Odysseus Of Homer's Odyssey

470 Words2 Pages

Summary:

When Odysseus arrives at the island of Aeolus, the king gives him the bag of winds to speed him home. Unfortunately, on the journey home, Odysseus falls asleep when they are close enough to see their homeland, and his greedy crew thinks that Aeolus gave Odysseus gold while they got none. As a result, they open up the bag of winds, which disperse and blow them off course, and they land of Aeolus’s island once again. This time, Aeolus convinces himself that the gods despise Odysseus and his men and refuses to help him, so Odysseus and his crew set sail again and land on the island of Laestrygonians. Expecting hospitality from the giants, Odysseus and company stride confidently onto the Laestrygonians’ land. However, Odysseus and his …show more content…

When those men arrive at the home of Circe, a goddess and an evil sorceress, Circe feeds, drugs, and turns them into pigs with her wand and herds them into a pen. One clever man, Euryclus stays behind, however, and evades the evil trap; he reports back to Odysseus, stating that the men had disappeared after going inside Circe’s house. Brave Odysseus departs for the witch’s house to rescue his men, and the god Hermes appears to help Odysseus save the day. He gives Odysseus moly, an herb to resist Circe’s drugs and magic, and instructs him to feign a sword attack on Circe to overpower her. Foretelling her request for them to go to bed and work the magic of love, Hermes cautions Odysseus to accept her proposal but only after forcing her to swear a binding oath to not plot dangerous, evil plans against him. After all that Hermes predicted came to pass, Odysseus begged Circe to convert the pigs back into his men, and she not only obliges but hosts them as her guests for the next year. Finally, his men rouse stubborn Odysseus to continue their journey home, but Circe tells them to visit the underworld first to seek the advice for their journey from the prophet Tiresias. The night before they prepare to leave, the youngest member of their crew, Elpenor, drinks copious amounts of wine and sleep on Circe’s roof; in the morning, he feels dazed and forgets to climb down the ladder. As a