this broad geography:
Tell me, Muse, of the man of many ways, who was driven
far journeys, after he had sacked Troy's sacred citadel.
Many were they whose cities he saw, whose minds he learned of,
many the pains he suffered in his spirit on the wide sea,
struggling for his own life and the homecoming of his companions.It was a master stroke to devote the opening books of the poem not to Odysseus but to Telemachus. This
gives us at the start a picture of the masterless palace on Ithaca and the unruly suitors who disrupt it. We
then follow Telemachus on the relatively limited journeys he makes to Pylos and Sparta, to enquire after
news of his father, journeys which are vital to his developing realization of what it means to be the son of
Odysseus. He is also given the chance to see what stable and civilized households are like and to
appreciate the worth of proper hospitality.
Wheeled Bronze Tripod, found in a sea-shore cave at Polis on the island of Ithaca. Late eighth century B.