Year: 8th century BC Genre: poem

Main characters: King Odysseus, son Telemachus, goddess Athena.

Odysseus, after ten years of wandering the sea, is captured by the nymph Calypso. With the help of the gods, he manages to escape their captivity and ends up with King Alcinous, to whom he tells about his wanderings. Poseidon takes revenge on him for blinding his son and does not allow him to return home.

During his wanderings, he experienced nine adventures and now hopes for the king’s help. Alcinous gives him a ship and he returns to Ithaca. However, here his wife is wooed by nobles who want to become rulers of Ithaca. Odysseus, with the help of his son Telemachus, kills the suitors and reigns again in his homeland.

The work teaches are not afraid of difficulties and always go to the end.

Read a summary of Homer's Odyssey

Ten years have passed since the Trojan War. The gods of Olympus gathered for a council. Zeus's beloved daughter Athena makes a speech to her father, asking for intercession for Odysseus, who is being held captive by Calypso. The nymph in love does not want to let the hero go, but he yearns for home and family. At home he is considered dead. His wife Penelope is annoyed by suitors who demand that Ithaca elect a new ruler and her a husband. The woman deceives them, promising that she will choose a husband only then finish weaving a shroud for the old father of Odysseus. However, during the day she works, and at night she secretly unties her shroud from everyone. But the suitors are bothering her more and more. The Odyssean mother is supported by her son Telemachus, whom no one takes into account because of his youth. One day a stranger appears to the young man and advises him to equip a ship and sail around the area to find out something about his father. If he hears that he is alive, let him tell the suitors to wait another year, but if the father has died, the mother will choose a new husband immediately after the funeral. With these words, the wanderer disappeared, because it was Athena herself. Telemachus did just that. He sails to the Achaean commanders who returned from the war - Nestor and Menelaus. From the latter he learns that his father is being held captive by Calypso.

At this time, Zeus sends Hermes to the sorceress with an order to release the captive. The nymph is saddened, but does not dare to disobey. However, Odysseus does not have a ship to sail with. He makes a raft and goes out to sea. Seeing that the prisoner has escaped, Poseidon, who hates the hero, sends a storm against him. The sea nymph and Athena help him. On the third day, Odysseus sails to the land where Alcinous rules. Here the king's daughter finds him and brings him to her father.

At Alcinous's feast, Odysseus reveals his name and talks about his wanderings. First he came to the lotus eaters, where the lotus grows, after tasting which a person forgets about everything, which is what happened to the hero’s companions. They were returned to the ship by force. Then he went to the Cyclops and blinded the son of Poseidon, for which God takes revenge on him, not allowing him to return home. Fleeing from the storm, he sailed to the island of the god Aeolus, who gave him a bag of winds as a gift. Odysseus was supposed to release them when he returned home. However, already off the coast of his native Ithaca, the hero fell asleep, and his companions untied the bag, and the winds broke out, causing a hurricane to arise and carry the ship out to sea. One day, Odysseus landed on the shore of giants, who brought down large rocks on his ships.

Only one ship was saved. On it, the travelers swam to the sorceress Kirke, who turned them into pigs. Odysseus received a gift from Hermes, and the spell was powerless against him. He forced the witch to return her friends to human form and demanded that they return home. But she only said that they needed to ask advice from the dead prophet Tiresias. Odysseus descends to the kingdom of the dead and, at Kirk’s instigation, slaughters a black ram. The souls of the dead flock to his blood, among whom the wanderer finds the prophet. He predicts his return home. He also manages to talk to his mother and dead friends. Then, with the help of cunning, he managed to swim past the sirens, Scylla and Charybdis. Finally, he ends up on the island of Helios, where his hungry companions, while he was sleeping, disobeyed his order not to touch the sacred bulls and rams, and slaughtered the animals. Seeing this, Helios asked Zeus to punish the offenders. After leaving the island, the ship encountered a terrible storm. Everyone died, and only Odysseus, on a piece of log, ended up on the shore of Calypso.

