Download The Odyssey

The Odyssey
By: Amanda And Brad
Basic Overview
 Once the Trojan War had ended, Odysseus, ruler
of the island kingdom of Ithaca, would return
home once again.
 But During the Trojan War he angered many
gods.
 To which arose lots of obstacles on his journey
home.
Odysseus
 Odysseus (called Ulysses in Latin) was
the son of Laertes
 Was the ruler of the island kingdom of
Ithaca.
 He was one of the most prominent Greek
leaders in the Trojan War.
Odysseus
 Was the hero of Homer's Odyssey.
 He was known for his cleverness and
cunning, and for his eloquence as a
speaker.
Obstacles
Odysseus’s return took ten years due to many
perils. These perils being:
 He freed his men from the pleasure-giving drugs of the LotusEaters
 He rescued his crew from the cannibalism of the Cyclops's
 Also rescued his crew from the enchantments of Circe, daughter
of the sun.
 He steered them past the perils of the Sirens and of Scylla and
Charybdis
 He could not save them from their final folly, however.
The Final Folly
The crew violated divine
commandments by slaughtering and
eating the cattle of the sun-god.
This obviously angered the Sun god
because you don’t go around
slaughtering HIS cattle, It’s common
sense.
Result
As a result of this rash act,
Odysseus' ship was destroyed by a
thunderbolt, and only Odysseus
himself survived.
He came ashore on the island of the
nymph Calypso, who made him her
lover and refused to let him leave for
seven years.
Savior?
When Zeus finally intervened,
Odysseus sailed away on a small
boat, only to be shipwrecked by
another storm.
He swam ashore on the island of the
Phaeacians, where he was
magnificently entertained and then,
at long last, escorted home to Ithaca.
The Cunning of Odysseus
The intelligence and cunning of Odysseus
brought him a long way in Greece.
 Odysseus was one of the original suitors
of Helen of Troy.
When Menelaus succeeded in winning
Helen's hand in marriage, it was Odysseus
who advised him to get the other suitors to
swear to defend his marriage rights.
Cunning cont.
However, when Menelaus called on the
suitors to help him bring Helen back from
Troy, Odysseus was reluctant to make
good on his oath.
He pretended to have gone mad, plowing
his fields and sowing salt instead of grain.
Palamedes placed Odysseus' infant son in
front of the plow, and Odysseus revealed
his sanity when he turned aside to avoid
injuring the child.
Problems in Ithaca
 While Odysseus was away, His wife Penelope was
under lots of pressure to re-marry. Suitor’s came
almost every day to ask her hand. But she stayed
faithful to Odysseus until the day he returned.
 There were problems in Ithaca as well, however.
During Odysseus' twenty-year absence, his wife,
Penelope, had remained faithful to him.
Odysseus at last
But she was under enormous pressure to
remarry. A whole host of suitors were
occupying her palace, drinking and eating
and behaving insolently to Penelope and
her son, Telemachus.
Odysseus arrived at the palace, disguised
as a ragged beggar, and observed their
behavior and his wife's fidelity.
Cont.
With the help of Telemachus and Laertes,
he slaughtered the suitors and cleansed
the palace.
He then had to fight one final battle,
against the outraged relatives of the men
he had slain;
Athena intervened to settle this battle,
however, and peace was restored.
Penelope
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Penelope was the daughter of Icarius
A first cousin of Helen of Troy.
She was the wife of Odysseus
Was famous for her cleverness and for
her faithfulness to her husband.
Penelope’s Delay
 When Odysseus failed to return from
the Trojan War (he was delayed for ten
years on his way home), Penelope was
beset by suitors who wanted her to
remarry.
 In order to delay them, she insisted that
she could not remarry until she had
finished weaving a shroud for Odysseus'
father ,Laertes.
 At the prompting of Athena, Penelope said that
she would marry the man who could string
Odysseus' bow and shoot an arrow through
twelve axes.
 By this time, Odysseus himself had secretly
returned, disguised as a beggar; he passed the
test of the bow, and then proceeded to
slaughter the suitors who had tormented his
wife
cont.
 She worked each day at her loom, and
then unraveled the cloth each night.
After three years of successful delay, one
of her servants revealed her deception,
and the impatient suitors angrily
demanded that she choose one of them
for her husband immediately.
Some Gods Involved
Athena
Ares
Aphrodite
Hera
Poseidon
Zeus
Apollo
Hephaestus
Goddess That Made All The Difference:
Athena
Occupation: Goddess of wisdom,
war,
arts and crafts;
Advisor to Zeus
Powers of Athena
Athena possesses all the conventional
powers of the Olympian gods
including superhuman strength, and
great Wisdom
Extra:
As the goddess of wisdom, Athena
has devoted a great deal of time
throughout the centuries to studying
and mastering many areas of
knowledge including all fields of nontechnical science.
Athena’s Hobbies
Also is quite adept at combat both
armed and unarmed
is a highly competent military
strategist even superior to her halfbrother Ares, the god of war.
She is a master of the weapons used at
the time of ancient Greece and Rome
including the sword, spear, and shield.
Citations
 http://www.pantheon.org/articles/o/odysseus.html
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