Eventually Odysseus left the house of Hades for fear that the Gorgon's head (which turns all whom it beholds to stone) might appear; he rejoined his men and sailed back to Aeaea. Circe sent him on his way after warning him of the dangers that lay ahead. First were the Sirens (said by Homer to be two in number, but to be more by other authors); to Homer these were human in form, but in popular tradition they were birdlike, with women's heads. From their island meadow they would lure passing sailors onto the rocks; all around them were the whitened bones of their victims. Odysseus sailed by them unharmed, stopping his men's ears with wax, while he had himself bound to the ship's mast so that he could not yield to the irresistible beauty of the Sirens' song. The next danger was the two wandering rocks (Planctae) between which one ship only, the Argo, had ever safely passed. Odysseus avoided them by sailing close to two high cliffs; in the lower of these lived Charybdis (she is not described by Homer), who three times a day sucked in the water of the strait and spouted it upward again; to sail near that cliff was certain destruction, and Odysseus chose as the lesser evil the higher cliff where was the cave of Scylla, daughter of the sea deity Phorcys. Originally a seanymph, she had been changed, through the jealousy of Poseidon's wife, Amphitrite, into a monster with a girdle of six dogs' heads and with twelve feet, by means of which she would snatch sailors from passing ships. From Odysseus' ship she snatched six men, whom she ate in her cave; Odysseus and the rest of the crew were unharmed. Lastly Circe told Odysseus of the island of Thrinacia, where Helius (the Sun) pastured his herds of cattle and sheep; she strictly warned Odysseus not to touch a single one of the animals if he and his men wished ever to return to Ithaca.

But Odysseus' men in the event could not show such restraint after weeks of being detained by adverse winds, and while he was sleeping they killed some of the cattle for food. Helius complained to Zeus, and as a punishment (for the sacrilege of killing the god's cattle) Zeus raised a storm when the ship set sail and hurled a thunderbolt at it. The ship sank, and all the men were drowned except for Odysseus, who escaped, floating on the mast and part of the keel. So much for Circe's prophecy and the subsequent events. After the wreck Odysseus drifted back to Charybdis, where he avoided death by clinging to a tree growing on the cliff until the whirlpool propelled his mast to the surface after sucking it down. From there he drifted over the sea to Ogygia, the island home of Calypso, daughter of Atlas. It is at this stage in his adventures that Odysseus' part in the Odyssey begins. He lived with Calypso for seven years; although she loved him and offered to make him immortal, he could not forget Penelope. Finally, after Hermes brought her the express orders of Zeus; Calypso helped Odysseus build a raft and sail away. Even now he was not free from disaster; Poseidon saw him as he approached Scheria (the island of the Phaeacians) and shattered the raft with a storm. Odysseus was in the water for two days and two nights, .but he survived, helped by the sea-goddess Leucothea (formerly the mortal Ino, daughter of Cadmus) and by Athena, and he succeeded in reaching land naked, exhausted, and alone. The king of he Phaeacians was Alcinous, and his daughter was Nausicaa. The very day after Odysseus' landing Nausicaa went to wash clothes near the seashore and came face to face with Odysseus; she gave him her protection and brought him back to the palace. Here he was warmly entertained by Alcinous and his queen, Arete, and related the story of his adventures to them. The Phaeacians gave him rich gifts and a day later brought him back to Ithaca in a deep sleep on one of their ships (they were magnificent seamen). So Odysseus reached, Ithaca ten years after the fall of Troy, alone and on another's ship, as Polyphemus had prayed.

