And Lotofagi

Soon the flotilla of Odysseus sailed to the island, on which many goats were grazing. The Greeks heartily treated themselves to their meat. The next day, Odysseus with one ship went to inspect the island. It soon became clear that it was inhabited by ferocious cyclops giants, each of which had only one eye in the middle of the forehead. Not knowing how to cultivate the land, the Cyclopes lived as shepherds. They had no cities, no authorities, no laws. The Cyclopes lived alone - each in his own cave among the rocks. Seeing the entrance to one of these caves, Odysseus and his companions entered there, not knowing that it was the abode of the Cyclops Polyphemus, son of the sea god Poseidon, a ferocious cannibal. The Greeks lit a fire, began to fry the goats found in the cave and eat the cheese hung on the walls in baskets.

The Destruction of Troy and the Adventures of Odysseus. cartoons

In the evening Polyphemus suddenly appeared. He drove his herd into the cave and blocked the exit with a stone, which was so huge that the Greeks had no way to move it. Looking around, the Cyclops noticed the Hellenes. Odysseus explained to Polyphemus that he and his men were sailing home from the long Trojan War and asked for hospitality. But Polyphemus growled, grabbed two of Odysseus' companions by the legs, killed them with a blow to the ground with their heads and devoured them, not even leaving bones.

Odysseus in the cave of the Cyclops Polyphemus. Artist J. Jordans, first half of the 17th century

Having finished his bloodthirsty feast, the cyclops snored loudly. The Greeks could not get out of the cave, as the exit was blocked by a huge stone. Rising in the morning, Polyphemus smashed the heads of two more companions of Odysseus, had breakfast with them and left to graze the herd, locking the Greeks in the cave with the same stone. But while he was away, Odysseus took the trunk of a wild olive tree, sharpened its end, burned it on fire and hid it under a pile of dung. In the evening, the Cyclops returned and dined with two more people of Odysseus. Pretending to be polite, Odysseus offered Polyphemus a full cup of strong wine. The Cyclops, who had never tasted wine before, liked this heady drink very much. Emptying another cup, Polyphemus asked Odysseus his name. "My name is Nobody," replied Odysseus. “Well, then, Nobody, as a sign of my disposition, I will eat you last,” Polyphemus burst out laughing.

The drunken Cyclops quickly fell into a dead sleep, and Odysseus and his comrades, who had not yet been eaten, heated the trunk on a fire, stuck it in the giant's only eye and began to rotate.

Odysseus blinds the Cyclops Polyphemus. Black-figure vase from Laconica, mid-6th century. BC

Polyphemus yelled loudly. At his cry, other Cyclopes came running, asking a neighbor what happened to him.

“No one, my friends: I am perishing by my own mistake. No one could harm me by force! shouted Polyphemus.

“If no one,” answered the other Cyclopes, “why are you crying like that?” If you are sick, then ask for help from your father, the god Poseidon.

The Cyclopes are gone. In the morning, Polyphemus removed the stone from the entrance to the cave, stood nearby and began to release his herd to pasture. At the same time, he fumbled with his hands to grab the Greeks if they tried to get out. Then Odysseus tied three rams and attached his people under their belly, one at a time. He himself placed himself under the belly of the leader of the sheep herd, holding on to the wool from below with his hands.

Polyphemus, releasing the rams, felt their backs to make sure that no one was riding the animals. Under the belly of the sheep, the Cyclops did not think of sticking his hands. Odysseus and his companions rode out of the cave under the rams and boarded the ship. Sailing away, Odysseus shouted to Polyphemus that, having now become blind, he would no longer be able to devour the unfortunate wanderers. Enraged, Polyphemus threw a huge rock into the sea, which fell in front of the ship and raised a wave that almost threw the ship back onto the shore. Pushing off from the land with a pole, Odysseus shouted:

- Know, Cyclops, that you were blinded by the destroyer of cities, the king of Ithaca, Odysseus!

Flight of Odysseus from the island of Polyphemus. Artist A. Böcklin, 1896

Polyphemus prayed to his father, the god of the seas, Poseidon, asking that Odysseus endure many misfortunes on the way home. The Cyclops threw another rock after the Greeks. This time she fell behind the stern of the ship, and the wave raised by her carried the ship of Odysseus out to sea. Having gathered the rest of the ships around him, Odysseus left the island of the Cyclopes. But the god Poseidon heard the request of his son Polyphemus and swore to fulfill it.

Odysseus on the island of Aeola

The heroes of the Odyssey soon arrived on the islands of Eol, the god-lord of the winds. Aeolus celebrated sailors for a whole month. Before they sailed on their way, he handed Odysseus a fur tied with a silver thread. In this fur, Aeolus placed all the stormy winds subject to him, except for the affectionate western Zephyr, who was supposed to carry the ships of Odysseus towards his native Ithaca. Eolus said that Odysseus should not untie the silver thread on the bag before he sailed home.

The journey became calm. Odysseus was already approaching Ithaca and could even make out the fires burning on it, but at that moment he fell into a dream from extreme fatigue. The companions of Odysseus, who believed that rich gifts given to their leader were in the bag of Eol, furtively untied the silver thread. The winds broke out and rushed home to Aeolus, driving Odysseus' ship ahead of them. The heroes of the Odyssey soon found themselves again on the island of Eola and began to ask him for help, but the angry god drove them away.

Odysseus and the Lestrigons

More details - see a separate article

Leaving Aeolus, Odysseus sailed to the country of the terrible giants of the Laestrygons. Like the Cyclopes, they were cannibals. Still not knowing where they had drifted, the Greeks entered a bay with a narrow entrance, surrounded by sharp rocks, and moored at the place where the road approached the water. Odysseus himself, out of caution, did not bring his ship into the bay. He sent three men to find out what kind of island it was. Homer reports that these people met an enormous maiden who led them to the house of her father, the leader of the Laestrigons, Antifates.

Odysseus and the Laestrigons. Wall painting of the end of the 1st century. BC

At the house, a crowd of giants attacked the three companions of Odysseus. They ate one of them, the other two ran away. The cannibals who rushed after them began to throw stones from the rocks at the ships of the flotilla of Odysseus. All the ships that stood at the edge of the land were broken. Having descended to the shore, the lestrigons, like fish, strung the dead on stakes and carried them with them to be eaten. Odysseus barely escaped with a single ship standing outside the bay. Avoiding death, he and his comrades worked with oars with all their might.

Odysseus and the sorceress Circe

Rushing eastward by sea, they soon reached the island of Ei, where the sorceress Circe, the daughter of the sun god Helios, lived. By her father, she was the sister of the treacherous king of Colchis, Eet, from whom the Argonauts mined the golden fleece. Like this brother of hers, like her niece Medea, Circe was tempted in witchcraft and did not like people. Eurylochus, a friend of Odysseus, and with him 22 more people went to inspect the island. In the center of it, in a wide clearing, they saw the palace of Circe, around which wolves and lions roamed. The predators, however, did not attack the people of Eurylochus, but began to caress them, waving their tails. The Greeks did not know that these beasts were in fact humans, enchanted by Circe.

Circe herself also went out to the Greeks and, smiling affably, offered them a meal. Everyone agreed, except for the cautious Eurylochus. He did not go to Circe's house, but began to peep through the windows to see what was happening there. The goddess set before the travelers delicious dishes with a magic potion added to them. The Homeric poem reports that when the Greeks tasted it, Circe touched them with a magic wand, turned them into pigs and, with a malevolent grin, drove them into a pigsty.

Crying Eurylochus returned to Odysseus and told about what had happened. Odysseus rushed to rescue his comrades. On the way, the god Hermes appeared to him and gave him a remedy that could protect Circe from witchcraft. It was a fragrant white "moth" flower with a black root. When Odysseus reached the house of Circe, she invited him to the table. However, while eating her treat, the hero, on the advice of Hermes, sniffed the magic flower all the time.

Circe hands Odysseus a bowl of witchcraft. Painting by J. W. Waterhouse

Circe touched Odysseus with her wand with the words: "Go and wallow like a pig in a cloak." But the witchcraft didn't work. Odysseus jumped up and raised his sword over Circe. The sorceress began to ask for mercy, promising that she would treat Odysseus well and share the marital bed with him.

Odysseus and Circe. Greek vessel c. 440 BC

Taking an oath that Circe would not harm him, the hero of Homer lay down with her. He did not respond to Circe's love caresses until she removed her charms not only from his comrades, but from all the seafarers she had previously bewitched. Odysseus lived for a long time on the island of Circe. She gave birth to three sons from him: Agria, Latina and Telegon.

Odysseus descends into the realm of Hades

Longing for Ithaca and his wife Penelope, Odysseus nevertheless decided to leave Circe. She advised him first to visit the underground kingdom of the dead of the god Hades and ask the shadow of the famous soothsayer Tiresias of Thebes living there about his future fate in his homeland. Homer's poem describes how Odysseus and his companions, driven by a fair wind sent by Circe, sailed north to the edge of the world, where the Cimmerian tribe lives in thick fog and twilight. In the place where the underground rivers Cocytus and Phlegeton merge with Acheront, Odysseus, on the advice of Circe, sacrificed a cow and a black ram to Hades and his wife Persephone. The souls of the dead people immediately flocked to drink the sacrificial blood. On the advice of Circe, Odysseus had to drive away all the shadows with his sword until the soul of Tiresias of Thebes arrived to drink the blood.

The first to the place of sacrifice was the shadow of Elpenor, the companion of Odysseus, who a few days ago fell drunk from the roof of the palace of Circe and died to death. Odysseus was surprised that Elpenor reached the kingdom of Hades, sooner than his comrades, who sailed there on a fast ship. Strictly following the words of Circe, Odysseus, overcoming pity, drove away the soul of Elpenor from the blood of the slaughtered cow and ram. He drove away from her even the shadow of her own mother, Anticlea, who also flew to where her son was standing.

Odysseus in the kingdom of Hades, surrounded by the shadows of his dead comrades

Finally, Tiresias of Thebes appeared. After drinking plenty of blood, he told Odysseus that the god Poseidon would cruelly persecute him for blinding his son, the Cyclops Polyphemus. Tiresias urged Odysseus by all means to keep his companions from kidnapping the bulls of the solar god Helios on the island of Trinacria (Sicily). He said that big troubles awaited Odysseus in Ithaca, but he would be able to take revenge on the thieves of his property. But even upon returning to his homeland, the wanderings of Odysseus will not end. He must take the ship's oar and travel until he meets people who have never seen the sea. Where Odysseus' oar is mistaken for a shovel, his wanderings will end. There he should make a sacrifice to the propitiated Poseidon, and then return to Ithaca. Having lived there to a ripe old age, Odysseus will receive death from across the sea.

After listening to Tiresias, Odysseus finally allowed his mother to drink blood. Then the shadows of the dead wives and daughters of glorious heroes clung to her. According to Homer, Odysseus noticed among them the famous Antiope, mother of Helen the Beautiful Leda, wives of Theseus – Phaedra and Ariadne, as well as Erifil - the culprit of the campaigns against Thebes of the Seven and epigones.

Odysseus also spoke with the souls of his deceased comrades-in-arms in the Trojan War: Agamemnon, Achilles. Ajax Telamonides, unfriendly to him, did not conduct conversations and left in gloomy silence. Odysseus saw how the judge of the underworld judges the shadows of the dead Minos how to hunt Orion, Tantalus and Sisyphus suffer, and saw the mortal soul of the great Hercules.

Before continuing on to Ithaca, Odysseus returned to the island of Circe. The sorceress warned the hero that he would have to swim past the island of sirens, bloodthirsty women with the body and legs of birds (some legends tell, however, that the sirens had a fish body and tails). With beautiful, charming singing, they lured sailors to their magical island and betrayed them to a fierce death, tearing them to pieces. They say that the goddess of love Aphrodite turned the sirens into birds because these arrogant maidens did not allow anyone to deprive themselves of their virginity. On the meadow of their island were piles of human bones. Circe advised Odysseus to seal his men's ears with wax so that they would not hear the sirens sing. If Odysseus himself wants to enjoy their beautiful singing, then let him order his companions to tie themselves tightly to the mast and not untie them, despite any requests.

Odysseus and the Sirens. Attic vase, ca. 480-470 BC

Now Odysseus had to go between two cliffs standing close in the middle of the sea waters, on which two disgusting monsters lived - Scylla and Charybdis. The huge Charybdis (“whirlpool”), the daughter of the god Poseidon, sucked masses of water from her cliff three times a day and then spewed it out with a terrible noise. On the opposite rock lived Scylla, the daughter of the terrible monsters Echidna and Typhon. It was a monster with six terrible dog heads and twelve legs. Announcing the whole neighborhood with a heartbreaking screech, Scylla hung from her rock, caught sailors passing by, broke their bones and ate them.

Odysseus' ship between Scylla and Charybdis. Italian fresco of the 16th century

To escape from Charybdis, Odysseus sent his ship a little closer to the cliff of Scylla, which grabbed six of his companions with six mouths. The unfortunate, dangling in the air, screaming outstretched their hands to Odysseus, but it was already impossible to save them.

Odysseus on the island of Helios Trinacria

Soon, Trinacria (Sicily), the island of the sun god Helios, who grazed seven herds of beautiful bulls and numerous flocks of sheep, appeared before the eyes of sailors. Remembering the prophecies of Tiresias of Thebes, Odysseus took an oath from his comrades not to kidnap either a bull or a ram. But, according to the story of Homer, the stay of the Greeks in Trinacria was delayed. A contrary wind blew for thirty days, food supplies were exhausted, and hunting and fishing gave almost nothing. Once, when Odysseus fell asleep, his friend Eurylochus, tormented by hunger, persuaded his associates to slaughter several selected bulls, saying that in gratitude they would erect a temple to Helios on Ithaca. The sailors caught several bulls, slaughtered them, and ate the meat to their heart's content.

