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The WOODEN HORSE

It was not before Odysseus invented the WOODEN HORSE that Troy could be taken. He is also found among the warriors that hid inside the horse.

The Ciconians

After the war Odysseus wandered for ten years. He went first to the land of the Ciconians in Thrace where he pillaged the city of Ismarus, not sparing anyone except a priest of Apollo called Maron, son of Evanthes, who reigned in Marioneia.

Lotus-eaters

After the Ciconians he sailed to the land of the Lotus-eaters. This Lotus was a sweet fruit which caused him who tasted it to forget everything. And as some of the crew ate from this fruit Odysseus had to force them back to the ships, for those who tasted the fruit preferred to stay with the lotus-eaters forgetting everything about their way back home.

Nobody

And later he sailed to the land of the CYCLOPES and there he and his men were trapped by the cannibal Cyclops Polyphemus, who promised Odysseus to eat him last as a reward for the wine Odysseus had given him. But when the Cyclops, being drunk, was asleep Odysseus blinded his single eye. When Polyphemus saw himself blind, which is easier than it sounds, he cried to the other CYCLOPES for help. But when they came and asked who was hurting him, Polyphemus told them" Nobody", because Odysseus had told him that his name was "Nobody", and hearing that, the other CYCLOPES retired.

The Cyclops' unlucky fate caused the resentment of his father Poseidon, who decided to make Odysseus' journey even harder.

Happy Aeolus

From there Odysseus saile to the Aeolian Islands which were ruled by happy Aeolus, whom Zeus appointed keeper of the winds. This Aeolus is a favourite of the gods, and that is the reason why his daily life consists of merry banquets in the company of his wife and children. He generously entertained Odysseus, and for his voyage gave him a bag in which he had bound fast the winds.

Careless captain and greedy crew

However when they were near Ithaca and could already see the island, Odysseus fell asleep and his comrades, thinking he carried gold from Troy in the bag that Aeolus had given him, loosed it and unwittingly let the winds go free. In this way the careless captain and his greedy crew were driven back to the Aeolian Islands where Odysseus, in the course of an embarrassing interview with Aeolus, was denied the fair wind he asked for being immediately expelled from the island.

Cannibals

So instead Odysseus came to the land of the Laestrygonians, who were cannibals and there he lost all the ships with their crews except his own. In this strange land nightfall and morning are so close to each other that shepherds bringing in their flocks at night are met by other shepherds driving out their flocks at dawn.

Circe

Afterwards he came to the island of Aeaea where the witch met Circe lived. Some time ago she had purified the ARGONAUTS for the murder of Apsyrtus. But now when Odysseus arrived Circe touched his comrades with a wand and turned them into wolves, swine, asses and lions, their minds remaining unchanged. But some say that she gave Odysseus' comrades a potion and when they had drunk it off, she touched them with her wand, and having turned them into swine, she put them in the sties. In any case Odysseus threatened her with his sword and she restored his comrades, and later, when Odysseus left, she helped him to find the way down to Hades where he should get instructions from the seer Tiresias concerning his return to Ithaca and his future fate.

ODYSSEUS IN HADES

Having descended to Hades Odysseus made a blood offering in order to attract the souls of the dead, not letting anyone approach the blood of the animals he had sacrificed before he had talked with Tiresias. Any soul having access to the blood could hold a rational speech with Odysseus, but those who were denied the blood would leave him alone and disappear.

These are those whom Odysseus met when he descended to Hades:

Achilles.
On seeing Achilles' soul said Odysseus:

"...Achilles, the most fortunate man that ever was or will be...honoured as though you were a god...and now you are a mighty prince among the dead. For you...Death should have lost its sting." [Odysseus to Achilles]

But Achilles replied:

"Do not speak soothingly to me of death, Odysseus. I should choose to serve as the serf of another, rather than to be lord over the dead." [Achilles to Odysseus]

And after that salutation Odysseus told him what had happened in Troy after Achilles' death.

