Mythology Odyssey Books 1 and 2

The Odyssey

• Attributed to Homer

• Part of the Epic Cycle

• Oral tradition

• Epic Verse also considered a Saga

• Covers Odysseus’ 10 year voyage home

• Committed to paper late 8 th century or early 7th century

• BCE

• 12,109 lines dactylic hexameter

• 24 books

How is the Odyssey structured

In Media Res (In the Middle).

Why Does Odysseous want to leave Claspo but was okay to stay with sersey.

Calypso

• Zeus send Hermes to Ogygia to tell Calypso to release Odysseus

• Calypso is daughter of Atlas and Pleione (Nereid – Ocean nymph)

• Known as the “nymph with the lovely braids”

Brief Overview

• Starts In Media Res – in the middle

• Odysseus has been on Calypsos’ island, Ogygia, for seven years

• Calypso is in love with him and refuses to let him leave

• Athena asks Zeus to make Calypso release Odysseus so he can go home to his wife, Penelope

• Zeus says it’s Poseidon who is hating because Odysseus blinded his child, Polyphemus

• Athena will go to Ithaca

Who =’s the suitors in spongebob

Plankton

Books I-IV

• Athena visits Ithaca, Odysseus’ home

• Suitors are eating his wealth as they wait for his wife, Penelope, to pick a new husband

• They have not heard any news about Odysseus

• She appears to Telemachus – Odysseus and Penelope’s son – as Mentor

• Telemachus sets sail and visits King Nestor and King Menelaus where he inquires about the fate of his father and we hear other tales

What was the 1st female argument in western lit?

Calling out the double standard of women and men. Calypso vs Zeus

Books 5-8

• Calypso lets him go

• He makes a raft

• Poseidon causes a storm

• Athena helps him

• He washes up on a Phaeacian beach and is found by a naked princess who is bathing, Nausicaa

• She brings him to her father the king, Alcinous

• They eat and drink and have contests and tell tales

Phaeacians gave Odysseus drugs for the fast black ship (Sponge Bob reference).

Dave Hasselhoff

Books 9-12

• He tells his story to the Phaeacians

• Polyphemus – the Cyclops

• The Lotus Eaters

• Circe – witch – he spends a year as her lover

• He visits Hades – The Kingdom of the Dead and talks to many famous

• heroes there

• Past the Island of the Sirens

• Past Charybdis and Scylla

• Cattle of the Sun

• Then ends up on Calypso’s island at end of Book XII

Books 13-24

• He returns to Ithaca courtesy of the Phaeacian's fast black ship

• He is disguised by Athena as a beggar

• He tests his servants and maids and Penelope

• He and Telemachus kill all the suitors

• They also kill the maids who have been sexually involved with the suitors

• Athena prevents war from breaking out with the suitor’s families and peace is restored to Ithaca

Ismoros people are called what

Cicones

Cicones

• Winds drive him to Ismarus, a port city north of Troy in Thrace

• Odysseus and his men sack the city

• Kill the men

• Collect wives and plunder

• Shared it more than fairly

• While the Greeks are getting drunk and celebrating, the surviving Cicones go get reinforcements

• In the morning they drive Odysseus and his men off

First taste of addiction happens where and is what?

Alcohol at Cicones and the Greeks let their guards down and Cicones come after them.

The Lotus Eaters

• After nine days of rough, deadly winds, Odysseus and his squadron reach the land of the Lotus Eaters

• Who shared their lotus flowers with his crew

• Acts similar to Heroin

• Crew gets mellow and desire nothing but more lotus

• Odysseus drags them back to the ships

The Lotus Eaters Pt.2

• Eponymous poem by Lord Alfred Tennyson

• The lotus flower could refer to several plants but most

• likely is Nymphaea caerulea– the blue lotus

• Common in Egypt

• Has soporific and psychotropic properties