My Homer is a little rusty. Can you remind me why he was off in his ship and what he was searching for? What did he find a long the way?
2006-09-19 05:30:51 · 16 answers · asked by Kindred 5 in Arts & Humanities ➔ Books & Authors
He was going home to Penelope. He had a few obstacles along the way.
The poem is the story about Odysseus's ten-year-long voyage home to Ithaca after the Trojan War. (Most of the Trojan War is told in the Iliad.) At the same time, his wife Penelope has to fight off a lot of men who want to marry her; and his son Telemachos searches for him.
Along the way, Odysseus and his men have to fight monsters and many other dangers. The main events (places he goes, creatures and people he meets) of Odysseus' journey are:
the Kikones
the Lotus Eaters
the Cyclops Polyphemos
Aiolos, keeper of the winds
the Laistrygones
the sorceress Kirke
the Underworld
the Sirens
the sea monsters Skylla and Charybdis
Helios' cattle
the nymph Kalypso
the Phaeacians
2006-09-19 05:32:04 · answer #1 · answered by Justsyd 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
He began by sailing to Troy, because Agamemnon organized a war against the city. The excuse was that Paris, a Trojan prince, ran off with Helen, the wife of Agamemnon's brother Menelaus. Odysseus himself had made an alliance among all of the Greek city-states to unite against anyone who took Helen from her chosen husband. She was the prettiest woman alive and had been carried off by Theseus and Pirithous when she was age ten. Odysseus didn't want to go off to war, so he pretended to be insane, but sly Palamedes made him go. Later, he had Palamedes executed as a traitor with false charges. The Trojan war lasted 1194-1184 BC. After the war, Odysseus wandered ten more years before he returned home. He blinded Polyphemus the Cyclops who was a son of Poseidon the god of the sea, so Poseidon drove him all over the Mediterranean. His adventures were too many to list here.
2006-09-19 14:28:30 · answer #2 · answered by miyuki & kyojin 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The war in Troy had lasted ten years. Odysseus was the one who suggested using the Horse to fool the Trojans, and it worked, but partly because Poseidon had sent a sea monster to eat one of the men who didn't want to accept the gift horse. After the war, Odysseus said that it was he, a man, not a god, who had defeated the Trojans, so Poseidon was angry. Odysseus sailed to return home, but because of Poseidon's anger, he was thrown off course, until Odysseus learned that he was just a man, not a god.
2006-09-19 14:12:34 · answer #3 · answered by nellierslmm 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
He was sailing back from the Trojan Wars. While at see he was entranced by a siren witch and he stayed there for some monthes of years. Before that he had a little run in with a cyclopse. he also met the god of wind or somebody like that.
2006-09-19 15:17:08 · answer #4 · answered by cheery 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
He is also called Ullysus. He wanted to go home to his wife Penelope. He had left his own island to go to the war against Troy, to help bring Helen of Troy back to her original husband. He had not wanted to go, and had feigned madness in order to avoid going, but the other kings gave him no choice. So he went to Troy, where the war lasted 10 years. Oddysius eventually suggested the trick that allowed the Greek army into Troy. (see Trojan Horse). Then when he tried to go home to his island, Poseidon, the god of the sea whom he had offended, gave him a lot of difficulty. He eventually got home 10 years later, having lost all of his crew.
2006-09-19 12:44:09 · answer #5 · answered by Mr Ed 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Wasn't he in the Trojan war and did something to make Posiden mad, so he made it near impossible for him to get home. He was also marooned on some island for sometime (Calypso). He was trying to get home to his wife and son who were in a crazy situation-it was being taken over by the people or something like that.
2006-09-19 12:34:28 · answer #6 · answered by Kelly M 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Oddysius went to the war against Troy. When it finished, he wanted to return to Greece, but he had some complications in his trip. I don't think he was searching for something in special, he only wanted to return with his family.
2006-09-19 12:37:16 · answer #7 · answered by ladybug_abyta 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Odysseus was trying to return home with his men after ten years of war with Troy. Unfortunately, Odysseus enrages the god Poseidon, who conjures epic trouble for the Greek warrior. Please see below for a synopsis of the mythic journey of Odysseus.
Aaaargh!
2006-09-19 12:31:48 · answer #8 · answered by Deep Thought 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋
He sailed to fight at Troy. And The Odyssey is the story of his travel back home.
2006-09-19 12:38:47 · answer #9 · answered by P.A.D. 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
he is on his way home from the trojan war, which was like 20 years long - it takes him another 7 years to get home with his men, back to ithaca, which he rules - he encounters a lot of challenges on the way home - meanwhile his wife and son encounter challenges while waiting for him - there are a bunch of men who are insisting that his wife pick a new husband because they assume oddyseus is dead - she wants to wait for him
2006-09-20 04:29:45 · answer #10 · answered by krisr22 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