ICARUS ATLAS · PRESENTS
THE ODYSSEY
Ὀδύσσεια
Twenty years. A man sailing home by the stars; a house holding its breath. This is the story of a return — told station by station, in the poem's own words.
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MOVEMENT I
THE SON
OD. 1–4
Od. 1.1
Tell Me, Muse
ἄνδρα μοι ἔννεπε, μοῦσα, πολύτροπον, ὃς μάλα πολλὰπλάγχθη, ἐπεὶ Τροίης ἱερὸν πτολίεθρον ἔπερσεν·πολλῶν δʼ ἀνθρώπων ἴδεν ἄστεα καὶ νόον ἔγνω,πολλὰ δʼ ὅ γʼ ἐν πόντῳ πάθεν ἄλγεα ὃν κατὰ θυμόν,ἀρνύμενος ἥν τε ψυχὴν καὶ νόστον ἑταίρων.Tell me, O Muse, of the man of many devices, who wandered full many ways after he had sacked the sacred citadel of Troy. Many were the men whose cities he saw and whose mind he learned, aye, and many the woes he suffered in his heart upon the sea, seeking to win his own life and the return of his comrades.
TWO JOURNEYS, ONE HOUSE
Homer's poem runs on two threads: Telemachus grows from boy to man while suitors devour Ithaca, and Odysseus — detained on Calypso, then carried to Scheria — tells the Phaeacians the tale of ten years' wandering before he reaches home in beggar's rags. The nested episodes follow the son's voyage to Pylos and Sparta, the father's road from Troy to Ogygia, and the final reckoning in the hall.
Homer — Hom. Od. 1–4, 5–8, 13–24
Head of Odysseus (Sperlonga group)
Rhodian sculptors (Hagesandros, Athanadoros and Polydoros, attrib.), 1st century AD, after a Hellenistic original
Od. 1–2
A House Eaten Alive
ἔνθα καὶ ἠματίη μὲν ὑφαίνεσκεν μέγαν ἱστόν,
νύκτας δʼ ἀλλύεσκεν, ἐπεὶ δαΐδας παραθεῖτο.Then day by day she would weave at the great web, but by night would unravel it, when she had let place torches by her.
THE WOOERS IN THE HALL
When the gods in council remembered Odysseus detained on Ogygia, Athena descended to Ithaca disguised as Mentes. In the palace of the absent king, the suitors of Penelope — chiefly Antinous and Eurymachus — feasted on his oxen and sheep, threw the knucklebones, and listened to the minstrel Phemius sing of the Achaeans' return from Troy. Telemachus, sitting apart, welcomed the stranger; Athena urged him to call an assembly and voyage abroad for news of his father.
Homer — Hom. Od. 1.1–444
PENELOPE'S WEB
Penelope had promised the suitors she would choose a husband when she finished weaving a shroud for Laertes — and for three years she undid by night what she wove by day, until a handmaid betrayed the trick. The wooers redoubled their pressure; Medon the herald warned her that they plotted Telemachus' murder at sea. Apollodorus catalogues the princes from Dulichium, Same, Zacynthus, and Ithaca itself who consumed the royal substance in the king's absence.
Homer · Pseudo-Apollodorus — Hom. Od. 2.93–110; Apollod. Epit. 7.27–7.31
THE ASSEMBLY AND THE VOYAGE
Telemachus called the first assembly in years and demanded ships to seek Odysseus. The suitors mocked him; only the seer Halitherses and Mentor — Athena again — spoke for the prince. By night Telemachus loaded a ship with twenty comrades, including the fugitive Theoclymenus, and put out secretly while the wooers slept, plotting ambush at the straits between Ithaca and Samos.
Homer — Hom. Od. 2.1–434
Penelope Unraveling Her Web
Joseph Wright of Derby, 1783–1784
Od. 3–4
In Other Men's Halls
δάκρυ δʼ ἀπὸ βλεφάρων χαμάδις βάλε πατρὸς ἀκούσας,
χλαῖναν πορφυρέην ἄντʼ ὀφθαλμοῖιν ἀνασχὼν
ἀμφοτέρῃσιν χερσί.Tears from his eyelids he let fall upon the ground, when he heard his father's name, and with both hands held up his purple cloak before his eyes.
