The Odyssey - Adventures of Odysseus

1.Troy: After the victory at Troy, Odysseus and his men begin their journey home from here.


 
2.The Island of the Cicones: After leaving Troy, they stop to raid this island for supplies. The Cicones attack on horseback, and Odysseus lost 72 of his men.


 
3.The Island of the Lotus Eaters: Odysseus sends his men out to search for food, and has to recover them when they eat the Lotus Flower.


 
4.The Island of the Cyclopes: Here, Odysseus and his men find a Cyclops' cave, lured by his cheese and wine. The cyclops, Polyphemus, traps them inside the cave. Odysseus and his men blind the cyclops, and then sneak out under his heard of sheep.


 
5.The Island of Aeolus: Aeolus, the god of the winds, gives Odysseus all of the bad winds, so he can safely sail home. Odysseus' men go against his orders and open the bag, and all of the winds escape.


 
6.The Island of the Laestrygonians: The Laestrygonians, a race of cannibals, eat the Greeks. Only the men on Odysseus' ship and himself survive.


 
7.Circe's Island: Circe turns Odysseus' men to swine, but Odysseus is protected from her magic with the help of Hermes, who gave him a magical herb called Moly. Odysseus ends up staying there for what seems like a short time, but ended up being a couple years. Before Odysseus departs, Circe finally tells him that he needs to find the blind prophet Teiresias in the Underworld.


 
8.The Underworld: Odysseus consults the prophet Teiresias to ask how he can get home, and finds his mother there, who has committed suicide in depression.


 
9.The Island of the Sirens: Odysseus and his men pass here, an island with women singing their luring songs, trying to reel in sailors. So they do not hear, Odysseus fills his mens ears with beeswax, and he has them tie him to the mast.


 
10.Scylla and Charybdis: Odysseus chooses to sail for Scylla, a six-headed sea serpent, rather than Charybdis, a giant whirlpool. He did this because he knew that if he went to Charybdis, the whole ship would be destroyed. However, if he went towards Scylla, six men would die. A sacrifice the brave Odysseus decided to make.


 
11.The Island of Helios: They stop here, and Odysseus falls asleep praying to Athena. While sleeping, his men once again go against his orders and eat Helios' cattle. This outrages the god, and he threatens never to rise again. As a punishment, Zeus throws a bolt of lightning at the ship, and turns it to splinters. Only Odysseus survives.


 
12.Ogygia (Calypso's Island): Odysseus finds this island after drifting in the sea. It is a island of women, with a nymph named Calypso, with whom Odysseus has a seven-year affair with. After the seven years, Hermes convinces Calypso to let Odysseus build a new ship so he could sail home.


 
13.The Island of the Phaecians: The Phaecians accept Odysseus, and he explains his ten-year journey to them during a feast. They happily give him a ride home on one of their magical ships.


 
14.Ithaca: Odysseus finally arrives home, and sees his son, Telemachus, for the first time in 15 years. He and Telemachus kill all of the suitors, and Odysseus takes his place as king, once again, alongside his wife Penelope.

The Odyssey related characters

Characters in The Odyssey:

Orion - Odysseus sees him hunting in the underworld with a bronze club, a great slayer of animals; he is also mentioned as a constellation, as the lover of the Goddess Dawn, as slain by Artemis, and as the most handsome of the earthborn.

Hercules - Odysseus encountered him in the underworld known as Hades. The bow of Odysseus was a gift from Iphitus whom Hercules killed.

Perseus - son of Zeus and Danaë, who with Athena's help slew the Gorgon Medusa and rescued Andromeda from a sea monster. A constellation in the Northern Hemisphere near Andromeda and Auriga.

Apollo - The bow contest in the Odyssey takes place on a feast day of Apollo, the patron of archery.

Herei -

Adonis - Adonis was the young lover of Aphrodite. He was gored by a wild boar in the hunt and died in her arms after she came to him when hearing his groans. Upon death, she sprinkled his blood with nectar; and the short-lived flower anemone, which takes its name from the wind which so easily makes it fall, was produced. The city Berytos (Beirut) in Lebanon was named after their daughter, Beroe, whom both Dionysus and Poseidon fell in love with.

Sterocles - (bird?)

Endymion - is also known as Tithonus. Tithonus was the son of Laomedon, King of Troy, with whom Aurora (the Dawn) fell in love. She persuaded Zeus to make him immortal, but forgot to ask for eternal youth. Tithonus therefore became ever more decrepit. The son of Aurora and Tithonus was Memnon, who fought at the siege of Troy and was responsible for the death of Nestor's son, Antilochus.

Menelaus - Menelaus was the brother of Agamemnon and husband of Helen, whose rape (abduction) began the sequence of events which led to the siege of Troy.

