Translation borrowed (somewhat loosely) from Samuel Butler via the Perseus project.
Click on pictures for larger versions.
PART I
Chapter 1: After trying for 10 years to get home from the Trojan war, Odysseus is stuck on Calypso’s island. Total bummer. Athena asks Zeus to help.
[The goddess] Athena said [to Zeus], “Father, son of Kronos, King of kings, …[the nymph Calypso] has got hold of poor unhappy Odysseus, and keeps trying…to make him forget his home, so that he is tired of life, and thinks of nothing but how he may once more see the smoke of his own chimneys.”
Chapter 1.5: I want to help, says Zeus. Only he poked out the Cyclops’ eye and pissed off the Cyclops’ father, Poseidon.
And Zeus said, “…How can I forget Odysseus than whom there is no more capable man on earth, nor more liberal in his offerings to the immortal gods that live in heaven? Bear in mind, however, that Poseidon is still furious with Odysseus for having blinded an eye of Polyphemus king of the Cyclopes.”
Chapter 2: Odysseus’ son, Telemachos, is also bummed. All the young men in town figure Odysseus is dead and that his wife, Penelope, ought to marry one of them. They have moved into the house and are eating all the food and they WON’T LEAVE!
[At Odysseus’ house, Athena] found the lordly suitors seated on hides of the oxen which they had killed and eaten…Men-servants and pages were bustling about to wait upon them, some mixing wine with water in the mixing-bowls, … and some cutting up great quantities of meat.
[Odysseus’ son] Telemakhos saw [Athena] long before any one else did. He was sitting moodily among the suitors thinking about his brave father, and how he would send them fleeing out of the house…
Chapter 3: Athena tries to cheer up the little dude (Telemachos).
Telemakhos spoke low to Athena, with his head close to hers that no man might hear… “If these men were to see my father come back to Ithaca they would pray for longer legs rather than a longer purse…â€
Athena answered him, “… [I] assure you that he will not be away much longer; for he is a man of such resource that even though he were in chains of iron he would find some means of getting home again. But tell me, and tell me true, can Odysseus really have such a fine looking young man for a son?â€
Chapter 4: Telemachos tells the suitors to leave in the morning. They say they are staying because Penelope tricked them. She told them she would marry one of them once she finished her weaving.
“[The suitor Antinoos said] “Telemakhos, insolent braggart that you are, how dare you try to throw the blame upon us suitors? We are not the ones who are responsible but your mother is… [these] three years past, and close on four, she has been driving us out of our minds…we could see her working on her great web all day long, but at night she would unpick the stitches again by torchlight.”
Chapter 5: Fed up and outnumbered, Telemachos announces that he is setting sail from Ithaca to try to get word about his father. DON’T marry my mother until I get back.
“Give me, then, a ship and a crew of twenty men to take me hither and thither, and I will go to Sparta and to Pylos to inquire about…my father who has so long been missing”
Chapter 6: The suitors don’t like this idea very much. What if Telemachos comes back with help from his friends to run them out of his house? Athena helps Telemachos get away.
“…she went to the house of Odysseus, and threw the suitors into a deep slumber. She caused their drink to fuddle them, and made them drop their cups from their hands, so that instead of sitting over their wine, they went back into the town to sleep, with their eyes heavy and full of drowsiness”
Chapter 7: On his voyage, Telemachus meets the woman with the face that launched a thousand ships.
…Helen came down from her high-vaulted and perfumed room, looking as lovely as Artemis herself.
Telemachos makes a good impression everywhere he goes. Helen’s husband, Menelaos gives him a magnificent gift, a bowl forged by the god Vulcan (Hephaistos).
“I both can, and will, [give] you the finest and most precious piece of plate in all my house. It is a mixing-bowl by Hephaistos’ own hand, of pure silver, except the rim, which is inlaid with gold.”
Chapter 8: Back in Ithaca, the suitors are furious to learn that Telemachos has escaped them.