NESTOR AT PYLOS
At sandy Pylos Telemachus found Nestor sacrificing on the shore to Poseidon with his sons. The old king could tell him nothing certain of Odysseus after Troy — only that Menelaus had wandered longest — but he recalled the bitter Returns as only the one safe captain could; the nested episode on Nestor at Pylos tells that nostos. He sent Peisistratus with the boy in a chariot to Sparta, while Athena in Mentor's shape sailed the Ithacan ship home to guard the prince's property.
Homer — Hom. Od. 3.1–487
MENELAUS AND PROTEUS
In Sparta Menelaus and Helen received Telemachus at a double wedding feast. Helen recognized the youth by his likeness to Odysseus, drugged the wine with a heart-easing drug, and traded Troy tales until the boy wept. Menelaus told how in Egypt he had bound Proteus the Old Man of the Sea, who revealed that Odysseus lived but was held by Calypso — the nested episode on Menelaus in Egypt tells the eight-year detour, Sunium, Pharos, the phantom Helen, and the binding in full.
Homer — Hom. Od. 4.1–356
MOVEMENT II
THE TALE
OD. 5–12
Od. 5
The Island at the World's End
πότνα θεά, μή μοι τόδε χώεο· οἶδα καὶ αὐτὸςπάντα μάλʼ, οὕνεκα σεῖο περίφρων Πηνελόπειαεἶδος ἀκιδνοτέρη μέγεθός τʼ εἰσάντα ἰδέσθαι·ἡ μὲν γὰρ βροτός ἐστι, σὺ δʼ ἀθάνατος καὶ ἀγήρως.ἀλλὰ καὶ ὣς ἐθέλω καὶ ἐέλδομαι ἤματα πάνταοἴκαδέ τʼ ἐλθέμεναι καὶ νόστιμον ἦμαρ ἰδέσθαι.Mighty goddess, be not wroth with me for this. I know full well of myself that wise Penelope is meaner to look upon than thou in comeliness and in stature, for she is a mortal, while thou art immortal and ageless. But even so I wish and long day by day to reach my home, and to see the day of my return.
RELEASE FROM OGYGIA
For seven years Calypso had kept Odysseus in her hollow caves, promising immortality if he would stay. Hermes came from Zeus with the order that the wanderer must go free; the goddess helped him build a raft with tools and a sail, and sent a following wind — though Poseidon, returning from Ethiopia, wrecked the timbers and cast him up clinging to the keel before the whirlpool of Charybdis.
Homer · Pseudo-Apollodorus — Hom. Od. 5.1–5.381; Apollod. Epit. 7.23
Odysseus and Calypso
Arnold Böcklin, 1883
Od. 6–8
The Kind Strangers
εἴμʼ Ὀδυσεὺς Λαερτιάδης, ὃς πᾶσι δόλοισιν
ἀνθρώποισι μέλω, καί μευ κλέος οὐρανὸν ἵκει.I am Odysseus, son of Laertes, who am known among men for all manner of wiles, and my fame reaches unto heaven.
NAUSICAA
Athena sent Nausicaa, daughter of Alcinous, to wash linen at the river mouth; there the princess found the naked castaway, gave him clothing, and brought him toward the city — but not into the street, lest gossip stain her name. At her father's house Odysseus entered as a suppliant, clasped Arete's knees, and was welcomed to the feast.
Homer — Hom. Od. 6.1–7.77
DEMODOCUS AND THE GAMES
The blind bard Demodocus sang of Troy until Odysseus wept unseen beneath his cloak. On the next day the Phaeacians proved their fame in boxing, wrestling, leaping, and discus — and Odysseus, provoked by the young Euryalus, hurled a disc beyond all marks and declared his name still unknown. That evening he asked for passage home.
Homer — Hom. Od. 8.1–8.586
THE TALE OF WANDERINGS
At Alcinous' command Odysseus recounted his whole story from Troy to the cattle of the Sun — the nested episodes of Lotus, Cyclops, Aeolus, Circe, Hades, Sirens, and shipwreck — while the Phaeacians listened in silence. When he finished, they loaded gifts of bronze and gold and set him in a ship that needed no steersman, swift as thought, to bear him sleeping to Ithaca.