Alcinous gives the traveler a ship and he returns safely to Ithaca. Here Athena meets him and turns him into a beggar old man. He asks for shelter from the old swineherd Eumaeus. The goddess sends his son here, who has just returned from his wanderings, and Odysseus reveals himself to Telemachus. All together they go to the palace, the hero again in the guise of an old man. However, he is immediately recognized by his dog, and later by the old maid. At this time, Penelope organizes a competition: she must string Odysseus’s bow and shoot an arrow so that it passes through 12 rings. But none of the 120 suitors can even string a bow. Then a beggar asks to participate in the competition. He releases an arrow and it, flying through the rings, pierces the wall.

Odysseus stands before the people in his true form, and the suitors attack him. He, together with Telemachus, defeats everyone. The maid announces the return of her husband to Penelope, but she does not believe that it is him. Then Odysseus says that if this is so, he will sleep alone. Penelope orders the bed to be taken from the royal bedroom to his chamber. Odysseus replies that this is impossible because he himself made the bed so that instead of legs it has a stump. Penelope throws herself on her husband's chest. However, the relatives of the dead suitors decide to take revenge on Odysseus, but Zeus and Athena stop the discord.

Picture or drawing Homer - Odyssey

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For most peoples, myths are composed primarily of gods. But Ancient Greece is an exception: the main, best part of them is about heroes. These are the grandchildren, sons, and great-grandchildren of the gods, born from mortal women. It was they who performed various feats, punished villains, destroyed monsters, and also participated in internecine wars. The gods, when the Earth became heavy from them, made sure that in the Trojan War the participants themselves destroyed each other. Thus the will of Zeus was accomplished. Many heroes died at the walls of Ilion.

In this article we will tell you about the work that Homer created - the Iliad. We will briefly outline its content, and we will also analyze this and another poem about the Trojan War - “The Odyssey”.

What is the Iliad about?

"Troy" and "Ilion" are two names of a great city located in Asia Minor, near the shores of the Dardanelles. The poem telling about the Trojan War is called "Iliad" (Homera) by its second name. Before her, among the people there were only small oral songs like ballads or epics, telling about the exploits of these heroes. Homer, the blind legendary singer, composed a large poem from them and did it very skillfully: he selected only one episode and developed it in such a way that he made it a reflection of an entire heroic age. This episode is called "The Wrath of Achilles", who was the greatest Greek hero of the last generation. Homer's Iliad is mainly dedicated to him.

Who took part in the war

The Trojan War lasted 10 years. Homer's Iliad begins like this. Many Greek leaders and kings gathered on a campaign against Troy, with thousands of warriors, on hundreds of ships: in the poem their list takes up several pages. Agamemnon, ruler of Argos, that strongest of kings, was the chief of them. Menelaus, his brother (the war began for his sake), the ardent Diomedes, the mighty Ajax, the wise Nestor, the cunning Odysseus and others went with him. But the most agile, strong and brave was Achilles, the young son of Thetis, the sea goddess, who was accompanied by Patroclus, his friend. Priam, the gray-haired king, ruled the Trojans. His army was led by Hector, the king’s son, a valiant warrior. With him were Paris, his brother (the war began because of him), as well as many allies gathered from all over Asia. These were the heroes of Homer's poem "Iliad". The gods themselves also took part in the battle: Silver-bowed Apollo helped the Trojans, and Hera, the queen of heaven, and Athena, the wise warrior, helped the Greeks. The Thunderer Zeus, the supreme god, watched the battles from high Olympus and carried out his will.

Beginning of the war

The war started like this. The wedding of Peleus and Thetis, the sea goddess, took place - the last marriage concluded between mortals and gods (the same one from which the hero Achilles was born). At the feast, the goddess of discord threw a golden apple, which was intended for the “most beautiful.” Three people argued over him: Athena, Hera and Aphrodite. Paris, the Trojan prince, was ordered by Zeus to judge this dispute. Each of the goddesses promised him their gifts: Hera - to make him the king of the whole world, Athena - a sage and a hero, Aphrodite - the husband of the most beautiful of women. The hero decided to give the apple to the latter.