“Good heavens, this voyage of Telemakhos is a very serious matter; we had made sure that it would come to nothing, but the young man has got away in spite of us…He will be giving us trouble presently; may Zeus destroy him with violence before he is full grown.”
They set out on a voyage of their own, hoping to stop Telemachos before he can make it back home.
Meantime the suitors went on board and sailed their ways over the sea, intent on murdering Telemakhos. Now there is a rocky islet called Asteris, of no great size, in mid channel between Ithaca and Samos, and there is a harbor on either side of it where a ship can lie. Here then the Achaeans placed themselves in ambush.
Chapter 9
Back on Calypso’s island, the messenger god Hermes arrives to tell her that Zeus has ordered her to release Odysseus and send him on toward his home. She is NOT very happy to receive the news.
Calypso trembled with rage when she heard this, “You gods,” she exclaimed, “ought to be ashamed of yourselves. You are always jealous and hate seeing a goddess take a fancy to a mortal man, and live with him in open matrimony.
Chapter 10: Despite her reservations, Calypso encourages Odysseus to build a raft and provides him with food and clothing for his voyage. Unfortunately, Poseidon catches sight of him and, not having received the memo about Zeus’ decision, he brings a storm down upon the raft.
“…the force of the wind was so great that it broke the mast half way up, and both sail and yard went over into the sea. For a long time Odysseus was under water…but at last he got his head above water and spat out the bitter brine that was running down his face in streams.”
Chapter 11
Storm-tossed Odysseus, near death, floats at sea for two days and two nights, then ultimately swims up a river and finds his way to shore. He debates with himself whether he should sleep near the water, where he might freeze to death, or in the woods, where a wild animal might eat him. He decides for the woods.
“Ulysses…began to make himself a bed to lie on, for there was a great litter of dead leaves lying about—enough to make a covering for two or three men even in hard winter weather. He…laid himself down and heaped the leaves all round him….and Minerva shed a sweet sleep upon his eyes, closed his eyelids, and made him lose all memories of his sorrows.”
Chapter 12
In the morning, he comes across Nausicaa, daughter of the local king, and he pleads with her for help. She tells her maids to make sure that he gets fed.
They did as they were told, and set food before Ulysses, who ate and drank ravenously, for it was long since he had had food of any kind.
PART II
In the house of king Alcinoos, father of Nausicaa, Odysseus tells the story of his adventures over the past ten years with his men on the way home from Troy.
The Cicones
Even after sacking Troy, Odysseus and his men were still in the mood for plunder, so they sailed to the city of Ismarus, home of the Cicon people. The Greeks slaughtered the Cicon men, took the women, and divided up the booty “equally” amongst themselves, because when you pillage it’s important to pillage fairly. After that, Odysseus thought it was a good idea to amscray, but his men wouldn’t listen to him. They hung around eating and drinking until it was too late for a clean getaway.
Meanwhile the Cicons cried out for help to other Cicons who lived inland. These were more in number, and stronger, and they were more skilled in the art of war, for they could fight, either from chariots or on foot as the occasion served…they came as thick as leaves and bloom in summer…so that we were hard pressed. the Cicons got the better of us, and we lost half a dozen men from every ship we had; so we got away with those that were left.
The Lotus Eaters
Next, they were blown to the land of the drugged-out Lotus-eaters.
[The men] went about among the Lotus-eaters, who did them no harm, but gave them to eat of the lotus, which was so delicious that those who ate of it left off caring about home, and did not even want to go back and say what had happened to them, but were for staying and munching lotus with the Lotus-eaters…nevertheless, though they wept bitterly I forced them back to the ships and made them fast under the benches.
The Cyclops
Next, the men sail to the country of the wild, uncivilized Cyclopes. Uncivilized because they neither “plant nor plough,” but instead live on wild barley, wheat, and grapes, as well as goats’ milk and mutton. The part about the giants having one eye in the middle of their foreheads is mentioned only incidentally.