Homer — Hom. Od. 9.1–13.23
Nausicaa
Frederic Leighton, c. 1878
From here the voice changes: shipwrecked at the Phaeacian court, Odysseus tells the wanderings himself — a survivor narrating his own past. (Od. 9–12)
Od. 9.82–104 · HE TELLS IT
The Lotus and Forgetting
τῶν δʼ ὅς τις λωτοῖο φάγοι μελιηδέα καρπόν,
οὐκέτʼ ἀπαγγεῖλαι πάλιν ἤθελεν οὐδὲ νέεσθαι,
ἀλλʼ αὐτοῦ βούλοντο μετʼ ἀνδράσι Λωτοφάγοισι
λωτὸν ἐρεπτόμενοι μενέμεν νόστου τε λαθέσθαι.And whosoever of them ate of the honey-sweet fruit of the lotus, had no longer any wish to bring back word or to return, but there they were fain to abide among the Lotus-eaters, feeding on the lotus, and forgetful of their homeward way.
THE LOTUS-EATERS
From Troy Odysseus sailed with twelve ships to the land of the Lotus-eaters, who lived on the flower's fruit. Three scouts ate and forgot all desire to return; Odysseus dragged them weeping back to the ships and drove the rest away from the shore lest others taste forgetfulness.
Homer — Hom. Od. 9.82–104
Od. 9.105–566 · HE TELLS IT
Nobody
Οὖτις ἐμοί γʼ ὄνομα· Οὖτιν δέ με κικλήσκουσι
μήτηρ ἠδὲ πατὴρ ἠδʼ ἄλλοι πάντες ἑταῖροι.Noman is my name, Noman do they call me—my mother and my father, and all my comrades as well.
THE LAWLESS SHEPHERDS
On the next island — some say the land of the Cyclopes — Odysseus entered a vast cave stocked with cheese and lambs, the lair of Polyphemus son of Poseidon. Homer describes the Cyclopes as lawless shepherds who trust in the gods but plant nothing, build no ships, and live each in his own hill-cave apart from neighbours.
Homer · Pseudo-Apollodorus — Hom. Od. 9.105–115; Apollod. Epit. 7.4
NOBODY'S WINE
Polyphemus sealed the entrance with a mountain stone and devoured two companions at each meal. Odysseus gave him strong wine — the same Maronean vintage he had received at Ismarus — and told the giant his name was Nobody. When Polyphemus slept drunk, the Greeks heated a stake in the fire and drove it into the one eye; the blinded Cyclops cried to his kin that Nobody was killing him, and they did not come.
Homer · Hyginus — Hom. Od. 9.345–435; Hyg. Fab. 125
BENEATH THE RAM
At dawn Polyphemus felt the backs of his sheep as they went out but did not think to touch their bellies, where Odysseus and his men clung beneath the rams. Once aboard ship, Odysseus could not resist shouting his true name — and the Cyclops prayed to Poseidon that the man of many wiles might never reach home, or come alone, late, and in a stranger's ship, with all his comrades lost.
Homer · Pseudo-Apollodorus — Hom. Od. 9.474–542; Apollod. Epit. 7.7
Odysseus and his men blinding Polyphemus (Eleusis Amphora, detail)
Polyphemus Painter (proto-Attic), c. 660 BC
Ulysses Deriding Polyphemus
J. M. W. Turner, 1829
Od. 10.1–79 · HE TELLS IT
The Bag of Winds
ἐννῆμαρ μὲν ὁμῶς πλέομεν νύκτας τε καὶ ἦμαρ,
τῇ δεκάτῃ δʼ ἤδη ἀνεφαίνετο πατρὶς ἄρουρα,
καὶ δὴ πυρπολέοντας ἐλεύσσομεν ἐγγὺς ἐόντες·For nine days we sailed, night and day alike, and now on the tenth our native land came in sight, and lo, we were so near that we saw men tending the beacon fires.
THE KEEPER OF THE WINDS
On the floating isle of Aeolus Hippotades, whom the gods made steward of the winds, Odysseus was entertained a month. The king bound all the storm-blasts in an ox-hide bag and set the west wind free to drive the fleet toward Ithaca — until, within sight of home, Odysseus' comrades opened the bag thinking it held gold, and the released winds hurled them back to Aeolus, who refused them aid a second time.
