3. Telemachus , Odysseus' son is twenty and is sharing his missing father’s house on the island of Ithaca with his mother Penelope and with a crowd of 108 boisterous young men, "the Suitors ," whose aim is to persuade Penelope to accept her husband’s disappearance as final and to marry one of them.
4. The goddess Athena (who is Odysseus’s protector) disguised as a Taphian chieftain named Mentes , she visits Telemachus to urge him to search for news of his father. He offers her hospitality
5. Next morning Telemachus calls an assembly of citizens of Ithaca to discuss what should be done to the suitors. Along this journey Telemachus will mature and become a man.
6. Accompanied by Athena (now disguised as his friend Mentor ) he departs for the Greek mainland and the household of Nestor , most venerable of the Greek warriors at Troy, now at home in Pylos .
7. From there Telemachus rides overland to Sparta , where he finds Menelaus and Helen , now reconciled. He is told that they returned to Greece after a long voyage by way of Egypt
8. there Menelaus encountered the old sea-god Proteus , who told him that Odysseus is a captive of the mysterious nymph Calypso .
9. Meanwhile Odysseus has spent seven years in captivity on the nymph Calypso's distant island. She is now persuaded by the messenger god Hermes , sent by Zeus to release him.
10. Odysseus builds a raft and is given clothing, food and drink by Calypso.
11. It is wrecked (the sea-god Poseidon is his enemy) but he swims ashore on the island of Scherie , where, naked and exhausted, he falls asleep.
12. Next morning, awakened by the laughter of girls, he sees the young Nausicaa , who has gone to the seashore with her maids to wash clothes. He appeals to her for help. She encourages him to seek the hospitality of her parents Arete and Alcinous .
13. Odysseus is welcomed and is not at first asked for his name. He remains several days with Alcinous. Odysseus at last reveals his identity. He then begins to tell the amazing story of his return from Troy.
14. After a piratical raid on Ismarus in the land of the Cicones , he and his twelve ships were driven off course by storms. They visited the lazy Lotus-Eaters
15. and were captured by the Cyclops Polyphemus , escaping by blinding him with a wooden stake.
16. They stayed with Aeolus the master of the winds; he gave Odysseus a leather bag containing all the winds, except the west wind, a gift that should have ensured a safe return home, had not the sailors foolishly opened the bag while Odysseus slept. All the winds flew out and the resulting storm drove the ships back the way they had come just as Ithaca came into sight .
17. After pleading in vain with Aeolus to help them again, they re-embarked and encountered the cannibal Laestrygones . Odysseus’s own ship was the only one to escape.
18. He sailed on and visited the witch-goddess Circe , whose magic powers turned several of his sailors into swine. Hermes met with Odysseus and gave him a drug called moly , a resistance to Circe’s magic. Circe, being attracted to Odysseus' resistance, fell in love with him. Circe released his men. Odysseus and his crew remained with her on the island for one year, while they feasted and drank.
19. Finally, Odysseus' men convinced Odysseus that it was time to leave for Ithaca. Guided by Circe's instructions, Odysseus and his crew crossed the ocean and reached a harbor at the western edge of the world, where Odysseus sacrificed to the dead and summoned the spirit of the old prophet Tiresias to advise him.
20. Next Odysseus met the spirit of his own mother, who had died of grief at his long absence; from her he learned for the first time news of his own household, threatened by the greed of the suitors.
21. Returning to Circe’s island, they were advised by her on the remaining stages of the journey. They skirted the land of the Sirens ,
22. passed between the many-headed monster Scylla and the whirlpool Charybdis ,
23. and landed on the island of Thrinacia . There Odysseus’ men – ignoring the warnings of Tiresias and Circe – hunted down the sacred cattle of the sun god Helios . This sacrilege was punished by a shipwreck in which all but Odysseus himself were drowned.
24. He was washed ashore on the island of Calypso, where she compelled him to remain as her lover for seven years, and he had only now escaped.
25. Having listened with rapt attention to his story, the Phaeacians , who are skilled mariners, agree to help Odysseus on his way home. They deliver him at night, while he is fast asleep, to a hidden harbor on Ithaca.
26. He finds his way to the hut of one of his own former slaves, the swineherd Eumaeus . Odysseus now plays the part of a wandering beggar in order to learn how things stand in his household.
27. Meanwhile Telemachus, whom we left at Sparta, sails home, evading an ambush set by the suitors. He disembarks on the coast of Ithaca and makes for Eumaeus’s hut. Father and son meet; Odysseus identifies himself to Telemachus (but still not to Eumaeus) and they determine that the suitors must be killed. Telemachus gets home first.
28. Accompanied by Eumaeus, Odysseus now returns to his own house, still disguised as a beggar. He experiences the suitors’ rowdy behavior and plans their death. He meets Penelope: he tests her intentions with an invented story of his birth in Crete, where, he says, he once met Odysseus. Closely questioned, he adds that he had recently been in Thesprotia and had learned something there of Odysseus’s recent wanderings.
29. Odysseus’s identity is discovered by the housekeeper, Eurycleia , when he undresses for a bath and reveals an old scar; he swears her to secrecy.
30. Next day, at Athena’s prompting, Penelope maneuvers the suitors into competing for her hand with an archery competition using Odysseus’s bow. Odysseus takes part in the competition himself; he alone is strong enough to string the bow and therefore wins.
31. He turns his arrows on the suitors and with the help of Athena, Telemachus and Eumaeus, all the suitors are killed.
32. Now at last Odysseus identifies himself to Penelope. She is hesitant, but accepts him when he correctly describes to her the bed he built for her when they married.
33. The next day he and Telemachus visit the country farm of his old father Laertes , who likewise accepts his identity only when Odysseus correctly describes the orchard that Laertes once gave him.
34. The citizens of Ithaca have followed Odysseus on the road, planning to avenge the killing of the Suitors, their sons. Their leader points out that Odysseus has now caused the deaths of two generations of the men of Ithaca – his sailors, not one of whom survived, and the suitors, whom he has now executed. The goddess Athena intervenes and persuades both sides to give up the vendetta.
