In these lines, Odysseus asks the blind bard Demodocus to regale him with his own story-the story of the Trojan War. Sing that for me -true to life as it deserves - and I will tell the world at once how freely the Muse gave you the gods’ own gift of song.” (8.544-558) Epeus built with Athena’s help, the cunning trap that good Odysseus brought one day to the heights of Troy, filled with fighting men who laid the city waste.
you sing the Achaeans’ fate, all they did and suffered, all they soldiered through, as if you were there yourself or heard from one who was. “Odysseus, master of many exploits, praised the singer: I respect you, Demodocus, more than any man alive - surely the Muse has taught you, Zeus’s daughter, or god Apollo himself. The passage begins with an invocation of the muse and a request for the story of "the man of twists and turns." As readers, we learn that we are about to hear the tale of Odysseus-“the man of twists and turns"-who went on a long, difficult journey and attempted (but failed) to bring his comrades home. These opening lines provide a brief synopsis of the plot of the poem. Launch out on his story, Muse, daughter of Zeus, start from where you will -sing for our time too.” (1.1-12) But he could not save them from disaster, hard as he strove - the recklessness of their own ways destroyed them all, the blind fools, they devoured the cattle of the Sun and the Sungod wiped from sight the day of their return. Many cities of men he saw and learned their minds, many pains he suffered, heartsick on the open sea, fighting to save his life and bring his comrades home. But at last she knows it is he and accepts him as her long-lost husband and the king of Ithaca.“Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns driven time and again off course, once he had plundered the hallowed heights of Troy. Penelope still does not believe him and gives him one further test. He then, with the help of Telemachus and two slaves, slays Penelope’s suitors. Recognized at first only by his faithful dog and a nurse, Odysseus proves his identity-with the aid of Athena-by accomplishing Penelope’s test of stringing and shooting with his old bow. He alone survives the ensuing storm and reaches the idyllic island of the nymph Calypso.Īfter almost nine years, Odysseus finally leaves Calypso and at last arrives in Ithaca, where his wife, Penelope, and son, Telemachus, have been struggling to maintain their authority during his prolonged absence. He then encounters the Sirens, Scylla and Charybdis, and the Cattle of the Sun, which his companions, despite warnings, plunder for food. Next he visits the Land of Departed Spirits, where he speaks to the spirit of Agamemnon and learns from the Theban seer Tiresias how he can expiate Poseidon’s wrath. Books VI–XIII describe his wanderings between Troy and Ithaca: he first comes to the land of the Lotus-Eaters and only with difficulty rescues some of his companions from their lōtos-induced lethargy he encounters and blinds Polyphemus the Cyclops, a son of Poseidon, escaping from his cave by clinging to the belly of a ram he loses 11 of his 12 ships to the cannibalistic Laistrygones and reaches the island of the enchantress Circe, where he has to rescue some of his companions whom she had turned into swine.
Odysseus’s wanderings and the recovery of his house and kingdom are the central theme of the Odyssey, an epic in 24 books that also relates how he accomplished the capture of Troy by means of the wooden horse.
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