Short Summary: - The Odyssey is about Odysseus journey home after the Trojan War - Odysseus is a Greek and

is the king of Ithaca - Before the start of the poem, him and the other Greeks attacked the city of Troy

- The war lasted for 10 years - After the Greeks defeated the Trojans, Odysseus and his men got in their ships and started their trip home to Ithaca, a rocky little island off the mainland - His wife and son are waiting for him there - On the way they run into many obstacles and all of Odysseus men die - Odysseus survives because he is notoriously intelligent and cunning - He eventually makes it home, but the journey takes him 10 years - The story is broken into 3 parts - The first part doesn't really involve Odysseus, it's more about what's going on in Ithaca with his wife and son while he is gone - In the second part, we learn about what happen in the 8 years he was gone - In the third part Odysseus arrives home

Full Summary: - The poem opens with 2 gods, Zeus and Athena, discussing Odysseus fate - Odysseus is stuck on an island in a house of a nymph named Calypso - Calypso won't let Odysseus leave - Even if he did leave, Poseidon keeps sending him of course when he tries to go home - Poseidon is mad at Odysseus, because Odysseus blinded his son, the cyclops Polyphemus - Athena says if Zeus and all the other gods agree that Odysseus should be allowed to leave, then Poseidon can argue since he is out number - They should send Hermes to Calypso to let him go - And in the mean time, she'll go visit Odysseus's son, Telemachus - Disgusted as a man, Athena goes to Odysseus's home in Ithaca - Telemachus thinks that she is just a stranger at first and invites her in for some food and wine

- He eventually figures out that the stranger is really Athena - He says that he will never see his father and complains about all the other noblemen from surrounding islands who are courting his mother since they all assume Odysseus is dead - His mother, Penelope, doesn't want to marry someone else but also doesn't want to tell her suiters to leave so they all just hang around Odysseus house all day and eat all the food - Athena prophecies that Odysseus will soon return, and she tells him to order all the noblemen to leave in the morning - Then he should get a ship ready and visit King Nestor in Pylso and King Menelaus in Sparta - If he hears from one of them that Odysseus is still alive, he should wait another year for Odysseus to return - But if he learns that Odysseus is dead, he should make a grave for him and give his mother to one of the suiters - Telemachus calls a meeting as Athena suggested - He gets up and say that not only has he lost his father, but all these suiters are eating his family's food and drinking all the wine - One of the suiters, Antinous says that Telemachus has no right to be upset and this is all Penelope's fault - She has been leading the suiters on for almost four years, saying she'll marry one of them as soon as she finishes weaving a burial shroud for Odysseus father, Laertes - She weaves the shroud each day, but at night she unravels her work and the suiters found out - Telemachus says he'll never force his mother to chose a husband and leave their house - He announces about his plans to find out about Odysseus in Sparta and Pylso - Athena helps him get a ship and crew together, she disguise herself as an old friend of Odysseus, named Mentor - When they arrive at Pylso, they meet King Nestor who fought with Odysseus in Troy - Nestor says he hasn't seen or heard from Odysseus since after they left Troy - He agrees to help Telemachus get to Sparta to talk to Menelaus - Telemachus takes a chariot and goes with Nestors son, Peisistratus, to Sparta - In Sparta a big wedding feast is going on when they arrive and they join Menelaus for some food and wine - As they talk Menelaus wife, Helen, recognizes Telemachus as Odysseus' son - She tells the story of how in the Trojan war Odysseus dressed up as a beggar and snuck into Troy to get information to take back to the Greeks - She orders the servants to set up beds for Telemachus and Peisistratus - The next morning, Menelaus tells Telemachus that the last news he heard about Odysseus was that he got stranded on a small island off of the coast of Egypt - When he left Troy he didn't make the proper sacrifices to the gods so they punished him by sending him to the little island called Pharos

