Some of the oldest and most widespread stories in the world are stories of adventure such as Homer's The Odyssey.

He is a significant figure in Homer's Iliad and is also mentioned in the Odyssey and Virgil's Aeneid.

The Achaeans (, Akhaioí ) is one of the collective names used for the Greeks in Homer's Iliad ( used 598 times ) and Odyssey.

Attempts to find classical or Late Latin influence or analogue in Beowulf are almost exclusively linked with Homer's Odyssey or Virgil's Aeneid.

In Greek mythology, Circe (; Greek Κίρκη Kírkē " falcon ") is a minor goddess of magic ( or sometimes a nymph, witch, enchantress or sorceress ), described in Homer's Odyssey as " The loveliest of all immortals ".

In Homer's Odyssey, Circe is described as living in a mansion that stands in the middle of a clearing in a dense wood.

In addition, the 2003 Radio Tales drama " Homer's Odyssey: Voyage to the Underworld " retells the portion of Homer's epic featuring Circe, followed by the voyage to Hades to consult with Tiresias.

Odysseus faced both Charybdis and Scylla in Homer's Odyssey while rowing through a narrow channel.

In Homer's Iliad, the horses of the Myrmidons graze on wild celery that grows in the marshes of Troy, and in Odyssey, there is mention of the meadows of violet and wild celery surrounding the cave of Calypso.

The name Crete ( Κρήτη ) first appears in Homer's Odyssey.

The premier examples of its use are Homer's Iliad and Odyssey and Virgil's Aeneid.

In the 1920s, James Joyce managed " a more upbeat version " of Hamlet — stripped of obsession and revenge — in Ulysses, though its main parallels are with Homer's Odyssey.

" Samuel Butler argues, based on literary observations, that a young Sicilian woman wrote the Odyssey ( but not the Iliad ), an idea further pursued by Robert Graves in his novel Homer's Daughter and Andrew Dalby in Rediscovering Homer.

Homer's Odyssey also uses the hexameter verse throughout his poem.

Even earlier, a kind of primitive haggis is referred to in Homer's Odyssey, in book 20, ( towards the end of the eighth century BC ) when Odysseus is compared to " a man before a great blazing fire turning swiftly this way and that a stomach full of fat and blood, very eager to have it roasted quickly.

From Homer's Odyssey, the Iliad, and some Attic vase paintings, we know that Hephaestus was born of the union of Zeus and Hera.

Chiron had told Jason that without the aid of Orpheus, the Argonauts would never be able to pass the Sirens — the same Sirens encountered by Odysseus in Homer's epic poem the Odyssey.

The importance of this can be seen throughout Greek mythology — in particular, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey.

Andronicus also translated Homer's Greek epic the Odyssey into an old type of Latin verse called Saturnian.

Minos appears in Greek literature as the king of Knossos as early as Homer's Iliad and Odyssey.

* Il ritorno d ' Ulisse in Patria, first performed in 1640, is an opera by Monteverdi based on the second half of Homer's Odyssey.

* Every episode of James Joyce's modernist novel Ulysses ( 1922 ) has an assigned theme, technique and correspondences between its characters and those of Homer's Odyssey.

* Zachary Mason's The Lost Books of the Odyssey ( 2007 ) is a series of short stories that rework Homer's original plot in a contemporary style reminiscent of Italo Calvino.

The two terms may not have originally been distinguished ; though in Homer's poems nectar is usually the drink and ambrosia the food of the gods ; it was with ambrosia Hera " cleansed all defilement from her lovely flesh ", and with ambrosia Athena prepared Penelope in her sleep, so that when she appeared for the final time before her suitors, the effects of years had been stripped away and they were inflamed with passion at the sight of her.

The other Strife is presumably she who appears in Homer's Iliad Book IV ; equated with Enyo as sister of Ares and so presumably daughter of Zeus and Hera:

" Though Zeus is often called Zeus Heraios ' Zeus, ( consort ) of Hera ', Homer's treatment of Hera is less than respectful, and in late anecdotal versions of the myths ( see below ) she appeared to spend most of her time plotting revenge on the nymphs seduced by her Consort, for Hera upheld all the old right rules of Hellene society and sorority.

She was already mentioned in Homer's Iliad which relates her prideful hubris, for which she was punished by Leto, who sent Apollo and Artemis, with the loss of all her children, and her nine days of abstention from food during which time her children lay unburied.

in which she is mentioned by Achilles to Priam in Homer's Iliad is as a stock type for mourning.

In Homer's Iliad ( Book 19 ) she is called eldest daughter of Zeus with no mother mentioned.

Homer's Iliad ( xxiv. 209 ) speaks generally of the Moira, who spins the thread of life for men at their birth ; she is Moira Krataia " powerful Moira " ( xvi. 334 ) or there are several Moirai ( xxiv. 49 ).

In Homer's Iliad, Helen looks down from the walls of Troy and wonders why she does not see her brothers among the Achaeans.

After her son's death, at Corfu she commissioned the building of a palace which she named the Achilleion, after Homer's hero Achilles in The Iliad.

His mother was a gifted amateur watercolorist and Homer's first teacher, and she and her son had a close relationship throughout their lives.

Calypso is remembered most for her role in Homer's Odyssey, in which she keeps the fabled Greek hero Odysseus on her island so she could make him her immortal husband.

Her first appearance was in the season one episode " Homer's Night Out ", in which she voiced the character Princess Kashmir ( a belly dancer who seduces Homer ).

In two weeks, she builds herself up and even gets a well-defined washboard stomach ( much to Homer's delight ).

On the day of the wedding, Homer talks with Lisa and she discovers that Hugh did not wear Homer's cufflinks.

The elaborate, if archaic, language she used and the abundance of references to Homer's Iliad ( in addition to those to Sophocles, Euripides and Demosthenes ) clearly show the high level of classical education of the author.

They drive to a farm run by two middle-aged hippies, Seth and Munchie, who were friends of Homer's mother back when she had been a hippie.

They point out a mural she painted ( based on an incident at Woodstock where a very young Homer ran around naked in the mud ), which reveals Homer's middle name: " Jay ," which makes no difference to his name's pronunciation.

Lisa obtains Homer's promise that he will not get upset and she reveals Bart's predicament ( causing Homer to yell profanities in his safety helmet.

However, she is offended by Homer's gift, which doesn't surprise Patty and Selma because they knew he was being thoughtless as usual.

There, Selma gets her daughter, whom she names Ling, who likes to grab Homer's eyes.

The only exceptions however, are when Patty came out of the closet as a lesbian, she managed to swallow her pride and ask Homer ( who was legally allowed to perform marriages ) to perform the ceremony and when they were both disgusted that Selma got into a relationship with Homer's father Abe and they decide to work together to break them up.

The song is derived from Homer's Odyssey, filtered through the 17th century English folk ballad tradition, and tells the story of a prospective suitor who asks a woman if she will marry him.