Waking up and learning about this, Odysseus was horrified. Helios complained about the arbitrariness of the travelers to Zeus. When the ship of Odysseus left Trinacria at sea, Zeus sent a strong wind on him and struck the deck with lightning. The ship sank, and everyone who sailed on it, with the exception of Odysseus himself, drowned - as Tiresias of Thebes predicted in the kingdom of Hades. Odysseus somehow tied the mast and keel floating on the water with a belt and held on to them. Soon he realized that the waves were carrying him to the rock of Charybdis. Clinging to the roots of a fig tree growing on a cliff, he hung on them until Charybdis first swallowed the mast and keel with water, and then released them back. Grasping the mast again and starting to row with his hands, Odysseus swam away from the whirlpool.

Odysseus at Calypso

Nine days later he found himself at the island of Ogygia, the home of the nymph Calypso, covered with meadows of flowers and cereals. Calypso lived there in a huge cave overgrown with poplars, cypresses and wild grapes. The beautiful nymph greeted Odysseus, fed him and put him to bed with her. Soon she gave birth to the twins Navsifoy and Navsinoy from the navigator.

Odysseus and Calypso. Artist Jan Styka

For seven years Odysseus lived with Calypso on Ogygia. But he did not cease to yearn for his native Ithaca and often spent time on the shore, looking into the sea. Finally, Zeus ordered Calypso to release Odysseus. Upon learning of this, Odysseus tied the raft, said goodbye to the hospitable nymph and sailed home.

But the light ship of the hero was accidentally seen by his hater, the god Poseidon, who was driving across the sea on a winged chariot. Having sent a huge wave to the raft, Poseidon washed Odysseus overboard. The sailor barely floated to the surface and somehow climbed back onto the raft. Next to him, the merciful goddess Levkoteya (Ino) descended from the sky in the form of a diving bird. In her beak she held a wonderful veil, which had the ability to save those who wrapped themselves in it from death in the depths of the sea. Poseidon shook the raft of Odysseus with a second wave of terrible height. Thinking that this time the hero could not be saved, Poseidon went to his underwater palace. However, the cover of Leucothea did not allow Odysseus to drown.

Odysseus on the island of theacs

Two days later, completely weakened from the struggle with the water element, he reached the island of Drepana, where the Feak tribe lived. Here, on the shore, Odysseus fell into a sound sleep.

Odysseus at the court of Alcinous, king of the Theacians. Painter Francesco Hayez, 1814-1815

The next morning, Nausicaa, the daughter of the king and queen of the Feacians (Alcinous and Arete), came with her maids to the stream to wash clothes. After work, the girls began to play ball and screamed loudly when it fell into the water. This cry woke Odysseus. Covering his nakedness with branches, he went out to the girls and, with skillful speech, aroused the sympathy of Nausicaa. The king's daughter took him to the palace, to his father and mother. Tsar Alkinoy listened to the story of Odysseus' travels, gave him gifts and ordered him to take the hero by sea to Ithaca.

Departure of Odysseus from the country of the feacs. Artist C. Lorrain, 1646

Being already near his native island, Odysseus fell asleep again. The feacians who were with him did not wake up the navigator, but carried him to the shore, sleeping, laying Alcinous' gifts next to him. When the feacs were returning by ship to their pier, Poseidon, angry with their help to Odysseus, hit the ship with his palm and turned it, along with the crew, into stone. He began to threaten Alcinous that he would destroy all the ports on the island of the feacians, filling them with the fragments of a large mountain.

Odysseus and suitors

Return of Odysseus to Ithaca

Waking up on Ithaca, Odysseus went far from the seashore and met along the way the goddess Athena, who took the form of a shepherd. Not knowing that Athena was in front of him, Odysseus told her a fictional story, calling himself a Cretan who fled his homeland because of a murder and accidentally ended up in Ithaca. Athena laughed and revealed her true form to Odysseus.

The goddess helped the hero hide the gifts of King Alcinous in the grotto and made him unrecognizable. Odysseus's skin was covered with wrinkles, his head went bald, his clothes turned into miserable rags. In this form, Athena took him to the hut of the servant of the kings of Ithaca, the faithful old swineherd Eumeus.

The son of Odysseus and Penelope, Telemachus, shortly before this, went to Odysseus' comrade-in-arms in the Trojan War, the Spartan king Menelaus. On the way back from the walls of Troy, Menelaus also underwent many adventures and misfortunes, he was even in Egypt. Telemachus asked Menelaus, who had recently returned home, if he had heard news of Odysseus somewhere.

In Ithaca, everyone thought that Odysseus was dead, and 112 noble youths from this and neighboring islands began to brazenly court his wife, Penelope. By marrying her, each of these young people hoped to get the local royal throne. The suitors hated Telemachus and were going to kill him when he returned from Sparta.

Suitors, says Homer, asked Penelope to choose one of their husbands. At first she flatly refused, saying that her husband Odysseus was no doubt still alive. But the persuasion of the young men was very persistent, and Penelope outwardly agreed to choose a new spouse. However, she said that she would do this only after she weaves a shroud in case of the death of Odysseus's old father, Laertes. For three years Penelope sat over the shroud. Being faithful to her husband and deceiving suitors, she weaved during the day, and in the evening secretly unraveled all the work done during the day. For the past three years, the suitors feasted in the palace of Odysseus: they drank his wine, slaughtered and ate his cattle, and plundered his property.

Having met a warm welcome from Eumeus, Odysseus did not yet reveal his real name to him and called himself a foreign wanderer. At this time, Telemachus returned to Ithaca from Sparta. The goddess Athena inspired him to hurry home. She also brought Telemachus to the hut of Eumeus, where his father was. During their meeting, Athena temporarily returned Odysseus to his former appearance, and the son and father recognized each other. Odysseus decided to act against the suitors by surprise and therefore did not allow Telemachus to tell anyone about who he was. Telemachus was not supposed to let even his mother, Penelope, into this secret.

Having again taken the form of a beggar tramp, Odysseus went to his house, where the suitors were feasting. On the way, no one recognized him, and the rude goatherd Melanfius even attacked the legitimate king of Ithaca with abuse. In the palace courtyard, Odysseus saw his faithful hunting dog, Argus, once strong and agile, but now dying of old age on a dunghill. Recognizing the owner, Argus wagged his tail, moved his muzzle - and died.

Eumeus led Odysseus into the hall where the grooms were feasting. Telemachus, who was present here, pretended not to know the stranger, and affectionately invited him to the table. Continuing to pretend to be a beggar, Odysseus walked along the table, asking the suitors for leftovers. But these greedy and impudent young men unceremoniously drove him away. The most shameless of the suitors, Antinous, threw a bench at Odysseus, on which he had put his feet before. The local beggar Ir, fearing that the stranger would now compete with him for the remnants of food left by the suitors, began to drive Odysseus out of the hall. Puffing up to expose himself as a brave man, Ir challenged Odysseus to a fistfight. The insolent Antinous, hearing this, laughed and promised to treat the winner of the fight with goat stomachs.

Odysseus threw off the upper part of his rags and went to Ira. Seeing the powerful muscles of Odysseus, the beggar was terribly frightened. Odysseus knocked him to the ground with the first blow of his fist. Watching the clash of two old tramps, the suitors were dying of laughter. Then they continued to feast, and in the evening they went home. When no one was left in the hall, Odysseus ordered Telemachus to remove and hide in the pantry the weapons of the suitors hanging on the walls.

Meanwhile, Penelope, having found out about a stranger who had come to her house, called him to her and asked if he had heard news of her missing husband Odysseus. Odysseus has not yet begun to open up to her, saying only that her husband is alive and should return soon. Penelope ordered Odysseus' old nurse, Eurycleia, to wash the wanderer's feet. Having brought water, Eurycleia suddenly saw an old scar familiar to her on Odysseus' thigh. She screamed with joy and surprise, but Odysseus put his finger to her lips, making it clear that the time had not yet come to reveal his presence to Penelope.

Eurycleia's maid washes Odysseus' feet

The next day, the suitors, who had again gathered to feast, began noisily demanding that Penelope make the final choice and call one of them her husband. Penelope announced that she would marry someone who had the strength to pull the strong bow of her ex-husband Odysseus and shoot from it so accurately that the arrow flew through the holes in twelve axes. The bow in question was once presented to Odysseus by Ifit, the son of that hero Eurytus, who competed in shooting with Hercules himself. Several suitors tried to bend the bow, but could not. Telemachus could have done this, but Odysseus with a look told him to put the bow aside and took it himself. Telemachus led his mother out of the hall into the inner rooms, grabbed the bow, pulled it lightly and fired accurately. The arrow fired by him flew through the holes of twelve axes.

Odysseus stood with a bow and arrows at the entrance to the hall, and Telemachus stood next to him, holding a spear and a sword. Having killed Antinous with the next shot, Odysseus told the suitors his true name. The suitors rushed to the walls for heavy weapons, but saw that they were not there. Most of them, however, had swords. Having exposed them, the suitors rushed at Odysseus, but he hit them with his arrows with extraordinary accuracy. Telemachus brought shields, spears and helmets from the pantry for his father and his two faithful servants, Eumeus and Philotius, who, recognizing the owner, stood next to him. One by one, Odysseus killed all the suitors except for the herald Medon and the singer Phemius. Several palace servants were also killed, who debauched with the suitors and helped them plunder the Odyssey property.

The beating of suitors by Odysseus. From a painting by G. Schwab

Lawsuit of Odysseus with the inhabitants of Ithaca

Homer tells further how Odysseus went to Penelope, revealed himself to her and told her about his adventures. He also met his old father, Laertes. But in the morning, the rebellious inhabitants of Ithaca, relatives of Antinous and other dead suitors, approached the palace. Odysseus, Telemachus and Laertes entered into a battle with them, which was stopped only by the intervention of the goddess Pallas Athena. The relatives of the murdered suitors began a lawsuit with Odysseus, which was referred to the decision of the son of the great Achilles, the king of Epirus Neoptolemus. Neoptolemus decided that Odysseus should leave Ithaca for ten years for the murders, and the heirs of the suitors should pay for this period the damage to Telemachus, which was caused to the royal property by the insolent people who were wooing Penelope.

The last journey of Odysseus and his death

Later legends say that Odysseus decided to devote the years of his exile to propitiating Poseidon, who had not yet forgiven him for the murder of his son. On the advice received, Odysseus set off to wander with an oar on his shoulder. His path lay through the years of Epirus. When the hero reached Thesprotia, remote from the sea, the locals, who had never seen oars, asked what kind of shovel he was carrying on his shoulder. Odysseus made a thanksgiving sacrifice to Poseidon and was forgiven by him. But the period of his exile from his native island has not yet expired. Unable to return to Ithaca yet, Odysseus married Callidike, queen of the Thesprot. She bore him a son, Polypoit.

Nine years later, he inherited the kingdom of Thesprot, and Odysseus finally went to Ithaca, which was now ruled by Penelope. Telemachus left the island because Odysseus had received a prediction that he would die at the hands of his own son. Death came to Odysseus, as Tiresias predicted, from across the sea - and indeed from the hand of his son, but not from Telemachus, but from Telegon, whose son the hero lived with the sorceress Circe

Homer

"Odyssey"

The Trojan War was started by the gods so that the time of heroes would end and the present, human, iron age would come. Who did not die at the walls of Troy, he had to die on the way back.

Most of the surviving Greek leaders sailed to their homeland, as they sailed to Troy - in a common fleet through the Aegean Sea. When they were halfway there, the sea god Poseidon broke out in a storm, the ships were swept away, people drowned in the waves and crashed on the rocks. Only the chosen ones were destined to be saved. But even those were not easy. Perhaps only the wise old Nestor managed to calmly reach his kingdom in the city of Pylos. The supreme king Agamemnon overcame the storm, but only to die an even more terrible death - in his native Argos he was killed by his own wife and her avenging lover; the poet Aeschylus will later write a tragedy about this. Menelaus, with Helen returned to him, was carried by the winds far into Egypt, and it took him a very long time to get to his Sparta. But the longest and most difficult of all was the path of the cunning king Odysseus, whom the sea carried around the world for ten years. About his fate, Homer composed his second poem: “Muse, tell me about that highly experienced husband who, / Wandering long since the day when Saint Ilion was destroyed by him, / Visited many people of the city and saw customs, / Endured much grief on the seas caring about salvation ... "

The Iliad is a heroic poem, its action takes place on the battlefield and in the military camp. "Odyssey" is a fabulous and everyday poem, its action takes place, on the one hand, in the magical lands of giants and monsters, where Odysseus wandered, on the other hand, in his small kingdom on the island of Ithaca and in its environs, where Odysseus was waiting for his wife Penelope and his son Telemachus. As in the Iliad, only one episode, “the wrath of Achilles”, is chosen for the narrative, so in the Odyssey - only the very end of his wanderings, the last two stages, from the far western edge of the earth to his native Ithaca. About everything that happened before, Odysseus tells at the feast in the middle of the poem, and tells very briefly: all these fabulous adventures in the poem account for fifty pages out of three hundred. In the Odyssey, the fairy tale sets off life, and not vice versa, although readers, both ancient and modern, were more willing to re-read and recall the fairy tale.

