They feast on Odysseus’s herds, offering nothing in return, while Penelope stalls for time. Insisting that Odysseus must be dead, they demand that Penelope select one of them as her new husband. The first four books take place in Ithaca, where Odysseus’s wife Penelope is besieged by aggressive young suitors from Ithaca and neighboring islands. He holds a grudge against Odysseus for having blinded his son, the Cyclops Polyphemus. At the start of the poem, the goddess Athena prompts Zeus to set Odysseus’s return in motion, but the gods must do so against the wishes of Poseidon.

Chapter divisions exist in the Greek text, but the chapter titles are Wilson’s own.Īt the start of the poem, Odysseus has been away from Ithaca for 20 years-10 fighting at Troy and 10 attempting to return home-but his fate is to return. Though it features the same number of lines as the original, it is not a line-for-line translation. Wilson’s translation is in iambic pentameter. The ancient Greek text was composed in dactylic hexameter, the meter of archaic Greek narrative poetry. Wilson has stated that her publisher permits her to update her translation with each new edition the hardcover and paperback translations are not identical. Her 2017 translation, released in hardcover, is the first full-length translation by a woman to be published in English. This study guide refers to the 2018 paperback edition translated by Emily Wilson. The narrative revolves around the restoration of a family after a prolonged separation, exploring themes of home and family as identity, the virtue of reciprocity, and the intersection of fate, gods, and human choices in determining outcomes. Often referred to as the beginning of Western literature, the Odyssey draws on conceits and concepts from Near Eastern epics, most notably the Homecoming Husband.

The Odyssey by Homer