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The Odyssey by Homer

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The Odyssey by Homer The Odyssey by Homer Mrs. Brown’s Class Set Please do not mark on in any way. 1 The Trojan War Greece and Troy were traditional rivals, according to legend. Their quarrelling finally led to a long and bitter war. It started with the love story of Paris and Helen. Paris Paris was the son of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy. At his birth, it was predicted that Paris would cause the downfall of Troy, so he was left on a hill to die. He was saved by a she-bear, then found by a herdsman who cared for him. The Judgment of Paris Eris, the goddess of spite, began her revenge after not being invited to the wedding of Thetis and Peleus. It was a magnificent wedding and all of the gods of Olympus attended. Eris arrived during the wedding feast with an apple inscribed, “For the fairest.” Hera (queen of the gods), Athena (goddess of wisdom), and Aphrodite (goddess of love) all reached for it. Zeus did not want to choose between them, imagining the fury of the two not chosen. He decided someone else must judge and picked Paris. Paris was guarding his foster-father’s sheep when Hermes arrived with the goddesses and asked Paris to choose the loveliest. Each goddess tried to bribe Paris: Hera offered him power and wealth, while Athena offered wisdom and great victories. Aphrodite just smiled and promised him the love of the most beautiful woman in the world if he choose her. Paris could not resist Aphrodite and gave her the apple, earning the hatred of Hera and Athena. Aphrodite said that the most beautiful woman in the world was Helen and that she lived in Greece at the court of Menelaus of Sparta. She did not mention that Helen was Menelaus’s wife. Paris returns to Troy Soon after, Paris competed in some Games in Troy and won more prizes than any other Trojan prince. Afraid that someone might harm Paris out of jealousy, his foster-father revealed who he really was. The Trojans welcomed him, forgetting the prophesy. Helen Helen’s parents were Zeus and Leda. All the Greek princes wanted to marry her. Her foster-father, Tyndareus, cleverly made all the suitors swear to support the man picked as her husband. He chose Menelaus as Helen’s husband. Earlier, the Greeks had kidnapped Princess Hesione of Troy, Priam’s sister. Priam sent Paris with some men to arrange her release and agreed that if the Greeks did not comply, they would seize a Greek princess in return. Helen had never loved Menelaus, and when Paris came to Sparta she fell in love with him, as Aphrodite promised. Helen agreed to run off with him, so the Trojans returned with a Greek princess as planned.Menelaus was furious when Helen disappeared. He knew that she left willingly and that his own men had started the trouble by kidnapping Hesione, but he could not accept the insult. He asked his brother, Agamemnon, and Helen’s former suitors, who swore their alliance, to help get her back. 2 The Suitors Many of the suitors did not want to go to war, despite their promise to support Helen’s husband. One, Odysseus, pretended to be mad when Menelaus’s men came to fetch him. He started plowing the fields but they placed his baby son, Telemachus, in his path and Odysseus swerved, proving he was sane. At last, a thousand ships were prepared and armed to go to war against Troy. The Trojans were willing to go to war for Helen because she had charmed them all. Only Cassandra, Paris’s sister, predicted disaster. She could see the future, but had displeased Apollo, who cursed her to never be believed. Odysseus In the years before the war, Odysseus had married the beautiful and ever-faithful Penelope, one of the several strong women in a man’s world. Penelope and Odysseus had one son, Telemachus, who was just a toddler when Odysseus left for the war. The Wooden Horse Trick Once in Troy, Odysseus performed extremely well as a soldier and commander. It was he who thought of the famous wooden horse trick that would lead to the downfall of Troy. For ten years the Greeks had been fighting the Trojans, but they were fighting outside Troy’s massive city walls, unable to break through and enter the city. Odysseus’s plan was to build an enormous wooden horse and hige a few Greek soliders inside its hollow belly. After the horse was built, the Greeks pushed it up to the gates of Troy and withdrew their armies, so that the camp appeared abandoned. Thinking that the Greeks had given up the fight and that the horse was a peace offering, the Trojans brought the horse into their city. That night, the Greeks hidden inside the hollow belly came out, opened the gates of Troy to the whole Greek army, and began the battle that was to win the war. Troy was taken by surprise and every man was killed, the women and children enslaved. Odysseus and his men loaded up their ships with booty and set sail for home. Now we are ready to begin our journey with Odysseus. 