The Odyssey is about Odysseus’s journey home after the
Trojan War, Odysseus is a Greek, he’s the king of Ithaca and before the start
of the poem, he and the other Greeks laid siege to the city of Troy located in
what’s now northwestern Turkey, the war lasted for ten years, after the Greeks
defeated the Trojans, Odysseus and his men got back in their ships, and started
their trip home to Ithaca, a rocky little island off the Greek mainland where
Odysseus his wife and son are waiting for him, along the way they run into
several dangerous obstacles in all of Odysseus’s men die, Odysseus survives
because of his intelligence and cunning the qualities, he’s renowned for and he
eventually makes it home, but the journey takes in ten years.
The story breaks roughly into three parts the first
part doesn’t really even involve Odysseus, it’s more about what’s going on in
Ithaca with his wife and son, while he’s gone in the second part we learned
what happened to Odysseus in the eight years, since he left Troy and in the
final part , we finally see Odysseus return home the poem opens with two gods
Zeus and Athena discussing Odysseus is fate, Odysseus is stuck on an island in
the middle of the sea in the house of a nymph named Calypso, Calypso won’t let
Odysseus leave, but even if he could leave the god Poseidon keeps sending
Odysseus off-course as he tries to make it home, Poseidon is mad at Odysseus
because Odysseus blinded his son, the Cyclops Polyphemus Athena says of Zeus
and all the other gods agree, Odysseus should be allowed to leave then Poseidon
can’t really argue since he’s outnumbered, they should dispatch Hermes to tell
Calypso to let Odysseus go.
And in the meantime she’ll go visit Odysseus’s
son Telemachus disguised as a man Athena goes to Odysseus’s home in Ithaca,
Telemachus thinks she’s just a stranger at first and invites her in for some
food and wine, though he figures out after a little while that the stranger is
really Athena he laments that he’ll never see his father a,nd complains about
all the nobles from nearby islands who are courting his mother since everyone
assumes Odysseus is dead, his mother Penelope doesn’t want to marry someone
else, but she doesn’t want to tell her suitors to leave either so they just
hang around Odysseus his house all day and eat all the food, Athena prophesies
that Odysseus will soon return, and she counsels Telemachus to round up all the
suitors in the morning in order them to leave, then he should get a ship ready
and visit King Nestor and Pylos in King Menelaus and Sparta if he hears from
one of them that Odysseus is alive , he should wait another year for Odysseus
to return but if he learns Odysseus is dead he should make a grave for him ,and
give his mother to one of the suitors.
Telemachus calls an assembly like Athena suggested he
gets up and says that not only has he lost his father, but now these suitors
are eating all his family’s food and drinking all the wine one of the suitors
,Antonis says Telemachus has no right to be upset it’s Penelope Hughes to blame
she’s been leading the suitors on for almost four years saying she’ll choose
one to marry as soon as she finishes weaving a burial shroud for Odysseus’s
father Laertes she weaves the shroud each day, but at night she unravels her
work and the suitors found out Telemachus says he’ll never force his mother to
choose a husband and leave their house, he announces his plans to see what news
he can find of Odysseus and Sparta and Pylos Athena helps him get a ship, and
crew together and she disguises herself as an old friend of Odysseus’s named
mentor.
When they arrive at Pylos, they meet king nestor who
fought at troy with Odysseus nestor says he hasn’t seen or heard from Odysseus
since just after they left, troy he agrees to help Telemachus get to sparta to
talk to Menelaus, Telemachus takes a chariot and goes with Nestor son pissah
Stratos to Sparta in Sparta a big wedding feast is under way as they arrive
and, they join Menelaus for some food and wine as they talk Menelaus his wife,
Helen recognizes Telemachus as Odysseus’s son, she tells the story of how
during the Trojan War, Odysseus dressed up as a beggar and snuck into Troy to
gather information to take back to the Greeks, she orders the servants to
prepare beds for Telemachus, and pissah Stratos the next morning, Menelaus
tells Telemachus that the last news he heard of Odysseus he got while stranded
on a small island off the coast of Egypt, when he left Troy he didn’t make the
appropriate sacrifices to the gods, so the gods marooned him on a little island
called Pharaohs, he and his men were running out of food when Menelaus met a
goddess named Yoda theá– the daughter of Proteus you told him if he could pin
and hold Proteus ,Proteus would answer any question he had with Theodosius help
Menelaus, and his men snuck up on Proteus as soon as he fell asleep, Menelaus
jumped on him, Proteus transformed into different things to get out of Menelaus
as hold, but you know Thea warned he would do this and Menelaus kept him in a
tight squeeze until he tired out.
The first question Menelaus asked is what happened to
his Greek comrades, and Proteus told him about a few of the Greeks including
Odysseus he saw a vision of Odysseus on an island crying in the house of the
nymph Calypso, Calypso was keeping him there by force and he didn’t have any
ship or any means of getting away that was the last minute Laius heard of
Odysseus, meanwhile two of the suitors Antonis and yuri mcus come up with a
plot to kill Telemachus when he returns they decide to wait with the ship and
ambush him, but meet on the herald overhears the scheme and tells Penelope she
prays to Athena to save Telemachus and Athena hears her Zeus and Athena
compromise and agree that Odysseus can go home, but that he’ll have to suffer
more along the way, Zeus sent Hermes to give Calypso the news, Calypso finds
Odysseus sitting by the shore and crying, he hardly believes at first that he’s
being allowed to leave, and he makes Calypso promise it’s not some scheme to
harm him, she swears an oath, and they go back to Calypso’s cave where they
make love.