* In Iliad 9. 165-93 three characters, Phoinix, Odysseus, and Aias set out on an embassy to Achilleus ; however, at line 182 the poet uses a verb in the dual form to indicate that there are only two people going ; at lines 185ff.

Circe eventually informed him who his absent father was and, when he set out to find Odysseus, gave him a poisoned spear.

He put his skills to the test when he stole the helmet of the great warrior and his grandson, Odysseus, " he had broken into the stout-built house of Amyntor, son of Ormenus ; and he gave it to Amphidamas of Cythera to take to Scandeia, and Amphidamas gave it to Molus as a guest-gift, but he gave it to his own son Meriones to wear ; and now, being set thereon, it covered the head of Odysseus " ( Homer 10. 254 I ).

He pleads for Odysseus to return to Aeaea to find his body so that he can be cremated, and then buried, in his full set of armor.

Since he is a fictional character, the name Odysseus does not appear to mean anyone at all ; yet sentences like " Odysseus was set down on the beach at Ithaca " are meaningful, in that they can be true or false.

He says that the sentence " Odysseus was set ashore at Ithaca while sound asleep " obviously has a sense.

His patron goddess Athena asks Zeus to order the release of Odysseus from the island, and Zeus sends the messenger Hermes, to tell Calypso to set Odysseus free, for it was not his destiny to live with her forever.

The use of a frame story in which a single narrative is set in the context of the telling of a story is also a technique with a long history, dating back at least to the beginning section of the Odyssey, in which the narrator Odysseus tells of his wandering in the court of King Alcinous.

The gold hats were first brought together for comparison and set in the broader context of the culture of Bronze Age Europe in a 1999 exhibition in Bonn, Gods and heroes of the Bronze Age: Europe in the time of Odysseus.

Some Boeotian vase-paintings show a caricature version of the episode, acted out by dwarf pygmies with negroid attributes, and an aged and lame Odysseus leaning on a staff ; they are the mute survivors of some rustic comedy tradition that is impenetrable to us.

Finally, Odysseus threw his shield out and landed on that, and Protesilaus jumped next from his own ship.

When Poseidon finds out that Odysseus has escaped, he wrecks the raft but, helped by a veil given by the sea nymph Ino, Odysseus swims ashore on Scherie, the island of the Phaeacians.

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.

When the blind Cyclops lets the sheep out to graze, he feels their backs to ensure the men are not riding out, but because of Odysseus ' plan, he does not feel the men underneath.

When they had passed out of earshot, Odysseus demonstrated with his frowns to be released.

Homer referred to select young men as kouretes, when Agamemnon instructs Odysseus to pick out kouretes, the bravest among the Achaeans " to bear gifts to Achilles.

When Odysseus attacks the Cyclops later that night and stabs him in the eye, the Cyclops runs out of his cave, yelling to the other cyclopes that " No-one has hurt me!

Odysseus devised a trick to draw Achilles out of his disguise as a girl ; Diomedes and Odysseus then took Achilles to Troy.

Variants to the story are found in later poets: for example, in a tragedy by Sophocles, Odysseus Acanthoplex ( which also does not survive ), Odysseus finds out from an oracle that he is doomed to be killed by his son.

When Telegonus arrives on Ithaca, he approaches Odysseus ' house, but the guards do not admit him to see his father ; a commotion arises, and Odysseus, thinking it is Telemachus, rushes out and attacks.

Agamemnon proposed drawing the ships on the beach into the water but Odysseus rebuked him and pointed out the folly of such council.

Later in Book XI, when Odysseus is making a sacrifice to meet the shade of Tiresias, he is surprised and upset to see Elpenor's shade, so he calls out to him and asks him how he came to be there.

Odysseus entertained the idea of killing Irus but then decided he should just knock him out so the suitors would not suspect anything.

A band of Greeks led by Achilles and Odysseus come out of the horse at night, opening the gates to the city, allowing the main army to enter.

From these mountains of the Solymi, according to Homer, the god Poseidon looked out to sea and saw Odysseus sailing away from Calypso's island, and called up a great storm that wrecked him on the shores of the island of Nausicaa.

Fearing he may be next, Odysseus got Polyphemus drunk on wine until he fell asleep, taking advantage of the opportunity to burn out his one eye with a red-hot iron.

Although not mentioned in Homer's Epic, Achaemenides is significant ; his stranding and subsequent rescue by Aeneas ' fleet make him the only known member of Odysseus ' crew to survive the return journey to Ithaca ( as every ship besides the flagship was destroyed by the Laestrygonian giants, and those besides Odysseus on the last ship were drowned after his men devoured Helios ' sacred cattle ).

Eurylochus suspects her treachery, and when she turns the rest of the expedition into pigs, Eurylochus escapes and warns Odysseus and the portion of the crew who stayed on the ship, thus enabling Odysseus to attempt a rescue.

After an opening passage that draws together many of the main themes of the poem through images of Ra-Set, Ocellus on light ( echoing Eriugena ), the tale of Gassire's Lute, Leucothoe's rescue of Odysseus, Helen of Troy, Gemisto, Demeter, and Plotinus, Canto XCVIII turns to the Sacred Edict of the emperor K ' ang Hsi.

Odysseus followed Hermes's advice, freeing his men and then remained on the island for one year, feasting and drinking wine.

Odysseus ' son Telemachus is about 20 years old and is sharing his absent father ’ s house on the island of Ithaca with his mother Penelope and a crowd of 108 boisterous young men, " the Suitors ", whose aim is to persuade Penelope to marry one of them, all the while enjoying the hospitality of Odysseus ' household and eating up his wealth.

Circe, surprised by Odysseus ' resistance, agreed to change his men back to their human form in exchange for Odysseus ' love.

They then passed between the six-headed monster Scylla and the whirlpool Charybdis, Odysseus losing six men to Scylla, and landed on the island of Thrinacia.

While Odysseus was away praying, his men ignored the warnings of Tiresias and Circe and hunted down the sacred cattle of the sun god Helios as their food had run short.

Odysseus and his men blinding the cyclops Polyphemus ( detail of a proto-attic amphora, c. 650 BC, museum of Eleusis )

When Polyphemus returns home with his flocks and finds Odysseus and his men, he blocks the cave entrance with a great stone, trapping the remaining Greeks inside.

The next morning, Polyphemus kills and eats two more of Odysseus ' men for his breakfast and exits the cave to graze his sheep.

He sits down and kills two more of Odysseus ' men, bringing the death toll to six.

Odysseus, with the help of his men, lifts the flaming stake, charges forward and drives it into Polyphemus ' eye, blinding him.

In the morning, Odysseus and his men tie themselves to the undersides of Polyphemus ' sheep.

As he sails away with his men, Odysseus boasts to Polyphemus that " I am not no one ; I am Odysseus, Son of Laertes, King of Ithaca.

Aeneas observes Polyphemus as he leads his flocks down to the sea after Achaemenides re-tells the story of how Odysseus and his men escaped Polyphemus in Homer's Odyssey.

Better by far to lose six men and keep your ship than lose your entire crew " she warns, and tells Odysseus to bid Scylla's mother, the river nymph Crataeis, to prevent her from pouncing more than once.

Odysseus then successfully sails his ship past Scylla and Charybdis, but Scylla manages to catch six of his men, devouring them alive.

Odysseus and his men were blown far off course to lands unknown to the Achaeans ; there Odysseus had many adventures, including the famous encounter with the Cyclops Polyphemus, and an audience with the seer Teiresias in Hades.

On the island of Thrinacia, Odysseus ' men ate the cattle sacred to the sun-god Helios.