After this, Athena and Hera became sworn enemies of Troy. Aphrodite helped Paris to seduce Helen, the daughter of Zeus himself, who was the wife of King Menelaus, and take her to Troy. Once upon a time, the best heroes of Greece wooed her and agreed so as not to quarrel: let the girl herself choose the one she likes, and if someone else tries to fight her off, everyone else will declare war on him. Every young man hoped that he would be the chosen one. Helen's choice fell on Menelaus. Now Paris took her away from this king, and therefore all her former suitors went to war against this young man. Only the youngest of them did not woo the girl and went to war only to show his strength, valor, and win glory. This young man was Achilles.

First attack of the Trojans

Homer's Iliad continues. The Trojans attack. They are led by Sarpedon, the son of the god Zeus, the last of his sons on earth, as well as Hector. Achilles coldly watches from his tent as the Greeks flee and the Trojans approach their camp: they are about to set fire to the ships of their enemies. From above, Hera also sees how the Greeks are losing, and in desperation decides to deceive, thereby diverting the attention of Zeus. She appears before him in the girdle of Aphrodite, which arouses passion, and the god unites with Hera on the top of Ida. They are enveloped in a golden cloud, and the earth blooms with hyacinths and saffron. After this they fall asleep, and while Zeus sleeps, the Greeks stop the Trojans. But the dream of the supreme god is short-lived. Zeus awakens, and Hera trembles before his anger, and he calls on her to endure: the Greeks will be able to defeat the Trojans, but after Achilles pacifies his anger and goes into battle. Zeus promised this to the goddess Thetis.

Patroclus goes to battle

However, Achilles is not yet ready to do this, and Patroclus is sent to help the Greeks instead. It pains him to watch his comrades in trouble. Homer's poem "The Iliad" continues. Achilles gives the young man his armor, which the Trojans fear, as well as the warriors, a chariot drawn by horses who can prophesy and speak prophetic words. He calls on his comrade to repel the Trojans from the camp and save the ships. But at the same time he advises not to expose yourself to danger, not to get carried away by persecution. The Trojans, seeing the armor, were frightened and turned back. Then Patroclus could not stand it and began to pursue them.

The son of Zeus, Sarpedon, comes out to meet him, and the god, watching from above, hesitates: to save his son or not. But Hera says, let fate take its course. Like a mountain pine, Sarpedon collapses, battle begins to boil around his body. Meanwhile, Patroclus is rushing further and further, to the very gates of Troy. Apollo shouts to him that the young man is not destined to take the city. He doesn't hear. Apollo then hits him on the shoulders, shrouded in a cloud. Patroclus loses his strength, drops his spear, helmet and shield, and Hector deals him a crushing blow. Dying, the warrior predicts that he will fall at the hands of Achilles.

The latter learns the sad news: Patroclus has died, and now Hector flaunts himself in his armor. Friends have difficulty carrying the dead body from the battlefield. The Trojans, triumphant, pursue them. Achilles longs to rush into battle, but cannot do so: he is unarmed. Then the hero screams, and this scream is so terrible that, shuddering, the Trojans retreat. Night begins, and Achilles mourns his friend, threatening his enemies with vengeance.

New Achilles armor

At the request of his mother, Thetis, meanwhile Hephaestus, the blacksmith god, forges new armor for Achilles in a copper forge. These are greaves, a helmet, a shell and a shield, on which the whole world is depicted: the stars and the sun, the sea and the earth, a warring and a peaceful city. In a peaceful situation there is a wedding and a trial, in a warring situation there is a battle and an ambush. Around there is a vineyard, pasture, harvest, plowing, a village festival and a round dance, in the middle of which is a singer with a lyre.

Then morning comes, and our hero puts on his new armor and calls the Greek army to a meeting. His anger has not faded away, but now it is directed at those who killed his friend, and not at Agamemnon. Achilles is angry with Hector and the Trojans. The hero now offers reconciliation to Agamemnon, and he accepts it. Briseis was returned to Achilles. Rich gifts were brought into his tent. But our hero hardly looks at them: he longs for a fight, for revenge.

