The Odyssey by Homer — 5-Minute Cram Summary
A 5-minute cram guide to The Odyssey by Homer, covering the plot, characters, five core themes, and a full exam quiz.
It has been twenty years since Odysseus left Ithaca: ten years fighting the Trojan War and ten years trying to get home. His palace has been taken over by more than one hundred suitors, noblemen who assume Odysseus is dead and compete to marry his wife Penelope and claim the throne. They eat his food, drink his wine, and disrespect his household daily.
Odysseus's son Telemachus is now about twenty years old. He is meek and uncertain. The goddess Athena disguises herself as a family friend named Mentor and visits Telemachus. She urges him to stand up to the suitors and to travel to find news of his father. Inspired, Telemachus calls a public assembly, the first in twenty years, and demands the suitors leave. They refuse and mock him. He secretly departs by ship to find his father.
Telemachus first visits King Nestor in Pylos, who fought alongside Odysseus at Troy. Nestor has no news of Odysseus's fate but praises his father's wisdom and courage. He sends Telemachus on to Sparta to see King Menelaus and Queen Helen: the couple whose abduction caused the Trojan War.
Menelaus tells Telemachus that a sea god told him Odysseus is alive but trapped on an island by the nymph Calypso. Telemachus is encouraged. Back in Ithaca, the suitors discover his absence and plot to ambush and kill him on his return voyage. Penelope is devastated to learn her son has left secretly.
The gods hold a council. Athena pleads Odysseus's case to Zeus, and Zeus sends the messenger god Hermes to order the nymph Calypso to release Odysseus. Calypso has kept Odysseus on her island of Ogygia for seven years, offering him immortality and eternal youth. Odysseus refuses: he weeps daily on the shore, longing for home.
Calypso reluctantly helps Odysseus build a raft. He sails for seventeen days before Poseidon: returning from a trip to Ethiopia: spots him and wrecks his raft in fury. Odysseus swims for two days and nights and washes ashore on the island of Scheria, home of the Phaeacians. He is found by Nausicaa, daughter of King Alcinous, who leads him to the palace.
King Alcinous and Queen Arete welcome the stranger: they do not yet know his name. The Phaeacians are a gentle, seafaring people favored by the gods. Alcinous hosts athletic games in honor of the guest. A young Phaeacian named Euryalus taunts Odysseus for not competing. Stung, Odysseus hurls a discus far past all others and challenges anyone to beat him.
A blind bard named Demodocus sings of the Trojan War: and Odysseus weeps, hiding his tears in his cloak. Alcinous notices and asks the stranger to reveal his name and his story. Odysseus finally identifies himself. He then narrates his wanderings: the great central section of the epic.
Odysseus begins telling his story. After leaving Troy he raided the Cicones, then landed among the Lotus-Eaters: whose flowers made men forget home entirely. He had to drag his men back to the ships by force.
Next they arrived at the island of the Cyclopes. Odysseus led twelve men into the cave of Polyphemus, a one-eyed giant son of Poseidon. Polyphemus trapped them by rolling an enormous boulder across the cave entrance, then ate two men each morning and evening. Odysseus could not kill him: no one else could move the boulder.
Odysseus's plan: he sharpened a wooden stake, got Polyphemus drunk on wine, and drove the stake into the sleeping Cyclops's single eye, blinding him. When Polyphemus screamed and other Cyclopes asked who hurt him, he shouted "Nobody!": the false name Odysseus had given himself. The other Cyclopes left. The men escaped by strapping themselves under the bellies of the Cyclops's sheep as he let them out to graze.
As they sailed away, Odysseus made his fatal mistake: he shouted his real name to Polyphemus. Polyphemus prayed to his father Poseidon to curse Odysseus: and Poseidon heard him. This is why the journey home takes ten years.
The wind god Aeolus gave Odysseus a bag containing all the unfavorable winds, keeping only a fair wind blowing toward Ithaca. They were within sight of home when the crew, thinking the bag held treasure, opened it. All the winds escaped, blowing them back to the start.
They next reached the island of the sorceress Circe, who turned a scouting party into pigs. Odysseus went to rescue them, protected by a magical herb given to him by Hermes. He forced Circe to restore his men, and the crew stayed on her island for one year. Circe then told Odysseus he must first travel to the Underworld to consult the spirit of the blind prophet Tiresias.
In the Underworld, Odysseus encountered many shades of the dead: including his own mother, who had died of grief waiting for him. He also saw the spirits of fallen heroes from Troy. Tiresias warned him: do not harm the Cattle of the Sun god Helios on the island of Thrinacia: if his crew does, none of them will reach home alive. Tiresias also told him that even after returning home, Odysseus will face more trials before finding final peace.
Circe warned Odysseus of the dangers ahead. The Sirens were creatures whose singing lured sailors to crash on the rocks. Odysseus had himself tied to the mast so he could hear their song without acting on it; he ordered his men to fill their ears with beeswax.
They then had to pass between Scylla: a six-headed monster on a cliff who snatched six sailors and ate them: and Charybdis, a massive whirlpool that could swallow the whole ship. Odysseus chose to sail closer to Scylla to save the ship, losing six men.
They landed on the island of Thrinacia, home of Helios's sacred cattle. Odysseus made his men swear not to touch them. But they were stranded for a month by bad winds. Starving, while Odysseus slept, his men slaughtered and ate the cattle. When they sailed on, Zeus sent a thunderbolt that destroyed the ship and killed everyone on board. Odysseus alone survived, clinging to wreckage, and was washed to Calypso's island: where his story began.
The Phaeacians, moved by Odysseus's story, load him with gifts and sail him home to Ithaca while he sleeps. Poseidon, enraged, turns their ship to stone as punishment. Athena meets Odysseus on the shore and disguises him as an old beggar so he can observe the situation before revealing himself.
