Odyssey

Books

• Athena Visits Telemachus

  Odysseus has been gone twenty years. His house is full of men eating his food and courting his wife. Athena arrives disguised and tells his son it is time to act.

  444 lines
• The Assembly at Ithaca

  Telemachus calls an assembly and demands the suitors leave. They refuse. He announces he will sail to find news of his father.

  434 lines
• Telemachus at Pylos

  Telemachus visits old Nestor at Pylos. Nestor tells him what happened to the Greeks after Troy but has no news of Odysseus.

  497 lines
• Telemachus at Sparta

  Menelaus and Helen receive Telemachus at Sparta. Menelaus reveals that Odysseus is alive, trapped on Calypso's island. Back in Ithaca, the suitors plot to ambush Telemachus on his return.

  847 lines
• Calypso's Island

  Zeus orders Calypso to release Odysseus. She offers him immortality; he chooses home. He builds a raft and sails — until Poseidon shatters it.

  493 lines
• Nausicaa

  Odysseus washes ashore on Phaeacia, naked and battered. He meets Nausicaa, the king's daughter, at the river where she is washing clothes.

  331 lines
• The Palace of Alcinous

  Odysseus enters the Phaeacian palace. He begs Queen Arete for passage home without revealing who he is. The king promises a ship.

  347 lines
• The Phaeacian Games

  The Phaeacians hold athletic games. When a young man taunts him, Odysseus throws a discus farther than anyone. The bard Demodocus sings of Troy, and Odysseus weeps.

  586 lines
• The Cyclops

  Odysseus reveals his name and begins his story. He tells of the Lotus-Eaters, then the Cyclops Polyphemus — how he blinded the one-eyed giant and escaped, and how boasting his name earned Poseidon's curse.

  566 lines
• Aeolus and the Laestrygonians

  Aeolus gives Odysseus a bag of winds. His men open it within sight of Ithaca, blowing them back. The Laestrygonians destroy all but one ship.

  573 lines
• The Land of the Dead

  Odysseus sails to the edge of the world and summons the dead. He speaks with Tiresias, his mother, Agamemnon, Achilles, and Ajax. The dead want what the living take for granted.

  640 lines
• Scylla and Charybdis

  Circe warns Odysseus of the Sirens, Scylla, and Charybdis. He plugs his crew's ears with wax and has himself tied to the mast. Passing Scylla, he loses six men.

  453 lines
• Odysseus and Calypso

  Odysseus finishes his tale. The Phaeacians load him with gifts and sail him home. He arrives in Ithaca asleep.

  440 lines
• Odysseus and Eumaeus

  Athena disguises Odysseus as a beggar. He goes to his swineherd Eumaeus, who welcomes him without knowing who he is.

  533 lines
• Telemachus Returns

  Telemachus evades the suitors' ambush and lands safely. Athena sends him to Eumaeus' hut.

  557 lines
• Father and Son

  Odysseus reveals himself to Telemachus. Father and son weep together, then plan the destruction of the suitors.

  480 lines
• The Beggar at the Palace

  Odysseus enters his own house as a beggar. The suitors abuse him. His old dog Argos recognises him, wags his tail, and dies.

  606 lines
• The Beggar and the Suitors

  The real beggar Irus challenges Odysseus to a fight and loses. Penelope appears before the suitors to extract gifts. Odysseus endures their insults.

  428 lines
• Penelope and the Stranger

  Penelope interviews the disguised Odysseus. The old nurse Eurycleia washes his feet and recognises him by a scar. He silences her.

  604 lines
• Portents

  Odysseus lies awake planning the slaughter. Zeus sends a thunderclap as an omen. The suitors feast one last time, not knowing it is their last day.

  394 lines
• The Contest of the Bow

  Penelope sets the contest: whoever can string Odysseus' bow and shoot through twelve axe-heads will marry her. None of the suitors can even bend the bow.

  434 lines
• The Slaughter of the Suitors

  Odysseus strings the bow, shoots through the axes, and turns the weapon on the suitors. The doors are barred. No one escapes.

  501 lines
• Penelope's Test

  Penelope refuses to believe the stranger is her husband until he describes the secret of their marriage bed — the bed he built around a living olive tree. Twenty years of doubt end in a single detail.

  371 lines
• Peace

  Odysseus visits his father Laertes. The families of the dead suitors seek revenge, but Athena intervenes and imposes peace. The poem ends where it began — at home.

  548 lines