New battle

Now the fourth battle is coming. Zeus lifts the bans: let the gods themselves fight for whom these mythical heroes of Homer’s “Iliad” want. Athena clashes with Ares in battle, Hera with Artemis.

Achilles is terrible, as noted in Homer's Iliad. The story about this hero continues. He grappled with Aeneas, but the gods tore the latter out of his hands. It is not the fate of this warrior to fall from Achilles. He must survive both him and Troy. Achilles, enraged by the failure, kills countless Trojans, their corpses clutter the river. But Scamander, the river god, attacks, engulfing him in waves. Hephaestus, the fire god, pacifies him.

Achilles pursues Hector

Our summary continues. Homer (The Iliad) describes the following further events. The Trojans who managed to survive flee to the city. Hector alone covers the retreat. Achilles runs into him, and he runs: he fears for his life, but at the same time wants to distract Achilles from the others. They run around the city three times, and the gods look at them from the heights. Zeus hesitates whether to save this hero, but Athena asks to leave everything to the will of fate.

Death of Hector

Zeus then lifts the scales, on which are two lots - Achilles and Hectors. Achilles' cup flies up, and Hector's goes towards the underworld. The supreme god gives a sign: to leave Hector to Apollo, and to Athena to intercede for Achilles. The latter holds the hero’s opponent, and he comes face to face with Achilles. Hector's spear hits Hephaestus's shield, but in vain. Achilles wounds the hero in the throat, and he falls. The winner ties his body to his chariot and, mocking the murdered man, drives the horses around Troy. Old Priam cries for him on the city wall. The widow Andromache, as well as all the inhabitants of Troy, also lament.

Burial of Patroclus

The summary we compiled continues. Homer (The Iliad) describes the following events. Patroclus is avenged. Achilles arranges a magnificent burial for his friend. 12 Trojan prisoners are killed over the body of Patroclus. His friend's anger, however, does not subside. Achilles drives his chariot with Hector's body three times a day around the mound where Patroclus is buried. The corpse would have crashed on the rocks long ago, but Apollo invisibly protects it. Zeus intervenes. He announces to Achilles through Thetis that he does not have long to live in the world, asks him to give the body of his enemy for burial. And Achilles obeys.

The act of King Priam

Homer continues to talk about further events (The Iliad). Their brief content is as follows. King Priam comes to the winner's tent at night. And with him - a cart full of gifts. The gods themselves allowed him to pass through the Greek camp unnoticed. Priam falls to the warrior’s knees and asks him to remember his father Peleus, who is also old. Grief brings these enemies closer together: only now does the long anger in Achilles’ heart subside. He accepts Priam's gifts, gives him Hector's body and promises that he will not disturb the Trojans until they bury the body of their warrior. Priam returns to Troy with the body, and relatives cry over the murdered man. A fire is lit, the hero's remains are collected in an urn, which is lowered into the grave. A mound is built over it. Homer's poem "The Iliad" ends with a funeral feast.

Further events

There were still many events left before the end of this war. Having lost Hector, the Trojans no longer dared to leave the city walls. But other peoples came to their aid: from the land of the Amazons, from Asia Minor, from Ethiopia. The most terrible was the Ethiopian leader Memnon. He fought with Achilles, who overthrew him and rushed to attack Troy. It was then that the hero died from the arrow of Paris directed by Apollo. Having lost Achilles, the Greeks no longer hoped to take Troy by force - they did it by cunning, forcing the city residents to bring in a wooden horse with knights sitting inside. In the Aeneid Virgil will later talk about this.

Troy was destroyed, and the Greek heroes who managed to survive set off on their way back.

