Odysseus and His Journey

Odysseus was the king of Ithaca. He was one of the famous heroes in the Trojan War and his adventures are told in detail in the famous work called the Odyssey.

There came a time for Helen of Troy to choose a husband, Odysseus was one of those who wanted to be the chosen one. He proposed that all should take an oath to protect the interests of the one she chose. It was Menelaus was the one that was chosen for Helen, however Helen ran off with Paris to Troy, basically a coward he pretended to be mad to avoid the war. He ploughed and scattered salt instead of grain into the field. But when Palamedes placed his infant son, in front of the plow, quickly turned the plow away and his sanity was shown to be false.

In war Odysseus was courageous and used all of his power to defeat his enemies.  He devised the masterpiece of tricks: the Trojan Horse, without which the Greeks would have never won the war. 

After the war, Odysseus had a challenging time getting home. While sailing home he encountered natives who offered visitors the fruit of lotus.  After eating the food some of his crew became deranged and. could not remember what their mission was about.  Odysseus had to drag them back to the ships. 

He sailed to another island and met the one eyed giants known as Cyclops. He and twelve of his crew were trapped in a cave inhabited by one of the giants, Polyphemus.  Polyphemus ate men alive after bashing their heads against the rocks of his cave. Odysseus escaped by blinding the giant and tying his remaining men and himself to the undersides of ram of the giant’s flock to trick the giant who was now blind felt only the rams wool and so the rams were going out to the field. 

In his travels he came to another island, where he met the sorceress Circe who transformed men into swine unfortunately some of his men were converted. With the help of Hermes, Odysseus forced Circe to change his men back. Circe became his mistress. She stayed with Odysseus and his crew. After which, he traveled to the Underworld for guidance from Teiresias, Circe warned him about more dangers: the Sirens and the Wandering Rocks. 

 The Sirens, know for their mysterious singing which lured men to and caused them to forget their intentions and objectives.  Odysseus had his crew members seal their ears with beeswax and had himself bound to the mast; this way he could hear the seductive songs of the Sirens without falling prey to it and live to tell the tale. After they escaped from the Sirens, they headed for the Strait of Messina to avoid the Wandering Rocks. While journeying through the whirlpool Charybdis, several of his men were eaten by the Scylla: the long-necked, six headed beast. 

After this traumatic escape, the crew stopped for rest in the island of Thrinacia. Odysseus warned his men not to eat anything from the island. But when their food supply was low, they killed some of the cattle of the Sun god, in order to keep from starving. This enraged the daughters of Helios the Sun-god.  Zeus sent a violent storm that killed everyone except Odysseus.

He was eventually washed ashore on the island of Calypso, who became his lover and wanted him to remain with her forever. He stayed for seven years until Zeus ordered Calypso to let him go. Odysseus sailed away on a tiny boat, but was shipwrecked by another storm sent by Poseidon. He swam ashore on the island of the Phaeacians, where he was cared for and escorted home to Ithaca, after 20 years.

During Odysseus' absence, his wife, Penelope, who had remained faithful to him, was under pressure to remarry. Upon his return, Odysseus killed the all of the men who had lived off his wealth for years while waiting for his wife to choose one of them as her second husband.

Here the journey of Odysseus came to an end for a time and the term odyssey in our language comes from his name and his famous adventures.