Despite the Cyclopes reputation for lawlessness, Odysseus had the notion that if he introduced himself to them, the big, ugly, wild-barley-eating monster might think he was really cool and give him a present. (Even Odysseus himself admitted later that this was a stupid thing to think.) So, instead of stealing some nice feta and a lamb or two and going back to their ships like sensible pillaging warriors, they decided to hang out and eat cheese in a Cyclops’ cave.
“When [the Cyclops] came, he brought in with him a huge load of dry firewood to light the fire for his supper, and this he flung with such a noise on to the floor of his cave that we hid ourselves for fear at the far end of the cavern. Meanwhile he drove all the ewes inside, as well as the she-goats that he was going to milk…. Then he rolled a huge stone to the mouth of the cave – so huge that two and twenty strong four-wheeled wagons would not be enough to draw it from its place against the doorway.”
Uh oh, trapped.
When the Cyclops spotted the men, Odysseus tried to prevail upon the monster’s sense of hospitality, declaring himself ready to accept “such presents as visitors may reasonably expect.” Their host responded by grabbing two of the men and eating them, bones and all.
Odysseus knew he couldn’t just kill the Cyclops, because then he and his men would be trapped inside the cave. Instead, they did what anybody in this situation would do: Got the Cyclops drunk and blinded him. In the morning they snuck past him out of the cave, evading his groping hands by hiding under the sheep.
Under! Under!
Escape from the land of the Cyclops
Once they were free of the cave, Odysseus and his men ran to their ship and set sail. The Cyclops came out of his cave, raging and calling to his neighbors for help.
Fortunately for the Greeks, Odysseus had told the Cyclops that his name was “Noman.” When the neighbors asked, “Who is hurting you?” the blinded giant called back, “Noman is hurting me.” The neighbors said, “Well, ok, then, everything must be all right,” and went back to whatever they were doing.
Unfortunately for the Greeks, Odysseus ego got the better of him. Instead of getting away anonymously, he felt the urge to tell the Cyclops who he was. The Cyclops, in turn, called on his father, the sea god Poseidon to lay down a nasty and quite effective curse upon the Greeks:
“…He then prayed to the lord Poseidon, stretching out both his hands to the starry heaven: ‘Hear me, Poseidon, earth-enfolder, thou dark-haired god, if indeed I am thy son and thou declarest thyself my father; grant that Odysseus, the sacker of cities, may never reach his home, even the son of Laertes, whose home is in Ithaca; but if it is his fate to see his friends and to reach his well-built house and his native land, late may he come and in evil case, after losing all his comrades, in a ship that is another’s; and may he find woes in his house.’”
Then, for good measure, he threw a huge rock at them. It landed behind them and stirred up a wave that propelled their boat back out to sea.
Aeolus
Fortunately for the Greeks, Odysseus’s next stop was a friendly one, the island of the wind god Aeolus.
Aeolus and his family threw a month-long party for the Greeks, and then Aeolus took Odysseus aside and gave him a bag of wind…not the hottest item on most people’s wishlist, but the perfect gift for a wayfarer trying to navigate home.
“He gave me a wallet, made of the hide of an ox nine years old, which he flayed, and therein he bound the paths of the blustering winds; for the son of Cronos had made him keeper of the winds, both to still and to rouse whatever one he will. And in my hollow ship he bound it fast with a bright cord of silver, that not a breath might escape, were it never so slight.”
In addition, Aeolus set a west wind behind them, which gave the men nine days and nights of smooth sailing. Odysseus stayed awake the whole time, until they came close enough to Ithaca to see their countrymen tending the island’s beacon fires.
“Then upon me came sweet sleep in my weariness, for I had ever kept in hand the sheet of the ship, and had yielded it to none other of my comrades, that we might the sooner come to our native land.”
While Odysseus dozed, however, his sailors, jealous of their leader’s wealth, got curious about the contents of his mysterious bag.
“Much goodly treasure is he carrying with him from the land of Troy from out the spoil, while we, who have accomplished the same journey as he, are returning, bearing with us empty hands. And now Aeolus has given him these gifts, granting them freely of his love. Nay, come, let us quickly see what is here, what store of gold and silver is in the wallet.’”
