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Lessons Learned In The Odyssey

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Someone has just finished reading a thrilling adventure book filled with action and suspense. They immediately exclaim that this is one of their favorite books and with good reason as they really did enjoy it. One of the reasons they seemed to like the book is because of the incredible amount of morals and lessons in it, that all seem to be very agreeable. When reading the Odyssey the reader will also be able to find many lessons that held a lot of truth. A few lessons given in the epic consist of the following. Never being distracted from a goal, Never letting fear overcome the mind, and having self control is an extremely valuable skill. Most of the lessons given were very agreeable as they did seem to be relevant to present life.
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“ Old shipmates, / our stores are in the ship's hold, food and drink;/ the cattle here are not for our provision, / or we pay dearly for it.’’(II 837-840). Here Odysseus's men are told that the cattle they hold does not belong to them and it's not theirs to be eaten. They must now show self control and not eat the cattle no matter how hungry they become. Sadly they were not able to do so and were struck down by Zeus because of this. Additionally, another example that also shows this same lesson can be seen here “ The stool he let fly hit the man's right shoulder/ on the packed muscle under the shoulder blade/ like solid rock, for all the effect one saw./ Odysseus only shook his head, containing/ thoughts of bloody work.’’(II 1228-1232). This is where Odysseus must show very high levels of self control and not do anything that would put the plan they had thought up into disaster. He was able to control himself and in the end the plan was able to work with no flaw. The lesson that having self control is a helpful skill can definitely be relevant today. For instance in the real world imagine that someone is waiting to let the hot chocolate become a bit colder this requires self control because they want to drink this delicious drink but, if they do they will burn their tongue and later won't be able to enjoy

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Odysseus, being as strict as he should be, wouldn’t allow anyone off the boat until they "vowed they'd never harm the herds" (Homer). This promise though was broken later on and the men had to pay for the mistake they had done. Rather than "die of hunger" (Homer), the crew "slaughtered and skinned the cattle" (Homer). By this act of theirs, choosing to disobey their leader instead of thinking of the ramification and wanting the benefits for killing

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I think that the main idea/value in the Odyssey is loyalty. Homer develops this idea throughout the epic by showing the consequences of being disloyal, as well as the rewards for staying true. Every character or group of characters that was disloyal to the main character is dead by the end of the book. Ody is a strong man who stays loyal to everyone who has never done him wrong. An instance of disloyalty in The Odyssey is near the end of the epic.

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A virtuous lesson taught throughout The Odyssey is the practice of loyalty. One can pick up acts of loyalty in the literary text when Penelope after twenty years without her husband remained pure and never remarried to another man. Penelope so simply could have lost hope that her beloved husband was not going to return home from the war in Troy. Instead, she felt a sense of hope and continued to be loyal to her husband remaining pure. I practiced this virtuous lesson learned by showing loyalty to a friend recently made.

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Odysseus and his crew reach the island of Thrinacia but are stuck there for a while. Odysseus was previously warned about the cattle of Helios, to not touch the cattle, under no circumstances. He and his crew will only eat the food they already had. Odysseus states, “They quickly swore the oath that I required and once they had vowed they’d never harm the herds…” (12.328-29).

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