The Odyssey - Softcover

About The Odyssey

The Odyssey by Homer is considered, after Homer's The Illiad, to be the second oldest work of Western literature. It was probably composed near the end of the 8th Century BCE and is, in part, a sequel to “The Iliad”.

This translation of The Odyssey

This is the classic translation by Samuel Butler, first published in 1900. Butler rendered the old poem in English prose for easy reading by modern readers.

What you get when you buy this version of The Odyssey

This is a 6x9, standard sized trade paperback, printed in 14 point type on creme paper. It is 364 pages long.

What happens in The Odyssey

The poem focuses on the Greek hero Odysseus (or Ulysses, as he was known in Roman myths) and his long journey home to Ithaca following the fall of Troy. His adventure-filled ten year journey took him around the Mediteranean, as the displeased sea-god Poseidon prevented him from reaching his home.

Ten years after the Fall of Troy and Odysseus departure, his son Telemachus and his wife Penelope are beset with over a hundred suitors who are trying to persuade Penelope that her husband is dead and that she should marry one of them.

Telemachus is told the tale of Trojan War, including the story of the wooden horse and learns that Odysseus is being held captive by the nymph Calypso.

The scene then changes to Calypso's island, where Odysseus has spent seven years in captivity. Calypso is finally persuaded to release him by Hermes and Zeus, but Odysseus’ makeshift boat is wrecked by his nemesis Poseidon, and he swims ashore onto an island. He is found by the young Nausicaa and her handmaidens and is made welcome by King Alcinous and Queen Arete of the Phaeacians, and begins to tell the amazing story of his return from Troy.

Odysseus tells how he and his twelve ships were driven off course by storms, and how they visited the lethargic Lotus-Eaters with their memory-erasing food, before being captured by the giant one-eyed cyclops Polyphemus (Poseidon’s son), only escaping after he blinded the giant with a wooden stake. Despite the help of Aeolus, King of the Winds, Odysseus and his crew were blown off course again just as home was almost in sight. They narrowly escaped from the cannibal Laestrygones, only to encounter the witch-goddess Circe soon after. Circe turned half of his men into swine, but Odysseus had been pre-warned by Hermes and made resistant to Circe’s magic.

After a year of feasting and drinking on Circe’s island, the Greeks again set off, reaching the western edge of the world. Odysseus made a sacrifice to the dead and summoned the spirit of the old prophet Tiresias to advise him, as well as the spirits of several other famous men and women and that of his own mother.

They skirted the land of the Sirens, passed between the many-headed monster Scylla and the whirlpool Charybdis, and, blithely ignoring the warnings of Tiresias and Circe, hunted down the sacred cattle of the sun god Helios. For this sacrilege, they were punished by a shipwreck in which all but Odysseus himself drowned. He was washed ashore on Calypso’s island, where she compelled him to remain as her lover.

Disguised as a wandering beggar, Odysseus arrives at Ithaca and meets up with Telemachus and they agree together that the suitors must be killed. An archery competition is arranged by Penelope for the suitors, which the disguised Odysseus easily wins, and he then promptly slaughters all the other suitors.

Odysseus reveals his true identity to his wife and to his old father, Laertes, and finally Ithaca is at peace once more.