The Odyssey: Part 3--The Lotus Eaters

Welcome to the third installment of Homer's The Odyssey (Severely Abridged and Paraphrased). When we last left our hero, he had washed up onto the beach of an inhabited island and was welcomed into the king's court as a guest, where he began to spin the strange-but-true story of his journey there.

All of the eyes in the hall were on Odysseus as he started his tale.
"Almost twenty years ago," he began, "a war started between the Greeks and the city of Troy. Back home in Ithaca, the army was drafting every able-bodied man to sail across the sea and invade Troy, and I knew it was only a matter of time before I was forced to join.

"Now, I felt this was a silly war--it had all started with a golden apple and the vanity of three bickering goddesses--and though Menelaus gave the excuse that he was rescuing his beautiful wife from the clutches of her abductor, I knew full well that Sparta had been looking for an excuse to invade and pillage Troy for years. The city had grown in wealth and power and influence, to the point that it incited the vicious jealousy of Greece. The 'face that launched a thousand ships' was really just the final straw to the king of Sparta.

"But I was not going to risk my life for such a cause--I had a beautiful wife, Penelope, and an infant son, Telemachus, to make me perfectly content where I was--and what's more, an oracle stopped me in the street and told me that, should I go to Troy, a very long voyage home awaited me.

"So I came up with a scheme to avoid being sent to war. I pretended to be insane. I hitched up an ox and a donkey to my plow--nonsensical, since the two creatures have very different strides and pull at different speeds--and started to sow my fields with salt. My neighbors believed my feigned lunacy, but Menelaus' brother Agamemnon was not convinced. He ordered that, in order to prove that I was completely out of my mind, my infant child should be placed in front of the plow.

"Of course, nothing was worth killing my son. I veered around him and revealed my sanity. I grudgingly went to war."

Odysseus paused, looking around at his captive audience. "You all know what happened after that. The Trojan War lasted ten years of carnage. As the Greeks started to commit acts of sacrilege--desecrating altars and pillaging temples--the gods began to turn their backs on us. We were losing to the Trojans, badly. But my scheme with the wooden horse turned the tables and gave us the victory."

"We know all this," the king interrupted eagerly. "But why haven't you made it back to Ithaca in all this time? It's been ten years since the fall of Troy! Everyone began to assume you were dead."

Odysseus took a deep breath. "Well, it all started when my ship was blown off-course by a strange wind. We landed on an island inhabited by very friendly, hospitable people...perhaps a little too hospitable. They ate a very peculiar fruit called a Lotus, which was sweet and invitingly fragrant, but made one sleepy, content, apathetic, and forgetful. I warned my men not to touch them, but a few members of my crew ate the Lotus. They didn't want to leave. They didn't remember their families and homes to which they must return. It was as though they were under a spell.

"I had to forcibly drag them off the island and back to the ship, and they wept for days. We quickly set sail again--but now we were so off-course that we had passed the realm of our knowledge. We did not know of the strange and mysterious isles that awaited us, far more deadly than the one we were leaving.

"We cheered when we came into view of a small chain of islands. We headed for the nearest one, which appeared lush with vegetation. If only we had known the danger and misery that awaited us there..."

What happened to Odysseus and his crew on this mysterious island? Tune in next time for Part 4 of Homer's The Odyssey to find out!

The Odyssey: Part 2--Poseidon's Wrath

Previously on The Odyssey: Odysseus, finally freed from the bondage of his temptation, leaves the sea-nymph Calypso on a raft she gave him, not knowing where it will take him.

All Odysseus could see for miles was an empty stretch of blue. Calypso had given him food and water for the journey--as well as the assurance that the magic raft would take him to the nearest dry land--but days had gone by without a glimpse of life. Still, he had endured much worse than this, and despite his doubts betrayed not a hint of fear.