3 The Odyssey, Part One by Homer, translated by Robert Fitzgerald TELL THE STORY Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story of that man skilled in all ways of contending, the wanderer, harried for years on end, after he plundered the stronghold on the proud height of Troy. 5 He saw the townlands and learned the minds of many distant men, and weathered many bitter nights and days in his deep heart at sea, while he fought only to save his life, to bring his shipmates home. 10 But not by will nor valor could he save them, for their own recklessness destroyed them all— children and fools, they killed and feasted on the cattle of Lord Helios, the Sun, and he who moves all day through heaven 15 took from their eyes the dawn of their return. Of these adventures, Muse, daughter of Zeus, tell us in our time, lift the great song again. Begin when all the rest who left behind them headlong death in battle or at sea 20 had long ago returned, while he alone still hungered for home and wife. Her ladyship Calypso clung to him in her sea-hollowed caves— Homer’s Muse a nymph, immortal and most beautiful, who craved him for her own. KALLIOPE (or Calliope) was the eldest of And when long years and seasons the Mousai (Muses), the goddesses of 25 wheeling brought around that point of time music, song and dance. She was also the goddess of eloquence, who bestowed her ordained for him to make his passage homeward, gift on kings and princes. trials and dangers, even so, attended him even in Ithaca, near those he loved. Yet all the gods had pitied Lord Odysseus, 30 all but Poseidon, raging cold and rough against the brave king till he came ashore at last on his own land. (from Book 1) 4 CALYPSO, THE SWEET NYMPH No words were lost on Hermes the Wayfinder who bent to tie his beautiful sandals on, 35 ambrosial, golden, that carry him over water or over endless land in a swish of the wind, and took the wand with which he charms asleep— or when he wills, awake—the eyes of men. So wand in hand he paced into the air, 40 shot from Pieria down, down to sea level, and veered to skim the swell. A gull patrolling between the wave crests of the desolate sea will dip to catch a fish, and douse his wings; no higher above the whitecaps Hermes flew 45 until the distant island lay ahead, then rising shoreward from the violet ocean he stepped up to the cave. Divine Calypso, the mistress of the isle, was now at home. Upon her hearthstone a great fire blazing 50 scented the farthest shores with cedar smoke and smoke of thyme, and singing high and low in her sweet voice, before her loom aweaving, she passed her golden shuttle to and fro. A deep wood grew outside, with summer leaves 55 of alder and black poplar, pungent cypress. Ornate birds here rested their stretched wings— horned owls, falcons, cormorants—long-tongued beachcombing birds, and followers of the sea. Around the smooth-walled cave a crooking vine 60 held purple clusters under ply of green; and four springs, bubbling up near one another shallow and clear, took channels here and there through beds of violets and tender parsley. Even a god who found this place 65 would gaze, and feel his heart beat with delight: so Hermes did; but when he had gazed his fill he entered the wide cave. Now face-to-face the magical Calypso recognized him, as all immortal gods know one another 70 on sight—though seeming strangers, far from home. But he saw nothing of the great Odysseus, who sat apart, as a thousand times before, and racked his own heart groaning, with eyes wet scanning the bare horizon of the sea. 75 The strong god glittering left her as he spoke, and now her ladyship, having given heed to Zeus’s mandate, went to find Odysseus in his stone seat to seaward—tear on tear brimming his eyes. The sweet days of his lifetime 80 were running out in anguish over his exile, for long ago the nymph had ceased to please.
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