When they opened the bag however, they let loose a havoc of winds.
“So they spoke, and the evil counsel of my comrades prevailed. They loosed the wallet, and all the winds leapt forth, and swiftly the storm-wind seized them and bore them weeping out to sea away from their native land”
The Laestrogonians
Odysseus and his men went back to Aeolus, who refused to help them this time. With heavy hearts, they sailed on to the city of Lamos, home of the Laestrygonians, monstrous giants who turned out to be no more hospitable than the Cyclops.
“…thousands of sturdy Laestrygonians sprang up from every quarter – ogres, not men. They threw vast rocks at us from the cliffs as though they had been mere stones, and I heard the horrid sound of the ships crunching up against one another, and the death cries of my men, as the Laestrygonians speared them like fishes and took them home to eat them.”
The Greeks made a quick exit and sailed on, once again grieving their companions.
Circe
Next, they came to the island of the “great and cunning goddess” Circe.
Circe’s powers of enchantment were so great that she magically tamed lions and wolves, who prowled outside her house, wagging their tails. Odysseus sent a scouting party to find out more about Circe. She invited the men in. All but one of them went in to her house but, to their sorrow, she made them drink poison and used her magic wand to turn them into pigs.
“They were like pigs—head, hair, and all—and they grunted just as pigs do; but their senses were the same as before, and they remembered everything.”
When Odysseus got the news, he set of to straighten the matter out. The god Hermes met him and gave him a divine herb that would let him resist Circe’s magic potions. When Circe met Odysseus and foundout that she can’t turn him into a pig, she invited him to her bed instead. (Before he joined her there, he made her promise to stop messing around with him and his men.)
The Visit to the Dead
After throwing his men a year-long party, Circe advises Odysseus that if he wants to get home he must first visit the land of the dead and seek the advise of the blind seer Teiresias. Following Circe’s instructions, he sailed into Hades, to the place where the River of Lamentation and the River of Fire come together to form the River of Pain. There, he sacrificed a black ram and a white ewe, whose blood attracted many of the ghosts of the dead:
“Then there gathered from out of Erebus the spirits of those that are dead, brides, and unwedded youths, and toil-worn old men, and tender maidens with hearts yet new to sorrow, [40] and many, too, that had been wounded with bronze-tipped spears, men slain in fight, wearing their blood-stained armour.”
With his sword at his side, Odysseus kept away all of the ghosts, including his own mother, until he got a chance to talk with Teireseis.
The prophet Teireseis gives Odysseus a dire warning: when he and his men get to the island of the cattle of the god Helios, they had better leave the cows alone. Don’t eat the cows. Got that.
“…if thou harmest them, then I foresee ruin for thy ship and thy comrades, and even if thou shalt thyself escape, late shalt thou come home and in evil case, after losing all thy comrades, [115] in a ship that is another’s, and thou shalt find woes in thy house—proud men that devour thy livelihood, wooing thy godlike wife, and offering wooers’ gifts. Yet verily on their violent deeds shalt thou take vengeance when thou comest.”
The Sirens
After visiting the Land of the Dead, Odysseus and his companions went back to Circe, who threw them another party, then sent them on their way once more. Next, they encountered the Sirens, a pair of beautiful women with enchanting voices. Fortunately, Circe had advised him ahead of time of the Siren’s deadly intentions:
“[They] beguile all men whosoever comes to them. Whoso in ignorance draws near to them and hears the Sirens’ voice, he nevermore returns, that his wife and little children may stand at his side rejoicing, but the Sirens beguile him with their clear-toned song, [45] as they sit in a meadow, and about them is a great heap of bones of mouldering men, and round the bones the skin is shrivelling. ”
As Circe had advised him, he had his men stuff their ears with wax. Odysseus himself wanted to hear the Sirens’ song, so he had himself tied to the mast of his ship and ordered his men not to release him, no matter what he said.
As soon as they spotted his ship, the Sirens began singing.