- He and his men were running out of food when Menelaus meet a god named Eidothea, the daughter of Proteus - She told him if he could pin and hold Proteus, Proteus would answer any question he had - Menelaus and his men were able to sneak up on Proteus and jumped on him - Proteus transformed into a snake and many other things to get out of Menelaus hold - Eidothea warned he would do this and Menelaus kept a tight squeeze until he tired out - The first question Menelaus asked was what happened to his Greek comrades - Proteus told him of some of the Greeks including Odysseus, he had a vision of him on an island, crying in the house of the nymph Calypso - And Calypso was keeping him there by force and he had no means to get away - Meanwhile, two of the suitors, Alkinous and Eurymachus come up with a plot to kill Telemachus when he returns - They decide to wait with a ship and ambush him - But Medon the Herald over hears the plan 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 he'll have to suffer more along the way - Zeus sends Hermes the news - Calypso finds Odysseus by the shore and crying - He hardly believes at first that eh is 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 (?!) - Odysseus builds a ship and heads out from Calypso's island - He sails smoothly for 18 days - But when he is in sight of the island Phaeacia, Poseidon sees him - Poseidon is still angry with Odysseus for blinding his son, Polyphemus, so he creates a storm - Odysseus boat is smashed into pieces and he is adrift for 3 days before he finally makes it to Phaeacia - Odysseus passes out on a groove by the beach - Eventually he is awaken by young women playing near by - He is completely naked because he had to get rid of his clothes to swim better - As he comes out of the bushes, he meets the daughter of King Alkinous, Nausicaa - Nausicaa and her maids feed and cloth him and invites him to her fathers palace - Odysseus makes his way to the palace where he finds King Alkinous and Queen Arete - They invite him to join them - He tells about his ship wreck killed all his crew and left him stranded on the island of Ogygia by Calypso for 8 years - Alkinous promises that the next day one of his ships will take Odysseus home - Before sending him off, the Phaeacians have a day of games and feasting where the men compete in different sports - Odysseus wins discus

- Over the course of the day the blind man sings songs - One song was about the Trojan war - They built a giant wooden horse and inside was all their best warriors including Odysseus - The main Greek force sailed off like they were leaving and when the Trojans took the horse into their city, the Greeks broke out and slaughtered them - Odysseus cries during the song - Alkinous asks him to tell his story - At this point no one knows that he is the real Odysseus from the story - Odysseus starts telling the tale - After the Greeks defeat the Trojans, Odysseus and his men set off in 12 ships for home - The first thing that happen is the wind blows their ships to the city of Ismarus - They sack the city for anything valuable - They sail south and when they reach Cape Malea, the winds blows them off course again and they end up in the land of the Lotus Eaters - Odysseus sends 3 men to get information about the people - When the Lotus Eaters give them the Lotus Fruit to try, they lose all interest in going home - Odysseus has to drag them back to the ship

- They reach the land of the cyclopses and Odysseus takes some men and strong line a goes exploring - They find the home of one of the cyclopses - The cyclops isn't there so they look around and eat his cheese lol - After a while the men want to leave but Odysseus wants to stick around to see what he looks like and find out if he'll offer them gifts - The cyclops comes back with his sheep and goats