Agamemnon.
Agamemnon described to Odysseus how he had been murdered by Aegisthus and his own wife during a banquet. His wife's treason inspired him to lecture Odysseus about marriage:

"Never be too gentle with your wife, nor show her all that is in your mind." [Agamemnon to Odysseus]

And the soul of the man who had always taken women through violence dared to add:

"Women, I tell you, are no longer to be trusted." [Agamemnon to Odysseus]

Ajax.
Ajax still embittered by the defeat Odysseus inflicted on him on account of the arms of Achilles, refused to talk, and that is why Odysseus said to him:

"So not even death itself could make you forget your anger with me on account of those accursed arms." [Odysseus to Ajax]

But Ajax left without a word.

Alcmena.
Mother of Heracles.

Anticlia.
Odysseus was stirred to compassion when he saw his mother's soul, for she was still alive when he left Ithaca. And yet Odysseus did not allow the soul of his own mother to approach the sacrificial blood, before he had talked to Tiresias. But later when she was allowed to approach, she told him news about his father Laertes, who lived the life of a recluse and yearned for his return home. Likewise she told him that the cause of her own death had been her heartache for him.

Odysseus tried to embrace her, but the ghost slipped through his arms and as he cried to his mother in despair she explained:

"We no longer have sinews keeping the bones and flesh together, but once the life-force has departed from our bones, all is consumed by the heat of fire, and the soul slips away like a dream..." [Anticlia 1 to Odysseus]

Antilochus.
Son of Nestor and leader of the Pylians against Troy. He was killed in the war by Hector or by Memnon.

Antiope.
Mother of Amphion and Zethus.

Ariadne.
Daughter of Minos, who helped Theseus to find his way out of the labyrinth. She was deserted by the man she saved but Dionysus loved her, though some say that in such a way that he had Artemis kill her, which means that Ariadne died of a sickness.

Chloris.
Chloris survived the killing of the NIOBIDS and, having married Neleus, became Queen of Pylos. She is the mother of Nestor.

Elpenor.
Elpenor was one of Odysseus' companions. He fell from the roof of Circe's house and broke his neck. As he had been left behind unburied, he now asked Odysseus to bury him on his return to the island of Aeaea.

Heracles.
Odysseus saw in Hades just the wraith of Heracles, for the real Heracles is always banqueting with the OLYMPIANS, after having been made immortal and married Hebe in heaven.

Iphimedia.
Mother of the ALOADS, who had the ambition of piling Mount Ossa on Olympus, and Mount Pelion on Ossa, and in that way reach up to heaven.

Jocasta.
Jocasta, also called Epicasta, is mother and wife of Oedipus. She hanged herself obsessed by the idea of having married her own son.

Leda.
Mother of Helen, Clytaemnestra and the DIOSCURI.

Maera.

Megara.
Heracles's wife.

Minos.
Odysseus saw this former king of Crete sitting with a gold sceptre in his hand, delivering judgement to the dead.

Orion.
Odysseus saw Orion driving together over the field of asphodel wild beasts which he had slain, holding in his hands a club of bronze, that could not be broken.

Patroclus.

Phaedra.
Wife of Theseus who fell in love with her stepson.

Procris.
Wife of Cephalus. She was killed accidentally by her husband. Cephalus was son of Deion, son of Aeolus, son of Hellen, son of Deucalion, the man who survived the Flood. Cephalus, after whom was named the island of Cephallenia, which is a part of Odysseus' kingdom, is related to Odysseus, for he is father of Arcisius, father of Laertes, who is Odysseus' father. Procris 2 is Odysseus' grand grandmother.

Sisyphus.
Odysseus saw him being punished by rolling a stone with his hands and head in an effort to heave it over the top of a hill, but as he pushes it to the top it rebounds backward.

Tantalus.
Odysseus also saw impious Tantalus, who is punished by not being able to eat or drink as the water in the lake dries out and the fruits in the trees are lifted by the wind each time he tries to reach either.

Tiresias.
The seer warned Odysseus of Poseidon's wrath and other difficulties he would meet during his journey. He also told him about the greedy suitors, who were eating up his stores in Ithaca and offering wedding gifts to his wife. And he also told him what would happen after the death of the suitors and how death would come to him.