Homer · Pseudo-Apollodorus — Hom. Od. 10.1–88; Apollod. Epit. 7.10–11
Od. 10.80–132 · HE TELLS IT
Harbors of the Giants
ἀσπασίως δʼ ἐς πόντον ἐπηρεφέας φύγε πέτρας
νηῦς ἐμή· αὐτὰρ αἱ ἄλλαι ἀολλέες αὐτόθʼ ὄλοντο.and joyfully seaward, away from the beetling cliffs, my ship sped on; but all those other ships were lost together there.
THE LAESTRYGONIAN HARBOUR
At Telepylus in the land of the Laestrygonians a friendly maiden led Odysseus' scout to the king's house — but the queen was a giantess, and the king speared the Ithacan and devoured him. From the cliffs the Laestrygonians destroyed eleven ships with boulders; only Odysseus' vessel, moored outside the harbour, escaped.
Homer · Pseudo-Apollodorus — Hom. Od. 10.81–132; Apollod. Epit. 7.12
The Laestrygonians Hurl Rocks at the Fleet (Odyssey Landscapes)
Roman fresco painter, Esquiline, c. 50–40 BC
Od. 10.133–574 · HE TELLS IT
The Witch and the Year
δαιμόνιʼ, ἤδη νῦν μιμνήσκεο πατρίδος αἴης,
εἴ τοι θέσφατόν ἐστι σαωθῆναι καὶ ἱκέσθαι
οἶκον ἐς ὑψόροφον καὶ σὴν ἐς πατρίδα γαῖαν.Strange man, bethink thee now at last of thy native land, if it is fated for thee to be saved, and to reach thy high-roofed house and thy native land.
CIRCE'S SWINE
On Aeaea the witch Circe, daughter of Helios, mixed a potion and struck Odysseus' scouting party with her wand until they had the heads and voices of swine. Eurylochus alone fled back to the ship. Odysseus went to rescue them, armed with the herb moly Hermes gave him on the way — white-flowered, black-rooted, hard for mortal men to dig.
Homer · Pseudo-Apollodorus — Hom. Od. 10.133–274; Apollod. Epit. 7.14–15
THE OATH ON AEAEA
Immune to the drug, Odysseus drew his sword until Circe swore a great oath not to harm him. She restored his men, feasted them, and lay with the hero — Apollodorus says she bore Telegonus in this year. When the company wished to sail, Circe told them they must first descend to the house of Hades and consult Tiresias; Elpenor fell drunk from the roof and was left unburied when they departed for Oceanus.
Homer · Pseudo-Apollodorus — Hom. Od. 10.475–574; Apollod. Epit. 7.16–17
Circe Offering the Cup to Ulysses
John William Waterhouse, 1891
Od. 11 · HE TELLS IT
The House of the Dead
τρὶς μὲν ἐφωρμήθην, ἑλέειν τέ με θυμὸς ἀνώγει,τρὶς δέ μοι ἐκ χειρῶν σκιῇ εἴκελον ἢ καὶ ὀνείρῳἔπτατʼ. ἐμοὶ δʼ ἄχος ὀξὺ γενέσκετο κηρόθι μᾶλλον,Thrice I sprang towards her, and my heart bade me clasp her, and thrice she flitted from my arms like a shadow or a dream, and pain grew ever sharper at my heart.
ELPENOR'S SHADE
Elpenor had fallen drunk from Circe's roof and was left unburied when the company sailed. His shade came first among the dead, begging Odysseus to return to Aeaea, burn his body with his armour, and heap the mound with a pillar and oar — so he might not be nameless among the shades.
Homer — Hom. Od. 11.51–96
TIRESIAS
The seer Tiresias alone kept understanding among the dead. He told Odysseus that Poseidon's wrath would not end until he reached a land so far from the sea that men would take the oar on his shoulder for a winnowing-fan — and he warned sternly against the cattle of the Sun on Thrinacia, foretelling shipwreck and a lonely homecoming if the herds were touched.
Homer — Hom. Od. 11.90–151
ANTICLEIA
Odysseus held back his own mother Anticleia until Tiresias had spoken. When he let her drink of the blood, she told him she had died not of sickness nor of gentle Artemis' shafts, but of longing for him and of grief for his name — and that Penelope still waited in the halls, though the suitors consumed his substance.