In the Trojan War, Odysseus did a lot for the Greeks - especially where they needed not strength, but intelligence. It was he who guessed to bind Elena's suitors with an oath to help her chosen one against any offender, and without this the army would never have gathered on a campaign. It was he who attracted the young Achilles to the campaign, and without this the victory would have been impossible. It was he, when, at the beginning of the Iliad, the Greek army, after a general meeting, almost rushed from Troy on the way back, managed to stop him. It was he who persuaded Achilles, when he quarreled with Agamemnon, to return to the battle. When, after the death of Achilles, the best warrior of the Greek camp was to receive the armor of the slain, Odysseus received them, and not Ajax. When Troy could not be taken by siege, it was Odysseus who came up with the idea of ​​building a wooden horse, in which the bravest Greek leaders hid and thus entered Troy, and he was one of them. The goddess Athena, the patroness of the Greeks, loved Odysseus the most of them and helped him at every step. But the god Poseidon hated him - we will soon find out why - and it was Poseidon who, with his storms, did not allow him to reach his homeland for ten years. Ten years under Troy, ten years in wanderings - and only in the twentieth year of his trials does the action of the Odyssey begin.

It begins, as in the Iliad, Zeus' Will. The gods hold a council, and Athena intercedes with Zeus for Odysseus. He is a prisoner of the nymph Calypso, who is in love with him, on an island in the very middle of the wide sea, and languishes, in vain wishing "to see at least smoke rising from his native shores in the distance." And in his kingdom, on the island of Ithaca, everyone already considers him dead, and the surrounding nobles demand that Queen Penelope choose a new husband from among them, and a new king for the island. There are more than a hundred of them, they live in the Odysseus Palace, feast and drink wildly, ruining the Odysseus economy, and have fun with the Odysseus slaves. Penelope tried to deceive them: she said that she made a vow to announce her decision no earlier than weaving a shroud for old Laertes, Odysseus's father, who was about to die. During the day, she wove in front of everyone, and at night she secretly unraveled what was woven. But the servants betrayed her cunning, and it became more and more difficult for her to resist the insistence of the suitors. With her is her son Telemachus, whom Odysseus left as a baby; but he is young and is not considered.

And now an unfamiliar wanderer comes to Telemachus, calls himself an old friend of Odysseus and gives him advice: “Fix a ship, go around the surrounding lands, collect news about the missing Odysseus; if you hear that he is alive, you will tell the suitors to wait another year; if you hear that you are dead, you will say that you will celebrate the wake and persuade your mother to marry. He advised and disappeared - for Athena herself appeared in his image. So Telemachus did. The suitors resisted, but Telemachus managed to leave and board the ship unnoticed - for the same Athena helped him in this.

Telemachus sails to the mainland - first to Pylos to the decrepit Nestor, then to Sparta to the newly returned Menelaus and Elena. The talkative Nestor tells how the heroes sailed from under Troy and drowned in a storm, how Agamemnon later died in Argos and how his son Orestes avenged the murderer; but he knows nothing about the fate of Odysseus. The hospitable Menelaus tells how he, Menelaus, getting lost in his wanderings, on the Egyptian coast, waylaid the prophetic sea elder, the seal shepherd Proteus, who knew how to turn into a lion, and a boar, and a leopard, and a snake, and into water, and into tree; how he fought with Proteus, and overcame him, and learned from him the way back; and at the same time he learned that Odysseus was alive and suffering in the middle of the wide sea on the island of the nymph Calypso. Delighted by this news, Telemachus is about to return to Ithaca, but then Homer interrupts his story about him and turns to the fate of Odysseus.

The intercession of Athena helped: Zeus sends the messenger of the gods Hermes to Calypso: the time has come, it's time to let Odysseus go. The nymph grieves: “Did I save him from the sea, did I want to give him immortality?” but dare not disobey. Odysseus does not have a ship - he needs to put together a raft. For four days he works with an ax and a drill, on the fifth day he lowers the raft. For seventeen days he sails, ruling on the stars, on the eighteenth a storm breaks out. It was Poseidon, seeing the hero eluding him, who swept the abyss with four winds, the logs of the raft scattered like straw. “Oh, why didn’t I die near Troy!” cried Odysseus. Two goddesses helped Odysseus: a kind sea nymph threw him a magical blanket that saved him from drowning, and faithful Athena calmed three winds, leaving the fourth to carry him by swimming to the near shore. For two days and two nights he swims without closing his eyes, and on the third wave they throw him onto land. Naked, tired, helpless, he buries himself in a pile of leaves and falls into a dead sleep.

It was the land of the blessed feacs, over which the good king Alkinos ruled in a high palace: copper walls, golden doors, embroidered fabrics on the benches, ripe fruits on the branches, eternal summer over the garden. The king had a young daughter, Nausicaa; Athena appeared to her at night and said: “Soon you will be married, but your clothes have not been washed; gather the maids, take the chariot, go to the sea, wash your dresses.” They left, washed, dried, began to play ball; the ball flew into the sea, the girls screamed loudly, their cry woke up Odysseus. He rises from the bushes, terrible, covered with dried sea mud, and prays: “Whether you are a nymph or a mortal, help me: let me cover my nakedness, show me the way to people, and may the gods send you a good husband.” He bathes, anoints himself, dresses, and Nausicaa, admiring, thinks: "Ah, if only the gods would give me such a husband." He goes to the city, enters Tsar Alcinous, tells him about his misfortune, but does not name himself; touched by Alkina, he promises that the Phaeacian ships will take him wherever he asks.

Odysseus sits at the Alkinoic feast, and the wise blind singer Demodocus entertains the feasters with songs. "Sing about the Trojan War!" asks Odysseus; and Demodocus sings about the wooden horse of Odysseus and the capture of Troy. Odysseus has tears in his eyes. Why are you crying? Alkina says. “That’s why the gods send death to heroes, so that their descendants sing glory to them. Is it true that one of your relatives fell near Troy? And then Odysseus opens: “I am Odysseus, the son of Laertes, the king of Ithaca, small, rocky, but dear to the heart ...” - and begins the story of his wanderings. There are nine adventures in this story.

The first adventure is with the lotophages. The storm carried the Odyssey ships from under Troy to the far south, where the lotus grows - a magical fruit, after tasting which, a person forgets about everything and does not want anything in life except the lotus. The lotus-eaters treated the Odyssey companions to the lotus, and they forgot about their native Ithaca and refused to sail further. By force of them, weeping, they took them to the ship and set off.

The second adventure is with the Cyclopes. They were monstrous giants with one eye in the middle of their foreheads; they herded sheep and goats and did not know wine. Chief among them was Polyphemus, the son of the sea Poseidon. Odysseus wandered into his empty cave with a dozen companions. In the evening, Polyphemus came, huge as a mountain, drove a herd into the cave, blocked the exit with a block, asked: “Who are you?” - "Wanderers, Zeus is our guardian, we ask you to help us." “I am not afraid of Zeus!” - and the Cyclops grabbed two, smashed them against the wall, ate them with bones and snored. In the morning he left with the herd, again blocking the entrance; and then Odysseus came up with a trick. He and his comrades took a Cyclops club, large as a mast, sharpened it, burned it on fire, hid it; and when the villain came and devoured two more comrades, he brought him wine to put him to sleep. The monster liked the wine. "What is your name?" - he asked. "Nobody!" Odysseus replied. “For such a treat, I will eat you last, Nobody!” and the drunken cyclops began to snore. Then Odysseus and his companions took a club, approached, swung it and plunged it into the single giant's eye. The blinded ogre roared, other Cyclopes came running: “Who offended you, Polyphemus?” - "Nobody!" - "Well, if no one, then there is nothing to make noise" - and dispersed. And in order to get out of the cave, Odysseus tied his comrades under the belly of the Cyclops rams so that he would not grope them, and so, together with the herd, they left the cave in the morning. But, already sailing away, Odysseus could not stand it and shouted:

“Here you are, for insulting the guests, execution from me, Odysseus from Ithaca!” And the Cyclops furiously prayed to his father Poseidon: “Don’t let Odysseus swim to Ithaca - and if it’s destined to do so, then let him swim not soon, alone, on a strange ship!” And God heard his prayer.

The third adventure is on the island of the wind god Eol. God sent them a fair wind, and tied the rest in a leather bag and gave Odysseus: "When you swim, let go." But when Ithaca was already visible, the tired Odysseus fell asleep, and his companions untied the bag ahead of time; a hurricane arose, they rushed back to Aeolus. "So the gods are against you!" Eol said angrily and refused to help the disobedient.

The fourth adventure is with the Laestrigons, wild cannibal giants. They ran to the shore and brought down huge rocks on the Odysseus ships; eleven of the twelve ships perished, Odysseus and a few comrades escaped on the last.

The fifth adventure is with the sorceress Kirka, the queen of the West, who turned all aliens into animals. She brought wine, honey, cheese and flour with a poisonous potion to the Odyssey messengers - and they turned into pigs, and she drove them into a barn. He escaped alone and in horror told Odysseus about this; he took a bow and went to help his comrades, not hoping for anything. But Hermes, the messenger of the gods, gave him a divine plant: a black root, a white flower, and the spell was powerless against Odysseus. Threatening with a sword, he forced the sorceress to return the human form to his friends and demanded: "Get us back to Ithaca!" “Ask the way of the prophetic Tiresias, the prophet of the prophets,” said the sorceress. "But he's dead!" "Ask the dead!" And she told me how to do it.

The sixth adventure is the most terrible: the descent into the realm of the dead. The entrance to it is at the end of the world, in the country of eternal night. The souls of the dead in it are incorporeal, insensible and thoughtless, but after drinking the sacrificial blood, they acquire speech and reason. On the threshold of the kingdom of the dead, Odysseus slaughtered a black ram and a black sheep as a sacrifice; the souls of the dead flocked to the smell of blood, but Odysseus drove them away with a sword until the prophetic Tiresias appeared before him. After drinking blood, he said:

“Your troubles are for insulting Poseidon; your salvation - if you do not also offend the Sun-Helios; if you offend, you will return to Ithaca, but alone, on a strange ship, and not soon. Your house is ruined by suitors of Penelope; but you will overcome them, and you will have a long kingdom and a peaceful old age.” After that, Odysseus allowed other ghosts to the sacrificial blood. The shadow of his mother told how she died of longing for her son; he wanted to hug her, but under his arms there was only empty air. Agamemnon told how he died from his wife: “Be careful, Odysseus, it’s dangerous to rely on wives.” Achilles said to him:

“Better for me to be a laborer on earth than a king among the dead.” Only Ajax did not say anything, not forgiving that Odysseus, and not he, got the armor of Achilles. From afar I saw Odysseus and the infernal judge Minos, and the eternally executed proud Tantalus, the cunning Sisyphus, the insolent Tityus; but then horror seized him, and he hurried away, towards the white light.

The seventh adventure was Sirens - predators, seductive singing luring sailors to death. Odysseus outwitted them: he sealed the ears of his companions with wax, and ordered himself to be tied to the mast and not let go, no matter what. So they sailed past, unharmed, and Odysseus also heard singing, the sweetest of which is none.

The eighth adventure was the strait between the monsters Scylla and Charybdis: Scylla has six heads, each with three rows of teeth, and twelve paws; Charybdis is about one larynx, but such that in one gulp it draws in the whole ship. Odysseus preferred Scylla to Charybdis - and he was right: she grabbed six of his comrades from the ship and ate with six mouths, but the ship remained intact.

The ninth adventure was the island of the Sun-Helios, where his sacred herds grazed - seven herds of red bulls, seven herds of white rams. Odysseus, mindful of the covenant of Tiresias, took a terrible oath from his comrades not to touch them; but opposite winds blew, the ship stopped, the satellites were hungry, and when Odysseus fell asleep, they slaughtered and ate the best bulls. It was scary: the flayed skins moved, and the meat on the skewers lowed. The Sun-Helios, who sees everything, hears everything, knows everything, prayed to Zeus: “Punish the offenders, otherwise I will descend into the underworld and will shine among the dead.” And then, as the winds subsided and the ship sailed from the shore, Zeus raised a storm, struck with lightning, the ship crumbled, the satellites drowned in a whirlpool, and Odysseus, alone on a fragment of a log, rushed across the sea for nine days, until he was thrown ashore on the island of Calypso.

This is how Odysseus ends his story.

King Alkina fulfilled his promise: Odysseus boarded the Phaeacian ship, plunged into an enchanted dream, and woke up already on the foggy coast of Ithaca. Here he is met by the patroness Athena. “The time has come for your cunning,” she says, “hide, beware of suitors and wait for your son Telemachus!” She touches him, and he becomes unrecognizable: old, bald, poor, with a staff and a bag. In this form, he goes deep into the island - to ask for shelter from the good old swineherd Evmey. He tells Eumeus that he comes from Crete, fought near Troy, knew Odysseus, sailed to Egypt, fell into slavery, was with pirates and barely escaped. Eumeus calls him to the hut, puts him to the hearth, treats him, grieves for the missing Odysseus, complains about violent suitors, pities Queen Penelope and Prince Telemachus. The next day, Telemachus himself comes, returning from his wanderings - of course, Athena herself also sent him here. In front of him, Athena returns Odysseus to his true appearance, mighty and proud. "Are you a god?" Telemachus asks. “No, I am your father,” Odysseus replies, and they, embracing, cry with happiness.

The end is near. Telemachus goes to the city, to the palace; behind him wander Eumeus and Odysseus, again in the form of a beggar. At the palace threshold, the first recognition is made: the decrepit Odysseus dog, having not forgotten the owner’s voice for twenty years, raises his ears, crawls up to him with his last strength and dies at his feet. Odysseus enters the house, goes around the room, asks the suitors for alms, suffers ridicule and beatings. Suitors pit him against another beggar, younger and stronger; Odysseus, unexpectedly for everyone, knocks him over with one blow. The suitors laugh: “Let Zeus send you whatever you want!” - and do not know that Odysseus wishes them a speedy death. Penelope calls the stranger to her: has he heard the news of Odysseus? “I heard,” says Odysseus, “he is in a nearby region and will soon arrive.” Penelope can't believe it, but she is grateful for the guest. She tells the old maid to wash the wanderer's dusty feet before going to bed, and invites him to be in the palace at tomorrow's feast. And here the second recognition takes place: the maid brings in the basin, touches the guest's legs and feels the scar on her lower leg, which Odysseus had after hunting the boar in his younger years. Her hands trembled, her leg slipped out: “You are Odysseus!” Odysseus clamps her mouth shut: “Yes, it’s me, but be quiet - otherwise you will ruin the whole thing!”

