The Odyssey: Part I The Wanderings
Summaries of the Adventures
Tell the Story
Homer opens with an invocation, or prayer, asking the Muse* to help him sing his tale. He also gives hints to his listeners
about how the story will end.
*Muse: The Greeks believed that there were nine Muses, daughters of Zeus, the chief god. The Muses inspired people to
produce music, poetry, dance and all the other arts.
Homer invokes the Muse, asking her to tell the story of Odysseus’ adventures. Homer mentions Odysseus’ hardships, his
valor, and his struggle to save his life and bring his shipmates home. He reminds us that the shipmates died because of
their own recklessness. He says that he will begin his story when all the other warriors had gotten home, but only
Odysseus still hungers for home and wife. Odysseus is now held captive by Calypso who wants him for her own.
Homer foreshadows the trials and hungers that lie ahead for Odysseus, though all of the gods, except Poseidon, pity
him.
Calypso, the Sweet Nymph
Trapped on Calypso’s fragrant island, Odysseus has grown weary and tired of her enchantment. Our first glimpse of the
hero finds him weeping, scanning the horizon of the sea. At Athena’s request, Zeus sends Hermes to order the goddess
Calypso to release Odysseus. Calypso reluctantly agrees to let him go. Odysseus builds a raft and sets sail. But Poseidon
raises a storm and wrecks the raft. Odysseus lands on the island of Scheria and falls asleep in a pile of leaves.
“I Am Laertes’ Son.”
Odysseus is found by Nausicaa, the daughter of Alcinous, king of the Phaecians. That evening he is a guest at the court.
To the ancient Greeks, all guests were godsent. The guests had to be treated with great courtesy before they could be
asked to identify themselves and state t heir business. That night at the banquet, the stranger who was washed up on
the beach is seated in the guest’s place of honor. A minstrel, or singer, is called and the mystery guest (Odysseus) gives
the singer a gift of pork, crisp with fat, and requests a song about Troy. In effect, Odysseus is asking for a song about
himself.
Odysseus weeps as the minstrel’s song reminds him of all of his companions, who will never see their homes again. Then
Odysseus is asked by King Alcinous to identify himself. It is at this time that Odysseus begins to tell the story of his
adventurous journeys. Odysseus begins by telling where he is from. He describes how he was detained by Calypso and
Circe. He tells of the many years he has traveled from Troy, trying to find his way home. He tells of the Cicones and of a
storm raised by Zeus, which had his men drifting for nine days.
“THE LOTUS EATERS”
After losing many shipmates fighting against the Cicones on Ismaros and being driven off course by a fierce storm,
Odysseus and his crew arrive in the country of the Lotus Eaters. There the crew is seduced by the plant eaters, who try
to make them eat the lotus and forget their homeland. Odysseus has to tie the men to the benches in the boats to get
them away from the lotus land.
The Cyclops
In his next adventure, Odysseus describes his encounter with the Cyclops names Polyphemus, Poseidon’s one-eyed
monster son. Polyphemus represents the brute forces that any hero must overcome before he can reach home. In this
adventure, Odysseus must rely on clever intelligence or cunning. Odysseus is the cleverest of all Greek heroes because
his divine guardian is Athena, the goddess of wisdom. Odysseus famed curiosity leads him to the Cyclops cave and that
makes him insist on waiting for the barbaric giant.
Odysseus and his followers, who have been trapped in the Cyclops’ cave, watch in horror as two of their companions are
consumed by the monster each morning and night. The heroic Odysseus conceived of a plan of escape. With his
companions, he fashions a sharp wooden stake, which he heats in the fire and stabs into the Cyclops’ eye while the
monster is sleeping. Odysseus and his men make their escape from the cave by clinging to the underbellies of the
Cyclops’ sheep. Odysseus prevents Polyphemus from getting help from the other cyclopes by telling the Polyphemus
that his name is Nohman or Nohbody. Later, after Odysseus and his men escape, Odysseus cannot resist taunting the
monster, who curses his former captive and implores his father, Poseidon, the sea god, to keep the hero a wanderer on
the sea for many years.
