Menelaus entertainsTelemachus and gives him news of his father.
He also tells the tale of his own journey back
from Troy.
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Helen: Wife of Menelaus and reason the Trojan
war was fought. In this tale, she drugs the wine
of Menelaus and Telemachus so that they willforget their sorrow.
Proteus: Sea god who Menelaus captures in a
cave of seals, from whom he learns how to gethome.
Calypso (Kalypso): Nymph who kept Odysseus
on her island for many years by means ofenchantment. Hermes orders her to release him
by the authority of Zeus at the request of Athena.
She has him make a raft to journey on.
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Hermes: messenger of the gods, he deliversthe edicts of Zeus to gods and mortals. He
instructs Calypso to release Odysseus. He also
accompanies souls to the land of the dead.
Nausicaa (Nausikaa): Daughter of Alcinous
who finds Odysseus in the thicket near the
river where he washed up on the island. Shewas prompted to go to the river by Athena.
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Arete: Wife of Alcinous who was approachedby Odysseus for her help
Alcinous (Alkinoos): King of the Phaiakians
who welcomes Odysseus and hears his longtale. He presents Odysseus with great treasure
and gives him secure passage to Ithaca.
Demodocus (Demodokos): Minstrel who singsat the palace of Alcinous.
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Achilles (Akhilleus): Hero of the Iliad. He
dies before the end of the Trojan war and isshown in the land of the dead regretting his
fate.
Ares: God of war who had an affair with
Aphrodite and was caught by her husband
Hephaestus.
Aphrodite: Goddess of love and lust whose
affair with Ares is discovered and revealed by
her husband Hephaestus.
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Polyphemus (Polyphemos): Cyclops son of
Poseidon who is blinded by Odysseus because
he eats some of his men and won't release them.
Polyphemus' plea to his father sidetracks
Odysseus for many years.
Aeolus (Aiolos): King of the winds who
entertained Odysseus at an early part of his
journey. He presents Odysseus with a bag of the
winds so that he may get home safely. WhenOdysseus' men release the winds and the ship is
blown back, Aeolus has no pity.
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Circe (Kirke): Witch-like woman who atfirst turns Odysseus' men into pigs but is
impressed when she cannot affect Odysseus.
She lusts after him and he stays
Tiresias (Eurylokhos): Blind prophet who
Odysseus goes to find in the land of the
dead. He tells Odysseus how to get home
and that he must appease Poseidon once he
gets there.
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Eurymachus (Eurymakhos): The second
suitor, Eurymachus always speaks afterAntinous or in place of him. He is the
second suitor to die.
Eurykleia (Euryklea): Odysseus nurse as achild and a servant in his house. She hides
Telemachus' journey to Pylos and is the
firstwoman to recognize Odysseus. Shehelps Odysseus sort out the good hand-
maidens from the bad ones.
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Autolycus: was a son of Hermes andChione
Melanthius (Melanthios): Goatherd who
insults Odysseus and taunts the swineherdand the beggar.
Laertes: Odysseus' father. He appears only
at the end of the poem and prepares tostand with his son against the Ithacan mob.
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Objects/Places:
Suitors: Princes and nobles from Ithaca and the
surrounding islands who take up residence in thehouse of Odysseus waiting for Penelope to choosea new husband. This is so important to thembecause whoever marries her becomes king by
transfer of her power.
Mt. Olympus (Mt. Olympos): Mythical home ofthe gods. Amountain in Greece where the Greeks
believed the gods made their home.Ithaca (Ithaka):Odysseus' home island over
which he rules as king. It was located on thewestern side of mainland Greece.
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Pylos: City on mainland Greece over whichNestor rules.
Sparta (Laikedaimon): City over whichMenelaus rules. Telemachus goes here in searchof his father.
Crete (Krete): Legendary home of King Minos,
the labyrinth and the Minotaur. This is the islandOdysseus keeps claiming he is from when he liesto his family and the swineherd.
