History of creation
The image of Odysseus became a reflection of the era of the Greeks' exploration of the sea. Situations when warriors set sail on their ships and their connection with their families was severed for a long time found their mythological embodiment in the story of Odysseus’s wanderings. Homer (“Iliad”, “Odyssey”), Euripides (“Hecuba”, “Cyclops”), Sophocles (“Ajax”, “Philoctetes”) and other authors wrote about the hero’s adventures and his journey home to his wife Penelope.
Homer, Euripides, Sophocles
Various episodes from the hero's life are captured in the form of drawings on Greek vases. Using them, you can restore the expected appearance of the hero. Odysseus is a mature, bearded man, often depicted wearing an oval cap worn by Greek sailors.
How Odysseus gets to his homeland
His travels end as follows. Odysseus builds a raft on which he sets sail. After 17 days he sees land. But then Poseidon discovers him and unleashes a storm on the raft, so Odysseus is forced to resort to a last resort - he decides to use Leucothea’s magic blanket. The hero swims to the island of Scheria. The Phaeacian people live here. Odysseus, with the help of Nausicaä (the princess), finds his way to the palace of Alcinous, the Phaeacian king. He takes part in a feast where the storyteller Demodocus sings a song about the capture of Troy.
Odysseus cannot hold back his tears because of the flood of memories. He introduces himself and begins a story about what he has experienced over the past years. The Phaeacian people collect rich gifts for him. With their help, Odysseus gets home on a fast ship.
The homeland, however, does not greet the hero very hospitably.
Biography
Odysseus was born from the marriage of Argonaut Laertes, king of Ithaca, and the granddaughter of the god Hermes, Anticlea. The hero’s grandfather, Autolycus, bore the proud nickname “the most thieving of men,” was a clever swindler, and personally from Hermes, his father, received permission to swear in the name of this god and break oaths. Odysseus himself is married to Penelope, who gave birth to the hero’s son Telemachus.
Odysseus on an amphora
Odysseus met his future wife Penelope in Sparta, where he arrived to woo Helen the Beautiful, among other suitors. There were many people who wanted to get married, but Elena’s father was afraid to make a choice in favor of one, so as not to incur the wrath of the others. The cunning Odysseus came up with a fresh idea - to give the girl the right to vote, so that she could choose the groom herself, and to bind the suitors with an oath that, if necessary, they would all help Elena’s future husband.
Helen chose Menelaus, the son of the Mycenaean king. Odysseus had his eye on Penelope. Penelope's father promised that he would marry his daughter to the one who wins the running competition. When Odysseus became the winner, his father tried to dissuade Penelope from this marriage and stay at home. Odysseus repeated his trick and allowed the bride to choose for herself - to stay with her father or go with him, and she, despite the persuasion of her parent, chose the hero. After the wedding, Odysseus and his young wife returned to Ithaca.
Odysseus and his wife Penelope
When Paris kidnapped Helen, the former suitors got ready for the Trojan War. The oracle predicted to Odysseus that if he went to Troy, he would return home 20 years later, beggars and without companions. The hero tried to avoid this event. Odysseus tried to pretend to be crazy, but was exposed.
The man began to sow the field with salt, harnessing an ox and a horse to the plow, but when his newborn son was thrown under the plow, he was forced to stop. So it became clear that Odysseus was fully aware of his actions, and the hero had to go to war. According to Homer's version, the hero was persuaded to go to Troy by King Agamemnon, who came to Ithaca for this purpose.
Odysseus and his ship
Odysseus comes to Troy with 12 ships. When the ships land on the shore, no one wants to get off. Another prediction promises that the first one to set foot on the land of Troy will certainly die. Nobody wants to be the first, so Odysseus jumps off the ship, and people follow him. The cunning hero makes a deceptive maneuver and throws a shield at his feet, so it turns out that it was not he who first stepped on Trojan soil, but the one who jumped after him.
During the war, Odysseus manages to settle personal scores by framing the man who threw his son under the plow as a traitor, thereby forcing the hero to go to war. A number of conditions are necessary for victory, and Odysseus fulfills them one after another. He gets the bow of Hercules, which was left with Philoctetes, who was abandoned on the island at the beginning of the war and was embittered towards the others. Together with Diomedes, he steals a statue of the goddess Athena from Troy. Finally, Odysseus comes up with the idea of the famous Trojan horse, thanks to which he, along with other warriors, ends up outside the walls of the city.
Trojan horse
After the victory at Troy, the ships turn back and Odysseus’s wanderings across the sea begin. The hero experiences many misadventures, during which he loses his ships and crew, and returns to Ithaca 10 years after sailing from the shores of Troy. In Ithaca, meanwhile, the suitors besiege Penelope, claiming that Odysseus died long ago and she should remarry, choosing one of them. The hero, turned into an old man by Athena, comes to his own palace, where no one recognizes him except the old nanny and the dog.
