Summary

I believe that this was a great book with a deep story line and each chapter changes the way I looked at the book in general. I highly recomend this book to anyone that liked the movie 300, or Troy, and anyone that likes mythology or adventure stories.

I give this book a five weird looking stars!

An Ode to Ulysses

Very long and boring poem about Ulysses and his adventures.

It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known: cities of men,
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honor'd of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravel'd world, whose margin fades
Forever and forever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life. Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought,

This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the scepter and the isle--
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labor, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.

Most blameless is he, centered in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

the Nike of Samothrace, the Odyssey

There lies the port: the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought
with me--
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads--you and I are old;
Old age has yet his honor and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done.
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs:
the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my
friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds

To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

The Suitors

Ulysses was now finally home from ten years of sea faring, but he knew he could not rush home for he knew that the suitors that have killed him on sight.
Telemachus, his son, had for some time been absent in quest of his father, visiting the courts of the other kings who had returned from the Trojan expedition, but now he was also getting ready to go home lost hope that his father is alive. Telemachus cried with joy and hugged his father after moments of seeing him. Together they made a plan to killed all the suitors at once with an archery contest. For this Telemachus tole his mother to hold an archery contest to see who ever can string Ulysses bow and shoot it through the handle hole of nine axes she would marry.

When the suitors arrived for the contest Ulysses revealed himself and together he and his son Telemachus killed them off. Ulysses was left master of his palace and possessor of his kingdom and his wife.

Calypso

Calypso, a sea-demigoddess, gave Ulysses hospitably when she found him floating towards her island, entertained him magnificently, became enamored of him, and wished to retain him forever, offering him immortality. She had a magical fire with her, it showed pictures of the past present or future but it did not showed Ulysses pictures of his home, his wife, or his son, for Calypso had put a spell on it to make sure Ulysses would not think of leaveing her.
Soon Hermes the god's messenger delivered a message to Calypso ordering her to allow Ulysses to leave her island and return home. She did not wanted to let Ulysses leave but even so she helped him build a raft worthy enough to sail home.


Yes, this is a picture of Calypso...and some other guy.

Scylla and Charybis

Ulysses had been warned by Circe of the two monsters Scylla and Charybdis. Scylla dwelt in a cave high up on the cliff, from there she would thrust forth her long necks flying of them were her six heads, and in each of her mouths to seize one of the crew of every vessel passing within reach. The other terror, Charybdis, was a gulf nearly on a level with the water. Thrice each day the water rushed into a frightful chasm, and thrice was disgorged. Any vessel coming near the whirlpool when the tide was rushing in must inevitably be engulfed; not Neptune himself could save it. On approaching the haunt of the dread monsters, Ulysses kept strict watch to discover them. The roar of the waters as Charybdis engulfed them gave warning at a distance, but Scylla could nowhere be discerned. While Ulysses and his men watched with anxious eyes the dreadful whirlpool, they were not equally on their guard from the attack of Scylla, and the monster, darting forth her snaky heads, caught six of his men and bore them away shrieking to her den. Ulysses was unable to afford any assistance.



Before Ulysses could do anything about it his ship plumage down a monsterous whirlpool that was Charybis mouth and his crew, he was left alone after Charybis closed its mouth floating a small plank of wood that was broken off from the ship.