Skheria: Island of the Phaiakians where
Odysseus tells his long story and secures passageback to Ithaca after so many years.
Lamnos: Nightless island where some ofOdysseus' men were eaten by giants.
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Sirens (Seirenes): Singing women-like beastswho inhabit an island and guide sailors to their
deaths with their beautiful songs. Odysseushas himself tied to the mast of the ship so hecan listen to their song.
Scylla: Six-headed beast who inhabits thecave parallel to thewhirlpool Charybdis.Scylla eats six of Odysseus' men.
Charybdis (Kharybdis): A whirlpool thaterupts three times a day sucking anything nearit down into its depths and then vomiting itback up.
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EXPOSITION
The Odyssey begins ten years after the end ofthe ten-year Trojan War, and Odysseus has still
not returned home from the war. Odysseus' son
Telemachus is twenty and is sharing his absent
fathers house on the island of Ithaca with his
mother Penelope and a crowd of 108 boisterous
young men, "the Suitors", whose aim is to
persuade Penelope to marry one of them, all thewhile enjoying the hospitality of Odysseus'
household and eating up his wealth.
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Penelope and the suitors
Od h dd A h
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Odysseus protectress, the goddess Athena,
discusses his fate with Zeus, king of the gods, at a
moment when Odysseus' enemy, the god of the sea
Poseidon, is absent from Mount Olympus. Then,
disguised as a Taphian chieftain named Mentes
(otherwise known as Mentor), she visits
Telemachus to urge him to search for news of hisfather. He offers her hospitality; they observe the
Suitors dining rowdily while the bard Phemius
performs a narrative poem for them. Penelopeobjects to Phemius' theme, the "Return from
Troy"because it reminds her of her missing
husband, but Telemachus rebuts her objections.
Th t i ht Ath di i d T l h
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That night Athena, disguised as Telemachus,
finds a ship and crew for the true Telemachus.
The next morning, Telemachus calls an assembly
of citizens of Ithaca to discuss what should bedone with the suitors. Accompanied by Athena
(still disguised as Mentor), he departs for the
Greek mainland and the household of Nestor,most venerable of the Greek warriors at Troy,
now at home in Pylos. From there, Telemachus
rides overland, accompanied by Nestor's son,Peisistratus, to Sparta, where he finds Menelaus
and Helen, now reconciled. He is told that they
returned to Sparta after a long voyage by way of
Egypt.
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There, on the island of Pharos, Menelaus
encountered the old sea-god Proteus, whotold him that Odysseus was a captive of
the nymph Calypso. Incidentally,
Telemachus learns the fate of Menelausbrother Agamemnon, king of Mycenae
and leader of the Greeks at Troy: he was
murdered on his return home by his wife
Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus.
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Telemachus departing from Nestor
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Telemachus & the Nymphs ofCalypso
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Escape to the Phaeacians
Then the story of Odysseus is told. He has spent
seven years in captivity on Calypso's island,
Ogygia. Calypso falls deeply in love with him but
he has consistently spurned her advances. She is
persuaded to release him by Odysseus' great-
grandfather, the messenger god Hermes, who has
been sent by Zeus in response to Athena's plea.Odysseus builds a raft and is given clothing, food
and drink by Calypso.
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When Poseidon finds out that Odysseus has
escaped, he wrecks the raft, but Odysseus
swims ashore on the island of Scherie (helped
by a veil given by the sea nymph Ino), the
home of the Phaeacians, where, naked and
exhausted, he hides in a pile of leaves andfalls asleep. The next morning, awakened by
the laughter of girls, he sees the young
Nausicaa, who has gone to the seashore withher maids to wash clothes, after Athena
appeared to her in a dream and told her to do
so.
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Odysseus and Nausica
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He appeals to her for help. She encourages him to
seek the hospitality of her parents, Arete andAlcinous, or Alkinous. Odysseus is welcomed and
is not at first asked for his name. He remains for
several days, takes part in a pentathlon, and hearsthe blind singer Demodocus perform two narrative
poems. The first is an otherwise obscure incident of
the Trojan War, the "Quarrel of Odysseus and
Achilles"; the second is the amusing tale of a love
affair between two Olympian gods, Ares and
Aphrodite.