The last day is coming. Penelope calls the suitors to the banquet room: “Here is the bow of my dead Odysseus; whoever pulls it and shoots an arrow through twelve rings on twelve axes in a row, he will become my husband! One after another, one hundred and twenty suitors try on the bow - not a single one can even pull the bowstring. They already want to postpone the competition until tomorrow - but then Odysseus gets up in his impoverished form: “Let me try too: after all, I was once strong!” The suitors are indignant, but Telemachus stands up for the guest:

“I am the heir of this bow, to whom I want, I give; and you, mother, go to your women's affairs. Odysseus takes up the bow, easily bends it, rings the bowstring, the arrow flies through the twelve rings and pierces the wall. Zeus thunders over the house, Odysseus straightens up to his full heroic height, next to him is Telemachus with a sword and a spear. “No, I haven’t forgotten how to shoot: now I’ll try another target!” And the second arrow hits the most impudent and violent of suitors. “Oh, you thought Odysseus was dead? no, he lives for truth and retribution!” The suitors grab their swords, Odysseus strikes them with arrows, and when the arrows run out, with spears that the faithful Eumeus brings. The suitors rush about the ward, the invisible Athena darkens their minds and diverts their blows from Odysseus, they fall one by one. A pile of dead bodies piles up in the middle of the house, faithful slaves and slaves crowd around and rejoice when they see their master.

Penelope did not hear anything: Athena sent a deep sleep to her in her chamber. The old maid runs to her with good news: Odysseus has returned. Odysseus punished the suitors! She does not believe: no, yesterday's beggar is not at all like Odysseus, as he was twenty years ago; and the suitors were probably punished by angry gods. “Well,” says Odysseus, “if the queen has such an unkind heart, let them make a bed for me alone.” And here the third, main recognition takes place. “Well,” says Penelope to the maid, “take the guest to his rest from the royal bedroom.” “What are you saying, woman? - exclaims Odysseus, - this bed cannot be moved, instead of legs it has an olive tree stump, I once knocked it together on it and adjusted it. And in response, Penelope weeps with joy and rushes to her husband: it was a secret, they alone knew a sign.

It's a victory, but it's not peace yet. The fallen suitors have relatives left, and they are ready to take revenge. With an armed crowd, they go to Odysseus, he comes forward to meet them with Telemachus and several henchmen. The first blows are already thundering, the first blood is shed, but Zeus's will puts an end to the brewing strife. Lightning flashes, striking the ground between the fighters, thunder rumbles, Athena appears with a loud cry: “... Do not shed blood in vain and stop the evil enmity!” - and the frightened avengers retreat. And then:

“With a sacrifice and an oath, the union between the king and the people was sealed / The bright daughter of the Thunderer, the goddess Pallas Athena.”

With these words, the Odyssey ends.

The story begins with a meeting of the gods, at which Athena asks Zeus to help Odysseus, captivated by the enamored nymph Calypso.

At this time, Penelope, his wife, is overcome by nobles, demanding that she choose a new husband for herself. The woman, as she can, delays her decision. Son Telemachus tries to help his mother and goes in search of his father. He meets with many companions of Odysseus, from whom he learns that he is alive.

Then Homer tells about the fate of Odysseus himself. By order of Zeus, the nymph releases the prisoner. He sets off, but after 17 days, the storm of Poseidon breaks his raft. A sea nymph and Athena come to the rescue - they save the man and carry him to the shore, where he falls asleep in a dead sleep.

This was the land of Alcinous. On the advice of the same Athena, his daughter Nausicaa, together with the servants, goes to the sea to wash dresses. There they find Odysseus. The girls give him clothes. Odysseus comes to the king and, without revealing his identity, talks about the misfortunes that he happened to endure. The king promises to help him get home.

At the feast, hearing Demodoc's song about the Trojan horse, Odysseus burst into tears. He confesses: "I am Odysseus, the son of Laertes, the king of Ithaca, small, rocky, but dear to the heart ...". He also talks about his adventures.

The first happened in the land of the Lotus Eaters. His companions tasted the lotus fruit and lost their memory. Odysseus had to take them by force to the ship.

The second adventure is a meeting with the Cyclopes, led by Poseidon's son Polyphemus. The wanderers went into the cave, where he spent the night with a herd of rams, and asked for help, but the cyclops refused and ate two people. The next day, Odysseus figured out how to get out - together with his comrades, he sharpened the giant's club, and then, after giving him wine to drink, pierced his only eye. People came out of the cave, hiding under the belly of the sheep. Finally, the king revealed his real name to Polyphemus. He asks his father to avenge him.

The third adventure takes place on the island of Eola. The god of the winds helps Odysseus by giving a fair wind, and tying the rest in a bag and saying to let them go already in Ithaca. But the king's companions prematurely release the winds, and the ship brings back to Aeolus.

The next adventure is a meeting with the Laestrigons, who brought down the rocks on the ships of Odysseus. Out of 12, only 1 remained.

The fifth adventure took place on the island of the queen of the West - the sorceress Kirka. She turned the envoys of Odysseus into pigs and closed them in a corral, but the king of Ithaca, with the help of Hermes, saved them. And the frightened Kirk said that the dead prophet Tiresias would help him find the way home.

The sixth adventure is a journey to the "realm of the dead". There, Odysseus meets with Tiresias and learns that all his troubles are due to the offense of Poseidon, and salvation is the Sun-Helios.

In the seventh adventure, the king meets the Sirens. Knowing about their magical singing, Odysseus orders to tie himself to the mast, and seal the ears of the rest of his comrades with wax. So they swim past without breaking on the rocks.

During the eighth adventure, it was necessary to go through the strait between the monsters Scylla and Charybdis. The first was with six heads, and the second - with a huge throat, in which a whole ship was placed. Odysseus chose Scylla, thanks to which he saved the ship.

The ninth adventure takes place on the island of the Sun-Helios. Hungry, Odysseus' comrades eat the god's best bulls. He asks Zeus to punish the vandals. Zeus sends a storm, in which only Odysseus himself is saved. He swims to the island of Calypso. This is where the story ends.

On the ship of Alcinous, Odysseus gets to Ithaca, in the form of a beggar, sneaks into the palace. Penelope's suitors mock him, and she calls him to her and asks him to tell about her husband. In gratitude, the woman invites him to a feast, where, having regained his appearance, he wins the competition between suitors and kills all of them. But Penelope doesn't see it.

The maid tells the woman that her husband has returned. She does not believe, but Odysseus proves this, saying because of what it is impossible to move the king's bed.

The relatives of the grooms tried to take revenge on Odysseus, but Zeus ordered to stop.

Compositions

Homer was born around the 12th-7th century BC, the exact years of his life are not known. He is credited with such famous works as the Iliad and the Odyssey. Ancient legends say that the poet was a blind wandering singer, and also knew these two poems by heart. But we will analyze only the second book, which tells about the adventures of the cunning Greek king, the lucky favorite of the gods Odysseus.

The plot of the Odyssey is built with the help of such artistic means as retrospection. The story begins in the middle, and the reader will learn about all the events later, from the stories of the protagonist.

The story is based on the story of the return of the king of Ithaca to his homeland after the victory in the Trojan War. The cunning ruler spent ten years in the war, and he sailed home for the same amount of time. From the revelations of the wise warrior, we learn that at the beginning of his journey he fell into the hands of the Cyclops Polyphemus, who devoured travelers. In order to get out of the clutches of the one-eyed villain, Odysseus got him drunk and pierced his eye, which caused the wrath of the Cyclops. The enraged giant appealed to Poseidon and begged him to take revenge on the offender.

The king of Ithaca also tells how he got to the island of Kirki, who turned all his friends into pigs. The hero had to be Kirk's lover for exactly a year. After that, he descends into the underground Hades to speak with the soothsayer Tiresias.

Odysseus sails past the Sirens, who are trying to destroy the sailors with their singing. It also passes between Scylla and Charybdis. Soon the hero loses the ship and swims up on the island of Calypso, which he was forcibly captured for seven years.

History of creation

The poem was written in hexameter - this is the size of the heroic poetry of ancient Greece. It is divided into 24 songs, according to the number of letters in the Greek alphabet. It is believed that this book did not have ancestors, but before the creation of the work, many legends and songs had already arisen, on the basis of which the Odyssey was created.

The language of the work is not similar to any dialect of the Greek language. Often there are inflectional forms that were never used in the living ancient language.

Main characters

1. The main character of the poem is Odysseus, the king of Ithaca. The main features of his character, oddly enough, are considered not heroism and courage, but intelligence, cunning and resourcefulness. His only desire is to return home to his beloved wife and son, whom he has not seen for about 20 years. Throughout the story, the hero is patronized by the goddess of wisdom - Athena.
   Odysseus appears before the reader in different roles: a navigator, a robber, a brave warrior, a beggar wanderer, etc. However, whoever he is, he still longs to return home, sincerely suffers for his fallen friends.
2. Penelope is the faithful wife of Odysseus, sister of Helen of Troy. She is modest and restrained, her moral character is impeccable. He loves needlework and home comfort. It is distinguished by cunning, as it manages to deceive suitors for more than one year. An exceptionally decent woman.
3. Telemachus is the son of Odysseus. A brave and courageous fighter, a man of exceptional honor. He loves his family, honors the duty of heir to the throne.

Mythology about Odysseus

Based on the myths, we learn that the hero was the son of King Laertes and the companion of Artemis Anticlea. He was also the husband of Penelope and the father of Telemachus.

Being one of Elena's suitors, he preferred her cousin Penelope to the most beautiful earthly woman.
He became famous for his participation in the Trojan War. In addition, he was one of the key characters not only in the Odyssey, but also in the Iliad. He was not only brave, but also cunning, in honor of which he was given the nickname "cunning". Thanks to his resourcefulness, he manages to escape from all troubles.

The birthplace of Odysseus is Ithaca - these are islands in the Ionian Ocean. There he was born and raised, and soon replaced his father, becoming king instead of him. While the hero was swimming in the sea, trying to return home, the suitors, who wooed his wife, captured the city. They constantly ravaged his palace and arranged feasts.

The son of the king, unable to bear such a long absence of his father, prompted by Athena, goes in search of him.
Returning to his homeland, the cunning warrior learns what happened in the city during his wanderings.

main idea

The cunning and dexterous fighter was too arrogant, which angered the Gods, or rather Poseidon. In a fit of narcissism, he exclaimed that he himself could choose his own fate. This Deity was not forgiven him. Thus, the meaning of the work lies in the fact that one cannot indulge in pride and follow its lead. As mentioned above, the ruler of Ithaca deprived the son of the sea ruler of sight, and was very self-confident, believing that the mercy of fate was based on his merits and imaginary superiority. His conceit crossed all the lines, for which God sent a curse on him and forced him to swim in the sea until he realized his guilt.

Homer in his poem showed that a person who considered himself the arbiter of his fate and the crown of creation could suffer from this, and quite seriously. Even the king did not stop having an inflated ego. In addition, the religious motive is strong: the poet, like all people of his time, believed that nothing in this world depends on the subject, everything is predetermined in advance.

Subject

1. Homer reflected many themes in his heroic epistle. The main theme of the work is an adventurous journey full of adventures - the return of the king of Ithaca from the Trojan battle. The colorful stories of Odysseus completely immerse the reader in the atmosphere of the book.
2. Stories about his arrival on the island of Calypso, about how he sailed between Scylla and Charybdis, Sirens and other stories of Lord Ithaca are saturated with the theme of love. The hero sincerely loves his family and does not agree to change it to a paradise island with a goddess as a mistress.
3. Also, the power of feeling is expressed in the image of Penelope. With it, the author reveals the theme of marital fidelity. She was cunning with all her might so as not to get to another. The woman believed in his return, even when no one believed.
4. The theme of fate appears in every episode of the work. Homer shows the rebellion of the individual against destiny, against the gods, tending to think that he is useless and criminal. Fatum foresees even these movements of the soul, all of them have already been calculated and deduced by moira in the form of a thread of life.
5. Honor and dishonor is also a topic for the poet to think about. Telemachus considers it his duty to find his father and restore the former grandeur of the house. Penelope thinks that moral decline is a betrayal of her husband. Odysseus believes that it would be dishonorable to give up and not try to return to his homeland.

Issues

• Since the poem tells about the ten-year wanderings of the protagonist, his countless exploits, courageous deeds and, finally, a successful return home, the first place in the work is fabulously adventurous issues: the arbitrariness of the gods, the pride of Odysseus, the crisis of power in Ithaca, etc. d.
• Ten years have passed after the king sailed from Ithaca to Troy, all the participants in the battle returned home, and only he alone still does not come. He becomes a hostage of the deep sea. His problem is that he loses faith in his strength and comprehends despair. But no matter how deep it is, the hero still goes to his goal, and the thorns on his way only kindle excitement in him. The exploits and adventures that are described in the poem occupy a large part of the narrative and are its core basis.
• The problem of divine intervention in the fate of people is also acute in the work. They control people like puppets, depriving them of their self-confidence. The inhabitants of Olympus also resolve conflicts between themselves through a person, so sometimes he becomes a hostage of a situation, the fault of which is not at all him.