Odysseus goes first to the hut of his loyal swineherd Eumaeus, who welcomes the disguised stranger with hospitality. Telemachus returns from Sparta and also comes to Eumaeus's hut: narrowly avoiding the suitors' ambush. Athena tells Odysseus to reveal himself to his son. Father and son are reunited and weep together. They begin planning how to defeat the more than one hundred suitors with just the two of them, plus the loyal servants Eumaeus and Philoetius.
Still disguised as a beggar, Odysseus enters his own palace. He observes the suitors' arrogance firsthand: they insult and physically abuse the beggar. The suitor Antinous throws a footstool at him. Odysseus controls his rage, biding his time.
His old nurse Eurycleia recognizes him by a scar on his leg while washing his feet. Odysseus silences her immediately: his identity must stay secret. His old dog Argos, who has waited twenty years, recognizes him the moment he enters and dies. Penelope, not knowing the beggar's identity, speaks with him at length. He tells her (truthfully) that Odysseus is alive and on his way home. She weeps. Odysseus pities her but does not reveal himself.
Penelope announces that she will hold an archery contest: she will marry whichever suitor can string Odysseus's great bow and shoot an arrow through twelve axe-heads lined in a row: the feat Odysseus himself once performed.
The suitors take turns trying to string the bow: none can even bend it. Odysseus, still disguised as a beggar, asks to try. The suitors mock and refuse, but Penelope insists he be allowed. Telemachus sends his mother upstairs: the battle is about to begin.
Odysseus strings the bow effortlessly and shoots cleanly through all twelve axe-heads. He then turns the bow on Antinous, driving an arrow through his throat. He reveals his identity. The suitors panic: they have no weapons, as Telemachus secretly removed all the arms from the hall the night before.
Odysseus, Telemachus, Eumaeus, and Philoetius fight the suitors. The battle is one-sided: Athena aids Odysseus. Every suitor is killed. The disloyal servants who collaborated with the suitors are also executed. The palace is cleaned and purified with fire and sulfur.
Eurycleia tells Penelope that the beggar is Odysseus and that he has killed all the suitors. Penelope comes downstairs: but does not yet believe it. She tests him. She tells the servant to move their marriage bed outside the bedroom. Odysseus reacts with immediate anger; that is impossible, he says: the bed cannot be moved. He himself built it around a living olive tree rooted in the ground. Only he and Penelope know this secret.
Penelope finally believes him. The secret of the bed, known only to the two of them, is proof of his identity. They embrace and weep. Odysseus tells her of Tiresias's prophecy: that he must travel once more inland with an oar until he finds people who have never seen the sea, make an offering to Poseidon, and only then will he find final peace.
The families of the dead suitors gather in anger and march toward Odysseus. Athena, in the name of Zeus, stops the fighting and commands peace. The families are made to forget their grief. Order is restored in Ithaca. The epic ends.
A. A brilliant, cunning Greek hero trying to return home after the Trojan War, Odysseus is known for his intelligence and trickery more than brute strength. His ten-year journey home is the entire plot of the epic, and his cleverness, not raw power, is what repeatedly saves him and his crew.
A. Faithful and clever, Penelope waits twenty years for Odysseus, delaying the suitors by weaving and unraveling a burial shroud, claiming she will choose a new husband when it is finished. She represents loyalty and cunning equal to Odysseus's own.
A. Telemachus grows from a passive boy into a young man during his own journey, the Telemachiad, Books 1-4, traveling to find news of his father. He returns more confident and helps Odysseus in the final battle against the suitors.
A. A devoted servant who shelters the disguised Odysseus upon his return, Eumaeus is one of the few servants who remained faithful during the twenty years of absence, and helps in the plan to defeat the suitors.
A. Consistently helping Odysseus and Telemachus throughout the epic, Athena disguises herself as Mentor to guide Telemachus and convinces Zeus to allow Odysseus to leave Calypso's island. She is the divine force most responsible for Odysseus's survival.
A. Poseidon relentlessly pursues Odysseus because Odysseus blinded his son, the Cyclops Polyphemus. He causes storms and wrecks Odysseus's ships, and his hatred is the primary reason the journey takes ten years.
A. A powerful witch who turns Odysseus's men into pigs, Circe is resisted by Odysseus, with Hermes' help, and forced to restore his crew. She then becomes his ally, gives him directions to the Underworld, and he stays on her island for one year.
A. Calypso holds Odysseus on her island for seven years, offering him immortality if he stays. Odysseus refuses because he wants to go home, and Zeus orders her to release him. She represents the temptation to abandon one's identity and duty.
A. A one-eyed giant who traps Odysseus's crew in his cave and eats them, Polyphemus is blinded with a sharpened stake, allowing Odysseus to escape by hiding under sheep. Odysseus's boasting of his real name to Polyphemus triggers Poseidon's wrath against him.
A. Over one hundred arrogant noblemen invade Odysseus's palace, eat his food, and compete to marry Penelope, assuming Odysseus is dead. Antinous is the cruelest, Eurymachus the most deceptive, and all are killed by Odysseus at the end for violating the sacred code of hospitality.
A. The blind seer whom Odysseus travels to the Underworld to consult warns him not to eat the Cattle of the Sun God Helios, and foretells the difficulties ahead. His prophecy is the roadmap for the rest of the journey.
Quoted works:
· The Odyssey by Homer, translated by Robert Fagles. New York: Penguin Books, 1996. References used for educational commentary under fair use.
This page is a study aid for students. All quotations are clearly attributed to their original sources. For a richer and fuller experience, we encourage you to read the original book.
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