Achilles - Achilles was the son of the mortal Peleus and the goddess Thetis. He led the Myrmidons at the siege of Troy, and his argument with Agamemnon over the girl Briseis was one of the central issues of Homer's Iliad. Patroclus was the friend of Achilles whose death at the hand of the Trojan champion  Hector caused Achilles to rejoin the fight against the Trojans, which in turn led to the death of Hector at Achilles' hand and the fall of Troy.

 

Daedelus - Zeus employed Daedelus, the inventor, until, Minos having imprisoned him, he escaped to Sicily with his son Icarus, both borne in the air by a pair of wings. It was in his search for Daedelus that Minos perished. In Hades, he serves along with Rhadamanthus and Aeacus as a judge of the dead.

 

Deucalion - was the king of Crete before his son Idomeneus succeeded him and led the kingdom into the Trojan War. He was the son of Minos, and the grandson of Zeus. Odysseus pretends to be his second son Aethon when he speaks to his wife while in disguise.^[1] It is unclear whether Aethon is a real son of Deucalion, left by Idomeneus to act as regent during the war, or invented by Odysseus.

Cerberus -  is a multi-headed hound(usually three-headed)^[1][3][4] which guards the gates of Hades, to prevent those who have crossed the river Styx from ever escaping.

Chimaera - The Chimaera was one part lion to one part goat to one part snake/dragon. It breathes fire.

Balbastrus -

Leto - was mother to the twins Artemis and Apollo, sons of Zeus.

Danaus - the conqueror of Argolis who originated in Libya and gave the Danaans their name

Leda - was the wife of Tyndareus. According to Homer she had Clytemnestra, Castor and Pollux by him and by Zeus, who visited her in the shape of a swan, she was mother of Helen. 

Hera - wife to Zeus, who consistently plotted the downfall of Troy due to the Trojan Prince Paris preferring Aphrodite over her in the famous judgement of Paris. She had a daughter to Zeus whose name is Hebe.

Paris - king of Troy. Probably the best-known was his elopement with Helen, queen of Sparta, this being one of the immediate causes of the Trojan War.

Hector - known as the Trojan Champion.

Athena - the goddess of war who was very supportive of Odysseus

Mnemosyne - in Greek myth, a Titan goddess, a personification of Memory, and the mother, by Zeus, of the Muses.

Metis - One of the Titans. Presided over all wisdom and knowledge in the world. Was seduced by Zeus and became pregnant with Athena. Eaten by Zeus to prevent a prophecy from becoming true. It is said that Zeus gained his wisdom when he ate her. The working and the work of transformative, shape-shifting intelligence, the ability to imitate the enemy and beat him at his own game. Also, the circular reciprocity of what is binding and what is bound.

Penelope - Wife of Odysseus and mother of Telemachus. Penelope spends her days in the palace pining for the husband who left for Troy twenty years earlier and never returned. Homer portrays her as sometimes flighty and excitable but also clever and steadfastly true to her husband.

 

 

Circe - a minor goddess of magic (or sometimes a nymph, witch,enchantress or sorceress) living on the island of Aeaea. Circe was the daughter of Helios, the god of the sun, and Perse, an Oceanid, and the sister of Aeetes, the keeper of theGolden Fleece, Perses, and Pasiphaë, the Wife of King Minos and mother of the Minotaur. Circe transformed her enemies, or those who offended her, into animals through the use of magical potions. She was renowned for her knowledge of drugs and herbs.

Lorelei - Lorelei is a mermaid name which belonged to the mermaid who lured wary fisherman to their death by singing the most beautiful song they had ever heard. The name Lorelei was taken from a German legend, of a siren named Lorelei who lived on the banks of the Rhine River.

Nausicaa - She is the daughter of King Alcinous (Alkínoös) and Queen Arete of Phaeacia. Her name, in Greek, means "burner of ships". Odysseus is shipwrecked on the coast of Phaeacia. Nausicaa and her father's servants go to the sea-shore to wash clothes. Odysseus emerges from the forest completely naked, scaring the servants away, and begs Nausicaa for aid. Nausicaa gives Odysseus some of the laundry to wear, and takes him to the edge of the town. Realizing that Odysseus being seen with her might cause rumors, she and the servants go ahead into town. But first she advises Odysseus to go directly to Alcinous' house and make his case to Nausicaa's mother, Arete. Arete is known as wiser even than Alcinous, and Alcinous trusts her judgments. Odysseus approaches Arete, wins her approval, and is received as a guest by Alcinous. During his stay, Odysseus recounts his adventures to Alcinous and his court. This recounting forms a substantial portion of the Odyssey. Alcinous then generously provides Odysseus with the ships that finally bring him home to Ithaca.

