Physical Strength In The Odyssey

Why are cunning, disguise, and physical strength important? Cunning means having to outsmart someone. Disguise means hiding someone’s identity. Physical strength means to be strong and intelligent. In The Odyssey, Homer shows the theme power through cunning, disguise, and physical strength.
Cunning means having or showing a skill in accomplishing one’s goal by using trickery or by avoidance. Odysseus showed cunning with Circe, who was a goddess that turned only men into pigs. An old man gave Odysseus a potent drug to take to Circe’s halls. This magic herb that the old man gave Odysseus would fight against Circe’s spells. Then, when Circe struck Odysseus with her long, thin wand Odysseus should draw his sword and rush into her real fast.

Odysseus showed strength when he blinded Polyphemus. Odysseus needs strength against a Cyclops because Cyclops are huge monsters that eat people. Odysseus’ drives a stake through the eye of the Cyclops Polyphemus, and this allowed him and his men to escape. Odysseus uses a large stake which he needs to lift up all by himself before driving it deep into Polyphemus’s eye; “Hoisting high that olive stake with its stabbing point, straight into the monster’s eye they rammed it in hard” (Homer, 223). Odysseus plans around disadvantage in strength by using Polyphemus’s stupidity. Odysseus uses his strength to get revenge on the suitors. Odysseus knows that he was no match for the suitors so, he comes up with a plan. He decides to disguise as a beggar and this shows strength because he was going up against the suitors. When Athena nods at Odysseus, Odysseus will signal Telemachus to round up all the deadly weapons kept in the hall, and stow them away upstairs in a storeroom. Telemachus should just leave a pair of swords for the two of them. Telemachus said, “Quick, dear one, close the women up in their own quarters, till I can stow my father’s weapons in the storeroom” (Homer, 391). This plan stacks the odds in Odysseus’ favor, preparing him for a victory. Odysseus showed physical strength when using the bow and arrows. Odysseus comes back home to Ithaca, but Odysseus was disguised as a beggar, He accepts Penelope 's challenge to shot an arrow through the gaps of twelve axes lined up in a row. This was not the real test of strength; it’s the fact that Odysseus was the first person to be able to string the bow; “Now he held the bow in his own hands, turning it over, tip to tip, testing it, this way that way… fearing worm had bored through the weapon’s horn with the master gone abroad.” (Homer, 437). No other man, but Odysseus could possibly hope to perform this