They Odyssey
a brief summary

At a council of the gods on Olympus, Athena pleads the case of Odysseus. It is now ten years since Troy was captured but Odysseus, shipwrecked on his way home, is stranded on an island where the goddess Calypso keeps him as her mate. The sea-god Poseidon, who was angry with Odysseus because the hero had blinded his own son the Cyclops, Polyphemus, is absent from the council; Athena has her way and Hermes, the messenger god, is sent to Calypso with the order to release Odysseus. Athena goes to Odysseus' home on Ithaca to encourage Odysseus' son Telemachus, whose household is occupied by the young and violent suitors of his mother Penelope; they are convinced Odysseus is dead and demand that she marry one of them. Athena, taking the shape of Mentes, king of a neighboring city, advises Telemachus to visit old Nestor at Pylos and Menelaus at Sparta to see if they have any news of his father.

Encouraged by the goddess, Telemachus calls an assembly of the people of Ithaca and assails the suitors for their unlawful occupancy of his house; he announces that he is off to find news of his father. The suitors realize that this is no longer a timid boy but a resolute and dangerous man; when they find out that he has actually left, they decide to set an ambush for him at sea and kill him on his way back. At Pylos Telemachus meets old Nestor and hears from him how Agamemnon was killed by his own wife when he came home from Troy and how Menelaus, blown by adverse winds as far as Egypt, came home in the seventh year after Troy's fall. Accompanied by Nestor's son Pisistratus, Telemachus goes to Sparta where he is welcomed by Menelaus and Helen and told by Menelaus that when last heard of Odysseus was on the island of Calypso, without ship or crew, longing to return home.

Meanwhile, the god Hermes arrives to bring Calypso the command of Zeus. She accepts it with reluctance and when Hermes is gone makes one last attempt to keep Odysseus; she offers to make him immortal if he will stay with her. He refuses and she helps him build a boat and sail off. The god Poseidon wrecks his boat and Odysseus eventually crawls ashore naked and battered, on the island of Scheria, home of the Phaeacians.

Here he meets the daughter of t.he king Alcinour, Nausicaa, who had come down to the shore with her retinue of girls to wash clothes. She is charmed by him and sends him off to the palace where he is hospitably entertained. The next day, at a banquet in the hall, Odysseus, moved to tears by a minstrel's tales of Troy, is challenged to reveal his identity. He does so as he tells the Phaeacians (and us) the whole story of his wanderings since he left Troy.

Back on Circe's island, he bids farewell to her and passes the Sirens who lure men to their doom by their song, makes the passage between the monster Scylla and the whirlpool Charybdis, and lands on the island of Thrinacia where, in spite of his appeals, his men eat the sacred cattle of the Sun. Once again at sea, the ship is sunk in a storm, the crew lost: only Odysseus survives, to land at last on Calypso's island.

The Phaeacians take Odysseus home to Ithaca; Poseidon, with the consent of Zeus, punishes them for helping his enemy. Odysseus meets the goddess Athena and they plan a stealthy approach to his house in disguise: if he goes home in his own person the suitors may kill him. She transforms him into an aged, ragged beggar and he goes to his swineherd Eumaeus for hospitality. He tells his generous host a tall tale of wanderings in Egypt and the story of Odysseus at Troy. Meanwhile, Telemachus returns from Sparta, avoiding the suitor's ambush. While Eumaeus tells Odysseus how he was kidnapped as a child and sold to Odysseus father as a slave, Telemachus makes his way to the swineherd's hut. Without letting Eumaeus know the truth, Odysseus reveals his identity to his son; together they plot the overthrow of the suitors.

Odysseus and Telemachus make their separate ways to the palace. As Odysseus comes into the palace yard Argus, his dog, on the point of death from old age, recognizes his master. Odysseus goes begging bread from the suitors; Antinous, the most violent of them, throws a stool at him. Odysseus is challenged by a real beggar, Irus, but beats him handily in a fight and wins the exclusive right to beg at the palace. Another prominent suitor Eurymachus, insults Odysseus and throws a stool at him. Later that night Penelope sends for Odysseus to see if the beggar has any news; he tells her of meeting Odysseus on the nearby mainland and assures her he will soon return. The old nurse Eurycleia, told to wash his feet before he goes to bed, recognizes him by a scar on his leg, but he silences her.

Penelope decides to announce for the next day an archery contest which will decide which of the suitors may claim her hand. The suitors feast and revel; one more of them, Ctesippus, throws something at Odysseus, a cow's foot this time. They all start to laugh hysterically; the tension is mounting. The archery contest is set up; the bow of Odysseus is brought out but none of the suitors can string it. Telemachus tells Eumaeus to give it to Odysseus who strings it and kills Antinous, Eurymachus, and then--with the help of Telemachus, Eumaeus, and some loyal servants--all the rest of the suitors. Only the poet-minstrel Phemius is spared. When Penelope is told the news she cannot believe it; she tests Odysseus' knowledge of a detail in their bedroom (the fact that the bed could not be moved since it was carved out of a standing olive tree) and accepts him as her husband.

But trouble is brewing in Ithaca. As Odysseus goes off to the country to see his father Laertes and the ghosts of the suitors go to the land of the dead to be interrogated by Agamemnon and others, the relatives of the suitors gather to attack Odysseus and his family. But their attack is thwarted by the goddess Athena and the two sides make peace.