Homer, "Iliad" and "Odyssey": compositions of works

Let us consider the composition of works dedicated to these events. Homer wrote two poems telling about the Trojan War - the Iliad and the Odyssey. They were based on legends about it, which actually took place approximately in the 13-12 centuries BC. “The Iliad” tells about the events of the war in its 10th year, and the fabulous everyday poem “Odyssey” tells about the return of the king of Ithaca, Odysseus, one of the Greek military leaders, to his homeland after its end, and about his misadventures.

In the Iliad, stories about human actions alternate with the depiction of gods who decide the fate of battles, divided into two parties. Events that occurred simultaneously are presented as occurring sequentially. The composition of the poem is symmetrical.

In the structure of the Odyssey, we note the most significant one - the technique of transposition - the depiction of past events in the form of Odysseus's story about them.

This is the compositional structure of Homer's poems "Iliad" and "Odyssey".

Humanism of poems

One of the main reasons for the immortality of these works is their humanism. Homer's poems "Iliad" and "Odyssey" touch on important issues that are relevant at any time. The author glorified courage, loyalty in friendship, love of homeland, wisdom, respect for old age, etc. Considering Homer's epic "Iliad", it can be noted that the main character is terrible in anger and proud. Personal resentment forced him to refuse to participate in the battle and neglect his duty. Nevertheless, it contains moral qualities: the hero’s anger is resolved by generosity.

Odysseus is shown as a courageous, cunning man who can find a way out of any situation. He is fair. Returning to his homeland, the hero carefully observes the behavior of people in order to give everyone what they deserve. He is trying to remove from the crowd of those doomed to death the only suitor of all, Penelope, who greets the owner when he appears in the guise of a beggar tramp. But, unfortunately, he fails to do this: Amphinoma is destroyed by chance. Homer uses this example to show how a hero worthy of respect should act.

The general life-affirming mood of the works is sometimes overshadowed by thoughts about the brevity of life. Homer's heroes, thinking that death is inevitable, strive to leave a glorious memory of themselves.

Epic poetry grew out of folk song tradition. Writing appeared in Greece no later than the second half of the 8th century, so previously it was not possible to record the texts of the poems. There are 12,083 verses in the Odyssey. As far as is known, its text was first ordered in the middle of the 6th century BC. e., and in the II-III centuries BC. e. Alexandrian philologists divided the text into 24 books, according to the number of letters in the Greek alphabet. An ancient “book” was 500-1000 lines written on a papyrus scroll. Today, over 250 papyri with fragments of the text of the Odyssey are known, and the latest editions of the poem take into account approximately 150 papyrus texts. The poems were originally intended for oral performance. They were recited by rhapsodist singers (from the Greek rhapsodos - “song stitchers”) in front of unfamiliar audiences or at folk festivals.

Scientists have proven that the first of Homer's poems, the Iliad, was created around 800 BC. e., and the Odyssey was written a century or two later. These are monuments of the era of transition from the communal-tribal to the slave system, monuments of the earliest stage of the development of ancient Greek literature. Both poems were created in the most developed of the then Greek regions, in Ionia, that is, in the Greek city-states along the coast of Asia Minor, and are plot-related.

"Iliad" tells about a short episode during the Trojan War (the title of the poem comes from the Greek name for Troy - Ilion). In popular memory, the real campaign of the Achaean leaders against the rich city, which they destroyed around 1200, was transformed into a great nine-year war. According to the myth, the cause of the war was the abduction of Helen the Beautiful, the wife of the Achaean king Menelaus, by the Trojan prince Paris. The plot of the Iliad is based on the great “wrath of Achilles,” a quarrel over military spoils between the two greatest heroes of the Achaeans, the mighty Achilles and the brother of Menelaus, the main military leader of the Achaeans, Agamemnon. The Iliad depicts bloody battles, valiant fights and military courage.