- When he lights his fire he sees Odysseus and his men hiding - The cyclops has already put a bolder in front of the cave trapping them - Odysseus tells him who they are and that he should follow customs and feed them and give them gifts - But he grabs two of his mean and tears them apart and eats him - After that he stretches out and goes to sleep - Odysseus thinks of killing him by stabbing him in the liver but they still would never be able to move the bolder from the front of the cave, so he needs to think of another plan - In the morning the cyclops kills and eats two more men then takes his flock out and puts the bolder back in front of the exit - Odysseus sees the cyclops giant club and gets an idea - He cuts out a piece and sharpens it, creating a spear and carding it in the fire (fuk logic there totes can be fire in a sealed off cave) - They hide the spear - The cyclops comes back and eats two more men - Odysseus pours some of the strong wine he has and the cyclops likes it so much he wants to give him a gift, but first he wants to know Odysseus' name - Odysseus says his family and friends call him nobody and the cyclops says his gift to nobody is to be eaten last - After drinking 3 bowls of wine, he passes out drunk - When the cyclops is asleep, they jam the spear into his eye - Cyclops screams over and over drawing the other cyclops to see what's wrong - They call out his name, Polyphemus - They ask if someone is killing him - Polyphemus says nobody is killing him and they assume he is fine and leave - The men tie themselves to the underside of sheep so when Polyphemus checks the sheep in the morning he wont notice them - They get to their ships and Odysseus shouts out to Polyphemus that if anyone asks him who blinded him, tell them it was Odysseus of Ithaca - Polyphemus prays to his father, the god Poseidon, that Odysseus of Ithaca lose all his man and find only pain at home - Poseidon hears him and thats how his grudge against Odysseus started - After some more mishaps, including a run in with giants and more of Odysseus men are killed - They arrive on an island called Aeaea - They split up into two platoons and search - A little while later, the leader of the second one, Eurymachus, comes running back to the ships and tell Odysseus they have found the palace of a woman named Circe who let them all in and none of the men came back out - He thinks they should leave immediately - But Odysseus says he is going to go find the men - What they don't know at this point is that Circe turned all the men into pigs - As Odysseus hikes to Circe palace, he meets Hermes in the woods

- Hermes tells Odysseus what happened to the men and offers Odysseus a magic drug that will keep him from turning into a pig - He says when Circe tries to turn him into a pig, he should run at her a if he was going to kill her - She'll try to get him into bed with her, but before Odysseus goes to bed with her, he has to make he swear an oath that she won't do anything more to harm him - Odysseus does everything that Hermes instructed - Circe turns all the men back to normal and tells Odysseus to bring the men back to her palace - They end up staying for a year, lounging around and getting fat until the men finally tell Odysseus its time to go home - Circe says before he can go home, Odysseus has to visit the underworld to see the ghost of the blind prophet, Teiresias - Teiresias can tell Odysseus how to return home - So Odysseus and his men set out and they arrive to the house of death - He does everything Circe said - He kills two sheep and when he pours their blood into the trench, thousands of ghost appear around him trying to drink the blood - Odysseus speaks to the ghost of one of the men who sailed to Troy with Odysseus, he died as Circe's house once he fell off the roof and broke his neck and his body was never buried - He asks Odysseus to burn his body in full armor - Teiresias comes forward and tells him that they will land on an island called Thrinacia, where they will find cattle - These belong to Helios. god of the sun, and if one is killed all of Odysseus will be killed and his ship destroyed on the journey to Ithaca - He also tells him Poseidon is angry he blinded his son - He tells Odysseus how to appeases him - If he does all that, he will die a painless death at an old age - Odysseus speaks to more ghost and heads back to the ships - They pass Sirens that cause them to shipwreck themselves on the shore - Odysseus order the men to plug their eyes with wax so they can't hear them - Odysseus want's to hear it for himself so he has men tie him to the mast of his ship - They reach the next danger, Scylla and Charybdis who has 6 heads - They steer clear of the whirlpool making them closer to Scylla and Charybdis cave - Scylla and Charybdis eats some of them alive - They sail past and reach Thrinacia, the island of the sun gods cattle - They end up getting stuck there for a month because of the winds blowing in the wrong direction - They run out of food, Odysseus goes to pray to the gods for help and when he comes back he finds the men roasting cows - Helios finds out and asks Zeus to punish the mortals

- When Odysseus ship can finally sail, Zeus makes a powerful storm - The ships are torn apart - Odysseus survives by a piece of the mast and floats for several days - Before washing up on Calypso island, where his story began - Odysseus finishes his story - King Alkinous orders his men to prepare a ship to take Odysseus home - The following evening they set out - He goes to sleep and when he wakes up he is finally home