Homer — Hom. Od. 11.152–224
THE HEROINES
Persephone sent up the shades of famous women — Tyro, Antiope, Alcmene, Megara, Epicaste mother of Oedipus, Chloris, Leda, Iphimedeia, and others — and Odysseus questioned each in turn until Anticleia withdrew and he saw yet more heroes approaching the pit.
Homer — Hom. Od. 11.225–332
AGAMEMNON'S WARNING
Agamemnon's shade came with those who died at Troy. He told how Clytemnestra and Aegisthus had slain him in the bath, how Cassandra died with him — then warned Odysseus that no death is so cruel as when a wife plots against the husband who trusted her. Yet he asked after Penelope and praised her faithfulness, unlike his own wife.
Homer — Hom. Od. 11.385–434
ACHILLES AND AJAX
Achilles came with Patroclus, Antilochus, and Ajax — and Odysseus told the greatest of the Achaeans how his son Neoptolemus had borne himself at Troy. Achilles answered that he would rather be a slave on earth than king of all the dead. Alone of all the shades, Ajax son of Telamon stood apart, still wrathful for the victory of Odysseus in the contest for Achilles' arms, and would not speak though Odysseus pleaded.
Homer — Hom. Od. 11.465–564
MINOS AND HERACLES
Odysseus saw Minos son of Zeus holding a golden sceptre, judging the dead; and the phantom of Heracles — his own self in the underworld, for the god on Olympus is another — with the bow and sword belt, driving the dead before him as though they were cattle. Then the host of shades clamoured, and Odysseus fled in terror back to the ship.
Homer — Hom. Od. 11.568–640
Odysseus and the shade of Tiresias (Attic red-figure pelike, detail)
Apulian Painter, c. 330 BC
Tiresias Appears to Ulysses During the Sacrifice
Henry Fuseli, c. 1780–1785
Od. 12.158–200 · HE TELLS IT
The Song That Knows Everything
ἴδμεν γάρ τοι πάνθʼ ὅσʼ ἐνὶ Τροίῃ εὐρείῃἈργεῖοι Τρῶές τε θεῶν ἰότητι μόγησαν,ἴδμεν δʼ, ὅσσα γένηται ἐπὶ χθονὶ πουλυβοτείρῃ.For we know all the toils that in wide Troy the Argives and Trojans endured through the will of the gods, and we know all things that come to pass upon the fruitful earth.
CIRCE'S COUNSEL
Returning from Hades, Odysseus buried Elpenor on Aeaea with his armour and oar-mound. Circe warned him of the perils ahead: the Sirens who enchant all who hear them; the twin cliffs where Scylla seizes men from the ship and Charybdis sucks the sea; and Thrinacia, where Helios pastured his immortal cattle and sheep — touch them, she said, and the company would perish.
Homer — Hom. Od. 12.1–141
THE SIRENS' SONG
Odysseus stopped his comrades' ears with wax and had them lash him naked to the mast so he alone could hear the Sirens promise knowledge of all things — yet live to tell of it. They sang; he begged to be loosed; the crew bound him tighter until the ship was past the enchanted isle and the voices faded.
Homer — Hom. Od. 12.158–200
Odysseus and the Sirens (the "Siren Vase")
The Siren Painter, c. 480–470 BC
Ulysses and the Sirens
John William Waterhouse, 1891
Ulysses and the Sirens
Herbert James Draper, 1909
Od. 12.201–259 · HE TELLS IT
Six Men
οἴκτιστον δὴ κεῖνο ἐμοῖς ἴδον ὀφθαλμοῖσι
πάντων, ὅσσʼ ἐμόγησα πόρους ἁλὸς ἐξερεείνων.Most piteous did mine eyes behold that thing of all that I bore while I explored the paths of the sea.
SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS
Between the whirlpool and the cliff Odysseus rowed nearer Scylla than to Charybdis, though Circe had forbidden fighting the monster — for she could not be slain. Scylla's six heads snatched six companions from the benches; Odysseus saw their arms reach upward as they were lifted to her cave, and could not save them.
