Odyssey by Homer
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The Odyssey is the hexameter epic, attributed to Homer, of Odysseus' return to Ithaca ten years after the fall of Troy. Its date is not known: it belongs to the archaic period, probably the late eighth or the seventh century BCE, and comes out of a long tradition of oral song. It survives complete in medieval manuscripts and in many papyri, and is read here in the twenty-four books of the ancient division, one part to each.
The story is not told in order. Books I to IV follow Telemachus, who leaves an Ithaca overrun by his mother Penelope's suitors to seek news of his father from Nestor at Pylos and Menelaus at Sparta. Books V to VIII bring Odysseus from Calypso's island to the Phaeacians of Scheria, and in Books IX to XII he tells them his own wanderings: the Cyclops, Aeolus, the Laestrygonians, Circe, the visit to the dead, the Sirens, Scylla and Charybdis, and the cattle of the Sun. From Book XIII he is on Ithaca, disguised as a beggar: he stays with the swineherd Eumaeus, makes himself known to Telemachus, strings the bow and kills the suitors. Penelope's test of the bed, the meeting with Laertes and the peace that Athena imposes close the poem.
Contents
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Αʹ Book I
The poem opens with an invocation of the Muse and a council of the gods, where Zeus reflects on Aegisthus and Athena pleads for Odysseus, held by Calypso. Disguised as the stranger Mentes, Athena visits Ithaca and urges Telemachus to seek news of his father. The suitors feast while Phemius sings the Achaeans' return; Telemachus rebukes his mother and the suitors, and Eurycleia lights him to bed.
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Βʹ Book II
Telemachus summons the first Ithacan assembly since his father sailed and denounces the suitors. Antinous blames Penelope, recounting her ruse of the unfinished shroud; Halitherses reads an omen of two eagles, and Mentor reproaches the silent townsmen. Athena, taking Telemachus' own likeness, gathers a crew and borrows a ship from Noemon, then as Mentor leads him aboard; Eurycleia readies provisions, and he sails secretly by night.
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Γʹ Book III
At Pylos, Telemachus and the disguised Athena find Nestor sacrificing black bulls to Poseidon on the shore. Nestor tells of the quarrel after Troy's fall, the scattered homecomings, and how Orestes avenged Agamemnon on Aegisthus, though he has no word of Odysseus. Athena departs in the form of a bird, and Nestor's son Peisistratus drives Telemachus by chariot through Pherae towards Sparta.
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Δʹ Book IV
Telemachus reaches Sparta during Menelaus' double wedding feast. Helen recognises him, eases grief with a drug in the wine, and tells of Odysseus spying in Troy; Menelaus adds the wooden horse and the long tale of his capture of Proteus in Egypt, who revealed Agamemnon's murder and Odysseus' captivity with Calypso. On Ithaca the suitors set an ambush at Asteris, and Athena sends Penelope a comforting dream.
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Εʹ Book V
Odysseus enters the story in person. After a second council of the gods, Hermes carries Zeus' order to Calypso, who releases Odysseus from Ogygia; he builds a raft and puts to sea. Poseidon wrecks it in a storm, Ino gives him her veil, and he swims ashore on Scheria, burying himself in leaves beneath two olive bushes to sleep.
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Ϛʹ Book VI
Athena appears in a dream to Nausicaa, daughter of the Phaeacian king Alcinous, and sends her to wash clothes at the river mouth. Her maids' ball game wakes Odysseus, who emerges naked from the thicket and supplicates her with careful speech. Nausicaa gives him food and clothing, directs him to her father's city, and leaves him in Athena's grove, petitioning the goddess.
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Ζʹ Book VII
Guided by Athena in the guise of a young girl, Odysseus walks unseen through the Phaeacian city to the bronze-walled palace and orchards of Alcinous. He kneels before Queen Arete; Alcinous receives him as a suppliant and promises him passage home. Arete recognises the clothes Nausicaa gave him, and Odysseus tells of his years with Calypso and his shipwreck before he is put to bed in the portico.
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Ηʹ Book VIII
At the Phaeacian games, taunted by Euryalus, Odysseus outthrows the young men with the discus. The blind singer Demodocus performs three songs: a quarrel between Odysseus and Achilles, the adultery of Ares and Aphrodite caught in Hephaestus' net, and the wooden horse. Odysseus weeps at the last, and Alcinous asks who he is.
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Θʹ Book IX
Odysseus names himself to the Phaeacians and begins the story of his wanderings. He tells of the raid on the Cicones, the land of the Lotus-eaters, and the cave of the Cyclops Polyphemus, who eats his companions until Odysseus makes him drunk, blinds him, and escapes beneath his rams. Revealing his true name as he sails off, he draws the Cyclops' curse and Poseidon's anger.
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Ιʹ Book X
Continuing his tale, Odysseus tells how Aeolus gave him the winds in a bag, which his crew opened within sight of Ithaca. The Laestrygonians destroy every ship but his own. On Aeaea Circe turns his men into swine; armed with Hermes' herb, he resists her drugs, frees them and stays a year. Circe sends them to consult Teiresias in the house of Hades, and as they leave Elpenor falls from her roof to his death.
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ΙΑʹ Book XI
At the edge of Ocean Odysseus pours blood for the shades of the dead: Elpenor asks for burial, Teiresias prophesies his return and later wanderings, and his mother Anticleia tells of home. He sees a procession of heroines, and after a pause in the tale for Arete and Alcinous he meets Agamemnon, Achilles and the silent Ajax, then Minos, Tantalus, Sisyphus and Heracles, before fear drives him back to his ship.
