The Most Powerful Lines from
Homer's Odyssey

Tell me, O Muse, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide after he had sacked the famous town of Troy. Many cities did he visit, and many were the nations with whose manners and customs he was acquainted; moreover he suffered much by sea while trying to save his own life and bring his men safely home; but do what he might he could not save his men, for they perished through their own sheer folly in eating the cattle of the Sun-god Hyperion; so the god prevented them from ever reaching home. Tell me, too, about all these things, oh daughter of Zeus, from whatsoever source you may know them.

The very first words of the entire epic. The poet calls on the Muse to tell Odysseus's story, and right away sets up the poem's central tension: a hero who cannot save his own men from their own bad choices.

See now, how men lay blame upon us gods for what is after all nothing but their own folly. Look at Aegisthus; he must needs make love to Agamemnon's wife unrighteously and then kill Agamemnon, though he knew it would be the death of him; for I sent Hermes to warn him not to do either of these things, inasmuch as Orestes would be sure to take his revenge when he grew up and wanted to return home. Hermes told him this in all good will but he would not listen, and now he has paid for everything in full.

The very first time a god speaks in the poem. Zeus, king of the gods, complains that humans blame the gods for problems they brought on themselves. It sets the moral rules for the whole story: you have free will, and if you ignore a warning, that is on you.

Father, son of Cronus, King of kings, it served Aegisthus right, and so it would any one else who does as he did; but Aegisthus is neither here nor there; it is for Odysseus that my heart bleeds, when I think of his sufferings in that lonely sea-girt island, far away, poor man, from all his friends.

Athena's reply, quickly steering the conversation from Aegisthus to the man she actually cares about. Her push for Odysseus in this council of the gods is what kicks the entire plot into gear.

I am Odysseus son of Laertes, and I am known among all men for the subtlety of my craft. My fame ascends to heaven.

After hiding his identity for two full books, Odysseus finally tells the Phaeacians who he is. And notice what he brags about: not strength or beauty, but "the subtlety of my craft." He is a hero of the mind.

Cyclops, if any one asks you who it was that put your eye out and spoiled your beauty, say it was the valiant warrior Odysseus, son of Laertes, who lives in Ithaca.

He already escaped. He was safe on the ship. But Odysseus could not resist shouting his real name back at the blinded Cyclops, and that moment of pride gave Polyphemus exactly what he needed to pray to Poseidon by name. It cost Odysseus ten more years at sea.

Goddess, do not be angry with me about this. I am quite aware that my wife Penelope is nothing like so tall or so beautiful as yourself. She is only a woman, whereas you are an immortal. Nevertheless, I want to get home, and can think of nothing else. If some god wrecks me when I am on the sea, I will bear it and make the best of it. I have had infinite trouble both by land and sea already, so let this go with the rest.

Calypso has just offered him immortality if he stays forever. His response is painfully honest: yes, Penelope cannot compare to a goddess, and no, it does not matter. He would rather grow old and suffer as himself than live forever in someone else's paradise.

Dogs, did you think that I should not come back from Troy? You have wasted my substance, have forced my women servants to lie with you, and have wooed my wife while I was still living. You have feared neither God nor man, and now you shall die.

The disguise is over. Odysseus has just put an arrow through Antinous and now stands revealed before the stunned suitors. Twenty years of suffering have been building to this cold, furious speech. The word "dogs" strips them of their humanity before the slaughter begins.

Odysseus, noble son of Laertes, so you would start home to your own land at once? Good luck go with you, but if you could only know how much suffering is in store for you before you get back to your own country, you would stay where you are, keep house along with me, and let me make you immortal, no matter how anxious you may be to see this wife of yours, of whom you are thinking all the time day after day.

Calypso's final offer: immortality, eternal youth, and the end of suffering. She is not threatening him; she is genuinely warning him about what lies ahead. The heartbreaking part is that she is right. He will suffer terribly. It still does not change his mind.

You have done a bold thing in going down alive to the house of Hades, and you will have died twice, to other people's once; now, then, stay here for the rest of the day, feast your fill, and go on with your voyage at daybreak tomorrow morning.

Circe greets Odysseus when he comes back from the land of the dead. No living person does that and returns. She tells him he has now "died twice," then gets practical and warns him about the Sirens, Scylla, and Charybdis.

Say not a word in death's favour; I would rather be a paid servant in a poor man's house and be above ground than king of kings among the dead.

Odysseus tries to comfort Achilles' ghost by praising his glory. Achilles is not having it. The greatest warrior in Greek mythology says he would trade all his fame for a single day alive as a servant. It is a complete rejection of the heroic ideal the Iliad celebrated.

When you get home you will take your revenge on these suitors; and after you have killed them by force or fraud in your own house, you must take a well made oar and carry it on and on, till you come to a country where the people have never heard of the sea, and do not even mix salt with their food.

The blind prophet Teiresias delivers the prophecy that haunts the rest of the poem. Odysseus will reclaim his home, but then he must travel to a land so far from the sea that people mistake an oar for a grain-winnowing fan. Only then will he find peace.

He must be indeed a shifty lying fellow who could surpass you in all manner of craft even though you had a god for your antagonist. Dare devil that you are, full of guile, unwearying in deceit, can you not drop your tricks and your instinctive falsehood, even now that you are in your own country again? We will say no more, however, about this, for we can both of us deceive upon occasion.

Athena reveals herself to Odysseus on Ithaca and cheerfully calls him the greatest liar alive. She is not scolding him. She is admiring him. The goddess of wisdom sees his instinct to deceive as the same quality she values in herself.

I have no wish to set myself up, nor to depreciate you; but I am not struck by your appearance, for I very well remember what kind of a man you were when you set sail from Ithaca. Nevertheless, Euryclea, take his bed outside the bed chamber that he himself built. Bring the bed outside this room, and put bedding upon it.

The test of the bed. Penelope casually orders a servant to move a bed she knows cannot be moved, then watches for the reaction. It is her own version of the Noman trick: a lie designed to catch the truth. Penelope is every bit as cunning as the man she married.

Wake up Penelope, my dear child, and see with your own eyes something that you have been wanting this long time past. Odysseus has at last indeed come home again, and has killed the suitors who were giving so much trouble in his house, eating up his estate and ill treating his son.

The nurse who washed the stranger's feet and found the scar now runs to wake the queen. The simplest announcement in the poem, and one of the most powerful.