Odysseus was a handsome middle-aged man, remarkably clever and resourceful, with a shrewd face and powerfully built. His survival he attributed mainly to his cunning and craft, which had gotten him out of countless hopeless situations--a trait that had caught the attention of the goddess of wisdom, Athena. He had been trapped for seven years on Ogygia--could perhaps his current freedom be Athena's doing?

Just then, Odysseus glimpsed something on the horizon. A blurry, faraway patch of green: land!

As he approached it, Odysseus could see that it was an island--he could even make out some man-made stone structures. Thank the gods, civilization at last! And yet... He had learned not to trust seemingly simple situations. There was no way that he could just land his raft without the slightest difficulty--surely, some sort of complication would arise.

A rumbling sound behind him confirmed his pessimistic prediction. Turning around, he saw a figure rising from the sea--a terrible bearded man the size of the Colossus, his face fierce and vengeful, carrying a three-pronged spear in one hand.

Oh, gods--Poseidon's caught up with me! Odysseus thought, paddling the raft furiously, trying to think fast.

The god of the sea slapped the water with the Trident and created a massive tidal wave--headed straight for Odysseus. There was nothing he could do--his raft was crushed like a twig and he himself was swept away by the tempest. His last thought before the wall of water crashed over him was a desperate plea to Athena and Zeus--they had protected him this far, hadn't they?

The next thing Odysseus knew, he was waking up on a beach, calmer waves lapping over him. Every inch of him was sore, but he was still alive. At first, he was sure his journey had all been a dream, and that he was waking up back on Ogygia, because a pretty young woman was standing over him, trying to rouse him.

But his eyes focused, and he saw that it was a completely different girl.
"My name is Nausicaa," she said. "The goddess Athena told me in a dream that I should come to the shore today--and I found you here. Are you alright, sir? Can you hear me?"

Relieved, he assured her that, though he was a bit worse for wear, he was alright.

"Where did you come from? There is no ship in sight."
"I had a ship...a long time ago...the whole crew is lost but me. I took a raft here."
"You poor man," the girl said kindly. "Let me take you home with me. My mother and father will show you hospitality, I am sure."

And so Nausicaa brought Odysseus to her father's house, gave him fresh clothes and a place to rest, and invited him to the banquet that night. Her parents received him graciously, without once asking for his name. It was a relief to Odysseus to forget about his troubles and his past for a time.

At dinner, however, a minstrel began to perform some narratives about the Trojan War, and all of painful memories began to resurface. He tried to listen indifferently, but it was difficult. Demodocus, the blind singer, told a tale of a brave hero from Greece, the brilliant man who had come up with the Trojan Horse. The Trojans had been winning the war, and the Greeks had needed something to tip the balance in their favor, so this clever hero had decided to use the Trojans' arrogance against them.


They would construct an enormous wooden horse and wheel it to the gates of the city. The Trojans would think it was a gift from the gods to show their favoritism, or else a peace offering from the terrified Greeks. They would bring it inside the city gates, and throw a lavish party in celebration. When everyone slept soundly after their drunken carousing, the horse--which was, in fact, hollow and filled with Greek soldiers--would open, and the Greeks would take the city of Troy. The plan worked, and Troy fell.

That hero's name was Odysseus.

Eventually, Odysseus could bear it no longer. He could not listen to the story while pretending to be unaffected by it. He admitted to his company that he was, in fact, Odysseus himself. The party was astonished--for most had presumed him dead after all these years missing in action--and asked him how in Hades he could have found himself all the way here on the isle of Scherie.

"My raft was wrecked by Poseidon," Odysseus explained. "He has a bit of a grudge against me, you see."

This, of course, only piqued their interest further. What could a mortal man have done to earn the ire of Poseidon? And why hadn't he made it home, nearly ten years after the Trojan War had ended?

"Well...that's a bit of a long story."

How DID Odysseus come to be so far away from home and in such a mess, anyway? Tune in next time for the third installment of The Odyssey (Abridged and Severely Paraphrased) to hear Odysseus tell his tale of adventure and woe from the very beginning.