- The sailors unload Odysseus and he wakes up alone on the shore - At first he doesn't recognize Ithaca and worries he's been tricked again - Athena appears again in the form of a young shepherd boy and tells Odysseus where he is - He get emotional now that he is finally home but hides it - He doesn't recognize that this is Athena so he makes a an elaborate story about how he killed someone and now he is a fugitive - Athena reveals her true form and tells him she helped him get home and now she is going to help him with his next task, killing the suitors - She transforms Odysseus so no one will recognize him and tell him to find one of his servants, Eumaios the swine herder while she goes to Sparta to call Telemachus home and warn him of the ambush the suitors have planned - Odysseus goes to Eumaios hut - Eumaios doesn't recognize him, and the more they talk the more he keeps saying how much he misses his master - Odysseus doesn't reveal his identity and makes up an elaborate lie - Meanwhile, Athena goes to Sparta to find Telemachus and tell him to go back to Ithaca at once - She warns him of the ambush of his ship the suitors are planning and how to get around it - When he arrives home, he should go right to Eumaios hut and spend the night there - When Telemachus reached Ithaca, he goes sees Eumaios and Odysseus is still there disguised - He tells Eumaios to let his mother that he is alright - When he leave, Athena removes the disguise - Telemachus doesn't know who he is at first since he was a baby when Odysseus left for Troy 20 years ago - At first he doesn't believe that it is really Odysseus but he convinces him - They have a happy tearful reunion - Telemachus tells him about the suitors, there are 108 of them plus servants - Father and son plot their revenge - That night the suitors gather in Odysseus palace for dinner

- They say Telemachus earlier and they realized he made it past the ambush - Now Telemachus is there, Odysseus in disguise, and Eumaios - Odysseus goes around begging for scraps - He gets into an argument with Antinous who throws a chair at him - Odysseus gets into a few more confrontations before the night is over - Once the suitors have gone home for the night, Odysseus tells Telemachus to lock up the weapons and armor which they leave at Odysseus palace - That way, when he takes his revenge, they'll be defenseless - Penelope comes down to speak to the stranger and hopes he has news of Odysseus - He makes up a story about meeting Odysseus and that he know Odysseus is on his way home - The next day, the suitors gather in Odysseus palace for another feast - While they are eating and drinking Penelope says she is finally going to chose a man to marry - She has a contest, each suitor must string Odysseus' bow and shot an arrow through 12 lined up axes - The man who can do this will become her husband - A few of the suitors try but none succeed - Odysseus asks for a turn, the suitors say no at first but then give in - Odysseus does it perfectly - Odysseus then shots Antinous in the trachea - He reveals to the suitors who he really is - Shit hits the wall - Odysseus kills each one by one - He tells Telemachus, Eumaios and Philoetius a nice cowherd, to run to the store room and get armor and weapons - The men return but one of the suitors sneaks out and gets equipment for the suitors - A huge battler ensues and Odysseus, Telemachus, Eumaios and Philoetius fight to kill all the suitors - When they are all dead, Odysseus has Eurycleia round up the disloyal servant women who were sleeping with the suitors - He makes them clean the bloody hall, then marches them outside to kill them - Eurycleia tells Penelope that Odysseus has returned - Penelope goes downstairs to the great hall to find Odysseus - She doesn't believe it's him at first - I mean it has been 20 years since he last saw him - She test him, she ask Eurycleia to bring the bed out of the bedroom to them - Odysseus immediately says its impossible to move the bed since he carved it out of a large olive tree that grew out of the floor and he built the walls of the bedroom around it - Penelope is convinced - Odysseus says he has to go out once more to make a sacrifice to Poseidon to gain forgiveness for blinding Polyphemus - And once that's done, there will be peace

- They go to bed - The next morning Odysseus goes sees his father, Laertes - He doesn't recognize him at first, he makes up (another) story saying is man of strive, from roamer town - But eventually he reveals who he is and him and his father hug and cry - They go inside to feast with Telemachus and the herdsmen and some close friends of Laertes - The families of the suitors found out about the slaughter and they form a mob to get revenge - They show up to Laertes farm and threaten all of them - Athena shows up in the form of Mentor, and Laertes spears the leader of the mob through the head - All hell is about to break loose but Athena stops them and says to live in peace - The families leave - Odysseus feels at peace at last