How old is odysseus

What does the word odyssey mean? Odyssey is a Greek epic poem written by Homer about the long journey of a man named Odysseus, or a long and eventual journey or experience. A spiritual quest is an example of an odyssey. YourDictionary definition and usage example. Who Won the Trojan War? Then one of greek king Odysseus builds a horse, the famous Trojan Horse. Greeks disguised as they left for their home to ake trojans believe that they have won the war.

Best of the greek soldiers were hidden inside the horse. Is the Odyssey a poem? The Odyssey is a long poem. It is comprised of 24 books containing over 12,00 lines. It is a narrative poem. It tells the story of the return of Odysseus to his home in Ithaca after 20 years of war and wandering. How did Telemachus die? The Telegony was a short two-book epic poem recounting the life and death of Odysseus after the events of the Odyssey.

Who killed Odysseus? How did Odysseus's mother die? When did Odysseus' mother die? How old is Odysseus? Describe Argos's condition when Odysseus sees him? Who is Argos and why is he significant in the Oddesey? How did Odysseus know his mother died? Why is Odysseus surprised to see his mother? How did Odysseus's mother die'? How did Odysseus' mother die?

How old was Odysseus? How did Athena change Odysseus before he went to the swineherd? How old was Odysseus' son when he met his father for the first time? What does Odysseus' mother tell Odysseus? How was the old nurse Euryclea able to recognize Odysseus? What disguise does Odysseus assume? People also asked. What is the wicked witch of the wests name?

View results. The Greek gods? What is the name of a kitchen utensil starting with c? What is a sentence of familiar matter? Study Guides. Trending Questions. What is the fourth element of the periodic table of elements? Still have questions? How does Penelope test Odysseus? What is happening at the beginning of The Odyssey? Why does Athena help Odysseus so much?

Why does Nestor invite Telemachus to the feast before knowing his identity? Why does Calypso allow Odysseus to leave her island? Why does Odysseus sleep with Circe? Why does Odysseus travel to Hades? Why does Odysseus fail to reveal his identity to Penelope when they are first reunited?

Does Penelope really intend to marry one of her suitors? How do Odysseus and Telemachus defeat the suitors? Characters Character List. Odysseus The protagonist of The Odyssey. Read an in-depth analysis of Odysseus.

Read an in-depth analysis of Telemachus. Penelope Wife of Odysseus and mother of Telemachus. Read an in-depth analysis of Penelope. Athena Daughter of Zeus and goddess of wisdom, purposeful battle, and the womanly arts. Read an in-depth analysis of Athena. Calypso The beautiful nymph who falls in love with Odysseus when he lands on her island-home of Ogygia. Read an in-depth analysis of Calypso.

Read an in-depth analysis of Circe. Poseidon God of the sea. Zeus King of gods and men, who mediates the disputes of the gods on Mount Olympus. She knew the temperament of the attacking Greeks all too well and was hesitant to trust them.

Motivated by her doubts, Helen walked around the Wooden Horse three times imitating the voices of the wives of the men she thought most likely to be hiding inside.

A soldier named Antiklos almost answered Helen's call but Odysseus forced him to remain silent by getting Antiklos in a strangle hold. The Trojans were ecstatic. They believed they had survived ten years of fierce fighting and were now ready to accept the Akhaians's peace offering. After a day and night of celebration, the Trojans collapsed into a state of exhaustion. The soldiers inside the Wooden Horse emerged from hiding and fell upon the unsuspecting Trojans.

Once the gates of the city were opened, the entire Akhaian army entered the city where they killed or enslaved almost every Trojan citizen. As one final act of brutality, Odysseus killed Astyanax, the infant son of Prince Hektor and his wife, Andromakhe.

The Trojan War was over. Amid the chaos of the final battle at Troy, Odysseus and Diomedes rescued the statue of Athene—the Palladium—from her temple inside the burning city. The Trojans claimed they had made a duplicate of the Palladium and the statue Odysseus and Diomedes took was not authentic. Considering Athene's hatred for the Trojans and the protection she afforded Odysseus and his family, we might conclude that the Trojan account was not accurate.

