Classical Literature (Pelican Books)

by Richard Jenkyns

The Odyssey is set ten years after the Trojan War. Odysseus has not returned home: the goddess Calypso has imprisoned him on a remote island, while his palace on his own island of Ithaca is occupied by local nobles, suitors for the hand of his wife Penelope. He has also incurred the enmity of Poseidon, god of the sea, for blinding his son, the cannibal giant Polyphemus. Zeus decrees that Calypso must let Odysseus go. Telemachus, Odysseus’ son, leaves Ithaca in search of his father. Odysseus is shipwrecked, but makes landfall on the land of the Phaeacians, where he is found by the princess Nausicaa. In her parents’ palace he tells his adventures, and how in stages he lost all his ships and companions. The adventures mostly involve monsters, like Polyphemus, but also the goddess Circe, with whom he had a dalliance, and an encounter with the spirits of the dead. Back in Ithaca, he is sheltered by the swineherd Eumaeus. Disguised as a beggar, Odysseus enters the palace and with his bow kills all the suitors. A coda ties up some loose ends.