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ΙΒʹ Book XII
Odysseus ends his story to the Phaeacians. Back on Aeaea he buries Elpenor and receives Circe's warnings, then sails past the Sirens bound to the mast, loses six men to Scylla and skirts Charybdis. On Thrinacia his starving crew slaughter the cattle of the Sun, and Zeus destroys the ship; Odysseus alone drifts back past Charybdis to Calypso's island.
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ΙΓʹ Book XIII
The Phaeacians load Odysseus with gifts and carry him home asleep, setting him down on Ithaca; Poseidon turns their returning ship to stone. Waking, Odysseus does not know his own island. Athena, disguised as a young shepherd, hears his invented Cretan story, reveals herself, hides his treasure in the cave of the nymphs, and changes him into an old beggar before leaving for Sparta.
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ΙΔʹ Book XIV
Disguised as a beggar, Odysseus comes to the farmstead of the swineherd Eumaeus, who saves him from the dogs, feeds him and speaks of his absent master and the suitors' plunder. Odysseus answers with a long false tale of a Cretan's raid on Egypt, a Phoenician who meant to sell him, and his escape from Thesprotian sailors. On the cold night he wins a cloak with a story of Troy, and Eumaeus goes out to guard the herd.
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ΙΕʹ Book XV
Athena urges Telemachus to leave Sparta; Menelaus and Helen send him off with gifts, and Helen interprets an eagle carrying off a goose as Odysseus' revenge. At Pylos he takes aboard the fugitive seer Theoclymenus. Meanwhile Eumaeus tells the disguised Odysseus how he, a king's son, was stolen as a child by a Phoenician nurse and sold to Laertes. Telemachus lands safely and makes for the swineherd's hut.
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ΙϚʹ Book XVI
The recognition of father and son. Telemachus arrives at Eumaeus' hut, and while the swineherd carries news to Penelope, Athena restores Odysseus' true appearance and he makes himself known. Together they plan the suitors' destruction as Telemachus counts their numbers. In the palace the ambushers return, Antinous proposes killing Telemachus, and Penelope confronts him before Odysseus is made old again.
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ΙΖʹ Book XVII
Telemachus returns to the palace and tells Penelope of his journey, while Theoclymenus prophesies that Odysseus is already on Ithaca. Led by Eumaeus, the disguised Odysseus is kicked by the goatherd Melanthius on the road and recognised at the gate by his old dog Argos, who dies. He begs among the suitors, and Antinous strikes him with a footstool; Penelope asks to question the stranger.
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ΙΗʹ Book XVIII
Arnaeus, a town beggar called Irus, challenges Odysseus at the door, and the suitors stage a fight in which Odysseus lays him out with a single blow. Odysseus warns Amphinomus of coming bloodshed in vain. Penelope, made more beautiful by Athena, rebukes Telemachus and draws gifts from the suitors; the maid Melantho and Eurymachus insult the beggar before Amphinomus sends the company home.
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ΙΘʹ Book XIX
Odysseus and Telemachus clear the weapons from the hall. At night Penelope questions the beggar, who claims to be a Cretan who once entertained Odysseus and describes his clothes and brooch. As the old nurse Eurycleia washes his feet she recognises the scar from a boar hunt on Parnassus, whose story is told in full. Penelope recounts a dream of geese and an eagle and resolves to set the contest of the bow.
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Κʹ Book XX
On the eve of the slaughter Odysseus lies awake, angered by the maids who go to the suitors, until Athena calms him; Penelope petitions Artemis for death. At dawn Zeus sends thunder and a grinding woman's curse as omens. The cowherd Philoetius greets the beggar kindly, Ctesippus hurls an ox-hoof at him, and Theoclymenus sees a vision of the suitors' doom, at which they laugh.
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ΚΑʹ Book XXI
Penelope brings Odysseus' great bow from the storeroom and offers herself to whoever can string it and shoot through twelve axes. Telemachus nearly succeeds; the suitors fail in turn. Outside, Odysseus reveals himself to Eumaeus and Philoetius by his scar. Over the suitors' protests the beggar takes the bow, strings it with ease and sends an arrow through the axes as Telemachus arms beside him.
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ΚΒʹ Book XXII
Odysseus' first arrow pierces Antinous' throat as the killing of the suitors begins, and Eurymachus' offer of recompense is refused. With Telemachus, Eumaeus and Philoetius he fights the suitors in the hall; Melanthius fetches them arms and is caught, and Athena, in Mentor's likeness, turns their spears aside. The singer Phemius and the herald Medon are spared, the disloyal maids are hanged, and the house is purified with sulphur.
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ΚΓʹ Book XXIII
Eurycleia wakes Penelope with news of the slaughter, but Penelope remains wary of the stranger. She tests him by ordering their bed moved, and his angry account of the bedpost carved from a living olive proves his identity. After their reunion Odysseus tells her of Teiresias' prophecy and his wanderings while Athena holds back the dawn; in the morning he leaves with his son and herdsmen for Laertes' farm.
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ΚΔʹ Book XXIV
Hermes leads the suitors' shades down to Hades, where Amphimedon tells Agamemnon and Achilles of their deaths, and Agamemnon praises Penelope's fidelity. On the farm Odysseus tests his grieving father Laertes with a false story, then reveals himself by his scar and the trees of the orchard. The suitors' kinsmen, led by Eupeithes, march against them; Laertes kills Eupeithes, and Athena, in Mentor's likeness, imposes peace.