Who is odysseus

Ironically, Poseidon is the patron of the seafaring Phaeacians, who ultimately help to return Odysseus to Ithaca. King of gods and men, who mediates the disputes of the gods on Mount Olympus.

He sometimes helps Odysseus or permits Athena to do the same. Antinous leads the campaign to have Telemachus killed. Unlike the other suitors, he is never portrayed sympathetically, and he is the first to die when Odysseus returns. A manipulative, deceitful suitor.

Amphinomus sometimes speaks up for Odysseus and Telemachus, but he is killed like the rest of the suitors in the final fight. The loyal shepherd who, along with the cowherd Philoetius, helps Odysseus reclaim his throne after his return to Ithaca. Even though he does not know that the vagabond who appears at his hut is Odysseus, Eumaeus gives the man food and shelter. The aged and loyal servant who nursed Odysseus and Telemachus when they were babies.

Eurycleia is well informed about palace intrigues and serves as confidante to her masters. The brother of Melantho. Like her brother, Melantho abuses the beggar in the palace, not knowing that the man is Odysseus.

She is having an affair with Eurymachus. One of the Cyclops uncivilized one-eyed giants whose island Odysseus comes to soon after leaving Troy. Polyphemus imprisons Odysseus and his crew and tries to eat them, but Odysseus blinds him through a clever ruse and manages to escape. A Theban prophet who inhabits the underworld. Tiresias meets Odysseus when Odysseus journeys to the underworld in Book He shows Odysseus how to get back to Ithaca and allows Odysseus to communicate with the other souls in Hades.

King of Pylos and a former warrior in the Trojan War. Like Odysseus, Nestor is known as a clever speaker. He offers Telemachus assistance in his quest to find Odysseus when Telemachus visits him in Book 4. Wife of Menelaus and queen of Sparta.

Her beauty is without parallel, but she is criticized for giving in to her Trojan captors and thereby costing many Greek men their lives. She offers Telemachus assistance in his quest to find his father. Former king of Mycenae, brother of Menelaus, and commander of the Achaean forces at Troy. Agamemnon was murdered by his wife, Clytemnestra, and her lover, Aegisthus, upon his return from the war. He was later avenged by his son Orestes. Their story is constantly repeated in The Odyssey to offer an inverted image of the fortunes of Odysseus and Telemachus.

King of the Phaeacians, who offers Odysseus hospitality in his island kingdom of Scheria. Queen of the Phaeacians, wife of Alcinous, and mother of Nausicaa.

Sensing something wrong in the motion of the ship Odysseus awoke with a start only to find himself back at Aeolia. This time, Aeolus declined to give again the gift of the winds and a heartbroken Odysseus set out once again on the arduous journey back to Ithaca.

Out of the darkness of night, an island was raising in the distance. This was Telepylos, an island with natural defences in the form of the cliffs and with only one narrow passage in. Each ship passed into the calm harbor surrounded by cliffs with the exception of Odysseus, who for some reason anchored it in the turbulent waters outside.

Two warriors went ashore to explore the island and they came across a girl who took them to her father. Nearing the castle, they saw a gigantic woman who called out to her husband. A giant man, her husband, came running out and snatching up one of the men devoured him alive. The other ran for his life and the entire race of giants that inhabited the land gave chase to him.

At the harbor, Odysseus' men ran for cover but the giants smashed their ships with massive rocks and speared them alive. Only Odysseus managed to escape on his ship with some sailors on it since he had anchored it outside the island. Having barely saved their lives, Odysseus and the men aboard the one surviving ship landed on the island, Aeaea, home to the powerful Circe, enchantress and powerful sorceress. With the help of strong magic and unknown to the warriors, Circe had already envisioned their arrival on her island.

Some fellows of Odysseus who had been sent to explore the island, walked into the palace of Circe and saw her sitting on her magnificent throne, surrounded by wild animals who were once men.

The beautiful enchantress, with one touch of her stick, turned the mighty warriors into pigs. With the help of god Hermes, Odysseus drank a certain herb that protected him from Circe's magic. When she saw him, the sorceress found her spells to be ineffective and on his demand that his men be turned back into human form, the sorceress agreed but only if Odysseus shared her bed-chamber.

Odysseus consented and moreover, he and his men spent a whole year on this island. At the end of that year, Odysseus decided to depart from Aeaea and continue his way home.

Circe, having the ability to predict the future, gave him instructions on what to do afterwards. She advised him to go to the Underworld and meet the blind prophet Tiresius to ask him for instructions.

No alive man had ever entered the Underworld. But brave Odysseus decided to do so, in order to continue his journey and reach Ithaca at last! Odysseus and his men made sacrifices to god Hades by the shores of the River Acheron and Odysseus alone took the path to the dark Underworld. Tiresius appeared to Odysseus and the blind prophet told him that in order to get home he had to pass between Scylla and Charybdis, two great monsters.

Leaving Hades, Odysseus and his men sailed for many days without sight of land. Not before long, though, strange disquieting sounds reached the ears of the men aboard the ship. The sounds tugged at their hearts and made them want to weep with joy. Odysseus at once realized that they were approaching the Sirens that Circe had warned him about.

The sorceress had told him to block every man's ears with wax for if any were to hear the song of the Sirens, he would surely jump off the ship, go close to the Sirens and the winged monsters would kill them. Odysseus did exactly that with his men, but he himself wanted to hear their strange song. He thus ordered his sailors to tie him up to the mast so he could not jump into the sea in an attempt to meet the Sirens.

With their ears blocked with wax, the men heard nothing and the ship passed near the Sirens. Suddenly, Odysseus wanted to get free of his bonds and swim towards the Sirens for their song had just become clear and it was very beautiful and captivating.