Composition and genre

A poem is a large work written in verse form. It combines the lyrical and epic principles. Homer wrote "Odyssey" in this genre - a lyrical epic poem.

The composition is based on old techniques. A very typical story for that time about how a husband returns home, unrecognized by anyone, and ends up at his wife's wedding. There are also widespread stories about a son who went looking for his father.

The Iliad and the Odyssey differ in construction: for example, in the first book the story is presented sequentially, while in the second this sequence is shifted. It was previously mentioned that this artistic method is called retrospection.

What ended?

After ten years of sailing Odysseus, the Gods had mercy and decided to let him go to land. But the king of Ithaca, before returning home, asks the Gods to turn him into an old man in order to find out who was waiting for him.

The hero meets his son and plots with him against Penelope's suitors. The cunning ruler's plan is working. The faithful wife recognizes in the old man her husband, who tells her a secret known only to them. After that, Telemachus and his father brutally crack down on those who had the courage to dare and arrange, in the absence of the king, chaos in his palace.

Interesting? Save it on your wall!

The Trojan War was started by the gods so that the time of heroes would end and the present, human, iron age would come. Who did not die at the walls of Troy, he had to die on the way back.

Most of the surviving Greek leaders sailed to their homeland, as they sailed to Troy - in a common fleet through the Aegean Sea. When they were halfway there, the sea god Poseidon broke out in a storm, the ships were swept away, people drowned in the waves and crashed on the rocks. Only the chosen ones were destined to be saved. But even those were not easy. Perhaps only the wise old Nestor managed to calmly reach his kingdom in the city of Pylos. The supreme king Agamemnon overcame the storm, but only to die an even more terrible death - in his native Argos he was killed by his own wife and her avenging lover; the poet Aeschylus will later write a tragedy about this. Menelaus, with Helen returned to him, was carried by the winds far into Egypt, and it took him a very long time to get to his Sparta. But the longest and most difficult of all was the path of the cunning king Odysseus, whom the sea carried around the world for ten years. About his fate, Homer composed his second poem: “Muse, tell me about that highly experienced husband who, / Wandering long since the day when Saint Ilion was destroyed by him, / Visited many people of the city and saw customs, / Endured much grief on the seas caring about salvation ... "

The Iliad is a heroic poem, its action takes place on a battlefield and in a military camp. "Odyssey" is a fabulous and everyday poem, its action takes place, on the one hand, in the magical lands of giants and monsters, where Odysseus wandered, on the other hand, in his small kingdom on the island of Ithaca and in its environs, where Odysseus was waiting for his wife Penelope and his son Telemachus. As in the Iliad, only one episode, “the wrath of Achilles”, is chosen for the narrative, so in the Odyssey - only the very end of his wanderings, the last two hauls, from the far western edge of the earth to his native Ithaca. About everything that happened before, Odysseus tells at the feast in the middle of the poem, and tells very briefly: all these fabulous adventures in the poem account for fifty pages out of three hundred. In the Odyssey, the fairy tale sets off life, and not vice versa, although readers, both ancient and modern, were more willing to re-read and recall the fairy tale.

In the Trojan War, Odysseus did a lot for the Greeks - especially where they needed not strength, but intelligence. It was he who guessed to bind Elena's suitors with an oath to help her chosen one against any offender, and without this the army would never have gathered on a campaign. It was he who attracted the young Achilles to the campaign, and without this the victory would have been impossible. It was he, when, at the beginning of the Iliad, the Greek army, after a general meeting, almost rushed from Troy on the way back, managed to stop him. It was he who persuaded Achilles, when he quarreled with Agamemnon, to return to the battle. When, after the death of Achilles, the best warrior of the Greek camp was to receive the armor of the slain, Odysseus received them, and not Ajax. When Troy could not be taken by siege, it was Odysseus who came up with the idea of ​​​​building a wooden horse, in which the bravest Greek leaders hid and thus penetrated into Troy - and he is one of them. The goddess Athena, the patroness of the Greeks, loved Odysseus the most of them and helped him at every step. But the god Poseidon hated him - we will soon find out why - and it was Poseidon who, with his storms, did not allow him to reach his homeland for ten years. Ten years under Troy, ten years in wanderings - and only in the twentieth year of his trials does the action of the Odyssey begin.

It begins, as in the Iliad, Zeus' Will. The gods hold a council, and Athena intercedes with Zeus for Odysseus. He is a prisoner of the nymph Calypso, who is in love with him, on an island in the very middle of the wide sea, and languishes, in vain wishing "to see at least smoke rising from his native shores in the distance." And in his kingdom, on the island of Ithaca, everyone already considers him dead, and the surrounding nobles demand that Queen Penelope choose a new husband from among them, and a new king for the island. There are more than a hundred of them, they live in the Odysseus Palace, feast and drink wildly, ruining the Odysseus economy, and have fun with the Odysseus slaves. Penelope tried to deceive them: she said that she made a vow to announce her decision no earlier than weaving a shroud for old Laertes, Odysseus's father, who was about to die. During the day, she wove in front of everyone, and at night she secretly unraveled what was woven. But the servants betrayed her cunning, and it became more and more difficult for her to resist the insistence of the suitors. With her is her son Telemachus, whom Odysseus left as a baby; but he is young and is not considered.

And now an unfamiliar wanderer comes to Telemachus, calls himself an old friend of Odysseus and gives him advice: “Fix a ship, go around the surrounding lands, collect news about the missing Odysseus; if you hear that he is alive, you will tell the suitors to wait another year; if you hear that you are dead, you will say that you will celebrate the wake and persuade your mother to marry. He advised and disappeared - for Athena herself appeared in his image. So Telemachus did. The suitors resisted, but Telemachus managed to leave and board the ship unnoticed - for the same Athena helped him in this.

Telemachus sails to the mainland - first to Pylos to the decrepit Nestor, then to Sparta to the newly returned Menelaus and Elena. The talkative Nestor tells how the heroes sailed from under Troy and drowned in a storm, how Agamemnon later died in Argos and how his son Orestes avenged the murderer; but he knows nothing about the fate of Odysseus. The hospitable Menelaus tells how he, Menelaus, getting lost in his wanderings, on the Egyptian coast, waylaid the prophetic sea elder, the seal shepherd Proteus, who knew how to turn into a lion, and a boar, and a leopard, and a snake, and into water, and into tree; how he fought with Proteus, and overcame him, and learned from him the way back; and at the same time he learned that Odysseus was alive and suffering in the middle of the wide sea on the island of the nymph Calypso. Delighted by this news, Telemachus is about to return to Ithaca, but then Homer interrupts his story about him and turns to the fate of Odysseus.

The intercession of Athena helped: Zeus sends the messenger of the gods Hermes to Calypso: the time has come, it's time to let Odysseus go. The nymph grieves: “Did I save him from the sea, did I want to give him immortality?” - but dare not disobey. Odysseus does not have a ship - you need to put together a raft. For four days he works with an ax and a drill, on the fifth - the raft is lowered. For seventeen days he sails, ruling on the stars, on the eighteenth a storm breaks out. It was Poseidon, seeing the hero eluding him, who swept the abyss with four winds, the logs of the raft scattered like straw. “Oh, why didn’t I die near Troy!” cried Odysseus. Two goddesses helped Odysseus: a kind sea nymph threw him a magical blanket that saved him from drowning, and faithful Athena calmed three winds, leaving the fourth to carry him by swimming to the near shore. For two days and two nights he swims without closing his eyes, and on the third wave they throw him onto land. Naked, tired, helpless, he buries himself in a pile of leaves and falls into a dead sleep.

It was the land of the blessed feacs, over which the good king Alkinos ruled in a high palace: copper walls, golden doors, embroidered fabrics on the benches, ripe fruits on the branches, eternal summer over the garden. The king had a young daughter, Nausicaa; Athena appeared to her at night and said: “Soon you will be married, but your clothes have not been washed; gather the maids, take the chariot, go to the sea, wash your dresses.” They left, washed, dried, began to play ball; the ball flew into the sea, the girls screamed loudly, their cry woke up Odysseus. He rises from the bushes, terrible, covered with dried sea mud, and prays: “Whether you are a nymph or a mortal, help me: let me cover my nakedness, show me the way to people, and may the gods send you a good husband.” He bathes, anoints himself, dresses, and Nausicaa, admiring, thinks: "Ah, if only the gods would give me such a husband." He goes to the city, enters Tsar Alcinous, tells him about his misfortune, but does not name himself; touched by Alkina, he promises that the Phaeacian ships will take him wherever he asks.

Odysseus sits at the Alkinoic feast, and the wise blind singer Demodocus entertains the feasters with songs. "Sing about the Trojan War!" - asks Odysseus; and Demodocus sings about the wooden horse of Odysseus and the capture of Troy. Odysseus has tears in his eyes. Why are you crying? Alkina says. - For this, the gods send death to the heroes, so that the descendants sing glory to them. Is it true that one of your relatives fell near Troy? And then Odysseus opens: “I am Odysseus, the son of Laertes, the king of Ithaca, small, stony, but dear to the heart ...” - and begins the story of his wanderings. There are nine adventures in this story.

The first adventure is with the lotophages. The storm took the Odyssey ships from under Troy to the far south, where the lotus grows - a magical fruit, after tasting which, a person forgets about everything and does not want anything in life except the lotus. The lotus-eaters treated the Odyssey companions to the lotus, and they forgot about their native Ithaca and refused to sail further. By force of them, weeping, they took them to the ship and set off.

The second adventure is with the Cyclopes. They were monstrous giants with one eye in the middle of their foreheads; they herded sheep and goats and did not know wine. Chief among them was Polyphemus, the son of the sea Poseidon. Odysseus wandered into his empty cave with a dozen companions. In the evening, Polyphemus came, huge as a mountain, drove a herd into the cave, blocked the exit with a block, asked: “Who are you?” - "Wanderers, Zeus is our guardian, we ask you to help us." - "I'm not afraid of Zeus!" - and the Cyclops grabbed two, smashed them against the wall, ate them with bones and snored. In the morning he left with the herd, again blocking the entrance; and then Odysseus came up with a trick. He and his comrades took a Cyclops club, large as a mast, sharpened it, burned it on fire, hid it; and when the villain came and devoured two more comrades, he brought him wine to put him to sleep. The monster liked the wine. "What is your name?" - he asked. "Nobody!" Odysseus answered. “For such a treat, I will eat you last, Nobody!” - and drunken cyclops snored. Then Odysseus and his companions took a club, approached, swung it and plunged it into the single giant's eye. The blinded ogre roared, other Cyclopes came running: “Who offended you, Polyphemus?” - "Nobody!" - "Well, if no one, then there is nothing to make noise" - and dispersed. And in order to get out of the cave, Odysseus tied his comrades under the belly of the Cyclops rams so that he would not grope them, and so, together with the herd, they left the cave in the morning. But, already sailing away, Odysseus could not stand it and shouted:

“Here you are, for insulting the guests, execution from me, Odysseus from Ithaca!” And the Cyclops furiously prayed to his father Poseidon: “Don’t let Odysseus swim to Ithaca - and if it’s destined to do so, then let him swim not soon, alone, on a strange ship!” And God heard his prayer.

The third adventure is on the island of the wind god Eol. God sent them a fair wind, and tied the rest in a leather bag and gave Odysseus: "When you swim - let go." But when Ithaca was already visible, the tired Odysseus fell asleep, and his companions untied the bag ahead of time; a hurricane arose, they rushed back to Aeolus. "So the gods are against you!" - Eol said angrily and refused to help the disobedient.

The fourth adventure is with the lestrigons, wild cannibal giants. They ran to the shore and brought down huge rocks on the Odysseus ships; eleven of the twelve ships perished, Odysseus and a few comrades escaped on the last.

The fifth adventure is with the sorceress Kirka, the queen of the West, who turned all aliens into animals. She brought wine, honey, cheese and flour with a poisonous potion to the Odyssey messengers - and they turned into pigs, and she drove them into the barn. He escaped alone and in horror told Odysseus about this; he took a bow and went to help his comrades, not hoping for anything. But Hermes, the messenger of the gods, gave him a divine plant: a black root, a white flower, and the spell was powerless against Odysseus. Threatening with a sword, he forced the sorceress to return the human form to his friends and demanded: "Get us back to Ithaca!" - "Ask the way of the prophetic Tiresias, the prophet of the prophets," said the sorceress. "But he's dead!" - "Ask the dead!" And she told me how to do it.

The sixth adventure is the most terrible: the descent into the realm of the dead. The entrance to it is at the end of the world, in the country of eternal night. The souls of the dead in it are incorporeal, insensible and thoughtless, but after drinking the sacrificial blood, they acquire speech and reason. On the threshold of the kingdom of the dead, Odysseus slaughtered a black ram and a black sheep as a sacrifice; the souls of the dead flocked to the smell of blood, but Odysseus drove them away with a sword until the prophetic Tiresias appeared before him. After drinking blood, he said:

“Your troubles are for insulting Poseidon; your salvation - if you do not offend the Sun-Helios; if you offend, you will return to Ithaca, but alone, on a strange ship, and not soon. Your house is ruined by suitors of Penelope; but you will overcome them, and you will have a long kingdom and a peaceful old age.” After that, Odysseus allowed other ghosts to the sacrificial blood. The shadow of his mother told how she died of longing for her son; he wanted to hug her, but under his arms there was only empty air. Agamemnon told how he died from his wife: “Be careful, Odysseus, it’s dangerous to rely on wives.” Achilles said to him:

“Better for me to be a laborer on earth than a king among the dead.” Only Ajax did not say anything, not forgiving that Odysseus, and not he, got the armor of Achilles. From afar I saw Odysseus and the infernal judge Minos, and the eternally executed proud Tantalus, the cunning Sisyphus, the insolent Tityus; but then horror seized him, and he hurried away, towards the white light.

