484 THE GREEK SAGAS: GREEK LOCAL LEGENDS
property is being wasted by suitors, and his son is the intended victim of a plot.
He reaches home, tempest-tossed; he makes himself known, attacks his enemies
and destroys them, and is himself saved. This is the heart of the matter: the rest
is episodes.
The adventures of Odysseus have been taken as symbolic (e.g., Odysseus con-
quers death in his visit to the Underworld) or as connected with real places that
had become known to the Greeks as their trade and colonization expanded. For
the most part, however, they are romantic legends and folktales set in imaginary
places and grafted onto the saga of a historical prince's return from a long absence.^6
During the Trojan War, Odysseus was the wisest of the Greek heroes and a
brave warrior. After Achilles' death, Odysseus inherited his divine armor. In the
Odyssey he experiences many adventures, usually escaping from danger through
his intelligence and courage. He meets with many men, women, goddesses, and
monsters, and he remains faithful to Penelope, the wife whom he left in Ithaca with
his son, Telemachus.^7 Homer, with his customary perception and art, frames just
the right introduction to establish our good faith in Odysseus. In Book 5, we first
meet our hero, who has been marooned for seven years on the island of Ogygia,
captive of the beautiful and divine nymph, Calypso. She comes down to the shore
to find her unhappy victim Odysseus, gazing across the sea, pining for home—an
indelible tableau of enduring and overriding devotion (151-158):f
Calypso found Odysseus sitting on the shore. His eyes were always wet with tears.
His sweet life was ebbing away, while he bemoaned the impossibility of his home-
coming, since the nymph no longer gave him any pleasure. The nights he was
forced to spend lying with her in her grotto; certainly he did not want to, but she
did. The days he spent amidst the rocks on the shore, his heart racked by tears
and groans and misery, as he looked out across the barren sea, weeping.STORY OF THE ODYSSEY
At the time the poem begins Odysseus is in the middle of his adventures. Books
1-4 relate the situation in Ithaca, where in Odysseus' absence Penelope is be-
sieged by suitors who want her hand in marriage and with it her kingdom. As
we have just seen we first meet Odysseus in Book 5, detained on Ogygia, the is-
land of the divine nymph Calypso. After he has sailed away from this island
and his raft has been wrecked, Odysseus relates to his rescuers the events pre-
vious to his arrival on Ogygia. The poem then continues with the arrival of
Odysseus on Ithaca, his revenge on the suitors for the hand of Penelope, and his
eventual recognition by and reunion with Penelope.
The resourceful character of Odysseus dominates the story, but the gods also
play a significant part, especially Poseidon, who is hostile to the hero, and
Athena, who protects him. Homer introduces Odysseus in the opening lines
(1-21) of the Odyssey: