The Odyssey
How does Odysseus demonstrate the qualities of an epic hero throughout The Odyssey?
The Cyclops
In the next land we found were Cyclopes,
110 giants, louts, without a law to bless them.
In ignorance leaving the fruitage of the earth in mystery
to the immortal gods, they neither plow n
or sow by hand, nor till the ground, though grain—
wild wheat and barley—grows untended, and
115 wine-grapes, in clusters, ripen in heaven’s rains.
Cyclopes have no muster and no meeting,
no consultation or old tribal ways,
but each one dwells in his own mountain cave
dealing out rough justice to wife and child,
120 indifferent to what the others do…
As we rowed on, and nearer to the mainland,
at one end of the bay, we saw a cavern
yawning above the water, screened with laurel,
and many rams and goats about the place
125 inside a sheepfold—made from slabs of stone
earthfast between tall trunks of pine and rugged
towering oak trees.
A prodigious man
slept in this cave alone, and took his flocks
to graze afield—remote from all companions,
130 knowing none but savage ways, a brute
so huge, he seemed no man at all of those
who eat good wheaten bread; but he seemed rather
a shaggy mountain reared in solitude.
We beached there, and I told the crew
135 to stand by and keep watch over the ship:
as for myself I took my twelve best fighters
and went ahead. I had a goatskin full
of that sweet liquor that Euanthes’ son,
Maron had given me. He kept Apollo’s
140 holy grove at Ismarus; for kindness
we showed him there, and showed his wife and child,
he gave me seven shining golden talents
perfectly formed, a solid silver winebowl,
and then this liquor—twelve two-handled jars
145 of brandy, pure and fiery. Not a slave
in Maron’s household knew this drink; only
he, his wife and the storeroom mistress knew;
and they would put one cupful—ruby-colored,
honey-smooth—in twenty more of water,
150 but still the sweet scent hovered like a fume
over the winebowl. No man turned away
when cups of this came around.
A wineskin full
I brought along, and victuals in a bag,
for in my bones I knew some towering brute
155 would be upon us soon—all outward power,
a wild man, ignorant of civility.
We climbed, then, briskly to the cave. But Cyclops
had gone afield, to pasture his fat sheep,
so we looked eound at everything inside:
160 a drying rack that sagged with cheeses, pens
crowded with lambs and kids, each in its class:
firstlings apart from middling’s, and the ‘dewdrops,’
or newborn lambkins, penned apart from both.
And vessels full of whey were brimming there—
165 bowls of earthenware and pails for milking.
My men came pressing round me pleading:
‘Why not
take these cheeses, get them stowed, come back,
throw open all the pens, and mke a run for it?
We’ll drive the kids and lambs aboard. We say
170 put out again on good salt water!’
Ah,
how sound that was! Yet I refused. I wished
to see the cave man, hat he had to offer—
no pretty sight, it turned out, for my friends.
We lit a fire, burnt an offering,
175 and took some cheese to eat; then sat in silence
around the embers, waiting. When he came
he had a load of dry boughs on his shoulder
to stoke his fire at suppertime. He dumped it
with a great crash into that hollow cave,
180 and we all scattered fast to the far wall.
Then over the broad cavern floor he ushered
the ewes he meant to milk. He left his rams
and he-goats in the yard outside, and swung
high overhead a slab of solid rock
185 to close the cave. Two dozen four-wheeled wagons,
with heavy wagon teams, could not have stirred t
he tonnage of that rock from where he wedged it
over the doorsill. Next he took his seat
and milked his bleating ewes. A practiced job
190 he made of it, giving each ewe her suckling;
thickened his milk, then, into curds and whey,
sieved out the curds to drip in withy baskets,
and poured the whey to stand in bowls
cooling until he drank it for his supper.
195 When all these chores were done, he poked the fire,
heaping on brushwood. In the glare he saw us.
‘Strangers,’ he said, ‘who are you? And where from?
What brings you here by seaways—a fair traffic?
Or are you wandering rogues, who cast your lives
200 like dice, and ravage other folk by sea?’
We felt a pressure on our hearts, in dread
of that deep rumble and that mighty man.
But all the same I spoke up in reply:
‘We are from Troy, Achaeans, blown off course
205 by shifting gales on the Great South Sea:
homeward bound, but taking routes and ways
uncommon; so the will of Zeus would have it.
We served under Agamemnon, son of Atreus—
the whole world knows what city
210 he laid waste, what armies he destroyed.
It was out luck to come here, here we stand,
beholden for your help, or any gifts
you give—as custom is to honor strangers.
We would entreat you, great Sir, have a care
215 for the gods’ courtesy; Zeus will avenge
the unoffending guest.’
He answered this
from his brute chest, unmoved:
‘You are a ninny,
or else you come from the other end of nowhere,
telling me, mind the gods! We Cyclops
220 care not a whistle for your thundering Zeus
or all the gods in bliss; we have more force by far.
I would not let you go for fear of Zeus—
you or your friends—unless I had a whim to.
Tell me, where was it, now, you left your ship—
225 around the point, or down the shore, I wonder?’
He thought he’d find out, but I saw through this,
and answered with a ready lie:
‘My ship?
Poseidon Lord, who sets the earth a-tremble,
broke it up on the rocks at your land’s end.
230 A wind from seaward served him, drove us there.
We are survivors, these good men and I.’
The Lotus-Eaters
70 Now Zeus the lord of cloud roused in the north
a storm against the ships, and driving veils
of squall moved down like night on land and sea.
