Choices and Transformation

—The Odyssey

Generally seen as one of the two earliest works of Western literature (the other being The
Iliad), The Odyssey merges two different historical eras. The story takes place in the 12th century
BCE (Before Common Era), the historical date of the Trojan War, but its composition has been
dated to four centuries later. Both works are attributed to Homer, and both are written in the form
of an epic, a long narrative poem typically set in a war of historical significance. Unlike The Iliad,
The Odyssey—or “the story of Odysseus”—does not focus on the “cunning hero’s” glory on the
battlefield, but on his homecoming after the war.
Not much is known about Homer, the storyteller, who might have lived around the 8th
century BCE. Legend has it that Homer was a blind poet from a coastal town, identified as
Smyrna or Chios on the Aegean Sea. Some think he told his stories orally, by singing; his songs
were transmitted by memory and were unified into a single written text much later (an oral
tradition existed in this part of the world until quite recently). Others are impressed by the
elaborate structure of the epic, and insist that Homer could not have composed 12,109 lines of
poetry (the length of The Odyssey) without the aid of writing.
Both The Iliad and The Odyssey are centered around the Trojan War. According to Homer,
the conflict began when Paris, prince of Troy, fell in love with Helen. He eloped with this
beautiful woman who was also Queen of Sparta. Her husband Menelaus, the Spartan king, sought
help from his brother Agamemnon, the powerful King of Mycenae. They formed a great alliance
of Greek armies, vowing to destroy the city of Troy. Odysseus, King of Ithaca, was one of the
Greek kings who joined the expedition. The Iliad focuses on the action in the tenth and final year
of the war, not long before the city’s downfall. The Odyssey tells how, after another ten years, the
Greek hero Odysseus finally gets to go home, with the blessing and constant help of Athena,
goddess of war and wisdom. But by then the sons of rival noblemen are competing to marry his
wife (Penelope) and plotting to kill his son (Telemachus). How is Penelope coping—what does it
mean to wait or not to wait? How is Telemachus taking it—is growing up all about being “his
father’s son”? Held up for a decade by hostile gods and amorous goddesses, what choices are left
for Odysseus? Above all, how may he be father, husband, and king again?
The Odyssey has lived in the Western imagination as a story of monsters, shipwrecks, and
adventures that take readers to strange lands, including the Underworld. But the epic is also a
story about self-understanding, or transformation, gained through a physical or psychological
journey of twenty years—of “godlike Odysseus,” of “wise” Penelope, and of “clear-headed”
Telemachus. Reading the epic in our times, how do we see the heroes’ choices? What do we make
of the Greek ideas of hospitality, immortality, and time as moving in a cycle?
The epic opens in the last month of Odysseus’s homecoming and flashes back to scenes in
Troy and subsequent encounters before the journey’s end. It comprises twenty-four books, which
can be divided into the journey of Telemachus (Books 1-4); the wanderings and homecoming of
Odysseus (Books 5-12); and the ultimate reunion and revenge (Books 13-24). This selection
contains excerpts from seven books (1, 2, 5, 16, 19, 21, 23) where Telemachus, Odysseus and
Penelope take centre stage.
The Odyssey was written in pre-classical Homeric Greek. We read it in an English
translation by Stanley Lombardo who, publishing the work in 2000, tries to capture the oral
flavour of Homer by finding a balance between poetic composition and oral performance. His
short verse lines impress a critic as “fresh, quick, and verbally engaging to the modern ear.”1

Julie Chiu

1
A remark of Joseph Russo, quoted on the back cover of The Odyssey, tr. Stanley Lombardo
(Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett, 2007).