The Witch Circe
After sailing from the Cyclops’ island, Odysseus and his men land on the island of Aeolia. There the wind king, Aeolus,
does Odysseus a favor. He puts all of the story winds in a bag so that they will not harm the Ithacans (Odysseus and his
men are from Ithaca.) The bulls-hide bag containing the winds is wedged under Odysseus afterdeck. But during the
voyage, the suspicious and curious sailors open the bag, thinking it contains a treasure, and the evil winds roar up into
hurricanes that blow the ships back to Aeolia. Aeolus sends them away again, but without any additional help this time.
On the island of the Laestrygonians, gigantic cannibals, (we do not have this section in our books to read) all of the ships
except one are destroyed and their crew members devoured. Odysseus’ ship and the men on his ship escape and land
on the island of Aeaea, the home of the witch Circe. Here a party of twenty-three men, led by Eurylochus, goes off to
explore the island. When Odysseus and his men reach this island, the men are beguiled by the sorceress, who turns
them into swine and shuts them in a pigsty. Hermes gives Odysseus a plant to eat called moly which will protect
Odysseus from Circe’s magic. Odysseus “stays” with Circe as the price for letting his men be restored to human beings.
They all stay together feasting and enjoying Circe’s company for about one year. Eventually, however, Odysseus and his
men beg Circe to help them get home.
Circe responds to their pleas with the command that Odysseus alone descend to the Land of the Dead. There Odysseus
must seek the wisdom of the blind prophet, Teiresias.
The Land of the Dead
In the Land of the Dead, Odysseus seeks to learn of his destiny. The source of his information is Teiresias, the famous
blind poet from the city of Thebes. The prophet’s lack of external sight suggests the presence of true insight. Circe has
told Odysseus exactly what rites he must perform to bring Teiresias up from the dead. In the underworld (Hades),
Odysseus is told by Teiresias not to raid the cattle of the sun god, Helios, when they land on his island. Teiresias tells
Odysseus that when he finally arrives home, he will find his household in disarray. Teiresias instructs Odysseus that after
slaying his wife’s suitors, he must make sacrifices to Poseidon.
The Sirens; Scylla and Charybdis
Odysseus and his men return to Circe’s island, where Circe warns him of the perils that await him. Specifically, Circe tells
Odysseus how to avoid the dangers of the Sirens and Scylla and Charybdis. Odysseus is lashed or tied to the mast so that
he can hear the Sirens’ song without succumbing to it, after he plugs his men’s ears with beeswax to prevent their
hearing the bewitching voices. Odysseus and his men escape danger, but, passing through the straits of Scylla (sixheaded monster) and Charybdis (the whirlpool monster), they lose six men to Scylla. Through all of this, Odysseus never
tells his men of Circe’s last prophecy – that he will be the ONLY survivor of their long journey.
The Cattle of the Sun God
Odysseus urges his exhausted crew to bypass, Thrinakia, the island of the sun god, Helios, but the men insisting on
landing. Odysseus makes them swear not to touch the sun god’s cattle. Storms rage for a month and their food supply is
exhausted. One shipmate, Eurylochus, convinces the others that eating the cattle is preferable to starvation.
Odysseus wakes up to discover that his men have feasted on the cattle. He curses the gods for letting him sleep during
the feast so that he was not able to restrain or stop his men. When Helios discovers what the men have done, he loudly
begs Zeus to punish Odysseus and his men.
When Odysseus and his men set sail again, they are punished by death – a thunderbolt from Zeus destroys their boat
and all of the men drown. Only Odysseus survives. Exhausted and nearly drowned, he makes his way to Calypso’s island,
where we originally met him.
Remember that all of the stories or adventures we read, were described by Odysseus to Alcinous, king of the Phaecians,
the members of his court and to Nausicaa, his daughter. He landed there after leaving Calypso’s island.