The Fall of Troy and Odysseus (The Abridged version)
After the excitement of the Trojan War, Odysseus has a plan. The
Greeks present a gift to the Trojans, a beautiful and large wooden
horse. They park it in front of the great walls of Troy that are
constantly not penetrable. Then, all the Greek ships are loaded and
sail away from Troy. All the Trojans see this as victory and rejoice the
departure of the Greeks. Little do they know, the Greeks have a big
surprise for the Trojans.
Before the horse was dragged up to the gates of Troy, many of the best
fighters hide inside the belly of the wooden horse. The horse gets
pushed into the center of Troy, they revel in their victory and the
Trojans go to bed, drunk. During the night, the Greeks quietly escape
the horse’s belly, and wreck havoc on the drunk city. The Greeks
overtake Troy and are ultimately victorious. (And all of the Greek
ships came back to fight).
The gods did take sides in the Trojan War.
The Olympian Gods took the following sides:
-Athena- Greek
-Hera- Greek
-Hephaestus- Greek
-Poseidon- Greek
-Zeus- Neutral
-Aphrodite- Trojan
-Apollo- Trojan
-Ares- Trojan
-Artemis- Trojan
-Hermes- Trojan
-Hades- Neutral
After ten long years of fighting, Odysseus finally can go home to his
beautiful wife and child.
However, Odysseus was filled with hubris and his own pride gets him
into trouble with the gods.
As Odysseus and his men were traveling home, he encounters many
adventures, but the most famous one is his adventure with
Polyphemus, a Cyclops, and a son to Poseidon.
As Odysseus and his men were hungry they land on an island which is
plentiful in fruits and vegetables and sheep. The men find a cave and
take as much food and drink as they can. Later that night, a Cyclops
come home to the cave to find all of the men stealing his things. This
makes the Cyclops angry, and he keeps them all as prisoners. He even
eats two or three men to show he means business. The Cyclops asked
who Odysseus was, and Odysseus replied, “I am nobody.”
The next day, Odysseus has a plan. He gets the Cyclops drunk with
wine the men brought ashore. The Cyclops is so drunk, he doesn’t
even seen it coming when Odysseus stabs him in his one eye, hence
leaving him blind. This infuriates the Cyclops. He ran outside yelling
for the other Cyclops’ to help him but all he can say is “Nobody has
stabbed me in the eye!” so none of the others came to help him.
Polyphemus was not a smart Cyclops, but he worked hard, and Zeus
liked the Cyclops’ because they helped him with lightning bolts and
helped Hephestaus. They were protected by the gods.
On the third day, after Polyphemus ate his fourth visitor, he let the
sheep out to graze. He couldn’t see, but he could feel the tops of the
sheep to make sure none of the hostages escaped by riding the sheep
out of the cave. Odysseus was smart though; he had the men ride
under the sheep (hugging them from underneath). All of the
remaining men escaped.
As Odysseus and his men got back on board their ship, Odysseus threw
a large rock that hit Polyphemus. He screamed in pain, and knew his
prisoners had escaped. As he screamed at the men, Odysseus screamed
back, “And you must know, it was the great Odysseus who did this to
you!” This hubris got him in trouble. Poseidon was furious he hurt
Polyphemus, so he made sure it took Odysseus another ten years to
get home. Everytime Odysseus was close to home, a storm would come
and push him off course, or strong winds pushed him in another
direction.