Homer · Pseudo-Apollodorus — Hom. Od. 12.201–259; Apollod. Epit. 7.19
Odysseus Between Scylla and Charybdis
Henry Fuseli, 1794–1796
Od. 12.260–450 · HE TELLS IT
The Cattle of the Sun
πάντες μὲν στυγεροὶ θάνατοι δειλοῖσι βροτοῖσι,
λιμῷ δʼ οἴκτιστον θανέειν καὶ πότμον ἐπισπεῖν.All forms of death are hateful to wretched mortals, but to die of hunger, and so meet one's doom, is the most pitiful.
THE CATTLE OF THE SUN
Contrary winds detained the ship on Thrinacia. Odysseus made his men swear not to touch Helios' herds; but while he slept, hunger and Eurylochus' counsel drove them to slaughter the sacred cattle. The Sun demanded vengeance of Zeus; when the ship put out, a thunderbolt shattered the timbers and every companion drowned.
Homer · Pseudo-Apollodorus · Hyginus — Hom. Od. 12.260–425; Apollod. Epit. 7.20–22; Hyg. Fab. 125
ALONE TO OGYGIA
Odysseus clung to the keel and mast until Calypso's isle received him — the last survivor of twelve ships, fulfilling in part Polyphemus' curse. For seven years the bright goddess kept him in her caves, offering immortality if he would stay and forget rocky Ithaca.
Homer · Pseudo-Apollodorus — Hom. Od. 12.426–450; Apollod. Epit. 7.23
MOVEMENT III
THE HOMECOMING
OD. 13–24
Od. 13
Asleep, He Arrives
ὁ δʼ ἔγρετο δῖος Ὀδυσσεὺς
εὕδων ἐν γαίῃ πατρωΐῃ, οὐδέ μιν ἔγνω,
ἤδη δὴν ἀπεών· περὶ γὰρ θεὸς ἠέρα χεῦεbut Odysseus awoke out of his sleep in his native land. Yet he knew it not after his long absence, for about him the goddess had shed a mist.
AWAKE ON ITHACA
Odysseus woke on his own shore and did not know the land until Athena told him where he was. She hid the Phaeacian treasure in caves and disguised him as an aged beggar, wrinkled and foul, so he might learn who in the palace remained loyal before he struck at the suitors.
Homer — Hom. Od. 13.1–13.439
Od. 14–18
The Beggar in His Own House
Ἄργον δʼ αὖ κατὰ μοῖρʼ ἔλαβεν μέλανος θανάτοιο,αὐτίκʼ ἰδόντʼ Ὀδυσῆα ἐεικοστῷ ἐνιαυτῷ.But as for Argos, the fate of black death seized him straightway when he had seen Odysseus in the twentieth year.
EUMAEUS THE SWINEHERD
Odysseus came first to the loyal swineherd Eumaeus, who received the ragged stranger with honest hospitality though he did not know his lord. Over meat and wine they spoke of the absent king; the swineherd grieved for a master he believed lost, while Odysseus spun a Cretan tale of false lineage and hinted that the king would soon return.
Homer — Hom. Od. 14.1–14.533
FATHER AND SON
Telemachus returned from Sparta, evading the suitors' ambush with Athena's help, and came to Eumaeus' hut. Athena lifted Odysseus' disguise long enough for father and son to recognize each other; they wept and laid their plan — the beggar would enter the hall while Telemachus hid the weapons and tested the wooers.
Homer — Hom. Od. 16.1–16.491
THE BEGGAR IN THE HALL
Odysseus entered his palace and begged from suitor to suitor. Antinous hurled a stool and struck him; Eurymachus mocked; yet Amphinomus alone spoke kindly and gave him wine — Penelope had noticed this suitor's good manners, though Homer never makes her his lover. The beggar prophesied ruin for the wooers; they laughed and went on feasting.
Homer — Hom. Od. 17.1–17.606
Odysseus Recognized by His Dog Argus
Theodoor van Thulden, after Primaticcio, 1633
Od. 19
The Scar
τὴν γρηῢς χείρεσσι καταπρηνέσσι λαβοῦσα
γνῶ ῥʼ ἐπιμασσαμένη, πόδα δὲ προέηκε φέρεσθαι·
ἐν δὲ λέβητι πέσε κνήμη, κανάχησε δὲ χαλκός,
ἂψ δʼ ἑτέρωσʼ ἐκλίθη· τὸ δʼ ἐπὶ χθονὸς ἐξέχυθʼ ὕδωρ.This scar the old dame, when she had taken the limb in the flat of her hands, knew by the touch, and she let fall the foot. Into the basin the leg fell, and the brazen vessel rang. Over it tilted, and the water was spilled upon the ground.