“‘Come hither, as thou farest, renowned Odysseus, great glory of the Achaeans; [185] stay thy ship that thou mayest listen to the voice of us two. For never yet has any man rowed past this isle in his black ship until he has heard the sweet voice from our lips.”
Scylla and Charybdis
Circe had also warned Odysseus that he was going to have to pass between two cliffs, “one of which reaches with its sharp peak to the broad heaven, and a dark cloud surrounds it.” Midway up this towering cliff lived the monster Scylla, “yelping” like a puppy, yet terrible enough that even the gods would be sorry to run into her:
“Verily she has twelve feet, all misshapen, and six necks, exceeding long, and on each one an awful head, and therein three rows of teeth, thick and close, and full of black death.”
The other cliff, however, concealed a monster even more destructive–the vast-jawed, water-sucking, whirlpool-making beast Charybdis: “Thrice a day she belches [the water- forth, and thrice she sucks it down terribly. Mayest thou not be there when she sucks it down, for no one could save thee from ruin…”
The Cattle of the Sun
Although the Greeks contemplated many deep philosophical questions, there is one quandary that they overlooked, one that our own culture, by contrast, has enshrined in song:
Why did the kids put beans in their ears?
Beans in their ears? Beans in their ears?
Why did the kids put beans in their ears?
Because Mom said no!
Perhaps if Odysseus had considered this paradox, he could have saved the remnants of his crew from their terrible final fate.
Or maybe not. When Odysseus first reminded this sailors of Tieresias’s warning against killing and eating the Sun God’s, they seemed ready to comply:
“Then I called my men together and spoke among them: “‘Friends, in our swift ship is meat and drink; let us therefore keep our hands from those kine lest we come to harm, for these are the cows of…a dread god, even of Helios, who oversees all things and overhears all things.’ “So I spoke, and their proud hearts consented. “
The hungrier the men got, though, the more avidly they eyed the forbidden animals.
Finally, the men start killing and eating the cows, and despite the eerie phenomena that ensue (the cattle keep on mooing, even after they’re roasting on the spit), Odysseus’ remaining crew feast for six days.
Predictably, as soon as the men set sail again, the ship gets smashed in a storm, but Odysseus manages to lash together the keel and the mast and float his way straight into Charibdys’ whirlpool. After nine or ten days that literally sucked, he gets spit up on Calypso’s island. Ten years later, she lets him go, Poseidon storm-tosses him up a river, and he finds himself telling his story to King Alcinoos, after which the good king finally delegates a ship to convey the wanderer home.
Part III: The return to Ithaca
Despite their usual penchant for hospitality, Alcinoos’s men dump Odysseus in his sleep onto the Ithacan shore. He wakes up in a fog that has summoned by Athena, just for fun.
Dressed up as a shepherd boy, the goddess tells him of his true location. Athena has a good laugh while he a) runs around in a panic looking for the treasure that Alcinoos has given him and b) tells her a pack of lies about being Orsilochus from Crete, who’s never been to Ithaca before, but has heard of it, etc., until she tells him, affectionately, to cut the crap:
“Bold man, crafty in counsel, insatiate in deceit, not even in thine own land, it seems, wast thou to cease from guile and deceitful tales, which thou lovest from the bottom of thine heart.”
About the rest of the tale, however, full of tearful reunions punctuated by mass slaughters, the less said the better. We can’t bear it.
We’ll just say that Odysseus and Telemachus turn the tables on the suitors who have been eating their family’s lunch.
The fate of the housemaids who consorted with the suitors is equally grim.
There is some local displeasure over Odysseus’s having slaughtered a good portion of the young people on the island…
…but eventually the politics get worked out.
Odysseus and Penelope find themselves curled up in bed, where they tell each other their stories.
She, the fair lady, told of all that she had endured in the halls, looking upon the destructive throng of the wooers….[and] Zeus-born Odysseus recounted all the woes that he had brought on men, and all the toil that in his sorrow he had himself endured, and she was glad to listen, nor did sweet sleep fall upon her eyelids, till he had told all the tale.