Penelope invites the suitors to compete for her hand - to string Odysseus's bow and shoot an arrow through 12 rings. The suitors insult Odysseus in the guise of an old man, but none of them can handle the bow. Then Odysseus himself shoots an arrow, thus revealing himself, and then, together with his grown-up son Telemachus, organizes a bloody massacre and kills the suitors.
The Wanderings of Odysseus
The hero's journey, however, does not end there. The relatives of the suitors he killed are demanding trial. Odysseus, by decision of the arbitrator, is expelled from Ithaca for 10 years, where the son of the hero Telemachus remains king. In addition, the god Poseidon is angry with the hero, whom the hero insulted by blinding the son of the god Polyphemus, the giant Cyclops.
To appease the god, Odysseus must walk with an oar on his shoulders through the mountains to find a land where people have never heard of the sea. Odysseus finds land where his oar is mistaken for a shovel and stops there. Poseidon forgives the hero after he makes sacrifices, and Odysseus himself marries the local queen.
Odysseus
The further fate of the hero is described differently in different sources. Odysseus either died in foreign lands (in different versions - in Aetolia, Etruria, Arcadia, etc.) without returning home, or returned after the expiration of his exile to Ithaca, where he was mistakenly killed by his own son, born of the sorceress Circe. There is even a version according to which Odysseus was turned into a horse and died in this form from old age.
Who is Odysseus
Odysseus is known as a participant in the Trojan War and as the hero of Homer's eternal Odyssey and Iliad. He came to Sparta to take part in the matchmaking of Helen the Beautiful. There he meets Penelope, takes part in a competition for her hand and, having won it, marries her. In honor of this event, three temples were erected in Sparta. Then Odysseus returns to Ithaca.
Yielding to the persuasion of the Spartan king, Odysseus decides to take part in the campaign against Troy. He was the chief strategist of the Greeks. Thanks to his tactics and cunning, Troy fell. The famous Trojan horse is his idea. Many more adventures lay ahead for Odysseus, but he returned home on his own, having lost all the warriors with whom he went on the campaign.
Returning to Ithaca, he and his son Telemachus killed all the “suitors” who were annoying Penelope. The relatives of the murdered rebelled against Odysseus, and although he won the victory, the arbitrator banished him from the kingdom for ten years. And Telemachus becomes king.
Odysseus built the temple of Athena on Mount Boreas. He died in Epirus, where he was revered as a hero. He was buried near Mount Perga.
Legends
The hero’s most famous adventures happened on his way home from Troy and are described in Homer’s poem “The Odyssey.” Returning, Odysseus' ships land first at one island, then at another, inhabited by mythological creatures, and each time the hero loses some of the people. On the island of lotophages, lotuses grow, granting oblivion to those who eat them. On the island of the Cyclops lives the one-eyed cannibal giant Polyphemus, the son of Poseidon. The heroes try to find shelter for the night in Polyphemus' cave, and he eats some of Odysseus's men.
Odysseus and the Cyclops Polyphemus
The hero and his surviving companions blind Polyphemus by gouging out the giant's only eye with a sharpened stake, and then escape with the help of sheep. The blind giant examines the sheep by touch before releasing them from the cave, but does not find the heroes clinging to the wool of the animals from below, and so they get out of the cave. However, Odysseus tells the giant his real name, and he screams for help to his father Poseidon. Since then, Poseidon has been angry with Odysseus, which does not make the hero’s journey home by sea any easier.
Odysseus and Circe
Having escaped from Polyphemus, the heroes find themselves on the island of the wind god Aeolus. He presents Odysseus with a fur, inside of which the winds are hidden. The hero must not untie this fur until he sees the shores of his native Ithaca. Odysseus and his crew almost reach home, but his people, thinking that there is a treasure hidden inside the fur, untie it while the hero is sleeping, release the winds, and the ship is carried far out to sea.
Odysseus and the Sirens
On the island of the sorceress Circe, Odysseus's companions turn into animals after tasting the treats, and the hero himself conceives a son with the sorceress, who, according to one version, will cause his death. The hero spends a year with Circe, and then goes further and passes the island of the sirens, who enchant and destroy sailors with their singing, and then swims between the huge whirlpool Charybdis and the six-headed monster Scylla, which devours six more crew members.
Odysseus and Calypso
Gradually, Odysseus loses all his companions and finds himself alone on the island of the nymph Calypso. The nymph falls in love with Odysseus, and the hero spends 7 years with her, because there is not a single ship on the island to sail away. In the end, Hermes appears to the nymph and orders her to release the hero. Odysseus is finally able to build a raft and sail away.
Meeting with Cyclops
When the hungry and tired Greeks, continuing their journey, noticed a land on the horizon where huge herds of goats and sheep were grazing, their happiness knew no bounds. Undoubtedly, here you could quench your thirst and eat to your heart's content. And for the local ruler, in exchange for treats, they had their gift in store - excellent Greek wine.
However, on this island new dangers awaited Odysseus’s team. As it turned out, this land belonged to the Cyclopes - huge one-eyed monsters. Not knowing whose cave they entered, the Greeks remained in the dwelling of the most terrible of the giants - Polyphemus. When he saw the people who were in his monastery, the Cyclops blocked the entrance to the cave with a huge stone and began to slowly deal with the Greeks, devouring them.