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Finally, Odysseus asks Demodocus to return
to the Trojan War theme and tell of the Trojan
Horse, a stratagem in which Odysseus had
played a leading role. Unable to hide hisemotion as he relives this episode, Odysseus
at last reveals his identity. He then begins to
tell the story of his return from Troy.
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Odysseus Overcome by Demodocus'Song
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Odysseus' account of his adventures
After a piratical raid on Ismaros in the land of the
Cicones, he and his twelve ships were driven off
course by storms. They visited the lethargicLotus-Eaters who gave two of his men their fruit
which caused them to forget their homecoming,
and then were captured by the Cyclops
Polyphemus, escaping by blinding him with a
wooden stake.
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While they were escaping, however,
Odysseus foolishly told Polyphemus his
identity, and Polyphemus told his father,
Poseidon, that Odysseus had blinded him.
Poseidon then curses Odysseus to wander thesea for ten years, during which he would lose
all his crew and return home through the aid
of others.
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Giant Polyphemus blinded byOdysseus
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After unsuccessfully pleading with Aeolus to helpthem again, they re-embarked and encountered the
cannibalistic Laestrygonians. All of Odysseuss
ships except his own entered the harbor of theLaestrygonians Island and were immediately
destroyed. He sailed on and visited the witch-
goddess Circe. She turned half of his men intoswine after feeding them cheese and wine.
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Hermes warned Odysseus about Circe and
gave Odysseus a drug called moly which
gave him resistance to Circes magic. Circe,
being attracted to Odysseus' resistance,
agreed to bargain with him. She agreed to
change his men back to their human form in
exchange for Odysseus' love.
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They remained with her on the island for one
year, while they feasted and drank. Finally,
guided by Circe's instructions, Odysseus and hiscrew crossed the ocean and reached a harbor at
the western edge of the world, where Odysseus
sacrificed to the dead and summoned the spirit
of the old prophet Tiresias to advise him of how
to appease the gods upon his return home. Next
Odysseus met the spirit of his own mother, who
had died of grief during his long absence. Fromher, he learned for the first time news of his own
household, threatened by the greed of the
Suitors.
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Here, too, he met the spirits of famouswomen and famous men. Notably he
encountered the spirit of Agamemnon, of
whose murder he now learned, and Achilles,
who told him about the woes of the land of
the dead (for Odysseus' encounter with the
dead, see also Nekuia).
Ci ff i h
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Circe offering her cup
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Returning to Circes island, they were advised
by her on the remaining stages of the journey.They skirted the land of the Sirens, who sang an
enchanting song that normally caused passing
sailors to steer toward the rocks, only to hit them
and sink. All of the sailors except for Odysseus,
who was tied to the mast, had their ears plugged
up with beeswax. They then passed between the
six-headed monster Scylla and the whirlpoolCharybdis, and landed on the island of
Thrinacia.
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There, Odysseus men ignored the warnings of
Tiresias and Circe, and hunted down the sacredcattle of the sun god Helios. This sacrilege was
punished by a shipwreck in which all but
Odysseus drowned. He was washed ashore onthe island of Calypso, where she compelled
him to remain as her lover for seven years
before she was ordered by Zeus to release
Odysseus.
Odysseus and his men in the Isle of
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Odysseus and his men in the Isle ofthe Sirens
Return to Ithaca
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Return to Ithaca
Having listened with rapt attention to his story,
the Phaeacians, who are skilled mariners, agree
to help Odysseus get home. They deliver him at
night, while he is fast asleep, to a hidden harbour
on Ithaca. He finds his way to the hut of one of
his own former slaves, the swineherd Eumaeus.
Athena disguises Odysseus as a wanderingbeggar in order to learn how things stand in his
household.