Yet even now Poseidon did not relax his hostility; as the Phaeacians' ship was entering the harbor of Scheria on its return, he turned it and its crew to stone as a punishment (long foretold) upon the Phaeacians for conveying strangers over the seas, especially those who were the objects of Poseidon's hatred. In Ithaca more than one hundred suitors-young noblemen from Ithaca and the nearby islands-were courting Penelope .in the hope of taking Odysseus' place as her husband and as king of Ithaca (for Telemachus, Odysseus' son by Penelope, was considered still too young to succeed). They spent their days feasting at Odysseus' palace, wasting his possessions. Penelope, however, remained faithful to Odysseus, even though he seemed to be dead; she procrastinated with the suitors by promising to choose one of them when she should have finished weaving a magnificent cloak to be a burial garment for Odysseus' father, Laertes. For three years she wove the robe by day and undid her work by night, but in the fourth year her deception was uncovered and a decision was now unavoidable. It was at this stage that Odysseus returned; helped by Athena, he gained entrance at the palace disguised as a beggar, after being recognized by his faithful old swineherd, Eumaeus, and by Telemachus; Telemachus knew, in any case, that Odysseus might be alive, since he had been on a journey to Pylos and Sparta and had learned from Nestor and Menelaus that his father had not perished. (It was outside the palace that Odysseus' old hound, Argus, recognized his master after nineteen years' absence, and died.) At the palace Odysseus was insulted by the suitors and by another beggar, Irus, whom he knocked out in a fight. Still in disguise, he had a long talk with Penelope, in which he gave an exact description of Odysseus and of a curious brooch he had worn; as a result she confided in him her plan to give herself next day to whichever suitor should succeed in stringing Odysseus' great bow and shooting an arrow straight through a row of twelve ax heads. Also at this time Odysseus was recognized by his old nurse, Euryclea, who knew him from a scar on his thigh, which he had received in a boar hunt.

Thus the scene was set for Odysseus' triumphant return; his son and his faithful retainers knew the truth, and Penelope had fresh encouragement to prepare her for the eventual recognition. The trial of the bow took place next day; none of the suitors could even so much as string it, and Odysseus asked to be allowed to try. Effortlessly he achieved the task and shot the arrow through the axes; next he shot the leading suitor, Antinous, and in the succeeding fight he and Telemachus and their two faithful servants killed all the other suitors. The scene where Odysseus strings the bow and reveals himself to the suitors is one of the most dramatic in all epic poetry (Odyssey 21. 404-23 and 22. 1-8): But crafty Odysseus straightway took the great bow in his hands and looked at it on all sides, just as a man who is skilled at the lyre and at song easily stretches a string round a new peg, fitting the well-turned sheep's gut around the peg-even so without effort did he string the great bow, did Odysseus. He took it in his right hand and made trial of the string, and it sang sweetly under his hand, in sound like a swallow. Then great sorrow seized the suitors, and in all of them their skin changed color. Zeus, giving a sign, thundered loudly. Then godlike patient Odysseus rejoiced that the wily son of Cronus had sent him a sign. Then he chose a swift arrow, one that lay on the table beside him uncovered, while the others lay in the hollow quiver-and these the Achaeans would soon feel. This arrow, then, he took, and he drew back the string.and the notched arrow, sitting where he was on his stool. And he shot the arrow aiming straight ahead, and of the hafted axes he missed none from the first to the last, and the arrow weighted with bronze sped straight through to the end. . . . Then wily Odysseus stripped off his rags, and he leaped to the great threshold holding the bow and the quiver full of arrows, and he poured out the arrows in front of his feet. Then he spoke to the suitors: "This my labor inexorable has been completed. Now I shall aim at another target which no man has yet struck, if I can hit it and Apollo grants my prayer." He spoke and shot a deathdealing arrow straight at Antinous.

After the suitors had all been killed, Odysseus cleansed the hall and hanged the twelve maidservants who had allowed themselves to be seduced by the suitors. Even so, Penelope could not believe it really was Odysseus who was there, and only when he showed knowledge of the secret construction of their bed did she relent and end their twenty years' separation. The poet describes the end of Odysseus' labors with tact and delicacy. At the same time he allows Odysseus to recall his adventures (Odyssey 23. 300-43): So when they (Odysseus and pekelope) had taken their delight in the joys of love, they took delight in words and spoke to each other. She, goddess-like among women, told of all she had endured in the hall as she watched the unseemly mob of suitors, who to win her slaughtered many oxen and fine sheep and drank many casks of wine. In his turn godlike Odysseus told all, the cares he had brought upon men and the grievous sufferings that he had endured. She delighted in his tale, and sleep did not fall upon her eyes until he had finished his tale. He told first how he had subdued the Cicones and how he had come to the fertile land of the Lotus-eating men. He told of the Cyclops' deeds and how he avenged his valiant companions, whom the Cyclops had pitilessly devoured. He told how he came to Aeolus, who received him kindly and sent him onward, yet it was not yet destined for him to come to his own dear land, for a storm again snatched him and bore him over the fish-full sea, groaning deeply.

He told how he came to Telepolus and the Laestrygonians, who destroyed his ships and his wellgreaved companions. He told of the deceit and wiles of Circe, and he told how he came to the dank house of Hades to consult the soul of Theban Tiresias, sailing on his well-benched ship. There he saw his companions and his mother, who bore him and nourished him when he was a baby. He told how he heard the song of the clearvoiced Sirens, and how he came to the wandering rocks of the Planctae, and to terrible Charybdis and Scylla, whom no man before had escaped alive. He told how his companions had slain the cattle of Helius, and how Zeus, who thunders in the high heavens, had struck his swift ship with a smoky thunderbolt and killed all his companions, and only he escaped evil death. He told how he came to the island Ogygia and the nymph Calypso, who kept him there in her hollow cave, desiring him to be her husband. She fed him and promised to make him immortal and ageless all his days, yet she did not persuade the heart in his breast. He told how, after many sufferings, he reached the Phaeacians, who honored him like a god and sent him with a ship to his own dear homeland with ample gifts of bronze and gold and clothing. This was the last tale he told, when sweet sleep came upon him, sleep that relaxes the limbs and releases the cares of the spirit. The next day Odysseus made himself known to his father, Laertes; the Odyssey ends with Athena intervening between Odysseus and the relatives of the dead suitors (who demanded vengeance, blood for blood) and making peace between them. We have already seen how complex and intelligent a hero Odysseus is.

He is especially helped by the goddess Athena, whose own attributes of wisdom and courage complement the character of Odysseus. The relationship of goddess and hero is brilliantly depicted by the poet in a scene after Odysseus, asleep, has been put ashore on Ithaca by the Phaeacians and wakes up, not knowing where he is. Athena, disguised as a young shepherd, has told him that he is on Ithaca (Odyssey 13. 250-55): Thus she spoke, and patient godlike Odysseus was glad, rejoicing in his own fatherland, as Pallas Athena had told him, the daughter of Zeus, bearer of the aegis. And he replied to her with winged words. He did not tell her the truth, but he held it back, always directing his mind in his breast for every advantage. . . . Odysseus makes up a story, which, however, does not fool the goddess (Odyssey 13. 287-301): Thus he spoke, and the goddess, grey-eyed Athena, smiled and stroked him with her hand. In form she was like to a beautiful and tall woman, one who is expert in fine handiwork. She addressed him with these winged words: "Crafty and wily would he be who could surpass you in every trick, even if a god were to compete with you. You rogue, deviser of tricks, never satisfied with deceit, even in your own land you were not going to abandon your deceit and your deceiving words, which are dear to you from your inmost heart. Still, come now, let us no longer talk like this, since we both know how to get the advantage. For you are by far the best of all mortals in counsel and in words, and I am famous among all the gods for wisdom and cunning. Yet you did not recognize Pallas Athena, daughter of Zeus, who stands beside you in every labor and protects you." Later authors attempted to "improve" on Homer, and there are many variant stories that concern Penelope, none of which is important.

Equally debatable is the subsequent history of Odysseus; here again Homer is our best guide, in the words of Tiresias7 prophecy (Odyssey 11. 119-37): When you have killed the suitors in your palace . . . then you must go, carrying a well-made oar, until you come to men who know not the sea nor eat food flavored with salt; nor know they of red-painted ships nor of shapely oars, which are the wings of ships. This shall be a clear sign that you shall not miss: when another traveler meets you and says that you have a winnowing-fan upon your fine shoulder, then plant the well-turned oar in the ground and sacrifice . . . to Poseidon . . . and to all the immortal gods . . . And death shall come to you easily, from the sea, such as will end your life when you are weary after a comfortable old age-and around you shall be a prosperous people. And so it came to pass; after Odysseus' return it still remained for him to appease Poseidon, and this he did in the manner foretold by Tiresias, founding a shrine to Poseidon where he planted the oar. He returned to Ithaca, and there, years later, was accidentally killed by Telegonus, who had grown up on his mother's island and sailed across the sea to Ithaca in search of his father.