The Odyssey

Book Order
Books 1–4 (Telemachy):
Athena helps Telemachus search for news of Odysseus.
Telemachus visits Nestor (Pylos) and Menelaus (Sparta) but learns little.
Books 5–8 (Odysseus on Scheria):
Odysseus leaves Calypso’s island.
Shipwrecked, he reaches Scheria and is welcomed by the Phaeacians.
Books 9–12 (Odysseus’s Adventures, Flashback):
Ismarus: Attack on Cicones.
Lotus-Eaters: Crew forgets home.
Polyphemus: Blinds the Cyclops.
Aeolus: Loses bag of winds.
Laestrygonians: Cannibals destroy ships.
Circe: Stays for a year.
Underworld: Tiresias’s prophecy.
Sirens, Scylla, Charybdis: Navigates deadly dangers.
Thrinacia: Crew eats Helios’s cattle; Zeus destroys ship.
Calypso: Seven years on her island.
Books 13–24 (Return to Ithaca):
Odysseus returns to Ithaca disguised as a beggar.
Reunites with Telemachus; plans revenge.
Wins Penelope’s bow contest and kills suitors.
Proves identity to Penelope.
Athena ensures peace in Ithaca.
 Odysseus's journey in chronological order
Leaving Troy
Odysseus and his men sail from Troy to Ithaca after a wonderous victory against the
Trojans in the Trojan War after 10 years.

Ismarus and the Cicones

Lotus Eaters
Nine days later, Odysseus and his men make way to an island full of lotus flowers.
Three men go inland and find the flower which causes them to forget who they were.
Odysseus takes them to the ship and commands the crew to sail off.

Cyclops
The crew arrives on the island housing Poseidon's son, Cyclops. They go into Cyclops'
cave and wait for him hoping for a warm welcome. However, the beast eats one of the
men and pushes a boulder blocking the only way out. They blind him with a burning
stick and escapes by tieing themselves under his sheep.
★They come across a large cave that belongs to the Cyclops Polyphemus, the son of
Poseidon. Polyphemus is a gigantic, solitary creature who lives alone and does not
follow the rules of hospitality.
★Odysseus and his men enter the cave and begin to help themselves to the food
inside. Polyphemus returns home and traps the men in his cave by rolling a massive
stone in front of the entrance.
★Polyphemus, curious about who has entered his domain, quickly realizes that
Odysseus and his men are intruders. He then begins to eat them, one by one, showing
no mercy.
★ After losing several men, Odysseus hatches a clever plan to escape.
★Odysseus tells Polyphemus that his name is "Nobody," so that when he enacts his
plan, Polyphemus won’t be able to get help.
★Odysseus and his men give Polyphemus wine, which gets him drunk. When he falls
asleep, the men drive a sharp stake into his single eye, blinding him.
★When Polyphemus wakes up and is blinded, he calls for help, but when the other
Cyclopes hear him shouting that "Nobody" is attacking him, they believe he means no
one, and they ignore his cries.
★The next day, Odysseus and his men escape by hiding under the sheep as
Polyphemus lets his flock out of the cave to graze. As Polyphemus feels the sheep, he
doesn’t realize that the men are hiding beneath them.
★Once they are safely aboard their ships, Odysseus cannot resist taunting
Polyphemus, revealing his true name. This act of pride angers the Cyclops, who curses
Odysseus, asking his father Poseidon to punish him.

Aeolia
★After leaving the island of the Cyclopes, Odysseus and his crew come to the island
of Aeolus, the god of the winds. Aeolus lives on a floating island and is a kind and
generous god.
★Aeolus gives Odysseus a bag containing the winds, which is meant to help him
return home to Ithaca. The bag holds all the storm winds, leaving only the favorable
west wind to guide them safely home.
★Odysseus and his men sail for nine days, drawing closer to Ithaca, but just as they
are about to reach their home, Odysseus falls asleep. His men, curious about the
contents of the mysterious bag, open it, thinking it contains treasure.
★The winds escape and blow the ships back to Aeolus’s island.
★ When Odysseus returns to Aeolus and asks for help again, Aeolus refuses, believing
that the gods must be against Odysseus since his journey has already been so cursed.
Aeolus sends them away, and they are forced to continue their journey without his
aid.

Laestrygonia
★As Odysseus’s ships approach the city, the Laestrygonians throw massive boulders
at the ships, sinking several of them.
★The giants then attack the remaining ships, killing and eating many of Odysseus’s
men.
★Only Odysseus’s ship escapes, but it is damaged, and many of the crew are lost.

Circe
★After fleeing the Laestrygonians, Odysseus and his remaining men arrive at the
island of Aeaea, home to the sorceress Circe.
★Circe welcomes Odysseus’s men into her home but then uses a magical potion to
transform them into pigs. She turns them into swine because of their inability to resist
temptation and indulgence.
★When Odysseus hears that his men are transformed, he sets out to rescue them.
Along the way, he meets the god Hermes, who gives him a magical herb called moly
to protect him from Circe’s spell.
★Odysseus confronts Circe, using the herb to resist her magic. He forces her to turn
his men back into humans.
★After releasing the men, Circe becomes an ally to Odysseus. She offers him
hospitality and guidance. She tells him that in order to complete his journey home, he
must visit the Underworld to consult the prophet Tiresias.
★Odysseus and his crew stay with Circe for about a year, resting and recovering from
their hardships. However, Odysseus is reminded by his men that they must leave and
continue their journey back to Ithaca.

