Important Things In The Odyssey

The Most Important Things
“The most important things in life aren’t things.” (Anthony J. D’Angelo) This quote is exemplified in The Odyssey. Odysseus was a man with goddesses falling over him. Even offering him immortality. He had traveled far and had seen many places that were suitable for a new home, and he could have abandoned his family. They assumed he was dead, therefore they wouldn’t have felt rejected. Odysseus did not choose that easier path, though. Instead he decided his home and family were most essential things in his life, after longing for them for years. The author of The Odyssey, Homer, conveys a very basic truth in his writings, the truth that home and family are the most important things in life; they are even worth major

He was away 20 years before their long awaited reunion. “Now from his breast into his eyes the ache/ of longing mounted, and he wept at last, /his dear wife, clear and faithful, in his arms, / longed for as the sunwarmed earth is longed for by a swimmer/ spent in rough water where his ship went down /under Poseidon’s blows, gale winds and tons of sea…/and so she too rejoiced, her gaze upon her husband, / her white arms round him pressed as though forever….” (Homer 23.81-86,90-91) Homer uses in this passage, the metaphor of a warm patch of land being longed for by a sailor who was tossed from his ship. That is how much Odysseus longed for his dear wife, Penelope. They were perhaps the greatest in love couple of Ithaca. Though his wife was very important to him, she was not his only family. Odysseus had a son. “Then, throwing his arms around this marvel of a father/ Telemachus began to weep. Salt tears/ rose from the wells of longing in both men /…so helplessly they cried, pouring out tears, /and might have gone on weeping so till sundown…” (Homer 16.99-107) Although Odysseus had only seen his son as an infant, and now seeing him for the first time as a man, he loved Telemachus dearly. It was his family whom Odysseus cherished as if they were a great treasure. To him, they

According to Homer, she was “magical”, “enchanting”, a “beauty”, “divine and lovely”. She was quite taken with Odysseus, as he was a champion of the Trojan War. Calypso kept Odysseus with her for years, against his will. She asked him one day, “Odysseus, /after all these years with me, you still desire/ your old home…/If you could see it all…/you would stay here…and be/immortal-though you want her forever, /that bride whom you pine each day. /Can I be less desirable than she is? / Less interesting? Less beautiful? Can mortals/ compare with goddesses in grace and form?” (Homer 5.69-79) In this quote, she offered Odysseus immortality with herself. Calypso pointed out that Penelope couldn’t compare with her, a goddess. But Odysseus felt different. He believed that his Penelope was worth sacrificing his life. Odysseus knew that him and his wife were mortal. They would die together, but he could live forever with Calypso, and she was gorgeous. Yet he sacrificed all that for his Penelope. “My quiet Penelope-how well I know-/would seem a shade before your majesty, /death and old age being unknown to you, / while she must die. Yet, it is true, each day/ I long for home, long for the sight of home....” (Homer 5.81-86)
Odysseus gave up the beautiful goddess Calypso, and immortality, for his home Ithaca, and his darling wife Penelope and son Telemachus. Through this action, Odysseus shows that his family and home were the most