Tityus.
Odysseus saw this son of Gaia being punished in the Underworld for having attacked Leto, mother of Apollo and Artemis. There a pair of vultures eat his liver and he is powerless to drive them off.

Tyro.
Mother of Neleus and King Pelias.

The SIRENS.
After having touched again at Circe's island of Aeaea Odysseus sailed past the Sirens as Circe had predicted. As he wished to hear their lovely song, he stopped the ears of his comrades with wax, and ordered that he should himself be bound to the mast. And being persuaded by the Sirens to linger, he begged to be released, but they bound him tighter, until they had sailed past.

Some say that this was the end of the Sirens, for it had been predicted that they would die when a ship passed them unharmed.

Scylla and Charybdis.
In sailing past the cliff of Scylla, she snatched some of his comrades, and gobbled them up. When the ship broke up, Odysseus clung to the mast and drifted to Charybdis. But when Charybdis sucked down the mast, he was saved by clinging to a fig-tree that grew over the whirlpool. There he waited until he saw the mast drifting again, and he cast himself on it, and was carried away.

Refuses immortality
So he came to the island where Calypso 3 lived. This goddess kept Odysseus imprisoned in her cave for seven years and offered him immortality but he refused wishing above all to come back home to Ithaca and Penelope.

Meets Nausicaa in Phaeacian beach
But when Hermes, sent by Zeus, ordered Calypso to let Odysseus go he made a raft and sailed away until he was washed up naked on the shore of the Phaeacians, where Nausicaa, the daughter of King Alcinous, was washing the clothes. When Odysseus begged her protection, she brought him to the king, who entertained him, and sent him away with a convoy to Ithaca, after having heard Odysseus' account of the stories we are now reading.

While Penelope weaves her suitors feast at Odysseus' expense
But on arriving to Ithaca, twenty years after his departure, Odysseus found his property and land wasted, because, believing that he was dead, many suitors wished to marry Penelope and, living in the palace of Odysseus, consumed his herds at their feasts during his absence. Waiting for Odysseus, Penelope was compelled to promise to her suitors that she would wed when the shroud of Laertes was finished. But she wove it for three years, weaving it by day and undoing it by night.

The suitors shot with the Bow
The SUITORS OF PENELOPE were almost one hundred, but somehow Odysseus managed to kill them all with his bow.

This bow had Prince Eurytus of Oechalia received from Apollo, and when his son Iphitus met Odysseus, he gave him the bow, which he had received from his father. This bow Odysseus, when going to war, would never take with him, but let it lay at home.

Penelope delivered to her suitors the bow of Odysseus, and she said that she would marry him who bent the bow. And when none of them could bend it, Odysseus took it and shot down the suitors, being helped by his son Telemachus, Emaeus and Philoetius.

Emaeus was Odysseus' servant and swineherd. On his arrival to Ithaca Odysseus came to him in the guise of a beggar and learned from him the state of affairs in his home. Philoetius, who also helped to kill the suitors, was a master-herdman in Ithaca.

Found to have gone too far
Because of this massacre Odysseus was accused by the kinfolk of the slain suitors, and then he submitted the case to the judgment of King Neoptolemus of Epirus, who condemned him to exile. Some suppose Neoptolemus judged in this way because he wanted to get possession of the island of Cephallenia.

After killing the SUITORS OF PENELOPE Odysseus went to Thesprotia in Epirus and there offered a sacrifice following the instructions he received in the Underworld from Tiresias. It is also told that Callidice , Queen of the Thesprotians, urged him to stay as king. Odysseus married Callidice and had by her a son Polypoetes, to whom he gave the kingdom when he returned to Ithaca.

Others say that Odysseus went to Aetolia and there he married the daughter of Thoas (King of Pleuron and Calydon who had been the leader of the Aetolians against Troy), and had by her a son Leontophonus.

Death at last
When Telegonus learned from his mother Circe that he was a son of Odysseus, he sailed in search of him. And having come to Ithaca, he drove away some of the cattle, and when Odysseus defended them, Telegonus wounded him with the spear he had in his hands, which was barbed with the spine of a stingray, and Odysseus died of the wound. And when Telegonus recognised him, he bitterly lamented.

But some say Odysseus died in old age.

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