The Underworld
★Following Circe’s instructions, Odysseus and his crew sail to the edge of the world,
where the entrance to the Underworld lies.
★Before descending, Odysseus performs a ritual as instructed by Circe, digging a
trench, pouring libations of honey, wine, and water, and sacrificing a black ram to
attract the spirits of the dead.
★In the Underworld, Odysseus meets the blind prophet Tiresias, who provides vital
information about his journey home.
★Tiresias warns Odysseus to avoid harming the sacred cattle of Helios when he
reaches the island of Thrinacia, as doing so will bring destruction to his crew.
★He also predicts that Odysseus will return home alone and must later make peace
with Poseidon to secure a lasting legacy.
★Odysseus meets several other spirits, including:
Elpenor, one of his crewmen who had died accidentally at Circe’s island and requests
a proper burial.
Anticlea, Odysseus’s mother, who died of grief while he was at war. She updates him
on the situation in Ithaca, including Penelope’s loyalty and the suitors vying for her
hand.
Sirens
★As they approach the Sirens’ island, Odysseus follows Circe’s advice. He has his men
plug their ears with beeswax so they cannot hear the Sirens’ song.
★Odysseus, curious to hear the song himself, has his men tie him to the mast of the
ship and orders them not to release him, no matter how much he begs.
★The Sirens sing of Odysseus’s glory and try to lure him to their island, but the crew,
unable to hear the song, sails past safely.

Charybdis and Scylla

Helios' Cattle
★Odysseus and his crew reach the island of Thrinacia, home to the sacred cattle of
Helios. Although Odysseus warns his men about Tiresias’s prophecy and Circe’s
warnings, the crew is tempted to stop because they are exhausted and starving.
★When the food runs out, while Odysseus is asleep, his men, led by Eurylochus,
slaughter some of the cattle of Helios despite Odysseus’s strict warnings.
★Helios, enraged, demands justice from Zeus. Zeus promises to punish the crew.
★After they leave the island, Zeus strikes their ship with a lightning bolt, killing all of
Odysseus’s men and destroying the vessel.
★Odysseus alone survives, clinging to debris as he drifts at sea.

In Calypso's Grasp
★Odysseus washes ashore on the island of Ogygia, where he is taken in by the nymph
Calypso.
★Calypso falls in love with Odysseus and keeps him on her island for seven years,
offering him immortality if he stays with her.
★After seven years on Calypso’s island, the gods, led by Athena, convince Zeus to
intervene. Zeus sends Hermes to tell Calypso to release Odysseus.
★Reluctantly, Calypso obeys and helps Odysseus build a raft to leave the island. She
provides him with supplies for the journey but is heartbroken to see him go.
★As Odysseus sails away, Poseidon, still angry about the blinding of his son
Polyphemus, stirs up a storm that destroys the raft.
★Odysseus is saved by the sea goddess Leucothea, who gives him a magical veil to
keep him afloat until he washes ashore on the island of Scheria.

Phaeacia
★On Scheria, Odysseus is found by Nausicaa, the daughter of King Alcinous and
Queen Arete. She brings him to her parents, who welcome him with great hospitality.
★Odysseus, disguised in humility, tells them of his long and arduous journey.
★At a banquet in his honor, Odysseus recounts the full tale of his adventures, from
Troy to his time on Ogygia. The Phaeacians are moved by his story and agree to help
him return to Ithaca.
★Phaeacians provide Odysseus with a ship and crew, along with gifts of treasure.
They sail him to Ithaca while he sleeps, leaving him safely on the shore.

Return to Ithaca
★Upon waking, Odysseus initially doesn’t recognize his homeland. Athena appears in
disguise, reveals the truth, and helps him plot his next steps.
★She disguises Odysseus as a beggar to allow him to gather information and plan his
revenge against the suitors who have overrun his palace.
★Odysseus secretly reunites with his son Telemachus, who has been searching for
news of his father. Together, they plot to reclaim their home and defeat the suitors.
★Odysseus begins testing the loyalty of his household. He discovers that his wife,
Penelope, has remained faithful, fending off the advances of the suitors through clever
tricks, like unweaving a shroud every night.
★Penelope declares a contest: she will marry the man who can string Odysseus’s great
bow and shoot an arrow through twelve axeheads.
★None of the suitors succeed, but Odysseus, still disguised as a beggar, strings the
bow effortlessly and completes the challenge.
★Revealing his true identity, Odysseus, with Telemachus and a few loyal servants,
slaughters the suitors in a bloody battle.Athena assists in ensuring their victory,
solidifying Odysseus’s triumph.
★Initially skeptical, Penelope tests Odysseus by asking him to move their marriage
bed—a bed he built from a living olive tree and cannot be moved.Odysseus’s
knowledge of this secret proves his identity, and the couple is joyfully reunited.
★After the suitors’ families seek revenge, Athena intervenes, ensuring peace in Ithaca.
★Odysseus is finally restored as king, reunited with his family, and resumes his life in
Ithaca after twenty years of trials and adventures.