IRUS AND THE FOOT-WASHING
The Ithacan beggar Irus challenged the stranger to a boxing match for the right to beg at the hall; Odysseus shattered his jaw with one blow. When Eurycleia came to wash the guest's feet, she knew him by the scar from the boar-hunt on Parnassus — a wound he had received hunting with Autolycus — and nearly cried out, but Athena stayed her tongue.
Homer — Hom. Od. 18.1–18.435; 19.388–475
PENELOPE'S DREAM
Penelope summoned the beggar and told him her dream of the eagle that slew her twenty geese — which the stranger interpreted as Odysseus' return and the suitors' death. She set the test of the bow for the morrow, declaring she would marry whichever man could string it and shoot through twelve axes.
Homer — Hom. Od. 19.1–19.604
Od. 21–22
The Bow and the Blood
ὡς ὅτʼ ἀνὴρ φόρμιγγος ἐπιστάμενος καὶ ἀοιδῆς
ῥηϊδίως ἐτάνυσσε νέῳ περὶ κόλλοπι χορδήν,
ἅψας ἀμφοτέρωθεν ἐϋστρεφὲς ἔντερον οἰός,
ὣς ἄρʼ ἄτερ σπουδῆς τάνυσεν μέγα τόξον Ὀδυσσεύς.
δεξιτερῇ ἄρα χειρὶ λαβὼν πειρήσατο νευρῆς·
ἡ δʼ ὑπὸ καλὸν ἄεισε, χελιδόνι εἰκέλη αὐδήν.even as when a man well-skilled in the lyre and in song easily stretches the string about a new peg, making fast at either end the twisted sheep-gut—so without effort did Odysseus string the great bow. And he held it in his right hand, and tried the string, which sang sweetly beneath his touch, like to a swallow in tone.
THE BOW OF IPHITUS
Penelope brought down the great bow Odysseus had received from Iphitus son of Eurytus when the two met in Messene — a weapon only its owner could bend with ease. The suitors tried one by one and failed; the beggar asked for a turn and was mocked until Telemachus sent Penelope to her chamber and ordered the hall cleared for the trial.
Homer — Hom. Od. 21.1–21.358
THE ARROW THROUGH THE AXES
Odysseus examined the bow, strung it as easily as a bard strings a lyre, and shot an arrow through all twelve axe-rings without touching the ground. He revealed himself to the suitors, took a second arrow, and struck Antinous in the throat as the chief wooer lifted a cup — the slaughter had begun.
Homer — Hom. Od. 21.359–22.88
THE MNESTEROPHONIA
Telemachus, Eumaeus, and Philoetius barred the doors; Athena in Mentor's shape stood by the rafters. Odysseus and his three allies cut down the suitors with bow and spears — Eurymachus, Amphimedon, Agelaus, and the rest — while the minstrel Phemius begged for mercy and Medon the herald was spared for warning Penelope. Leiodes the soothsayer clasped Odysseus' knees in vain.
Homer — Hom. Od. 22.89–22.329
MELANTHIUS AND THE MAIDS
Melanthius the goatherd, son of Dolius, brought armour from the storeroom to arm the suitors until Odysseus and his men strung him up alive in the rafters. The faithless handmaids who had bedded with the wooers were made to carry out the corpses, then hanged in the courtyard. Eurycleia roused the loyal women with the cry that Odysseus had returned.
Homer · Pseudo-Apollodorus — Hom. Od. 22.330–22.494; Apollod. Epit. 7.33
Ulysses' Revenge on Penelope's Suitors
Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg, 1814
Od. 23–24
The Tree That Is a Bed
θάμνος ἔφυ τανύφυλλος ἐλαίης ἕρκεος ἐντός,
ἀκμηνὸς θαλέθων· πάχετος δʼ ἦν ἠΰτε κίων.