The seventh adventure was Sirens - predators, seductive singing luring sailors to death. Odysseus outwitted them: he sealed the ears of his companions with wax, and ordered himself to be tied to the mast and not let go, no matter what. So they sailed past, unharmed, and Odysseus also heard singing, the sweetest of which is none.

The eighth adventure was the strait between the monsters Scylla and Charybdis: Scylla has six heads, each with three rows of teeth, and twelve paws; Charybdis - about one larynx, but such that in one gulp it drags the whole ship. Odysseus preferred Scylla to Charybdis - and he was right: she grabbed six of his comrades from the ship and ate with six mouths, but the ship remained intact.

The ninth adventure was the island of the Sun-Helios, where his sacred herds grazed - seven herds of red bulls, seven herds of white rams. Odysseus, mindful of the covenant of Tiresias, took a terrible oath from his comrades not to touch them; but opposite winds blew, the ship stopped, the satellites were hungry, and when Odysseus fell asleep, they slaughtered and ate the best bulls. It was scary: the flayed skins moved, and the meat on the skewers lowed. The Sun-Helios, who sees everything, hears everything, knows everything, prayed to Zeus: “Punish the offenders, otherwise I will descend into the underworld and will shine among the dead.” And then, as the winds subsided and the ship sailed from the shore, Zeus raised a storm, struck with lightning, the ship crumbled, the satellites drowned in a whirlpool, and Odysseus, alone on a fragment of a log, rushed across the sea for nine days, until he was thrown ashore on the island of Calypso.

This is how Odysseus ends his story.

King Alkina fulfilled his promise: Odysseus boarded the Phaeacian ship, plunged into an enchanted dream, and woke up already on the foggy coast of Ithaca. Here he is met by the patroness Athena. “The time has come for your cunning,” she says, “hide, beware of suitors and wait for your son Telemachus!” She touches him, and he becomes unrecognizable: old, bald, poor, with a staff and a bag. In this form, he goes deep into the island - to ask for shelter from the good old swineherd Evmey. He tells Eumeus that he comes from Crete, fought near Troy, knew Odysseus, sailed to Egypt, fell into slavery, was with pirates and barely escaped. Eumeus calls him to the hut, puts him to the hearth, treats him, grieves for the missing Odysseus, complains about violent suitors, pities Queen Penelope and Prince Telemachus. The next day, Telemachus himself comes, having returned from his wandering - of course, Athena herself also sent him here. In front of him, Athena returns Odysseus his true appearance, mighty and proud. "Are you a god?" - asks Telemachus. “No, I am your father,” Odysseus replies, and they, embracing, cry with happiness.

The end is near. Telemachus goes to the city, to the palace; behind him wander Eumeus and Odysseus, again in the form of a beggar. At the palace threshold, the first recognition is made: the decrepit Odysseus dog, having not forgotten the owner’s voice for twenty years, raises his ears, crawls up to him with his last strength and dies at his feet. Odysseus enters the house, goes around the room, asks the suitors for alms, suffers ridicule and beatings. Suitors pit him against another beggar, younger and stronger; Odysseus, unexpectedly for everyone, knocks him over with one blow. The suitors laugh: “Let Zeus send you whatever you want!” - and do not know that Odysseus wishes them a speedy death. Penelope calls the stranger to her: has he heard the news of Odysseus? “I heard,” says Odysseus, “he is in a nearby region and will arrive soon.” Penelope can't believe it, but she is grateful for the guest. She tells the old maid to wash the wanderer's dusty feet before going to bed, and invites him to be in the palace at tomorrow's feast. And here the second recognition takes place: the maid brings in the basin, touches the guest's legs and feels the scar on her lower leg, which Odysseus had after hunting the boar in his younger years. Her hands trembled, her leg slipped out: “You are Odysseus!” Odysseus clamps her mouth: "Yes, it's me, but be quiet - otherwise you will ruin the whole thing!"

The last day is coming. Penelope calls the suitors to the banquet room: “Here is the bow of my dead Odysseus; whoever pulls it and shoots an arrow through twelve rings on twelve axes in a row, he will become my husband! One after another, one hundred and twenty suitors try on the bow - not a single one can even pull the bowstring. They already want to postpone the competition until tomorrow - but then Odysseus gets up in his impoverished form: “Let me try too: after all, I was once strong!” The suitors are indignant, but Telemachus stands up for the guest:

“I am the heir of this bow, to whom I want, I give it; and you, mother, go to your women's affairs. Odysseus takes up the bow, easily bends it, rings the bowstring, the arrow flies through the twelve rings and pierces the wall. Zeus thunders over the house, Odysseus straightens up to his full heroic height, next to him is Telemachus with a sword and a spear. “No, I haven’t forgotten how to shoot: now I’ll try another target!” And the second arrow hits the most impudent and violent of suitors. “Oh, you thought Odysseus was dead? no, he lives for truth and retribution!” The suitors grab their swords, Odysseus strikes them with arrows, and when the arrows run out - with spears, which the faithful Eumeus brings. The suitors rush about the ward, the invisible Athena darkens their minds and diverts their blows from Odysseus, they fall one by one. A pile of dead bodies piles up in the middle of the house, faithful slaves and slaves crowd around and rejoice when they see their master.

Penelope did not hear anything: Athena sent a deep sleep to her in her chamber. The old maid runs to her with good news: Odysseus has returned. Odysseus punished the suitors! She does not believe: no, yesterday's beggar is not at all like Odysseus, as he was twenty years ago; and the suitors were probably punished by angry gods. “Well,” says Odysseus, “if the queen has such an unkind heart, let them make a bed for me alone.” And here the third, main recognition takes place. “Well,” says Penelope to the maid, “take out the guest’s bed from the royal bedroom to his rest.” “What are you talking about, woman? - Odysseus exclaims, - this bed cannot be moved, instead of legs it has an olive tree stump, I once knocked it together on it and adjusted it. And in response, Penelope weeps with joy and rushes to her husband: it was a secret, they alone knew a sign.

It's a victory, but it's not peace yet. The fallen suitors have relatives left, and they are ready to take revenge. With an armed crowd, they go to Odysseus, he comes forward to meet them with Telemachus and several henchmen. The first blows are already thundering, the first blood is shed - but Zeus's will puts an end to the brewing discord. Lightning flashes, striking the ground between the fighters, thunder rumbles, Athena appears with a loud cry: “... Do not shed blood in vain and stop the evil enmity!” - and the frightened avengers retreat. And then:

“With a sacrifice and an oath, the union between the king and the people was sealed / The bright daughter of the Thunderer, the goddess Pallas Athena.”

With these words, the Odyssey ends.

Current page: 1 (total book has 21 pages) [available reading excerpt: 12 pages]

Homer
Odyssey

Homer (Homeros) - Biography

HOMER (Homeros), Greek poet, according to ancient tradition, the author of the Iliad (Ilias) and the Odyssey (Odysseia), two great epics that open the history of European literature. We have no information about Homer's life, and the surviving biographies and "biographical" notes are of later origin and are often intertwined with legend (traditional stories about Homer's blindness, about the dispute of seven cities for the right to be his homeland).

Since the 18th century in science, there is a discussion both about the authorship and about the history of the creation of the Iliad and the Odyssey, the so-called "Homeric question", the beginning of which is everywhere accepted (although there were earlier references) to the publication in 1795 of the work of F. A. Wolf under the title Introduction to Homer (Prolegomena ad Homerum). Many scholars, called pluralists, argued that the Iliad and the Odyssey in their present form are not the creations of Homer (many even believed that Homer did not exist at all), but were created in the 6th century BC. BC e., probably in Athens, when the songs of different authors transmitted from generation to generation were collected and recorded. And the so-called Unitarians defended the compositional unity of the poem, and thus the uniqueness of its author. New information about the ancient world, comparative studies of South Slavic folk epics and a detailed analysis of metrics and style provided enough arguments against the original version of the pluralists, but also complicated the view of the Unitarians. Historical, geographical and linguistic analysis of the Iliad and the Odyssey made it possible to date them around the 8th century BC. BC e., although there are attempts to attribute them to the 9th or 7th century. BC e. They, apparently, were built on the Asia Minor coast of Greece, inhabited by Ionian tribes, or on one of the adjacent islands.

At present, there is no doubt that the Iliad and the Odyssey were the result of long centuries of development of Greek epic poetry, and not at all its beginning. Different scholars assess in different ways how great the role of the creative individual was in the final design of these poems, but the prevailing opinion is that Homer is by no means just an empty (or collective) name. The question remains unresolved whether the Iliad and the Odyssey were created by one poet or are the works of two different authors (which, according to many scientists, explains the differences in the vision of the world, poetic technique and language of both poems). This poet (or poets) was probably one of the Aedi who, at least from the Mycenaean era (XV-XII centuries BC), passed on from generation to generation the memory of a mythical and heroic past.

There was, however, not the primordial Iliad or the primordial Odyssey, but a certain set of established plots and a technique for composing and performing songs. It was these songs that became the material for the author (or authors) of both epics. What was new in Homer's work was the free processing of many epic traditions and the formation of a single whole from them with a carefully thought-out composition. Many modern scholars are of the opinion that this whole could only be created in writing. The poet's desire to give these voluminous works a certain coherence is clearly expressed (through the organization of the plot around one main core, the similar construction of the first and last songs, thanks to the parallels connecting individual songs, the reconstruction of previous events and the prediction of future ones). But most of all, the unity of the plan of the epic is evidenced by the logical, consistent development of the action and the solid images of the main characters. It seems plausible that Homer already used alphabetic writing, which, as we now know, the Greeks met no later than the 8th century BC. BC e. A relic of the traditional manner of creating such songs was the use, even in this new epic, of the technique inherent in oral poetry. There are often repetitions and the so-called formulaic epic style. This style requires the use of complex epithets (“swift-footed”, “pink-fingered”), which are determined to a lesser extent by the properties of the person or object being described, and to a much greater extent by the metrical properties of the epithet itself. We find here established expressions that make up a metrical whole (once a whole verse), representing typical situations in the description of battles, feasts, meetings, etc. These formulas were widely used by the Aeds and the first creators of written poetry (the same like Hesiod).

The language of the epics is also the fruit of a long development of pre-Homeric epic poetry. It does not correspond to any regional dialect or any stage in the development of the Greek language. Phonetically, the Homeric language closest to the Ionian dialect shows many archaic forms reminiscent of the Greek of the Mycenaean era (which became known to us thanks to the Linear B tablets). Often we meet side by side inflectional forms that have never been used simultaneously in a living language. There are also many elements characteristic of the Aeolian dialect, the origin of which has not yet been clarified. The formulaic and archaic nature of the language is combined with the traditional meter of heroic poetry, which was the hexameter.

In terms of content, Homer's epics also contain many motifs, storylines, and myths gleaned from early poetry. In Homer, one can hear echoes of the Minoan culture and even trace the connection with the Hittite mythology. However, the main source of epic material for him was the Mycenaean period. It is during this era that the action of his epic takes place. Living in the fourth century after the end of this period, which he strongly idealizes, Homer cannot be a source of historical information about the political, social life, material culture or religion of the Mycenaean world. But in the political center of this society, Mycenae, objects identical to those described in the epic (mainly weapons and tools) were found, while on some Mycenaean monuments images, things and even scenes typical of the poetic reality of the epic are presented. The events of the Trojan War, around which Homer unfolded the actions of both poems, were attributed to the Mycenaean era. He showed this war as an armed campaign of the Greeks (called Achaeans, Danaans, Argives) led by the Mycenaean king Agamemnon against Troy and its allies. For the Greeks, the Trojan War was a historical fact dating back to the 14th-12th centuries. BC e. (According to the calculations of Eratosthenes, Troy fell in 1184).

The current state of knowledge suggests that at least some elements of the Trojan epic are historical. As a result of the excavations begun by G. Schliemann, the ruins of a large city were discovered, in the very place where, in accordance with the descriptions of Homer and the local age-old tradition, Troy-Ilion was supposed to lie, on a hill now called Hisarlyk. It is only on the basis of Schliemann's discoveries that the ruins on the Hissarlik hill are called Troy. It is not entirely clear which of the successive layers should be identified with Homer's Troy. The poet could collect and perpetuate the legends about the settlement on the coastal plain and rely on historical events, but he could also transfer the heroic legends, which originally belonged to another period, to the ruins, about whose past he knew little, could also make them the arena of battles that took place on another land.

The action of the Iliad takes place at the end of the ninth year of the siege of Troy (another name for the city of Ilios, Ilion, hence the title of the poem). Events are played out over several tens of days. Pictures of the previous years of the war appear more than once in the speeches of the heroes, increasing the temporal length of the plot.

Limiting the direct account of events to such a short period serves to make more vivid the events that decided both the outcome of the war and the fate of its protagonist. According to the first sentence of the introduction, the Iliad is the tale of Achilles' wrath. Enraged by the humiliating decision of the supreme leader Agamemnon, Achilles refuses to further participate in the war. He returns to the battlefield only when his friend Patroclus finds death at the hands of Hector, the unbending defender of Troy, the eldest son of King Priam. Achilles reconciles with Agamemnon and, avenging his friend, kills Hector in a duel and dishonors his body. However, in the end, he gives the body to Priam, when the old king of Troy himself comes to the camp of the Greeks, right into the tent of the murderer of his sons. Priam and Achilles, enemies, look at each other without hatred, as people united by one fate, dooming all people to pain.