But the ropes were very tight and fortunately he could not untie himself. His fellows could hear neither the Sirens neither the screams of their leader, who was praying them to untie him. As the ship was sailing away from the shore, the song of the Sirens was fading out.

Following the advice of Tiresius, Odysseus chose the route that would take him on one side close to Scylla, a six-headed monster who had once been a woman and on the other side Charybdis, a violent whirlpool. Tiresius had advised Odysseus to sacrifice six men to Scylla so they might pass through without losing any more men.

Approaching the mouth of the strait between Scylla and Charybdis the warriors shrank back in fear for on either side were violent deaths. Only Odysseus was quiet, sad that he would have to lose six brave warriors but he was ready to do so, in order to save the others. As they passed by Scylla, she picked up six men and allowed the rest to pass through safely. Odysseus never forgot the screams of the men he had to sacrifice and to the very end of his days he lamented his betrayal.

He had not informed a single warrior of his motive. Then his ship passed from Charibdys but managed to survive. Weary and tired from the ordeal, Odysseus ordered his ship to weigh anchor at the island of Thrinacia. This island was sacred to the sun god Helios whose cattle grazed freely here. Even though Odysseus had been warned by Tiresius and Circe not to harm any of the cattles, his men defied him and set about slaughtering and feasting on them.

Immediately Helios complained to Zeus, vowing to take vengeance by sending the sun down to Hades, never to rise again. Zeus in response sank Odysseus ship with a thunderbolt as it was leaving Thrinacia and destroyed every man aboard with the exception of the valiant leader.

Somehow, a floundering Odysseus was swept past Scylla and Charybdis and washed up ashore on an unknown island. The island that Odysseus found himself was Ogygia and it was there where he spent seven years with the nymph Calypso, who found him unconscious on the beach.

She promised him immortality in exchange for his love, but soon Odysseus sensed once again the desire to see Ithaca and his family, his unfortunate wife and his son who would have grown up till then.

Even a beautiful and powerful goddess like Calypso couldn't fill this feeling of the unaccomplished that Odysseus was always carrying into his heart. However, Calypso had fallen in love with him and wouldn't let him go.

On the behalf of Zeus, Hermes appeared before Calypso and told her to let Odysseus go. One day finally, on a raft that he built himself, Odysseus set off for Ithaca with a wooden float but once again he was caught in the middle of a storm and shore to another strange land.

Telemachus, the son of Odysseus who had just turned twenty, decided to set out in search of his long-gone father. His mother had woes of her own. She was constantly plagued by suitors asking for her hand, since ten years had passed from the end of the Trojan War and her husband had not returned. Day after day, she fended off their advances with an ingenious trick. She told the suitors that she was weaving a burial shroud for Odysseus' father and only when it was complete, would she even think to marry anyone of them.

Penelope's trick was to weave the cloth in the daytime and undo it at night, so the suitors were kept waiting indefinitely, until her husband would return. However, a chambermaid betrayed her to the suitors and soon they were back, asking for her hand and the kingdom of Ithaca. Knowing that his mother was successfully keeping her suitors away, Telemachus decided to set out on his quest.

Aided by goddess Athena and along with some of his faithful warriors, he went to Sparta to meet Menelaus and ask him if he had any news from his father.

Unfortunately, Menelaus knew nothing and Telemachus disappointed returned to Ithaca. The land of the Phaeacians, which the historians believe is modern Corfu, was where Odysseus found himself after a terrible storm. Nafsica, the local princess, found Odysseus exhausted and naked on the shore and led him to the palace of her father. Odysseus was overcome with grief at hearing stories about the war and of the Trojan Horse that had been his invention.

It was then that the emotions came crashing down on him and he broke down into tears. The people gathered around him asked who he really was and why the story affected him. It was then that Odysseus revealed his true identity and his struggles to reach Ithaca. After listening to his ordeals, the Phaeacians gave him their fastest ship, the best of their provisions and bid him good luck on his way home.

He is confident that he represents virtue even when a modern audience might not be so sure. He is also a living series of contradictions, a much more complicated character than we would expect to find in the stereotypical epic hero.

We can contrast Odysseus, for example, with the great warrior Achilles in The Iliad. Achilles himself is not a two-dimensional stereotype. He has a tragic flaw, which can best be identified as hubris an overbearing arrogance or misguided pride as one of several distinguishing traits. But Achilles is a simpler character.

According to the myth the Homeric Greeks would have known, Achilles was given a choice by the gods to live a short, glorious life full of excitement and heroism or a long, tranquil life with little recognition or fame. Achilles, of course, chose the glorious life; therefore, he achieves a kind of immortality through valor and intense, honest devotion to a cause. Odysseus, in The Odyssey, is much more complicated. He lives by his wiles as well as his courage. He is an intellectual. Often he openly evaluates a situation, demonstrating the logic he employs in making his choices.

When it proves effective, Odysseus lies even to his own family , cheats, or steals in ways that we would not expect in an epic hero. Although he is self-disciplined refusing to eat the lotus , his curiosity is sometimes the root of his trouble as with the Cyclops.

He is willing to pay a price for knowledge; for example, he insists on hearing the Sirens' call, even though to do so, he must have himself excruciatingly strapped to the mast of his ship so that he cannot give in to the temptation. Odysseus can be merciful, as when he spares the bard Phemius, or brutal, as he seems when dealing with the dozen disloyal maidservants.

He creates his own code of conduct through his adventures. He is deeper than Achilles, more contemplative, but still capable of explosive violence; he is almost certainly more interesting.