τῷ δʼ ἐγὼ ἀμφιβαλὼν θάλαμον δέμον, ὄφρʼ ἐτέλεσσα,
πυκνῇσιν λιθάδεσσι, καὶ εὖ καθύπερθεν ἔρεψα,
κολλητὰς δʼ ἐπέθηκα θύρας, πυκινῶς ἀραρυίας.A bush of long-leafed olive was growing within the court, strong and vigorous, and girth it was like a pillar. Round about this I built my chamber, till I had finished it, with close-set stones, and I roofed it over well, and added to it jointed doors, close-fitting.
THE SECRET OF THE BED
Penelope came down from her chamber and sat opposite the stranger, still disbelieving. She ordered the bed moved outside for him to sleep on — but Odysseus protested: no man could move their bed, for he had built it around a living olive trunk, the root still in the ground. At that proof she knew her husband and wept in his arms.
Homer — Hom. Od. 23.171–204
REUNION AT LAST
Odysseus told her all his wanderings while Athena held back the dawn. Agamemnon's shade in the underworld had praised Penelope's prudent heart beside Clytemnestra's treachery — and Homer closes the reunion with husband and wife at last in the bed no other man could claim.
Homer — Hom. Od. 11.444–446; 23.205–348
SHADES OF THE SUITORS
In the underworld the suitors' ghosts gathered gibbering, and Hermes the Helper led them down the dank ways — past the streams of Oceanus, past the rock Leucas, past the gates of the sun and the land of dreams, until they came quickly to the mead of asphodel where the spirits dwell. There Amphimedon told Agamemnon's shade how Odysseus had slain them all in the hall.
Homer — Hom. Od. 24.1–99
LAERTES IN THE ORCHARD
Odysseus went to his aged father Laertes in the orchard, proved himself by the scar and by memories only they shared, and stood with Telemachus and the loyal servants when the kin of the slain suitors marched against the house armed with spears.
Homer — Hom. Od. 24.192–330
ATHENA STAYS THE FEUD
Battle was joined between the families of the wooers and Odysseus' party until Athena in Mentor's shape commanded peace. Zeus sent a thunderbolt; the combatants dropped their arms and swore oaths — the Homeric ending leaves Odysseus king on Ithaca, feud ended, house restored.
Homer — Hom. Od. 24.330–548
The Return of Odysseus
Pinturicchio, 1508–1509
Penelope and the Suitors
John William Waterhouse, 1912
Od. 11.119–137 · Telegony
The Oar and the Sea
θάνατος δέ τοι ἐξ ἁλὸς αὐτῷἀβληχρὸς μάλα τοῖος ἐλεύσεται, ὅς κέ σε πέφνῃγήραι ὕπο λιπαρῷ ἀρημένον· ἀμφὶ δὲ λαοὶὄλβιοι ἔσσονται.And death shall come to thee thyself far from the sea, a death so gentle, that shall lay thee low when thou art overcome with sleek old age, and thy people shall dwell in prosperity around thee.
THE SON ON AEAEA
When Odysseus had taken an oath from Circe that he should suffer no harm, he shared her bed on Aeaea and she bore him Telegonus. The boy grew on the witch's isle while his father wandered ten years more and won back rocky Ithaca.
Pseudo-Apollodorus — Apollod. Epit. 7.16
THE STING-RAY SPEAR⚖
Learning from Circe that he was Odysseus' son, Telegonus sailed in search of his father. Hyginus adds that a storm drove him to Ithaca, where hunger made him lay waste the fields. Odysseus and Telemachus — not knowing who he was — took up arms against the stranger until Telegonus wounded the king with the spear in his hands, barbed with the spine of a sting-ray, and Odysseus died of the wound.
Pseudo-Apollodorus · Hyginus — Apollod. Epit. 7.36; Hyg. Fab. 127
PENELOPE AND THE BLEST ISLES⚖
When Telegonus recognized whom he had killed, he bitterly lamented, conveyed the corpse and Penelope to Circe, and there married Penelope. Circe sent them both away to the Islands of the Blest — an ending flatly opposed to Homer's faithful reunion, yet attested in the Epic Cycle's last book.
Pseudo-Apollodorus · Hyginus — Apollod. Epit. 7.37; Hyg. Fab. 127