Poseidon, lord of the sea, despised Odysseus but Zeus would not let Poseidon kill Odysseus or prevent his eventual homecoming. Athene protected Odysseus at Troy, but after he left Troy, she had to be careful not to further inflame Poseidon and make Odysseus's plight worse. Athene's influence became subtler but her constant guidance of Odysseus and his son Telemakhos proved invaluable. To give a full account of Odysseus's adventures on his ten-year voyage from Troy to Ithaka would require a complete retelling of the Odyssey so I will only give a few highlights of his trials and tribulations.

I sincerely suggest that you read the Odyssey for the fascinating details of this epic saga. Troy was in ruins and the plunder had been distributed amongst the Akhaians. Odysseus did not anticipate any problems on his voyage home, but his expectations were soon dashed when his twelve ships were blown off course and he was forced ashore on the island of the Cyclopes.

Odysseus's men beached their ships in a natural harbor and when Eos Dawn arrived, they feasted on goats the Nymphs had driven from the hills to where the sailors were camped. Odysseus and his men could see smoke from distant hearth fires but did not know who the inhabitants of the land might be.

The following day, Odysseus sailed down the coast to seek out the natives. He came to a place where he could see a cave with goats and sheep in a fenced yard. In the distance he could see a monstrous man herding flocks. Odysseus took twelve crewman and went ashore to investigate. Odysseus suspected that the monster-man would be wild and lawless, so he took some food and a skin of very strong wine to offer as gifts. They found the cave of the monster-man well stocked with cheese, milk and pens full of lambs and kids.

Odysseus's companions wanted to steal the food and make a hasty retreat back to their ship, but Odysseus decided to wait for the monster-man to return. He hoped the barbaric looking man would be civil enough to offer gifts of hospitality. As the monster-man came closer, it became obvious to Odysseus and his men that they were looking at a Cyclops He was the largest of all the Cyclopes, his name was Polyphemos—the son of Poseidon and the Nymph Thoosa.

Returning to his cave, Polyphemos made such a ruckus that Odysseus and the twelve sailors retreated into the shadows and hid. They watched as the wheel-eyed man separated the male from the female livestock and herded the females inside. He then rolled a giant stone in front of the cave entrance and began to milk the sheep and goats. When he finished his chores, the Cyclops lit a fire He asked if they were pirates or traveling on business.

Odysseus, in his most eloquent style, told the Cyclops of their plight and asked for the hospitality any god fearing man or monster-man would provide. The Cyclops said he was better than the gods and would offer no hospitality. At that moment, Polyphemos snatched up two of the sailors and dashed them on the floor, spilling their blood and brains Odysseus and the other men helplessly cried out to Zeus for mercy but Polyphemos was oblivious to their lamentations and laid down to sleep.

Odysseus thought of pulling his sword and attacking Polyphemos but then realized that if the Cyclops died, the trapped sailors could not move the giant stone that sealed the cave. Odysseus waited for dawn and hoped for an opportunity to escape certain death.

Polyphemos awoke and went about his morning chores He then moved the giant stone at the entrance of the cave and went outside to tend his flocks. Polyphemos replaced the stone, trapping Odysseus and the eight surviving men inside the cave. Odysseus began to devise a plan of escape. He took a large tree trunk that was in the cave and sharpened one end and hardened the point with fire. The sailors drew lots Polyphemos returned to the cave and brought his entire flock, males and females, inside for the night.

He tended to his milking chores and then effortlessly killed and ate two more sailors. Odysseus boldly filled a bowl with the potent wine he had brought along The Cyclops took the wine and drank it down. The wine had been a gift to Odysseus and was so strong it had to be watered down with twenty portions of water in order to make it suitable for any civilized man to drink.

Polyphemos explained that Cyclopes made wine but the wine Odysseus had given him was surely made where nectar and ambrosia flow in abundance. He asked for more wine and after three bowls, tried to engage Odysseus in conversation. He asked Odysseus what his name was and promised to give him a guest-gift in exchange for the wine. Polyphemos said he would eat Nobody after he had eaten the other men and that would be his guest-gift. Polyphemos passed out from the wine and vomited bile and meat on the cave floor.

Odysseus and his men heated the point of the tree they had sharpened in the fire and poised it in front of Polyphemos's eye. As the men pushed the searing point of the tree into Polyphemos's eye, Odysseus used his weight to spin the giant spear so it would penetrate as deeply as possible.

