Sirens, a Cyclops and a Bow No Suitor Could String: A Beginner's Map of Homer's Odyssey

In Homer's Odyssey, Odysseus, the king of Ithaca, spends ten years trying to get home after the ten-year Trojan War, loses every one of his companions to monsters, storms and angry gods, and finally returns in disguise to a palace full of rude suitors who want to marry his wife Penelope. Meanwhile his son Telemachus goes looking for news of him. The poem ends when father and son defeat the suitors and Odysseus proves to Penelope that he really is her husband. That is the whole story in a few lines; the rest of this guide walks through how it unfolds, who the main characters are, what the poem is about underneath the adventures, and why its words still turn up in everyday English.

What kind of work is it, and who wrote it?

The Odyssey is one of the two great epic poems of ancient Greek literature, the other being the Iliad, and both are attributed to Homer. It is among the oldest surviving works of literature, and like the Iliad it is divided into 24 books. It was composed in an old literary form of Greek, probably around the 8th or 7th century BC, and by the middle of the 6th century BC it was already part of the Greek canon.

The honest answer to "who wrote it?" is that nobody knows for certain. The ancient Greeks took it for granted that a poet called Homer composed both epics, and a popular ancient tradition said he was a blind singer from Ionia, on the coast of what is now Turkey. Modern scholars treat those life stories as legend, and the debate over Homer's identity and even his existence is called the "Homeric Question". Most researchers now think the two poems grew out of long oral traditions and were composed independently, possibly by different people.

That oral background matters. Because most people could not read, the poem was performed aloud for audiences by professional reciters, and the content may have changed from one performance to the next. The poem even shows such singers at work: the bards Phemius and Demodocus entertain at feasts inside the story. When you read the Odyssey today, you are reading one version of something that was once alive and changing.

The story in brief

Ithaca without its king. The poem opens ten years after the Greeks won the Trojan War. Odysseus has still not come home, and 108 suitors are camping in his palace, eating his food and pressing Penelope to choose a new husband. She promises to remarry once she finishes weaving a burial shroud for Odysseus's old father Laertes, but she secretly unpicks her weaving every night.

Telemachus goes searching. The goddess Athena, disguised as an old family friend named Mentor, encourages young Telemachus to look for news of his father. He visits the old king Nestor and then Menelaus in Sparta, who has heard that Odysseus is alive but held on the island of the nymph Calypso. The first four books, which follow Telemachus, are known as the Telemachy.

Odysseus tells his own story. Zeus sends Hermes to free Odysseus from Calypso. His raft is wrecked by Poseidon, but he swims to the land of the Phaeacians, where the princess Nausicaä helps him. At the royal court he weeps when a bard sings about Troy, reveals who he is, and recounts his adventures. This long flashback, in books 9 to 12, contains the episodes most people remember:

• The Lotus-Eaters, whose fruit makes his men forget about going home.
• The Cyclops Polyphemus, who traps them in his cave. Odysseus tells him his name is "Nobody", gets him drunk and blinds him, but then boasts his real name as he sails away, and Polyphemus asks his father Poseidon for revenge.
• Aeolus's bag of winds, which the crew opens within sight of Ithaca, blowing them far off course.
• The witch-goddess Circe, who turns his men into pigs until Odysseus, protected by a herb from Hermes, forces her to change them back.
• A visit to the edge of the world to speak with the dead, including the prophet Tiresias and his own mother.
• The Sirens, whose song lures sailors to their deaths. The crew plug their ears with beeswax while Odysseus has himself tied to the mast so he can listen safely.
• The narrow passage between the whirlpool Charybdis and the many-headed monster Scylla.
• The island where the starving crew eat the sacred cattle of the sun god Helios, after which Zeus destroys their last ship. Only Odysseus survives.

The return. The Phaeacians carry him home, and Athena disguises him as an old beggar. The loyal swineherd Eumaeus shelters him, Telemachus escapes an ambush, and father and son are reunited. His old dog Argos recognises him and then dies; his old nurse Eurycleia knows him by a scar on his leg.

The contest of the bow. Penelope announces she will marry whoever can string Odysseus's bow and shoot an arrow through a line of axe heads. None of the suitors can even string it. The "beggar" does it easily, wins the contest and, with Telemachus, kills the suitors. Penelope tests him one last time by asking for their bed to be moved; he knows it cannot be, because he carved it from the trunk of a living olive tree, and husband and wife are finally reunited. When the suitors' families come for revenge, Athena stops the fighting.

The main characters

• Odysseus – clever, patient, sometimes reckless. His greatest weapon is his mind: disguises, false names and well-timed lies.
• Penelope – his wife, who keeps the suitors waiting for years with the weaving trick and tests her returning husband with her own cleverness.
• Telemachus – their son, who grows from a nervous young man into someone able to stand beside his father.
• Athena – the goddess of wisdom, Odysseus's protector, who appears in many disguises.
• Poseidon – god of the sea, whose anger over his son Polyphemus keeps Odysseus from home.
• The suitors – the noisy young nobles who abuse the hospitality of Odysseus's house.

What the poem is really about

Homecoming. The Greek word for it is nostos, which means both a return voyage by sea and a story about such a return; it is the central theme of the poem. The Odyssey asks what it takes to get home, and whether home is still waiting when you arrive.

Hospitality. Ancient Greeks had strict rules about how hosts should treat guests, a custom called xenia, or guest-friendship. The poem is full of good and bad examples: the Phaeacians feed Odysseus, give him gifts and send him home safely, while Polyphemus's only "gift" is a promise to eat him last. The suitors, who devour a host's property without being invited to stay, are the worst guests of all.

Testing and recognition. Odysseus comes home disguised to find out who has stayed loyal, and others in turn test whether he is truly Odysseus. Penelope's trick with the bed is the most famous example. Much of the emotional power of the ending comes from these slow, careful moments of recognition.

Why it still matters

The Odyssey is regarded as one of the most important works of the Western canon. It was first translated completely into English in 1616, and in 2018, when BBC Culture asked experts around the world to name literature's most enduring story, the Odyssey came first. James Joyce's novel Ulysses (1922) reworks it in the Dublin of Joyce's own day, and Margaret Atwood's The Penelopiad (2005) retells part of it from Penelope's point of view. Films keep returning to it as well, from the Coen brothers' O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), loosely based on the poem, to Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey (2026).

Even if you never read it, the poem is already in your vocabulary. The word mentor comes straight from the character Mentor, whose shape Athena borrows to guide Telemachus. His name spread into European languages after a popular 1699 French novel about Telemachus, and the English use for a wise adviser is first recorded in 1750.

How to start reading it

If you are new to the poem, choose a modern verse or prose translation and read books 9 to 12 first: they are self-contained adventure stories and the easiest way in. Then go back to the beginning and follow Telemachus, and finish with books 21 to 23, the contest of the bow and the reunion with Penelope. Read some passages aloud, too. The poem was made to be heard, and its repeated phrases and long comparisons make much more sense spoken than skimmed.

Learn with the Odyssey: English words and phrases

Word or phrase	Meaning	Example
an odyssey	a long, eventful journey or experience	Getting my visa was a real odyssey.
a mentor	an experienced person who guides someone younger	She was my mentor in my first job.
a siren song	an attractive offer that leads to trouble	Ignore the siren song of easy money.
between Scylla and Charybdis	caught between two dangers	We were between Scylla and Charybdis.
a Trojan horse	a hidden threat that looks harmless	The free app was a Trojan horse.

Try this: Describe a difficult trip or project you have finished in three English sentences, using "an odyssey" and "a mentor".