IN "Odyssey" tells about the return home after the fall of Troy of one of the Greek kings, Odysseus, thanks to whose cunning with a wooden horse the Greeks eventually took Troy. This return lasted for ten long years, and the story about them is not told in chronological order, but, as is typical for an epic, with numerous digressions and slowdowns. The actual action in "The Odyssey" takes only 40 days - these are the last tests of Odysseus on the way to his native island of Ithaca: the story of how his faithful wife Penelope and son Telemachus resist the atrocities of arrogant suitors, and about his revenge on the suitors. But in numerous episodes of the poem, Odysseus begins to remember either Troy or the various adventures that befell him over the years of wandering, so that the real time span in the poem is 20 years. Compared to the Iliad, the Odyssey contains more descriptions of everyday life, and the adventure element in the plot is more represented.

In the Homeric epic, gods and other mythological creatures act alongside people. Odysseus is protected by the beloved daughter of Zeus, the bright-eyed goddess of wisdom Athena, and his persecutor is the sea god Poseidon. Odysseus communicates with the messenger of the gods Hermes, is captured by the evil sorceress Circe, who turns his companions into pigs, spends seven long years on the island of the beautiful nymph Calypso, who promises him immortality if he stays with her. He descends into the kingdom of the dead, gloomy Hades, where he communicates with the souls of the dead - Achilles, Agamemnon and the soothsayer Tiresias - that is, the mythological plane constantly invades reality. Simultaneously with the events that come from folklore fairy tales, the poem contains socially acute episodes, in particular, Odysseus is shown as a zealous owner who takes care of his property. This heterogeneity of the poem is explained by the fact that the Homeric epic absorbed and reflected a whole millennium of epic knowledge of the world. The poem highlights the most ancient basis, the historical “grain” of the legend about the Trojan War, which belongs to the so-called Mycenaean era of Greek history; the “dark time” that followed the fall of Mycenaean culture includes the everyday realities of the poem; by the time of the Ionian archaic - the social conflicts emerging in it - and all this is presented from the point of view of epic syncretism, that is, holistically, unified and at the same time heterogeneous, diverse. "Odyssey" captured the evolution of epic consciousness from the original monolithicity, integrity to the splitting of the unity of the world, to multi-layeredness. The gods play an incomparably smaller role in this poem than in the Iliad; the relations between the Olympians, which explained the relations between people in the first poem, faded into the background in the Odyssey, and the conflicts of private and public life came to the fore.

"The Odyssey" is not only the journey of the protagonist, but also a journey through different levels of epic consciousness. The oldest is represented by a terrible archaic - these are the giant cyclops, the children of the gods (for the blinding of one of them, his son Polyphemus, Poseidon takes revenge on Odysseus); these are the chthonic (from the Greek chtonos - earth) gods of the underworld Hades and Persephone; these are the fantastic mysterious monsters Scylla and Charybdis; these are the cannibal Laestrygonians; These are sirens, destroying unwary sailors with their mellifluous singing. From all his encounters with these incomprehensible primitive horrors, Odysseus emerges victorious thanks to his presence of mind and ingenuity. The second level of epic consciousness reflects the harmony of the golden age: the feasts of the gods on Olympus, the serene life of people on the happy island of the Phaeacians. The third level is the beginning of the destruction of harmony, evidenced by the insolence of Penelope’s suitors and the infidelity of individual slaves and slaves of Odysseus.

Homer

Name: Odyssey

Genre: Poem

Duration:

Part 1: 8min 48sec

Part 2: 8min 28sec

Annotation:
The author asks Muse to tell him about the wanderings of King Odysseus, which he endured when returning to his native Ithaca after the Trojan War. Odysseus's wanderings dragged on for 9 years.
The goddess Athena convinces the god Zeus that King Odysseus must return home from captivity. She advises Telemachus, son of Odysseus, to look for Odysseus. Telemachus sails to the city of Pylos to visit King Nestor, who also participated in the Trojan War. Nestor sends Telemachus along with his son Pisistratus to Sparta, to King Menelaus. Menelaus says that Odysseus was captured and is on the island of the nymph Calypso.
At the request of Zeus, Calypso lets Odysseus go home. He builds a raft and sets off under a false name. At one of the feasts they sing a song about the Trojan War. Odysseus is crying. They ask him who he is. Odysseus talks about his wanderings: how he visited the Cyclops, how the giant Laestrygonians sank all of Odysseus’s ships, how the sorceress Kirka turned his people into pigs. Then he visited the kingdom of the dead, where he met many dead, including his mother.
He sailed a lot on the sea, all his people died.
During Odysseus's absence, his wife Penelope had suitors. Odysseus arrived in Ithaca in the guise of an old man. Only to his son Telemachus does he reveal the truth. Together with Telemachus, they figure out how to outwit Penelope’s suitors. Penelope announces Odysseus' archery contest. She will marry the winner. Grooms cannot pull the bowstring. Odysseus wins the competition. A battle begins between Odysseus and the suitors. With the help of the goddess Athena, Odysseus emerges victorious. The suitors are killed. At first Penelope does not believe that this is really Odysseus. But she asks him questions, to which he gives the correct answers. Peace reigns.

