![]() ![]() And while the story does not end there, our maps of it do. After the gods help him escape Calypso and he tells his story at the banquet, the Phaeacians take Odysseus back to Ithaca. ![]() Only Odysseus survives, floating to Calypso’s island, where he remains trapped for the next seven years. Odysseus tells his men not to eat the cattle they come across, but they do not listen and are punished by Zeus. From there they navigate a narrow strait between rocky Scylla and the whirlpool Charybdis, arriving at the land of Helios. ![]() Heeding Circe’s warning that they should avoid listening to the Sirens, Odysseus has his men, returned to human form, block their ears with wax and tie him to the mast of the ship, so that he might hear the strange sounds of the Sirens but remain unable to succumb to their magic. He speaks to Achilles, Agammemnon, Ajax, and eventually Tiresias, who tells him how to return to Ithaca. Unfortunately, Tiresias is dead, so Odysseus must gain entry to the Underworld, which he finds in the land of the Cimmerians. Odysseus, protected by Hermes, stays a year with Circe, who finally tells him to seek out the prophet Tiresias. Only Odysseus’ ship escapes and travels to Aeaea, where the goddess Circe turns his crew to swine. They row for seven days until they reach Lamos, where the Laestrygonians kill and eat most of Odysseus’ men. After leaving Aeolia they nearly reach Ithaca, only to be blown off course once again when Odysseus’ men open the bag. From there they go to Aeolia, a floating island, where King Aeolus gifts Odysseus the bag of winds. They travel to the Island of the Cyclopes, where Odysseus fights and blinds Polyphemus, one of Poseidon’s sons. Next they reach the land of the Lotus-eaters, where some of Odysseus’ men succumb to the temptation of eating the addictive flowers he must force them back to the ship. The remainder get back on course but not for long: at Malea, they are pushed away from Cythera and caught up in storms for ten days. The Cicones kill seventy-six of Odysseus’ men. He and his men end up at Ismarus, where they attack the Cicones, destroy the town, and kidnap the Cicones’ wives. His fleet of twelve ships is almost immediately blown off course. There he tells his story.Īfter fighting in the Trojan War, the conflict at the heart of the Iliad, Odysseus leaves the burning city of Troy to travel back to his home, Ithaca. With a little help from the gods, he escapes and travels to Scheria, where the Phaeacians welcome him and invite him to a banquet. When we meet Odysseus, he has been living with the nymph Calypso for seven years on her island, Ogygia. Most of Odysseus’ wanderings are related to us after the fact. The Odyssey ostensibly tells the story of Odysseus’ ten-year journey home from war, but much of the poem concerns his absence: his wife Penelope’s clever attempts to stave off aggressive suitors and their son Telemachus’ search for his lost father. In which we take a step back to relate Odysseus’ journey If no one can agree on its physical geography, Odysseus’ imaginary journey is easy to retrace. And for just as long other people have been calling efforts to map the Odyssey a complete waste of time. Homer fans have been trying to figure this out-and squabbling over their findings-for as long as the Odyssey has been in the canon. But how does Odysseus’ trek across the wine-dark sea map onto an actual map of the Mediterranean? The Odyssey, if you strip away enough allegory and myth, might serve as a travel guide for the Aegean Sea: which islands to avoid if you hate escape rooms, which cruises to skip if you always forget to pack earplugs, where to get that beef that angers the gods. All quotations from the Odyssey are taken from Emily Wilson’s 2017 translation. ![]()
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