The bows went plunging at the gust; sails
cracked and lashed out strips in the big wind.
75 We saw death in that fury, dropped the yards,
unshipped the oars, and pulled for the nearest lee;
then two long days and nights we lay offshore
worn out and sick at heart, tasting out grief,
until a third Dawn came with ringlets shining.
80 Then we put up our masts, hauled sail, and rested,
letting the steersmen and the breeze take over.
I might have made it safely home, that time,
but as I came round Malea the current
took me out to sea, and from the north
85 a fresh gale drove me on, past Cythera.
Nine days I drifted on the teeming sea
before dangerous high winds. Upon the tenth
we came to the coastline of the Lotus-Eaters,
who live upon that flower. We landed there
90 to take on water. All ships’ companies
mustered alongside for the mid-day meal.
Then I sent out two picked men and a runner
to learn what race of men that land sustained.
They fell in, soon enough, with the Lotus-Eaters,
95 who showed no will to do us harm, only
offering the sweet Lotus to our friends—
but those who ate this honeyed plant, the Lotus,
never cared to report, nor to return:
they longed to stay forever, browsing on
100 that native bloom, forgetful of their homeland.
I drove them, all three wailing, to the ships,
tied them down under their rowing benches,
and called the rest: ‘All hands aboard;
come, clear the beach and no one taste
105 the Lotus, or you lose your hope of home.’
Filing in to their places by the rowlocks
my oarsmen dipped their long oars in the surf,
and we moved out again on our sea faring.
“Sailing from Troy”
Ten years after the Trojan War Odysseus departs
from the goddess Calypso’s island. He arrives in
Phaeacia. ruled by Alcinous. Alcinous offers a ship to
Odysseus and asks him to tell of his adventures.
“I am Laertes’ son, Odysseus.
Men hold me
formidable for guile in peace and war:
20 this fame has gone abroad to the sky’s rim.
My home is on the peaked sea-mark of Ithaca
under Mount Neion’s wind-blown robe of leaves,
In sight of other islands—Dulichium,
Same, wooded Zacynthus—Ithaca
25 being most lofty in that coastal sea
and northwest, while the rest lie east and south.
A rocky isle, but good for a boy’s training;
I shall not see on earth a place more dear,
though I have been detained long by Calypso,
30 loveliest among goddesses, who held me
in her smooth caves, to be her heart’s delight.
as Circe of Aeaea, the enchantress,
desired me, and detained me in her hail.
But in my heart I never gave consent.
35 Where shall a man find sweetness to surpass
his own home and his parents? In far lands
he shall not, though he find a house of gold.
What of my sailing, then, from Troy
What of those years
of rough adventure, weathered under Zeus?
40 The wind that carried west from Ilium
brought me to Ismarus. on the far shore,
a strongpoint on the coast of Cicones.
I stormed that place and killed the men who fought.
Plunder we took, and we enslaved the women,
45 to make division, equal shares to all—
but on the spot I told them: Back, and quickly!
Out to sea again!’ My men were mutinous,
fools, on stores of wine. Sheep after sheep
they butchered by the surf, and shambling cattle,
50 feasting—while fugitives went inland, running
to call to arms the main force of Cicones.
This was an army trained to fight on horseback
or, where the ground required, on foot. They came
with dawn over that terrain like the leaves
55 and blades of spring. So doom appeared to us,
dark word of Zeus for us our evil days.
My men stood up and made a fight of it—
backed on the ships, with lances kept in play,
from bright morning through the blaze of noon
60 holding our beach, although so far outnumbered;
but when the sun passed toward unyoking time,
then the Achaeans, one by one, gave way.
Six benches were left empty in every ship
that evening when we pulled away from death.
65 And this new grief we bore with us to sea:
our precious lives we had, but not our friends.
No ship made sail next day until some shipmate
had raised a cry, three times, for each poor ghost
unfleshed by the Cicones on that field.
“The Lotus-Eaters”
70 Now Zeus the lord of cloud roused in the north
a storm against the ships, and driving veils
of squall moved down like night on land and sea.
The bows went plunging at the gust; sails
cracked and lashed out strips in the big wind.
75 We saw death in that fury, dropped the yards.
unshipped the oars, and pulled for the nearest lee:
then two long days and nights we lay offshore
worn out and sick at heart, tasting our grief,
until a third Dawn came with ringlets shining.
80 Then we put up our masts, hauled sail, and rested,
letting the steersmen and the breeze take over.
I might have made it safely home, that time,
but as I came round Malea the current
took me out to sea, and from the north
85 a fresh gale drove me on, past Cythera.
Nine days I drifted on the teeming sea
before dangerous high winds. Upon the tenth
we came to the coastline of the Lotus-Eaters,
who live upon that flower. We landed there
90 to take on water. All ships’ companies
mustered alongside for the midday meal.
Then I sent out two picked men and a runner
to learn what race of men that land sustained.
They fell in. soon enough, with Lotus-Eaters.
95 who showed no will to do us harm, only
offering the sweet Lotus to our friends—
but those who ate this honeyed plant, the Lotus,
never cared to report, nor to return:
they longed to stay forever, browsing on
100 that native bloom, forgetful of their homeland.
I drove them, all three wailing, to the ships,
tied them down under their rowing benches,
and called the rest: ‘All hands aboard;
come, clear the beach and no one taste
105 the Lotus, or you lose your hope of home.’
Filing in to their places by the rowlocks
my oarsmen dipped their long oars in the surf,
and we rowed out again on our seafaring.