Polyphemos awoke with a scream and pulled the deeply imbedded point from his ruined eye. His cries drew the attention of the neighboring Cyclopes and they converged at the cave entrance and asked why Polyphemos was screaming in the night. The other Cyclopes returned to their homes thinking that Polyphemos was suffering from madness. They urged him to call upon his father Poseidon for help.

Odysseus instructed the six remaining men tie three rams abreast and then strapped each man to the belly of the center animal. He chose the largest ram in the flock for himself and hid beneath it in a similar manner. When dawn arrived, Polyphemos opened the cave entrance and carefully felt the backs of all the sheep as they went outside. The men under the tethered sheep were safely outside when the ram carrying Odysseus came to the entrance.

Polyphemos recognized the ram by its thick, luxurious fleece and wondered why the noble beast was the last to leave the cave. Polyphemos assumed the ram was mourning the injury to its master's eye Safely outside the cave, Odysseus untied the other men and proceeded to drive Polyphemos's flocks to the ships. Odysseus signaled the men to quietly load the animals onboard so Polyphemos and the other Cyclopes would not hear them.

When the ships were a little distance from the shore, Odysseus could not contain his pride and anger, he called out to Polyphemos and said the wrath of the gods had been justly administered and that good men had been the instrument of divine retribution.

Polyphemos lifted a stone the size of a mountain peak and blindly threw it at the ships. The stone grazed Odysseus's ship and the wave it created pushed it back to the shore.

The men rowed frantically to get the ship back to the open water before Polyphemos could hurl another bolder. When they were twice the previous distance from the shore, Odysseus again wanted to taunt the blinded Cyclops.

The other sailors tried to restrain Odysseus but his proud heart would not be silent. He shouted to Polyphemos that he was Odysseus, the sacker of cities from the island of Ithaka, and that he should have killed the evil Cyclops instead of just blinding him. Hearing Odysseus's name, Polyphemos realized that his blinding had been foretold by a prophet.

He had always been on the lookout for a man named Odysseus, but he had been tricked by clever words and missed the prophetic signs. Polyphemos raised his arms to heaven and called upon his father to bring down vengeance on Odysseus, kill all his men, bring turmoil to his household and delay his homecoming for many years.

Poseidon heard his son's plea and made it all come to pass. The gale winds drove the ships past the island of Kythera and continued to push them off course for nine days. On the tenth day they landed on the island of the Lotus Eaters. Thankful to find an island with food and water, the crew gathered provisions for their continued voyage.

Odysseus thought it prudent to send three men to explore the island. One of the men was a herald The Lotus Eaters were not dangerous in the usual sense because they ingested an addictive lotus plant that made them lethargic and simpleminded. The men of Odysseus's scouting party mingled with the Lotus Eaters and were offered the honey-sweet fruit of the lotus.

The men quickly became forgetful of their mission and did not return to the ships. Odysseus searched the island and found his men in a state of lotus-induced bliss Odysseus immediately ordered his ships to sea so they could escape the island of the Lotus Eaters. One of the most important encounters Odysseus had on his journey home from Troy was with the Dread Goddess, Kirke Circe , the presiding Nymph of the island of Aiaia.

The daughter of Helios Sun and the Okeanid Perse, Kirke was best known as the mistress of drugs and potions. Surviving one desperate situation after another, Odysseus and his dispirited crew went ashore on Aiaia hoping to find food and water.

Odysseus sent twenty-three men to explore the island. As the men walked from the beach, they could hear sweet singing from Kirke's home in a forest glen. Wild lions and wolves came, wagging their tails, to greet the strangers The unsuspecting sailors were charmed by Kirke's beauty and haplessly drank the potions she offered as refreshment.

As Kirke's vile drugs took effect, she touched each man with her wand Kirke herded them into pens and tossed pig-food on the ground before them. Eurylokhos was the only man to escape from Kirke without being turned into a swine Odysseus almost killed him for it. Committed to saving his animalized crewmen, Odysseus decided to go to Kirke's palace alone.

Cautiously treading the trail through the forest, Odysseus met the god Hermes in the guise of a young man. Hermes told Odysseus that it would be possible to entrap Kirke and free his companions if he obeyed the god's orders. Hermes reached down and pulled a plant called 'moly' from the ground and explained that mere mortals found it difficult to dig it up but he, as a god, could do all things. Hermes explained that when Kirke offered Odysseus one of her dreadful potions he was to secretly put the 'moly' in the concoction to render it harmless