The Adventures of Odysseus

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During his journey home, Odysseus faced many obstacles. While on the island of Kikones, his first stop, he was given twelve flasks of wine by Apollo. When he set sail again, Odysseus and his men encountered a fierce storm.

King Alcinous: King Alcinous is the rich and powerful King of Scheria. He helps Odysseus when he hears his story. Odysseus' wanderings, however, were not at an end. He had to battle the relatives of the suitors. Athena proposed a truce and submitted the dispute to the king of the Epirot Islands, who decided that Odysseus should go into exile from Ithaca for ten years, that Telemachus should rule in his stead, and that the relatives should repay the losses that the suitors had caused. Odysseus undertook to placate Poseidon as Teiresias had advised. He marched inland on Epirus to a place where the natives had never seen an oar and mistook the one he carried for a winnowing-bat. There he sacrificed to Poseidon, who forgave him for blinding Polyphemus. Lotus-eaters: The lotus-eaters are people who feed the deadly lotus fruit to their visitors. The fruit is addictive, weakens their minds and makes them not want to leave the island. Book 22: Mnesterophonia ('slaughter of the suitors'; Mnesteres, 'suitors' + phónos, 'slaughter'). [11] The war and his troubles at sea keep Odysseus away from his home, Ithaca, for twenty years. In his absence, his son, Telemachus, has grown into a man, and his wife, Penelope, is besieged by suitors who assume Odysseus is dead. Penelope remains faithful to Odysseus, but the suitors feast at her house all day and live off her supplies. She holds them off by promising to marry after she finishes weaving a shroud for Laertes, Odysseus’s father. Every night she secretly undoes the day’s work, leaving the job perpetually unfinished. One day, near the end of Odysseus’s voyage, the suitors discover Penelope’s ruse and become more dangerously insistent.a b "Margaret Atwood: A personal odyssey and how she rewrote Homer". The Independent. 28 October 2005. Archived from the original on 7 July 2020.

Also, during Odysseus' journey, he encounters many beings that are close to the gods. These encounters are useful in understanding that Odysseus is in a world beyond man and that influences the fact he cannot return home. [29] These beings that are close to the gods include the Phaeacians who lived near the Cyclopes, [32] whose king, Alcinous, is the great-grandson of the king of the giants, Eurymedon, and the grandson of Poseidon. [29] Some of the other characters that Odysseus encounters are the cyclops Polyphemus, the son of Poseidon; Circe, a sorceress who turns men into animals; and the cannibalistic giants, the Laestrygonians. [29] Guest-friendship

1100s-700s BCE

The Odyssey (1997) is a television miniseries directed by Andrei Konchalovsky and starring Armand Assante as Odysseus and Greta Scacchi as Penelope. [89] Clayton, B. 2004. A Penelopean Poetics: Reweaving the Feminine in Homer's Odyssey. Lanham: Lexington Books. Look at a map of Greece and the surrounding islands and sea. Explain that pupils will learn about a famous journey from Troy (believed to have been on the north west coast of Turkey) to Ithaca, a Greek Island. Ask children to locate both on a map and to consider the route Odysseus may have taken. After watching the video Odysseus was warned by Circe to stay away from the Sirens. They are seductive creatures with heads that made them appear to be women. He had his men place wax in their ears so they wouldn’t be drawn in by their singing. And Odysseus was tied to the ship so he could enjoy their singing without falling under their control. Beard, Mary (28 October 2005). "Review: Helen of Troy | Weight | The Penelopiad | Songs on Bronze". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Archived from the original on 26 March 2016.

Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria, first performed in 1640, is an opera by Claudio Monteverdi based on the second half of Homer's Odyssey. [91] Drabble, Margaret, ed. (1995). "Ulysses". The Oxford Companion to English Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p.1023. ISBN 978-0-19-866221-1. Fox, Robin Lane (2008). "Finding Neverland". Travelling Heroes in the Epic Age of Homer. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Odysseus's return voyage begins well - but there is a prophesy that his journey will take 10 years. He sees land and takes a group of 12 with him to find food and fresh water. They are amazed to find that everything seems much larger than they are familiar with - including the sheep. They see a cave and make their way up to it hoping to find the shepherd. They find the cave empty - apart from some of the shepherd's animals and cheeses - so they slaughter a lamb and enjoy a roast meal. But the shepherd is about to return... Odysseus eventually makes it home to Ithaca where he finds Penelope surrounded by greedy men who want to marry her. Disguised as an old beggar, Odysseus wins a contest for Penelope's hand by successfully hitting a near-impossible target with a bow and arrow. Then, with the help of his son Telemachus, he fights and kills all his rivals and reveals his true identity to Penelope.

Pompeian Wall-painting depicting Odysseus (far left) carrying off the Palladion from Troy, with the help of Diomedes (middle) and Eurybates (right) against the resistance of Cassandra (far right), from the National Archaeological Museum of Naples in Italy