GRST 209 Lecture 14: homer's odyssey
16 Oct 2018
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homer’s odyssey summary / 1.12.17
GRST209
-consists of 24 books.
-takes place after fall of troy.
•hero odysseus has not yet returned to his native ithaca.
•as a result, he is believed to be dead.
•suitors have swarmed his palace, attempting to court his wife penelope.
-odysseus’ greatest immortal ally athena is sent down in disguise to urge his son telemachus to
search for his father.
-athena urges for release of odysseus from island of the goddess calypso.
•odysseus has been her prisoner / lover for past 8 years
-he sets sail, but is caught in a storm conjured up by poseidon.
-odysseus reaches the phaeacians — their princess, nausicaa, opens the palace as she is
attracted to the warrior.
-at their urging, tells the phaeacians of his adventures
•after trojan war, his men suffered at hands of kikones, tempted to stay on island of
drug-addled lotus eaters.
•next, cyclops polyphemus devours many of his men, but the rest escape him.
•wind god ailos provides them with bag of wind to aid their return home — the crew,
greedily, open the bag and are sent to the home of the giant laistrygonians (which they
barely escape from).
•goddess circe then tricks odysseus’ men, turning them into pigs — they stay on island
for a year, odysseus becoming her lover.
•face the sirens, sea monster scylla, whirlpools of charybdis, going to hades to receive
a prophecy — all of odysseus’ men are killed, leaving him to go to calypso’s island.
-odysseus returns to ithica, disguised as a beggar, where he is reunited with his son — they
devise a plan to overthrow the suitors.
-penelope notices the similarity between the beggar and her husband, proposing a contest —
she will marry the suitor that can string odysseus’ bow and shoot an arrow through a dozen axe
heads.
-bow in hand, odysseus shoots and kills a suitor, revealing his identity. they then proceed to kill
the rest of the suitors. he is reunited with his wife.
-outside of town, he visits his ailing father, laertes — suitors’ relatives attempt to attack them,
but zeus commands athena to create peace between two sides.
