The Odyssey

Plot takes place around 1200 BC

Composed by Homer 400 years later(around 800 BC)

Earliest papyrus fragments found in 3rd century BC

Oldest complete manuscript found 10th or 11th century AD

Recapping The Odyssey

Non-linear plot• Begins in media res (in the middle of the story)• Events told out of chronological order•Uses flashbacks and foreshadowing

Text begins ten years after theend of the Trojan War.

When the text begins . . .

Telemachus and Penelope are home in Ithaca.

Telemachus is twenty years old.

Penelope is busy fighting off a group ofsuitors who want tomarry her and takeOdysseus’s home andpossessions.

Penelope tricks the suitors by telling them she will marry one as soon as she has finished

weaving a burial shroud for Laertes.

During the day, she weaves the shroud, but at night, she undoes her work.

Meanwhile . . .

Odysseus has washed up alone on the shore of Phaeacia (also known as Scheria), the island of the Phaeacians.

Athena helps Odysseus enter King Alcinous’s palace and impress him with tales of war.

Odysseus Overcome by Demodocus’ Song by Francesco Hayez (circa 1813)

Odysseus recounts his journey since leaving Troy . . .

He first lands in the Cicones and is blown off course by bad storms.

He and his men then land on the island of the Lotus Eaters.

Their plant makes men forgettheir home.

The men then encounter the Cyclops Polyphemus.

Several men are killed, but eventually they escape after blinding Polyphemus.

By blinding and defeating the Cyclops, Odysseus angers his father, Poseidon.

Poseidon curses Odysseus to spend many years at sea and return home unhappy and alone.

The men then land on the island of Aeolus, the wind god.

Aeolus gives them a bag of bad winds and a fair west wind.

The men open the bag and are blown back to Aeolus. He refuses to help them again.

Odysseus and his men then encounter . . .

The Laestrygonians, giant cannibals who destroy eleven of Odysseus’s twelve ships.

The sole remaining ship then arrives on the shore of Aeaea, home of the beautiful goddess Circe.

Circe turns the men into pigs but restores them to human form after going to bed with Odysseus.

He and his men remain on Aeaea for approximately one year.

And then . . .

The men convince Odysseus to leave Aeaea, but first he must visit the prophet, Tiresias of Thebes, inthe underworld.

Persephone has allowed Tiresias

to keep his mind unchanged-unlike all other ghosts, who are mere shadows of their former selves.

In the underworld . . .

Odysseus meets his dead mother who tells him about the suitors in Ithaca and the plight of Penelope.

He also meets dead heroes such as Agamemnon, who warns him of the dangers of women.

Tiresias tells Odysseus whathe must do to return hometo Ithaca . . .

Odysseus then returns to Aeaea.

Circe helps him plan how to make it past the three upcoming dangers: the Sirens, Scylla, and Charybdis.

She tells him he can’t possibly make it past both Scylla and Charybdis without losing any men.

To make it past the Sirens . . .

Odysseus puts bee’s wax in his men’s ears so they cannot hear the Sirens singing.

Odysseus ties himself to the mast of the ship, because he wants to hear the Sirens but does not want to

succumb to them.

To make it past Scylla and Charybdis . . .

Odysseus sails close to the cliff housing Scylla to avoid Charybdis.

The ship makes it through these dangers, but Scylla swoops down and eats six men, onefor each of its heads.

The remaining men land on Thrinacia . . .

Odysseus’s men ignore the warnings from Tiresias and Circe.

Foolishly, they eat the cattle of Lord Helios (Apollo).

Apollo punishes the men by wrecking their ship and killing

everyone but Odysseus.

Alone, Odysseus lands on theisland of Ogygia, the home of the nymph Calypso, daughterof Atlas, the Titan.

Calypso falls in love with himand keeps him captive for seven years.

Finally, Hermes helpspersuade Calypso to releaseOdysseus.

After leaving Ogygia . . .

Odysseus lands on Phaeacia, where the reader meets him in Book 9.

After telling the Phaeacians his story,they help him return to Ithaca.

Books 20-24

Telemachus, Odysseus’s son, returns to Ithaca from visiting Menelaus in Sparta.

Athena disguises Odysseus as an old beggar.

He goes to the hut of Eumaeus, his friend and former slave.

Telemachus arrives at the hut, and Odysseus reveals his true identity to him (but not to Eumaeus).

The three men go to Odysseus’s home in Ithaca.

Father and son have decided the suitors at the palace must be killed.

Odysseus enters his own home still pretending to be a beggar.

Odysseus’s housekeeper, Eurycleia, recognizes him by a scar on his ankle, cut while hunting for boars.

She tries to tell Penelope hisreal identity, but Athena prevents this.

Eurycleia then promises Odysseus she will not reveal his secret.

The next day . . .

Penelope devises a plan to thwart the suitors.

She tells them that whoever can string Odysseus’s bow and shoot an arrow through twelve ax heads may marry her.

None of the suitors can string the bow.

Odysseus, still disguised as a beggar, asks for a chance to try.

The suitors laugh at him, but Odysseus alone is able to accomplish Penelope’s challenge.

Odysseus then turns his arrow on the suitors.

Antinous, ringleader of the suitors, is just lifting a drinking cup when Odysseus puts an arrow through his throat.

The goatherd sneaks out and comes back with spears for the suitors, but then Athena appears.

She helps Odysseus and Telemachus kill every one of the suitors.

Odysseus orders several housemaids to remove the dead bodies of the suitors and clean the dining area.

He then tells Telemachus to kill these housemaids, believing them to have been unfaithful.

While Penelope is sleeping, Telemachus hangs twelve of the housemaids from a wall in the yard.

Odysseus reveals himself to Penelope, but she is hesitant to accept it is really him.

To test him, Penelope asks a maid to move the marriage bed she and Odysseus had shared.

Odysseus proves himself by reminding her the bed can’tbe moved, because it is made from an olive tree rooted in the ground.

Only the real Odysseuscould have known this.

Odysseus and Penelope embrace and get reacquainted.

This ends Book 23 of The Odyssey.

In Book 24 . . .

Odysseus and Telemachus visit Laertes.

The citizens of Ithaca threaten to kill Odysseus, angry that he returned home without his men and killed the suitors at his home.

Athena intervenes and persuades both sides to live peacefully.

This ends The Odyssey.

History Channel “Clash of the Gods” episodes related to The Odyssey . . .

•Odysseus: view here•The Myth of Zeus: view here•The Myth of Hades: view here•Medusa: view here•The Minotaur: view here•Hercules: view here