The Odyssey: Part 1--Calypso's Island

Greetings, fellow mythology lovers! We are about to embark on an epic quest--a journey through the story of Odysseus, a mortal beloved by Athena, and his long travel home from Troy. We will encounter vicious monsters, magic spells, the wrath of gods, and the temptation of beautiful women. Will Odysseus ever make it home to his dear Penelope in one piece? There's only one way to find out: let's dive into Homer's The Odyssey!

Because this is such a long and convoluted story, I'm going to tell it in parts--and the tale itself is structured kind of episodically anyway--and it'll be more of an abridged version. The epic poem is attributed to a blind wandering poet named Homer (all Greek myths began as oral traditions, which is why there are varying accounts of them), who also wrote The Iliad--The Odyssey is, in fact, the sequel to The Iliad, which recounts the tale of the Trojan War.

I hope you enjoy our retelling of this tale--peppered with romance, adventure, and daring heroism--though of course, I am no Homer, and I do recommend reading at least parts of the real Odyssey yourself (most translations are easier to read than Shakespeare or Beowulf, while still preserving some pretty poetic language).

Our story begins on a peaceful island in the Mediterranean called Ogygia (oh-JEE-jee-uh). The pristine beach was of white sand; the sparkling sea was empty as far as the eye could see. A beautiful Nereid named Calypso, who had soft eyes and a kind face, was singing softly and tending to her garden beside the cave she lived in. Suddenly, looking up, she saw something flying across the horizon, skimming the clear water, towards her little island. Was it a bird? No. Shading her eyes, she realized it was the god Hermes, come to visit her.

She smiled and welcomed him to her home, offering him ambrosia and nectar after his long journey from Olympus, happy to see a friendly face. Calypso, being a Titan's daughter, was banished to this island, and--idyllic and peaceful as it was--she was lonely.

Hermes, however, was not there for a social call, but had a message for her from Zeus.

"Zeus knows that you keep Odysseus here, Calypso, and he sent me to tell you that you must let him go."

Calypso, flushing, insisted that she had never prevented Odysseus from leaving if he wanted to, that he was not a prisoner. Hermes sympathized with her loneliness--Calypso had such a softness to her that it was difficult not to feel sorry for her--but reiterated that Odysseus had a journey to complete, and a family to return to, a family that believed him to be dead.

Calypso thought back to the day that a handsome but battered-looking man had washed up on the shore of her island. His ship was destroyed, and his crew lost at sea, and she had nursed him back to health. He was remarkably clever, and a fearless soldier who had clearly endured many trials--things he did not speak of, and she dared not ask him about. She had not expected, however, to fall in love with him. Though it was true that she had never forced Odysseus to stay with her, she feared the day that he would gather enough resolve to leave her. Every night, he would succumb to her charms and lie with her--and every morning, weep with remorse and regret. This had gone on for seven years.

She knew, however, that no matter how attracted to her Odysseus might be, he pined for his home and his family more. Every so often, he would seem to look right past her and see her instead: Penelope, his wife. Calpyso sighed. She knew it was Penelope that Odysseus truly loved and belonged to.

Hermes seemed to understand the conclusion she had come to. "If you truly love him, Calypso," he said, "you will let him go. It is not his destiny to be with you forever."

Reluctantly, with tears in her eyes, she agreed. With her magic, she created a raft that would see Odysseus safely to dry land. She knew that once he left this island, he could never find it again--but that was as it should be. Assured that Calpyso was resolved on following Zeus's command, Hermes left.

Odysseus left Ogygia with a conflicted heart, sailing towards the vast horizon not knowing when or where he might alight. But, though Calpyso watched him go from the shore, he did not look back.

Where will Odysseus land? How did he come to be so far from home, with no ship or crew? Tune in next time for the second installment of...THE ODYSSEY.