greek · epic

The Odyssey

c. 725 BCE (oral composition earlier) · Archaic Greek · Greece (Ionian tradition)

Book I — Telemachus and the Goddess

1Tell me, O Muse, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide
2After he had sacked the famous town of Troy.
3Many cities did he visit, and many were the nations
4With whose manners and customs he was acquainted;
5Moreover he suffered much by sea while trying to save his own life
6And bring his men safely home;
7But do what he might he could not save his men,
8For they perished through their own sheer folly
9In eating the cattle of the Sun-god Hyperion;
10So the god prevented them from ever reaching home.
11Tell me, too, about all these things, O daughter of Zeus,
12From whatsoever source you may know them.

Book IX — Odysseus and the Cyclops

13So did we weep and lament till evening,
14And then went to rest upon the shore.
15When the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared,
16I called a council and said:
17"My brave companions, we do not know which way is west
18And which is east, nor where the sun rises.
19Let us think — if we can — what course we ought to take."
20We found a great cavern. It was a cavern full of great round cheeses.
21There were pens full of lambs and kids.
22Everything was in order and all the vessels well made.
23My men implored me to take the cheeses and be gone —
24But I would not hear of it.
25I wanted to see the owner himself and whether he would give me presents.
26The Cyclops came home at dusk, driving his flocks before him.
27He threw down a great burden of wood for his fire
28With a crash that made us fly in terror to the far end of the cave.
29Then he sat down and milked his ewes and goats,
30All in due course, and put the lambs each under its dam.
31He then lit his fire and it flared up, and when the light fell upon us
32He asked: "Strangers, who are you?
33Where do you sail from?
34Are you traders, or do you sail the sea as rovers?"
35And I answered: "We are Achaeans from Troy,
36Bound homeward, but by Zeus's will have gone astray.
37We are the men of Agamemnon, son of Atreus,
38Whose fame is greatest under heaven.
39We therefore humbly pray you to show us some hospitality."
40The Cyclops made no answer, but seized two of my men
41And dashed them down upon the ground as if they had been puppies,
42And began to devour them.
43Then I saw my chance. I drove the stake of olive wood
44Deep into the burning embers to heat it,
45And I bade my men be stout of heart, lest they should be seized with panic.
46When the wood was about to blaze, I drew it out of the fire,
47And my men gathered round me, for a god had put courage into our hearts.
48We held the stake over his eye and drove it in,
49And I leaned on it and turned it round as a man bores a hole with a drill.

Book XI — The Land of the Dead

50Now when I had prayed sufficiently to the dead,
51I cut the throats of the two black sheep and let the blood run into the trench.
52Whereupon the ghosts came up from Erebus —
53Brides and young men who had never yet been wedded,
54Old men worn out with toil, maids who had been crossed in love,
55And brave men who had been killed in battle, with their armour still smirched with blood.
56Then came up the ghost of Elpenor, my companion,
57Who had not yet been buried.
58And then came the ghost of my dead mother Anticlea,
59Whom I had left alive when I set out for Troy.
60I was moved to tears when I saw her,
61But even so, for all my sorrow, I would not let her near the blood
62Till I had asked my questions of Teiresias.
63Teiresias came up bearing his golden staff,
64And he knew me at once. "Odysseus," said he,
65"Noble son of Laertes, why, poor man, have you left the light of day
66And come down to visit the dead in this sad place?
67"Now, however, I will tell you what you most wish to know.
68Neptune is still furious with you for having blinded his son.
69Nevertheless you may still get home if you hold yourself in check,
70And your men too, when you have passed the Island of Thrinacia."

Book XXIII — The Recognition

71Then Penelope said to Odysseus: "Sir, my heart is so astonished
72That I cannot speak. I can neither ask him anything
73Nor look him in the face. If he really is Odysseus,
74We shall get to know each other better,
75For there are tokens between us
76Which we two only know and no one else."
77Odysseus smiled and said to Telemachus:
78"Let your mother put me to the proof;
79She will make up her mind presently.
80She thinks poorly of me now because I am dirty and badly dressed —
81But let her prove me."
82Penelope said: "Make his bed outside the bedroom;
83Move the bedstead out and put bedding on it with fleeces and rugs."
84Odysseus was very angry. "Woman," said he,
85"This is a hard saying. Who has been moving my bed?
86It would be a difficult task even for a skilled workman.
87I made that bed myself. There is a great olive tree growing
88Inside the room, and I built my chamber round it."
89When Penelope heard the signs that Odysseus now gave,
90She fairly broke down. She flew weeping to his side,
91Flung her arms about his neck, and kissed him.
92"Do not be angry with me, Odysseus," she cried.
93"You have always been the most understanding of men."

notes

The Odyssey (Greek: Ὀδύσσεια) is the companion epic to the Iliad, attributed to Homer and composed slightly later (c. 725 BCE). Its 12,109 lines in 24 books follow Odysseus (Latin: Ulysses) through ten years of wandering after the fall of Troy — encounters with the Cyclops Polyphemus, the witch Circe, the Sirens, Scylla and Charybdis, and the land of the dead — as his wife Penelope and son Telemachus await him in Ithaca against the suitors who have taken over his household. The Odyssey has two narrative lines: Odysseus's sea journey and Telemachus's coming of age. Where the Iliad is primarily about death and glory, the Odyssey is about homecoming and identity. The poem is remarkable for its narrative sophistication — Odysseus narrates his own adventures to the Phaeacians in a flashback structure — and for its quietly radical portrait of Penelope, whose intelligence matches Odysseus's own. Translation after Samuel Butler (1900). Public domain.

currently held: Manuscript tradition

FateGreek EpicJourneyMortalityHero Epic

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