Homer - Odyssey part 1. Listen to the summary online.

The Trojan War was started by the gods so that the time of heroes would end and the current, human, Iron Age would begin. Whoever did not die at the walls of Troy had to die on the way back.

Most of the surviving Greek leaders sailed to their homeland, as they sailed to Troy - with a common fleet across the Aegean Sea. When they were halfway, the sea god Poseidon struck with a storm, the ships were scattered, people drowned in the waves and crashed against the rocks. Only the chosen ones were destined to be saved. But it wasn’t easy for them either. 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 avenger-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 path of all was the path of the cunning king Odysseus, whom the sea carried around the world for ten years. Homer composed his second poem about his fate: “Muse, tell me about that experienced man who, / Wandering for a long time since the day when Saint Ilion was destroyed by him, / Visited many people of the city and saw the customs, / Endured a lot of 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. “The Odyssey” is a fairy-tale 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 its environs, where Odysseus’s wife Penelope and his son Telemachus. Just as in the Iliad only one episode was chosen for the narrative, “the wrath of Achilles,” 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. Odysseus talks about everything that happened before at a feast in the middle of the poem, and talks very concisely: all these fabulous adventures in the poem account for fifty pages out of three hundred. In the Odyssey, the fairy tale sets off everyday life, and not vice versa, although readers, both ancient and modern, were more willing to reread and remember the fairy tale.

In the Trojan War, Odysseus did a lot for the Greeks - especially where it was not strength that was needed, but intelligence. It was he who guessed to bind Elena’s suitors with an oath to jointly help her chosen one against any offender, and without this the army would never have gathered on a campaign. It was he who attracted young Achilles to the campaign, and without this victory would have been impossible. It was he who, when at the beginning of the Iliad, the Greek army, after a general meeting, almost rushed back from Troy, managed to stop him. It was he who persuaded Achilles, when he quarreled with Agamemnon, to return to battle. When, after the death of Achilles, the best warrior of the Greek camp was supposed to receive the armor of the slain man, it was Odysseus who received it, not Ajax. When Troy failed to 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 was among them. The goddess Athena, the patroness of the Greeks, loved Odysseus most of all 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, prevented him from reaching his homeland for ten years. Ten years at 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, with “Zeus’ will.” The gods hold a council, and Athena intercedes with Zeus on behalf of Odysseus. He is captured by the nymph Calypso, who is in love with him, on an island in the very middle of the wide sea, and languishes, in vain wanting to “see even the 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, riotously feast and drink, ruining the Odysseus household, and have fun with the Odysseus slaves. Penelope tried to deceive them: she said that she had 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 full view of everyone, and at night she secretly unraveled what she had woven. But the maids betrayed her cunning, and it became increasingly difficult for her to resist the insistence of the suitors. With her is her son Telemachus, whom Odysseus left as an infant; but he is young and is not taken into account.