Along with the story of Achilles' wrath, Homer described four battles near Troy, devoting his attention to the actions of individual heroes. Homer also presented an overview of the Achaean and Trojan troops (the famous list of ships and the list of Trojans in the second canto is perhaps the earliest part of the epic) and ordered Helen to show Priam from the walls of Troy the most prominent Greek leaders. Both of these (as well as many other episodes) do not correspond to the tenth year of the struggle near Troy. However, like numerous reminiscences from previous years of the war, statements and premonitions related to future events, all this is aimed at the same goal: combining the poem about the wrath of Achilles with the story of the capture of Ilion, which the author of the Iliad managed truly masterfully.

If the main character of the Iliad is an invincible warrior who puts honor and glory above life, in the Odyssey the ideal changes fundamentally. Her hero, Odysseus, is primarily distinguished by dexterity, the ability to find a way out of any situation. Here we find ourselves in a different world, no longer the world of military exploits, but the world of merchant travel, which characterizes the era of Greek colonization.

The story begins in the tenth year of the protagonist's wanderings. The anger of Poseidon until now did not allow the hero to return to his native Ithaca, where suitors reigned, vying for the hand of his wife Penelope. The young son of Odysseus Telemachus leaves in search of news about his father. Meanwhile, Odysseus, by the will of the gods, sent on a journey by the nymph Calypso who had kept him with her until that time, reaches the semi-legendary country of the feacs. There, in a long and unusually colorful narrative, he describes his adventures from the moment he sailed from Troy (among other things, a trip to the world of the dead). The Phaeacians take him to Ithaca. Disguised as a beggar, he returns to his palace, initiates Telemachus into the plan to destroy the suitors, and, using an archery contest, kills them.

The legendary elements of the narration of sea voyages, which existed for a long time in the folklore tradition of memories of ancient times and their customs, the "novelistic" motif of the husband returning home at the last moment when the house is in danger, as well as the interests and ideas of the modern era of colonization to Homer were used to presentation and development of the Trojan myth.

The Iliad and the Odyssey have many common features both in composition and in ideological direction. Characterized by the organization of the plot around the central image, the short time span of the story, the construction of the plot, regardless of the chronological sequence of events, the dedication of segments of the text proportional in volume to important moments for the development of the action, the contrast of successive scenes, the development of the plot by creating complex situations that obviously slow down development actions, and then their brilliant resolution, the saturation of the first part of the action with episodic motifs and the intensification of the main line at the end, the clash of the main opposing forces only at the end of the narrative (Achilles - Hector, Odysseus - suitors), the use of apostrophes, comparisons. In the epic picture of the world, Homer recorded the most important moments of human existence, all the richness of reality in which a person lives. An important element of this reality are the gods; they are constantly present in the world of people, influence their actions and destinies. Although they are immortal, their behavior and experiences resemble people, and this likeness elevates and, as it were, sanctifies everything that is characteristic of man.

The humanization of myths is a hallmark of Homer's epics: he emphasizes the importance of the experiences of an individual, arouses sympathy for suffering and weakness, awakens respect for work, does not accept cruelty and revenge; exalts life and dramatizes death (glorifying, however, its return for the homeland).

In ancient times, other works were attributed to Homer, among them a hymn. War of mice and frogs, Margita. The Greeks spoke of Homer simply:

"Poet". Many, at least in part, knew the Iliad and the Odyssey by heart. School education began with these poems. We see the inspiration inspired by them in all ancient art and literature. The images of Homeric heroes became models of how to act, lines from Homer's poems became aphorisms, turns came into general use, situations acquired a symbolic meaning. (However, philosophers, in particular Xenophanes, Plato, accused Homer of instilling false ideas about the gods in the Greeks).

Homer's poems were also considered a treasury of all kinds of knowledge, even historical and geographical. This view was held in the Hellenistic era by Crates of Mull, it was disputed by Eratosthenes. In Alexandria, studies of Homer's texts gave rise to philology as a science of literature (Zenodotus of Ephesus, Aristophanes of Byzantium, Aristarchus of Samothrace). Roman literature began with the translation of the Odyssey into Latin. The Iliad and the Odyssey served as models for the Roman epic.

Simultaneously with the decline of knowledge of the Greek language, Homer was no longer read in the West (c. 4th century AD), but he was constantly read and commented on in Byzantium. In the West of Europe, Homer has become popular again since the time of Petrarch; its first edition was released in the city. The great works of European epic are created under the influence of Homer.

"Homeric hymns" ("Homerikoi hymnoi")

This name is given to the collection of hexametric works of various lengths addressed to the gods, preserved under the name of Homer. They were composed by rhapsodes as the so-called proems (introductions), with which they preceded the reading of Homer's songs on poetic agons during cult festivities in various religious centers of Greece. These were invocations to a revered deity. Short, sometimes only a few verses, the gimps listed only the nicknames of the god and asked for patronage, then the sacred legend or any other story about this god was expounded (often with great skill as a storyteller). However, not all hymns were cult in nature.

They were apparently created in the 7th-5th centuries. BC e., their authors are unknown. The collection contains 5 long hymns, representing a complete artistic whole and not being proemios. This:

- To Apollo Delphic (I, Eis Apollona Delphion) - a hymn in 178 verses, a legend about the birth of a god on the island of Delos;

- To the Pythian Apollo (II, Eis Apollona Pythion) in 368 verses - a story about the creation of the Delphic oracle. These two hymns appear in the manuscripts as one work.

- Hymn To Hermes (III, Eis Hermen) in 580 verses - a story full of humor and charm about the tricks of the newborn Hermes.

- Hymn To Aphrodite (IV, Eis Aphroditen) in 293 verses - a story about the union of Aphrodite with Anchises.

- Hymn To Demeter (V, Eis Demetra) in 495 verses is an Attic legend about the arrival of the goddess in Eleusis and the establishment of the mysteries.

(the text is given according to the edition: "Ancient writers. Dictionary." St. Petersburg, publishing house "Lan", 1999)

SONG ONE

Muse, tell me about that highly experienced husband who
Long wandered since the destruction of sacred Troy,
I visited many people of the city and saw customs,
He suffered a lot in spirit on the seas, caring about salvation
Your life and the return of faithful comrades to the homeland.
Still, he did not save his comrades, no matter how hard he tried.
By their own sacrilege they destroyed themselves:
They ate, madmen, the cows of Helios Hyperionides.
For this he deprived them of the day of returning home forever.
Muse! Tell us about this too, starting with what you want.
All the rest at that time, having escaped near death,
They were already at home, having also escaped the war and the sea.
Only him, by his wife and homeland, who had a sick heart,
The nymph queen Calypso, goddess in goddesses, held
In a deep grotto, wishing that he became her husband.
But years passed, and the year came when it was
The gods appointed the son of Laertes to return to his house.
Also, however, and there, in Ithaca, he could not avoid
Many labors, although he was among friends. Compassion is full
All the gods were to him. Only one Poseidon continuously
He persecuted Odysseus until he reached his own land.
Poseidon was at that time in the distant country of the Ethiopians,
The extreme parts of the earth at both ends inhabited:
Where Hyperion sets and where he rises in the morning.
There he received from them hecatombs of bulls and rams,
There he enjoyed himself, sitting at a feast. All the rest
The gods in the halls of Kronid the father were assembled.
With a speech to all of them, the parent of men and gods turned;
In the heart, in the memory of Vladyka, Egistus was immaculate,
Deprived of life by Agamemnonides, glorious Orestes.
Remembering him, Kronid addressed the immortals with the words:
“It is strange how people willingly blame the immortals for everything!
Evil comes from us, they say, but not themselves
Death, contrary to fate, is brought on by madness?
So is Aegisthus, - is it not fate, in spite of Atrid's wife
Did he take him as a wife, killing him upon returning to his homeland?
He knew the threatening death: we punished him severely,
He sent the vigilant argoslayer Hermes, so that he would not dare
Neither to kill himself, nor to take his wife as his wife.
Revenge for Atris will come from Orestes, when, having matured,
He will wish to take possession of his country.
So spoke to him, wishing well, Hermes; but he couldn't
Convince his heart. And for this, Aegisthus paid the price."


You spoke the truth - he fully deserved such a death.
So let everyone who would do such a thing perish!
But my heart breaks for King Odysseus:
Endures, unfortunate, he troubles, away from the beloved, embraced
The waves of the island, in the place where the navel is found the sea.
An island overgrown with forests; the goddess lives on it,
Daughter of Atlas the thief, who knows the abyss
The sea of ​​all and which the supervision of the pillars has:
Between the earth and the sky they stand, pushing them apart.
Sorrow embraced, holds the unfortunate daughter of Atlanta,
With soft and insinuating speech all the time seducing him,
To forget about his Ithaca. But longing for
To see at least the smoke rising from his native land, he thinks
Only about the death of one Odysseus. Will it not touch
Dear heart to you, Olympian, is his fate evil?
Did he not honor you in the sacrifices on the Trojan plain
Near the ships of the Argives? So what are you, Zeus, indignant about?
Answering her, Kronion, gathering the clouds, said:
“What kind of words have you flown out of the fence of your teeth!
How could it forget the divine self Odysseus,
So outstanding thought among mortals, with such a desire
Sacrifices to the gods who bring, the lords of the wide sky?
But Poseidon, the landowner, has no measure for him
Burns with anger because the Cyclops Polyphemus is divine
The eyes are deprived of them, - a cyclops, whose strength among other cyclops
The greatest was; he was born from the nymph Foosa,
Daughters of Forkin, guardian of the unceasingly roaring sea,
In connection with Poseidon, the lord who entered into a deep cave,
Since then, the earth shaker Poseidon Odysseus
Does not kill, but drives away from the sweet homeland.
Well, we all think, who are here on Olympus today,
How would he get back home. Poseidon will reject
His anger: he alone will not be able to argue with all the immortals
And against the will of the universal gods to act autocratically.
Then the owl-eyed maiden Athena said to Zeus:
“O our parent Kronid, the highest of the rulers of all!
Now, if it pleases the all-blessed gods, to return
Could Odysseus the wise in the homeland, let's order Hermes
Argoslayer, your decisions to the executor, to the nymph
In braids, beautifully woven, to the island of Ogygia immediately
Rush and convey to her our inexorable decision,
So that the multi-resistant Odysseus was returned to his homeland.
But I will go to Ithaca, so that there the son of Odysseus
To inspire more vigor and put courage in his heart,
So that, having convened a meeting of long-haired Achaeans,
He expelled all the suitors who kill in the house without counting
A bunch of walking sheep and slow-moving horned bulls.
After that I will send him to Sparta and Pylos sandy,
To find out about my dear father and his return,
Also, so that a good reputation is established in people about him.
When she finished, she tied golden soles to her feet,
Ambrose, everywhere her with the breaths of the wind
And they carried over the boundless land and over the water.
She took in her hands a battle spear sharpened with copper, -
Heavy, strong; they were beaten by Athena of heroes,
The wrath of those who brought on themselves the goddess of the mighty father.
The goddess rushed violently from the high peaks of the Olympic,
She stood in the Ithaca country at the court of Odysseus at home
Before the threshold of the gate, with his sharp spear in his palm,
Having taken the image of a stranger, the Tapos ruler Ment.
There she found proud suitors. They are in front of the door
They delighted their souls, playing dice with zeal,
Sitting on the skins of bulls, killed by them themselves.
In the hall, the messengers, along with the nimble servants of the house
These - wine was poured into craters, mixing with water,
Those, - having washed the tables with a porous sponge, put forward
They were placed in the middle and meat was laid on them in abundance.
The first of all Telemachus, the godlike, noticed the goddess.
Saddened by his dear heart, he silently sat with the suitors.
And it seemed to him how a mighty parent appeared,
How would he disperse all the suitors to their homes, capture
The power of his again and would become the possessions of their lord.
In such thoughts, sitting with the suitors, he saw Athena.
He quickly went to the door, ashamed in his soul that it took so long
The wanderer is forced to stand at the entrance; and approaching hastily
He took the stranger's right hand, took his spear,
He raised his voice and addressed him with a winged speech:
"Rejoice, stranger! Come in! We will treat you, and then,
When you are satisfied with food, you will tell us what you need.”
So he said and went. And behind him is Pallas Athena.
After they entered the high house of the Odysseus,
He carried the guest's spear to a high column and placed it
In the spear storage is smooth, where there was still a lot
Copies of other Odysseus, mighty in spirit in adversity.
Then he led the goddess to a beautifully patterned chair,
Covered with a cloth, seated, and moved a bench under his feet.
Next to him he himself fit on a carved chair, in the distance
From the suitors to the guest, next door to the haughty sitting,
Got no aversion to food, weighed down by their noise,
Also, in order to secretly ask him about his distant father.
Immediately a beautiful golden jug with washing water
In a silver basin was placed before them by a maid
For washing; after she set the table, she is smooth.
The venerable housekeeper laid the bread in front of them, a lot
Adding various dishes, willingly giving them from stocks.
Kravchiy set them on dishes in front of them, raising them high,
Various meats and golden goblets placed near them;
The messenger came up to them every now and then, pouring wine.
The grooms proudly entered the hall noisily from the courtyard
And in order they sat down on armchairs and chairs; with water
Messengers approached them, and they washed their hands.
To the top of the bread in the baskets the servants put them,
The boys poured the drink into the craters all the way to the rim.
Hands immediately to the food ready they stretched out.
After the desire for food and drink has been quenched,
The hearts of the suitors lit up with a new desire: they wanted
Music, dancing - the delights of the most beautiful of all feasts.
The messenger of the beautiful cithara handed over the femia in his hands:
In front of the suitors, he had to sing involuntarily.
Phemius raised the kifaru and began a beautiful song.
And then Telemachus turned to the owl-eyed Athena,
He leaned his head towards her so that no one else could hear:
“You will not be angry, my dear guest, at what I say?
Only one thing is on the mind of these - cithara and songs.
No wonder: they squander other people's wealth here -
Husband, whose white bones, rotten somewhere, rain
It wets on land or in the sea, fierce waves shake.
If they saw that he returned to Ithaca again,
Everyone would like to have more agile legs,
How to get rich, and accumulating clothes and gold here.
However, he is ruined by an evil fate, and there is no
We are comforted, although some of the people say:
He will still be. But no! The day of his return is gone!