Characters

1. Odysseus
The protagonist of The Odyssey, Odysseus is a classic epic hero. He is by turns
cunning, deceitful, clever, prudent, wise, courageous, and impulsive. A
distinguishing characteristic about him is that his mental skills are just as strong
as his physical strengths, and this ability helps him escape some dangerous
situations. Odysseus has weaknesses—a tendency to give in to temptation, for
example—as well as strengths. Odysseus is on the long journey home from taking
part in the Achaeans' victory in the Trojan War, depicted in The Iliad. Glory and
honor have been the most important things in his life up to this point, but now he
yearns for his family and home.

2.Telemachus

Telemachus is Odysseus's son, and the two have not seen each other in 20 years,
since Telemachus was a baby. Still growing up when the story begins, he must
learn to take charge and find the courage to dispel the hoards of suitors who have
besieged his home and his mother. Under the guidance of Athena (who also guides
his father), he matures and gains confidence. His assertiveness upsets the suitors,
who have only seen him as a little boy up until the time covered by the narrative.
By the end of the epic, he is confident and cunning, like his parents, practicing
prudence and restraint in order to defeat the suitors.
3. Penelope

Penelope is the wife of Odysseus and the mother of Telemachus. When The
Odyssey opens, she has been waiting for Odysseus to return for 20 years. In that
time her home has become besieged by suitors who take advantage of her
hospitality and wait for her to choose one of them as a husband. Yet a part of her
still hopes that Odysseus will return, and she uses ploys as deceptive as her
husband's to fool the suitors into waiting longer and longer. She does this by
claiming she will choose a husband as soon as she finishes weaving a shroud for
her father-in-law, Laertes. What the suitors don't know is that by night she undoes
the day's work, which means that the shroud will never be finished. Penelope
proves herself to be just as shrewd and smart as her husband throughout the epic

4. Athena

Athena, a favorite of her father, Zeus, is the goddess who appears most often in the
epic. She has been watching over Odysseus since his days fighting in Troy. She
seems to have a great fondness for Odysseus, in part because they are so similar—
prone to cunning and deception. She comes to Odysseus's aid time and time again
throughout The Odyssey, though not always directly. She is often in disguise and
will usually direct Odysseus to people who can help him rather than help him
herself. She also helps Telemachus, because he is Odysseus's son. Athena asks
assistance from Zeus when she needs it, and one reason she may not intervene
more obviously on Odysseus's behalf is because she is afraid to incur the wrath of
the god Poseidon, who is angry at Odysseus.
5. Zeus

Zeus is the ruler of the gods and is also the god of hospitality and those who are
lost. Athena is his daughter, and he will usually come to her aid when she asks for
help for Odysseus. However, Poseidon is his brother—and Poseidon is determined
to punish Odysseus. This makes Zeus's decisions complicated at times and
unpredictable for Odysseus. However, Zeus ultimately sends Odysseus omens that
he is on the right track and gives him support.

6. Poseidon

Poseidon is the god of the sea, which is unfortunately where Odysseus spends
much of his time on his journey home. Poseidon bears a grudge against Odysseus
for blinding his son, the Cyclops Polyphemus. At every turn of Odysseus's journey,
Poseidon tries to thwart him, even gaining the blessing of Zeus at one point to
continue to do so. The final scene of The Odyssey finds Odysseus making a
sacrifice to Poseidon in the hopes that the god will finally leave his family in peace

7. Aeolus

A master of winds, he gives Odysseus a magical pouch full of seafaring winds to

8. Alcinous

The king of the Phaeacians, he hosts Odysseus in his kingdom and hears
Odysseus's stories about his journey so far.

9.Amphinomus

One of Penelope's suitors, he stands out due to his kindness and reason.

10. Anticleia

Odysseus's mother, she meets him in the Land of the Dead and informs him of
what has happened in his home.

11. Antinous
The leader of the suitors, he is the meanest and most antagonistic toward Odysseus
when the latter appears in Ithaca in disguise

12.Arete

The queen of the Phaeacians, she is wife of Alcinous and mother of Nausicaa.

13. Calypso

A nymph, or minor goddess, she kidnaps Odysseus when he lands on her

—daughter of the Titan Atlas, who rules the heavens. She lives on the isolated
island of Ogygia, a lush, magical place far from the world of men.

14. Circe

A minor goddess and sorceress, she falls for Odysseus and keeps him under her
spell for a year.

—She is a powerful enchantress, daughter of the sun god Helios and the ocean
nymph Perse. Circe lives on the island of Aeaea.

15. Tiresias

A blind prophet, he meets Odysseus in the Land of the Dead and warns him of
what's to come.

16. Scylla

This monster with six heads is another danger Odysseus must escape.

17. Polyphemus

A Cyclops who traps Odysseus and his men in his cave. Odysseus outwits him by
blinding him and escaping.

18. Eumaeus

The loyal swineherd of Odysseus, who helps him upon his return to Ithaca.