Homer · 24 books
Odyssey episode guide
Every adventure of Odysseus with the book that tells it, in the order things happen or in the order Homer tells them. Tick episodes as you read; your browser remembers them.
Episodes
Sailing from Troy, the Greeks sack Ismarus; they linger, and the Cicones strike back. In the poem: Ismarus.
Men who eat the lotus forget their homeward way and have to be dragged back to the ships. In the poem: the land of the Lotus-eaters.
Trapped in Polyphemus's cave, Odysseus calls himself “Nobody”, blinds the Cyclops and escapes under the rams; Poseidon's anger follows him. In the poem: the land of the Cyclopes.
Aeolus gives Odysseus the winds in a bag; within sight of Ithaca the crew opens it and they are blown back. In the poem: the floating Aeolian island.
Giant cannibals destroy every ship but Odysseus's own.
Circe turns his men into swine; with Hermes's help Odysseus resists her and stays a year. In the poem: Aeaea, Circe's island.
Odysseus consults the seer Teiresias and meets his mother and the heroes of Troy. In the poem: the edge of the world, by the stream of Oceanus.
They bury their comrade Elpenor, and Circe warns of the dangers ahead.
Lashed to the mast with his crew's ears stopped with wax, Odysseus hears the Sirens' song.
Steering clear of the whirlpool, they lose six men to the many-headed Scylla.
Stormbound and starving, the crew kills cattle of Helios; Zeus wrecks the ship and every man but Odysseus dies. In the poem: Thrinacia.
Clinging to the wreck, Odysseus escapes Charybdis and drifts nine days to Calypso's island.
Calypso keeps Odysseus for seven years until the gods send Hermes to order his release. In the poem: Ogygia.
In disguise, Athena urges Odysseus's son to stand up to the suitors and seek news of his father. In the poem: Ithaca.
Nestor and then Menelaus and Helen tell Telemachus what they know of the heroes' homecomings.
Odysseus sails off on a raft; Poseidon wrecks it, and the sea-goddess Ino gives him a veil to keep him afloat.
Washed ashore, Odysseus is found by the princess Nausicaa and her maids. In the poem: Scheria, land of the Phaeacians.
King Alcinous welcomes him; at the games and the feast the minstrel Demodocus sings of Troy, and Odysseus weeps.
He reveals his name and tells the Phaeacians the adventures above, from the Cicones to Calypso.
The Phaeacians carry him home asleep; Athena disguises him as an old beggar.
The loyal swineherd takes in the beggar without knowing his master.
Warned by Athena, Telemachus avoids the suitors' ambush and lands safely.
Odysseus makes himself known to Telemachus, and they plan the suitors' end.
At the palace, his old dog Argos knows him and dies.
Odysseus beats the beggar Irus in a boxing match before the suitors.
Washing his feet, his old nurse knows him by a scar, and he swears her to silence.
Signs from Zeus and a seer's vision foretell the suitors' doom.
Penelope sets the suitors to string Odysseus's bow; only the beggar can.
Odysseus, Telemachus and two loyal herdsmen kill the suitors.
Penelope tests him with the secret of their bed, and they are reunited.
The suitors' souls go down to the dead; Odysseus finds his father, and Athena ends the feud.
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How the Odyssey is told
The poem does not start at the beginning. Books 1–4 follow Odysseus's son Telemachus on Ithaca and on his journey to Pylos and Sparta; Book 5 finds Odysseus on Calypso's island, near the end of his long return. Only after he reaches the Phaeacians does he tell his own story: Books 9–12 are Odysseus's tale, told in his own voice at the court of King Alcinous, from the sack of Ismarus to his drift to Ogygia. Books 13–24 then follow him home to Ithaca.
Episodes marked “his own tale” are the ones Odysseus narrates. The line numbers given for some episodes follow A. T. Murray's translation at the Perseus Digital Library; other translations and editions number lines slightly differently, so use the book number to find your place.
Why there is no map
The poem names places such as Ogygia, Aeaea, Thrinacia and Scheria but gives no way to fix them on a real map. Readers have tried since antiquity: Thucydides (History 6.2.1) reports that the Cyclopes and Laestrygonians were said to be the oldest inhabitants of Sicily, then adds that he cannot say who they were and leaves it to the poets. Modern suggestions disagree with each other, and none is certain, so this guide gives the poem's own place names and no map.
Sources
Greek texts
- Homer, Odyssey, tr. A. T. Murray (1919), Perseus Digital Library.
- Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, tr. Richard Crawley (1874), Scaife reader (Perseus).
Questions
In which book does Odysseus meet the Cyclops?
Book 9, where Odysseus tells the Phaeacians how he blinded Polyphemus and escaped under the rams. Poseidon, the Cyclops's father, is angry with him for it for the rest of the poem.
Why does the Odyssey start with Telemachus?
The poem opens near the end of Odysseus's long return and shows first what his absence has done at home: suitors in the palace and a son setting out for news. Odysseus himself appears in Book 5, and his earlier adventures come later as his own story in Books 9–12.
How long was Odysseus with Calypso?
Seven years, by his own account to Queen Arete in Book 7, before the gods sent Hermes to order Calypso to let him go.
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