And so an unfamiliar wanderer comes to Telemachus, calls himself an old friend of Odysseus and gives him advice: “Fit out 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 hold a wake and persuade your mother to marry.” He advised and disappeared - for Athena herself appeared in his image. This is what Telemachus did. The suitors resisted, but Telemachus managed to leave and board the ship unnoticed - for the same Athena helped him in this too,

Telemachus sails to the mainland - first to Pylos to the decrepit Nestor, then to Sparta to the newly returned Menelaus and Helen. The talkative Nestor tells how the heroes sailed from Troy and drowned in a storm, how Agamemnon later died in Argos and how his son Orestes took revenge on the murderer; but he knows nothing about the fate of Odysseus. The hospitable Menelaus tells how he, Menelaus, got lost in his wanderings, and on the Egyptian shore waylaid the prophetic old man of the sea, the seal shepherd Proteus, who knew how to transform himself into a lion, and into a boar, and into a leopard, and into a snake, and into water, and into tree; how he fought with Proteus, and defeated him, and learned from him the way back; and at the same time he learned that Odysseus was alive and suffering in 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 for this reason, did I want to bestow him with immortality?” - but he doesn’t dare disobey. Odysseus doesn't have a ship - he needs to put together a raft. For four days he works with an ax and a drill, on the fifth the raft is lowered. He sails for seventeen days, steering by the stars, and 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 at Troy!” - Odysseus cried. Two goddesses helped Odysseus: a kind sea nymph threw him a magic blanket that saved him from drowning, and faithful Athena calmed three winds, leaving the fourth to carry him swimming to the nearest shore. For two days and two nights he swims without closing his eyes, and on the third the waves throw him onto land. Naked, tired, helpless, he buries himself in a pile of leaves and falls asleep in a dead sleep.

This was the land of the blessed Phaeacians, over whom the good king Alcinous 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; At night Athena appeared to her and said: “You will soon be married, but your clothes have not been washed; gather the maids, take the chariot, go to the sea, wash the dresses.” We went out, washed, dried, and started playing ball; the ball flew into the sea, the girls screamed loudly, their scream woke up Odysseus. He rises from the bushes, scary, covered with dried sea mud, and prays: “Whether you are a nymph or a mortal, help: let me cover my nakedness, show me the way to people, and may the gods send you a good husband.” He washes himself, anoints himself, dresses, and Nausicaa, admiring, thinks: “Oh, if only the gods would give me such a husband.” He goes to the city, enters King Alcinous, tells him about his misfortune, but does not identify himself; touched by Alcinous, he promises that the Phaeacian ships will take him wherever he asks.

Odysseus sits at the Alcinous feast, and the wise blind singer Demodocus entertains the feasters with songs. “Sing about the Trojan War!” - Odysseus asks; and Demodocus sings about Odysseus’ wooden horse and the capture of Troy. Odysseus has tears in his eyes. “Why are you crying? - says Alkinoi. - This is why the gods send death to heroes, so that their descendants sing their glory. Is it true that someone close to you fell at Troy?” And then Odysseus reveals: “I am Odysseus, son of Laertes, 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 Odysseus' ships from Troy to the far south, where the lotus grows - a magical fruit, after tasting which a person forgets about everything and wants nothing in life except the lotus. The lotus eaters treated Odysseus's companions to lotus, and they forgot about their native Ithaca and refused to sail further. They were taken by force, crying, 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 forehead; they tended sheep and goats and knew no wine. Chief among them was Polyphemus, the son of the sea Poseidon. Odysseus and a dozen comrades wandered into his empty cave. In the evening Polyphemus came, huge as a mountain, drove the herd into the cave, blocked the exit with a boulder, and 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 the two, smashed them against the wall, devoured them with bones and began to snore. 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, as large as a mast, sharpened it, burned it on fire, and 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, Nobody, will eat you last!” - and the drunken Cyclops began to snore. Then Odysseus and his companions took a club, approached, swung it and stabbed it into the giants’ only eye. The blinded ogre roared, other Cyclopes came running: “Who offended you, Polyphemus?” - "Nobody!" - “Well, if there’s no one, then there’s no point in making noise” - and they parted ways. And in order to leave the cave, Odysseus tied his comrades under the belly of the Cyclops ram so that he would not grope them, and so together with the herd they left the cave in the morning.