Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story of that man skilled in all ways of contending, the wanderer, harried for years on end, after he plundered the stronghold on the proud height of Troy. He saw the townlandsand learned the minds of many distant men, and weathered many bitter nights and daysin his deep heart at sea, while he fought only to save his life, to bring his shipmates home.

.

(1: 1-10)

Muses

Calypso

Book 1

Timeline

MountOlympus

Zeus Athena

(1:63-69)

The grey-eyed goddess Athena replied to Zeus: “O Majesty, O Father of us all… my own heart is broken for Odysseus, the master mind of war, so long a castaway upon an island in the running sea

Zeus Athena

“Only the god who laps the land in water, Poseidon, bears the fighter an old grudge since he poked out the eye of Polyphêmos, brawniest of the Kyklopês…”

(1:90-93)

Cyclops

Poseidon

“…let the Wayfinder, Hermês, cross the sea to the island of Og´ygia; let him tell our fixed intent to the nymph with pretty braids, and let the steadfast man depart for home.

(1:109-112)

“I shall visit Ithaka to put more courage in the son, and rouse him(1: 113-115)

Meanwhileback in

Ithaka…

Suitors

Telemachus

“It is easy for these men to like these things…they have an easy life, scot free, eating the livestock of another.”

(1: 196-98)

Never

(1: 240-241)

“But never in this world is Odysseus dead– only detained somewhere on the wide sea…”

(1: 272-274)

“How arrogant they seem, these gluttons, making free here in your house! A sensible man would blush to be among them.”

Then here’s a course for you, if you agree:get a sound craft afloat with twenty oarsand go abroad for news of your lost father—

(1: 325-326)

Then here’s a course for you, if you agree: get a sound craft afloat with twenty oars and go abroad for news of your lost father—

You need not bear this insolence of theirs,you are a child no longer

(1: 342-343)

“You need not bear this insolence of theirs, you are a child no longer.”

Book 2

Summary