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After dinner, he tells the farm laborers afictitious tale of himself: he was born in
Crete, had led a party of Cretans to fight
alongside other Greeks in the Trojan War, and
had then spent seven years at the court of the
king of Egypt; finally he had been
shipwrecked in Thesprotia and crossed from
there to Ithaca.
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Meanwhile, Telemachus sails home from Sparta,
evading an ambush set by the Suitors. He
disembarks on the coast of Ithaca and makes for
Eumaeuss hut. Father and son meet; Odysseus
identifies himself to Telemachus (but still not to
Eumaeus) and they determine that the suitors mustbe killed. Telemachus gets home first.
Accompanied by Eumaeus, Odysseus now returns
to his own house, still pretending to be a beggar. Heis ridiculed by the suitors in his own home,
especially by one extremely impertinent man
named Antinous.
His son is beat up by the larger men to
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His son is beat up by the larger men toshow his "transition to manhood", andOdysseus attempts to stop the fight; as a
result, Antinous throws a chair at him andlaughs at him. Odysseus meets Penelopeand tests her intentions with an invented
story of his birth in Crete, where, he says,he once met Odysseus. Closelyquestioned, he adds that he had recently
been in Thesprotia and had learnedsomething there of Odysseuss recentwanderings.
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Odysseus meets his wife Penelope
Odysseuss identity is discovered by the
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y y y
housekeeper, Eurycleia, as she is washing his feet
and discovers an old scar Odysseus had received
during a boar hunt. He had received the scar whenhe was hunting with the sons of Autolycus. They
had been told to go boar hunting so that they could
prepare a meal with the meat. The three climbedMount Parnassus and eventually came across a
boar in a large and deep meadow. Because of the
meadow's depth, the three hunters were ambushed
by the seemingly invisible boar and when
Odysseus first saw the animal, he rushed at it but
the animal was too fast and slashed him in the
right thigh.
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Despite being gored by the boar, Odysseus still
hit his mark and stabbed the boar through the
shoulder. Odysseus' bleeding was staunched by
a spell that was chanted by the sons of
Autolycus and he received great glory and
treasure for his bravery. Having seen this scar,Eurycleia tries to tell Penelope about
Odysseus' true identity, but Athena makes sure
that Penelope cannot hear Eurycleia.Meanwhile, Odysseus swears her to secrecy,
and she promises not to tell.
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Slaying of the Suitors
The next day, at Athenas prompting, Penelope
maneuvers the Suitors into competing for her hand
with an archery competition using Odysseus' bow.The man who can string the bow and shoot it
through a dozen axe heads would win. Odysseus
takes part in the competition himself: he alone is
strong enough to string the bow and shoot it through
the dozen axe heads, making him the winner.
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He then turns his arrows on the Suitors and
with the help of Athena, Telemachus,
Eumaeus and Philoteus the cowherd, he kills
all the Suitors. Odysseus and Telemachus
hang twelve of their household maids, whohad betrayed Penelope or had sex with the
Suitors, or both; they mutilate and kill the
goatherd Melanthius, who had mocked andabused Odysseus.
Od h ti t th
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Odysseus shooting an arrow to thesuitors
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Now at last, Odysseus identifies himself to Penelope.
She is hesitant, but accepts him when he mentions
that their bed was made from an olive tree still rooted
to the ground. Many modern and ancient scholars
take this to be the original ending of the Odyssey, and
the rest to be an interpolation.
The next day he and Telemachus visit the country
farm of his old father Laertes, who likewise accepts
his identity only when Odysseus correctly describesthe orchard that Laertes had previously given him.
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The citizens of Ithaca have followed Odysseus on
the road, planning to avenge the killing of theSuitors, their sons. Their leader points out that
Odysseus has now caused the deaths of two
generations of the men of Ithaca: his sailors, notone of whom survived; and the Suitors, whom he
has now executed. The goddess Athena
intervenes and persuades both sides to give up
the vendetta, a deus ex machina. After this, Ithaca
is at peace once more, concluding the Odyssey.
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