Who are you? Who are the parents? What city are you from?
And on what ship did you come, what way
Shipmen brought you to visit us? Who are they?
After all, you didn’t come here on foot, I believe, you got to us.
Likewise, say this frankly, so that I know well:
Is it the first time you come here or your old father's
Were you a guest? Many came in the past years
To our guest house, because my parent talked a lot with people.

“I will answer your questions with complete frankness:
My name is Ment; my father is Anchial the wise, and by this
Glad I always boast; and I myself am the lord of the Taphos
Gay, came in his ship with his own;
On the wine-dark sea I sail to strangers for copper
To the distant city of Temes, and I'm going with shiny iron.
I put my own ship under the wooded slope of Neyon
In the pier of Retre, far from the city, near the field.
I proudly declare that Odysseus and I are to each other
Old guests. When you visit the hero Laertes,
You can ask the old man about it. They say they don't go
He is more in the city, but, enduring troubles, lives far away
In a field with an old maid who feeds and waters
An old man, when, on the hills of the vineyard, the day wandered,
Having exhausted his old members, he returns to the house.
I'm coming to you now: they said that he was already at home, your father.
It can be seen, however, that the gods prevent him from returning.
But God-equal Odysseus did not die on earth, believe me.
Somewhere in the wide sea, on an island surrounded by waves,
He lingered alive and languishes under the power of the ferocious,
Wild people and can not leave, no matter how torn by the soul.
But I undertake to predict - and what do they have about it
The opinion of the gods and how, I suppose, everything will be done,
Although I'm not a prophet at all and I don't know how to guess by birds.
He will not be long apart from his dear homeland,
Even if only iron chains held him.
He is experienced in tricks and will figure out how to get back.
You tell me now, without hiding anything from me:
Do I really see in you before me the son of Odysseus?
You are terribly similar with his head and beautiful eyes.
Often in the past we met with him before
He went on a campaign to Troy, where the others
The best of the Argives sailed on tall-sided ships.
After that, neither I with Odysseus, nor he met with me.
Answering her, the judicious son of Odysseus said:
“I will answer your question, O our guest, quite frankly:
My mother says that I am the son of Odysseus, but I myself do not know.
Can anyone know what father he was born from?
I would be happy if I were a parent
A husband who lived peacefully to old age in his possessions.
But - among all earthly people, the most unfortunate -
He is my father, since you wanted to know this from me.
Again the owl-eyed maiden Athena said to him:
“It seems that it is pleasing to the immortals that he not be without glory in the future
Your kind, when Penelope gave birth to such as you.
You tell me now, without hiding anything from me:
What's lunch here? What congregation? Why do you need it?
Is there a wedding here or a feast? After all, it does not happen in a purse.
It only seems that your guests are unbridled in the house
Yours is being abused. Shame would feel every reasonable
The husband who looked here, seeing their vile behavior.

“Since you, O my guest, have asked and wished to know, then find out:
Once this house was full of wealth, it was respected
All while that husband was still here.
Now the hostile gods have taken a different decision,
Making him invisible to the eye among all men.
I would grieve less for him if he died,
If in the Trojan land among the warlike comrades he died
Or, having ended the war, he would have died in the arms of his friends.
A funeral hill would have been poured over it by the All-Achaeans,
He would leave great glory to his son for all time.
Now the Harpies have taken him ingloriously, and he is gone,
Forgotten by everyone, unknown, and left to his son to share
Only sadness and sobs. But I'm not talking about him alone
crying; the gods sent me another cruel grief:
The first people in power that inhabit the islands here
Zam, and Dulikhii, and Zakynthos, covered with dense forests,
And our rocky Ithaca - strive stubbornly
My mother force me to marry and rob our property.
The mother, however, does not want to enter into a hated marriage and cannot
Put an end to their claims, and they ruin
My house is feasted and soon they will destroy me myself.
In indignation, Pallas Athena answered him:
Woe! I see now how distant Odysseus is to you
He needs to put his hands on shameless aliens.
If now, having returned, he stood in front of the brownie's door
With a pair of spears in hand, with his strong shield and helmet, -
How I first saw the hero at the time when he
In our house at the feast he had fun, sitting at the cup,
Coming to us from Aether from Il, Mermer's son:
Odysseus also visited there in his swift ship;
Poison, deadly to people, he was looking for, so that he could smear them
Copper arrows. However, Eli refused.
Give him poison: he was ashamed of the soul of the immortal gods.
My father gave it to him because he loved him terribly.
Before the grooms, if he appeared in such a form,
They would be short-lived and very bitter-married!
This, however, is hidden in the bosom of the almighty gods, -
Will he avenge himself or not, returning back
To your own home. And now I would suggest you to think,
What to do to remove all suitors from the chamber.
Listen to me and what I say, pay attention:
Tomorrow, calling the citizens of the Achaeans to a meeting, openly
Tell them everything, and let the gods be your witnesses.
After that, demand that all the suitors go home;
Your mother, if her spirit wants to marry again,
Let him return to his powerful father, to his dear home;
Let him equip the wedding, giving a large dowry,
How much his daughter is supposed to get dear.
As for you, perhaps you will follow my reasonable advice:
The best ship with twenty equipped rowers, set sail
And tell about the father who disappeared; right, from mortals
Someone will be able to tell about him or Rumor will tell you
Zeusova - most of all she brings news to people.
In Pylos you will know first what the divine Nestor will say,
After that, you will go to Sparta to the fair-haired Menelaus;
He arrived home last of all the copper-plated Achaeans.
If you hear that your father is alive, that he will return home,
Wait a year for him, patiently enduring oppression;
If you hear that he is dead, that he is no more in the world,
Then, returning back to his father's dear land,
In honor of his hill, you will pour a grave, you will do it properly
A funeral rite for him and you will give your mother in marriage.
After you've done all this, it's all over
Consider carefully in your heart and mind what
By means of all suitors in your halls to destroy,
Cunningly or openly. Childish to live trifles
Time has passed for you, your age is not like that now.
Or do you not know what happened to the divine Orestes,
What glory he won by dealing with the treacherous Aegisthus,
A parricide, who deprived his glorious father of his life?
I see, my dear friend, that you are both great and beautiful,
You are not weaker than him, you will also become famous in posterity;
But it is high time for me to return to my swift ship:
Companions are waiting and probably in their hearts they are indignant at me.
You take care of yourself and what I said, think it over.
Again then Telemachus, judicious, answered the guest:
“Really, my guest, you speak to me with such love,
Like a father I will never forget your advice.
But wait, though, as I see it, you are in a hurry to hit the road.
Wash yourself before us, sweeten your sweet heart.
With a joyful spirit, then you will take a gift to the ship
Valuable, beautiful, which I will bring to you as a keepsake,
As it happens between guests and hosts, they are pleasant to each other.
So the owl-eyed maiden Athena answered him:
“No, don’t detain me today, I’m in a hurry to hit the road.
The gift that your sweet heart urges you to give me,
I, returning back, will accept and go home with him,
Having received the gift dear and giving you the same.
The owl-eyed maiden Athena said and departed,
Like a fast-winged bird, fluttered through the window. embraced
His strength and courage. And he is more than before
Reminds me of my dear father. And, thinking in your heart,
I came to awe in my soul, realizing that I was talking with God.
Immediately, the God-equal man went back to the suitors.
The famous singer sang in front of them, they were sitting,
Listening silently. He sang about the sad return from Troy
Rati of the Achaeans, sent down to them by Pallas Athena.
In my upper rest I heard the singing of inspiration
Elder Ikaria's daughter, Penelope reasonable. Immediately
From above she descended the high stairs of the house,
But not alone; two maids went down with her.
Entering the hall to the suitors, Penelope, goddess among women,
She stood near the jamb leading to the dining room door,
Covering your cheeks with a shiny veil, and next to you
With her, on both sides, the maids became zealous.
Weeping, Penelope said to the inspired singer:
"Femius, you know so many others that delight the soul
Songs with which singers glorify gods and heroes.
Sing one of them, sitting before the assembly, one. And in silence
Guests will listen to her for wine. But stop what you started
a sad song; she fills my chest with sorrow
Dear heart. The worst grief has befallen me.
Having lost such a husband, I cannot forget about the deceased,
So full of his glory and Hellas and Argos.
The sensible son of Odysseus objected to his mother in this way:
“My mother, why do you interfere with the singer in our pleasure
Then to sing, what does he burn in his soul? It's not the singer's fault, -
Zeus is guilty here, which is painful for working people
He puts into each soul what he wants. You can't get angry
Once he wished to sing the fate of the ill-fated Danaans.
Most of all people admire this
A song that seems to them the newest.
Tame your spirit and heart and force yourself to listen.
Not one Odysseus had to return home,
Many others also did not return home from near Troy.
Better go back to your place and mind your own business -
Yarn, weaving; order the maids to get down to business immediately
Also taken. Speaking is not a woman's business, but a business
Husband, most of all - mine; I am my only master."
So he said. Surprised, Penelope walked back.
Son, a reasonable word penetrated deep into her soul.
Upstairs, going up to her with the maids, she cried for a long time
She is about Odysseus, about her beloved wife, as long as
The goddess Athena did not cover her eyelids with a sweet dream.
And the grooms at this time were noisy in the shady hall;
They all wanted strongly to lie down on the bed with Penelope.
With such a speech, Telemachus, judicious, addressed them:
“O suitors of Penelope, haughty, proud people!
Now let's feast, enjoy. Stop making noise!
So it is pleasant and sweet to listen to beautiful hymns
A man like this, equal to God in singing!
Tomorrow morning we will gather in the square, open the meeting,
There I will openly say before the whole people that immediately
You have cleansed my house. And with feasts, arrange differently:
Eat your money on them, alternating houses.
If you find what is more pleasant and better for you
One person's wealth to destroy free of charge, -
Eat! And I will call for support to the gods everlasting.
Perhaps Kronion will allow the cause of retribution to take place:
All of you will die here, and there will be no penalty for this!
So he said. Grooms, biting their lips with annoyance,
They were surprised at the bold words that they suddenly heard.
Immediately, Antinous, born of Evpeyt, turned to him:
“Probably the gods themselves, Telemachus, are teaching you
Boasting so shamelessly and speaking so impudently.
Deliver us Zeus, so that you stand in Ithaca embraced by waves
Our king, by birth already having the right to do so!
And, objecting to him, Telemachus the judicious said:
“Don’t be angry with me, Antinous, but I’ll tell you this:
If Zeus had given it to me, I would certainly have accepted it.
Or do you think there is nothing worse than this?
To reign is not a bad thing at all; accumulate soon
In the house of the king's wealth, and he himself is in honor of the people.
But among the noble Achaeans in Ithaca embraced by waves
There are many others, young or old, who
Power could have passed since King Odysseus was gone.
But at home I will remain the master of the house alone,
As well as slaves, for me Odysseus is the king brought!
Then Eurymachus, born of Polybos, began to speak:
“O Telema, this is hidden in the bosom of the almighty gods,
Which of the Achaeans will be our king in Ithaca.
Whatever is here is yours, and in your own house you are the master.
It is unlikely that there will be as long as Ithaca is inhabited,
Someone who would dare to encroach on your property.
But I would like to know, my dear, about the current guest:
Who is this guest and from where? Fatherland what land
Famous What kind and tribe is he? Where he was born?
Has he come to you with news of the return of your father?
Or did you come here to Ithaca out of your own need?
Immediately disappearing, he did not wait to get to know us here.
He doesn't look like an ugly person."
And, answering him, Telemachus the judicious said:
“I have no hopes for the return of my father, Eurymachus.
I no longer believe the news, coming from somewhere,
I do not want to listen to divinations, to which, calling
Various fortune-tellers in the house, my mother comes running endlessly.
This traveler is my paternal guest, he comes from Taphos,
Ment, calls himself Enchial the reasonable son
With pride, he himself is the lord of the merry people of Taphos.”
Thus spoke Telemachus, though he knew that he was conversing with a god.
The same, having again taken up sweet singing and dancing,
They amused themselves and waited until the evening approached.
They were having fun, having fun. And the evening approached black.
Then they got up and went home to indulge in peace.
The son of King Odysseus has a beautiful court in his high
The sleeping chamber moved, well protected all around.
Thinking about many things in his heart, he went there to sleep.
Eurycleia walked ahead of him with a torch in each hand,
Daughter of homely Opa, born of Pensenor.
Purchase once Laertes made it his property
As a young teenager, having paid twenty bulls for her,
And on a par with his house-wife, he honored her in the house,
But, so as not to anger his wife, he did not share his bed with her.
She walked with a torch in each hand. Loved from slaves
She is bigger than him and raised him from childhood.
The doors were opened by Telemachus at the artfully built bedroom,
He sat down on the bed and, taking off his soft tunic over his head,
This tunic threw his obliging old woman into her arms.
She shook her tunic, skillfully folded it into folds
And hung it on a peg near the chiselled bed. After
The old woman came out quietly from the bedroom, with a silver handle
She closed the door behind her, pulling the bolt with a strap.
All night long on the bed, covered with soft sheepskin,
He thought about the road to which Athena was called.