by Heather Howe

Created on: January 09, 2009

The Odyssey, by Homer, relates the story of an intelligent but wary king who tries to get home despite difficult, possibly supernatural forces. About 100 suitors line the Ithacan palace where Telemachus waits for his father Odysseus to return. After ten long years, Telemachus is now a young prince who must see his kingdom's livelihood eaten up by entertaining the suitors. The visitors are there to tempt his mother, Penelope, to marry one of them. The suitors believe that by a new and palace and drinking the wind of the apps in King Odysseus they can persuade Penelope by their very presence that she must marry one of them.

Meanwhile, King Odysseus has been journeying on the open sea. He's been stranded for many years on island where a supernatural goddess reigns. With this year's outsmarts her, and many others to get home. But he is confronted by many problems. But Odysseus must address the matter of his marriage to a woman who has been waiting for his return for ten years. He must address the gap between himself and his son. He must rescue his son and his wife from the impending doom and destruction of the unruly suitors.

Telemachus gets the inspiration by Athena to go on a sea trip to Nestor's palace, where he finds news of many classical figures. Telemachus takes his place among the Greek royalty chasing their crown where they may find it. Odysseus is himself spending time with Calypso, a goddess who is warned by Zeus to let her sailor go home. Athena got leave for Odysseus but his enemy the sea god Neptune stays his way home to Ithaca.

Neptune/Poseidon discovers Odysseus and throws him onto a beach. Odysseus meets the maiden Nausicaa and goes to her palace to hear the dramatic retelling of his war adventure, the fabled Trojan horse story. After the house poet tells the other Trojan stories from the front, Odysseus reveals his identity and fills them in on the rest of his adventures. The wandering king of Ithaca, Odysseus tells his tales of sea journeys meeting the Lotus Eaters, the bags of Aeolian wind, the defeat the one eyed Cyclops, and the escape from a cannibal.

Odysseus now retells how his journeys confronted him with the underworld spirits of his mother and Agamemnon, who had stories to tell regarding life back in Ithaca with the suitors and the dangers of kingly homecoming. When Odysseus gets delivered home by skillful sailors, he meets his own son at the house of the slave Eumaeus. Telemachus has escaped a suitor's ambush and together they drive toward the palace. The King of Ithaca, Odysseus enters his own palace after ten years not to crowning glory but dressed in rags.

Telemachus is recognized by a servant but not by his wife Penelope. Many-devising Odysseus plots a scheme whereby he suggests to Penelope that the suitor's test will be an archery contest using Odysseus's fabled long bow. Odysseus enters the fray and wins the contest, and he and Telemachus slay the suitors. Penelope then is joined with her husband again after a test of his knowledge of their life together. His proof is a description of the bed the King gave his wife.

Odysseus cleans up his household and then journeys to meet his father, Laertes, who puts him to the test to prove his identity. Ironically the King of Ithaca spends most of his time struggling through uncharted lands and against bitter storms and tough situations before findign his way home again. Even then, Odysseus has no gentle homecoming. Slaughter of his household and his sailors is weighed before Ithacans find peace with Odysseus again.

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