Seeing the terrible death of their comrades, Odysseus and the other survivors tried to quickly figure out how to get out of the cave - otherwise Polyphemus would simply kill everyone. Odysseus, as always, found a way out. Having waited until the Cyclops fell asleep after drinking wine, the Greeks grabbed a huge sharp stake that was lying on the floor of the dwelling. They used it to gouge out Polyphemus's only eye.
Konstantin Hansen “Odysseus in the Cave of Polyphemus”, 1835 Location: private collection
He, roaring in pain, rushed at his opponents, but his blindness prevented him from understanding where the people were. In the morning, when the Cyclops began to lead his sheep out to pasture, he touched the back of each animal with his hand, realizing that the Greeks could escape from captivity. Odysseus again resorted to cunning. He ordered each of his comrades to tie two rams, under which the people walked. Odysseus left the cave in the same way.
Hearing the Greek ships sailing from the island, Polyphemus realized that he had been deceived. Then he prayed to Poseidon to give Odysseus the most dangerous and difficult tests, preventing the hero from returning home. God heard the Cyclops' prayers.
Jacob Jordaens "Odysseus in the Cave of Polyphemus", circa 1635. Location: State Museum of Fine Arts. A.S. Pushkin, Moscow
Interesting Facts
- The hero's name has become a household name. The word "odyssey" means a long journey with many obstacles and adventures and is often found in contexts far removed from ancient Greek realities. For example, in the title of Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, based on the Arthur C. Clarke story, or in the title of Rafael Sabatini's adventure novel Captain Blood's Odyssey.
- In the literature of modern times you can often find the image of Odysseus - processed or taken “as is”. Terry Pratchett's book Eric introduces a character named Vindrisseus, an ironic reimagining of Odysseus. In 2000, Henry Lyon Oldie’s two-volume novel “Odysseus, Son of Laertes” was published, where the narrative is told from the hero’s point of view.
Arnold Vosloo as Odysseus
- The image of Odysseus also penetrated into cinema. In 2013, the French-Italian series “Odyssey” was released, where it is not about the hero’s wanderings, but about the family that awaits his return, about the intrigues and conspiracies of the suitors who want to seize the throne, and about the events that occur after the king returns to the island. In 2008, Terry Ingram's adventure film Odysseus: Journey into the Underworld was released, where the hero was played by actor Arnold Vosloo.
- Odysseus is one of the characters in the strategy computer game Age of Mythology, released in 2002.
Option 2
The myths of Ancient Greece tell about gods and heroes, their campaigns, exploits and reigns. Everything there was ruled by the thunder god Zeus and his wife Hera. In the underwater kingdom, Poseidon was in charge, but Hades took over the underwater kingdom of the dead. Hell, to put it more clearly. Zeus, Poseidon and Hades are three brothers who equally rule over all of Greece. In general, there are many gods, as well as heroes. For example, Hercules and his 12 labors (in fact, he became famous not only for this), Perseus and the head of the Gorgon, Theseus and the battle with the Minotaur in the labyrinth. One of the representatives of the heroes is Odysseus.
Who is he and how did he start his journey?
Odysseus was the son of Laertes. He was the king of Ithaca and a very smart man. He was already middle-aged at the start of the Trojan War. He had a wife, Penelope, and a son, Telemachus. Odysseus had to take part in the war, but he did not want to leave his family, just as he did not want his family to lose him. Therefore, Odysseus tried to cheat, but it did not work out: Palameus took advantage of Odysseus’s son and recognized his deception, for which Odysseus hated Palameus and wanted to take revenge.
Later, Odysseus himself, by cunning, was able to find Achilles, whom his mother was trying to hide. And it was thanks to Odysseus that Troy was defeated, because it was he who suggested building a horse and getting into enemy territory.
Homecoming and his famous exploits.
Odysseus lost many of his friends along the way. His evil fate was not made easier by the fact that for 7 years the hero of the Trojan Battle had to languish on the island of Ogygia with a nymph named Calypso. Only after this was Odysseus able to begin his journey to Ithaca. By the way, how did it happen that Odysseus ended up with Calypso for 7 years? And this is Poseidon’s punishment for the fact that Odysseus blinded Polyphemus, the son of Poseidon. What exactly is Polyphemus? This is a Cyclops - a cannibal that Odysseus and his team were not lucky enough to get to. But thanks to his ingenuity, Odysseus managed not only to get his guys out, but also to wound the Cyclops in the eye, thereby blinding him.
But his most famous exploits are the battle against the Sirens and the sailing against Scylla and Charybdis. There is nothing special to say about the two monsters, but the sirens... Women are birds who sing songs to sailors, with which they attract them to their lair to kill and eat. But they did not deceive Odysseus. He ordered everyone to put wax plugs in their ears, and he himself was tied to the mast so that he would not succumb to temptation. If Odysseus asked to untie him, then his comrades tied his body even tighter.