Urania - In Greek mythology, she was the muse of astronomy. Some accounts list her as the mother of the musician Linus. She is usually depicted as having a globe in her left hand. She is able to foretell the future by the arrangement of the stars. She is often associated with Universal Love and the Holy Spirit. She is dressed in a cloak embroidered with stars and keeps her eyes and attention focused on the Heavens. Those who are most concerned with philosophy and the heavens are dearest to her. Urania, is the "heavenly" daughter of Uranus, and inspires homosexual male (and more specifically, ephebic) love/eros; the younger is named Pandemos, the daughter of Zeus and Dione, and all love for women comes from her. 

Arethusa - Greek myth a nymph who was changed into a spring on the island of Ortygia to escape the amorous advances of the river god Alpheus. Arethusa, a nereid nymph who became a fountain. Arethusa name of ancient fountains in Chalcis, Ithaca , Leucas, Elis, Smyrna and Sicily.

Zethus - son of Zeus by Antiope. His twin is Amphion. Zethus had only one son, who died through a mistake of his mother Thebe, causing Zethus to kill himself. In the Odyssey, however, Zethus's wife is called a daughter of Pandareus in book 19, who killed her son Itylos in a fit of madness and became a nightingale.

 

 

 

Lorena - Hurricane Lorena, a name for several tropical cyclones on the eastern Pacific Ocean.

Parnassus - Mount Parnassus is named after Parnassos, the son of the nymph Kleodora and the man Kleopompus. A city, of which Parnassos was leader, was flooded by torrential rains. The citizens ran from the flood, following wolves' howling, up the mountain slope. There the survivors built another city, and called it Lykoreia, which inGreek means "the howling of the wolves." While Orpheus was living^[1] with his mother and his eight beautiful aunts on Parnassus, he met Apollo who was courting the laughing muse Thalia. Apollo became fond ofOrpheus and gave him a little golden lyre, and taught him to play it. Orpheus's mother taught him to make verses for singing. As the Oracle of Delphi was sacred to the god Apollo, so did the mountain itself become associated with Apollo. According to some traditions, Parnassus was the site of the fountain Castalia and the home of the Muses; according to other traditions, that honor fell to Mount Helicon, another mountain in the same range. As the home of the Muses, Parnassus became known as the home of poetry, music, and learning. Parnassus was also the home of Pegasus, the winged horse of Bellerophon.

Halcon - masculine falcon : politics hawk.

Etna - The regular eruptions, often dramatic, have made it a subject of great interest in classical mythology and folk beliefs. It was said that Aeolus, god of winds, he winds imprisoned in the caves of the Etna. Also according to mythology, the Cyclops will held a workshop of forging which produced the arrows used as weapons of Zeus. In the Odyssey the Cyclops blinded by Odysseus had his own cave on Mount Etna. 

Amphitryon - Then I saw Alcmena, the wife of Amphitryon, who also bore to Jove indomitable Hercules; and Megara who was daughter to great King Creon, and married the redoubtable son of Amphitryon.

Geryon - Geryon was the king of Erytheia (Cadiz), in Spain, and owner of large herds of the white cattle. Geryon had Orthus to guard his prized cattle.Heracles killed Orthus and Eurytion, Geryon's herdsman, before driving the cattle back to Greece.

Atlas - the father of Calypso. ATLAS was one of the second-generationTitans. He personified the quality of endurance (atlaô). In one tradition, Atlas led the Titanes in a rebellion against Zeusand was condemned to bear the heavens upon his shoulders. In another, he was said to have been appointed guardian of the pillars which held earth and sky asunder. He was also the god who instructed mankind in the art of astronomy, a tool which was used by sailors in navigation and farmers in measuring the seasons.

Antilochus - was the son of Nestor, king of Pylos. One of the suitors ofHelen, he accompanied his father and his brother Thrasymedes to the Trojan War. He was distinguished for his beauty, swiftness of foot, and skill as a charioteer. In the Odyssey,^[5] the three friends are represented as united in the underworld and walking together in the Asphodel Meadows.

Calchas - Calchas, son of Thestor, was a seer from a family of seers. Agamemnon employed the services of Calchas in the Trojan War. Calchas predicted that it would take the Greeks 10 years to defeat Troy.

Ramonus - [Romanus? - was a Roman cognomen and can refer to: *Aquila Romanus, Latin grammarian *Romanus (comes), a comes Africae, rebelled against by Firmus]

Laocoön - in Greek mythology, priest of Apollo, god of the sun, or of Poseidon, god of the sea. In the last year of the Trojan War, the Greeks prepared a giant wooden horse, which they pretended was a votive offering to the goddess Athena, but which was in reality a hiding place for Greek soldiers. Laocoön, fearing a ruse, vainly urged the Trojan leaders to destroy the gift, warning "I fear the Greeks even when they come bearing gifts." While the people were trying to decide if they should risk bringing the horse inside the city walls for the sake of the favorable omens supposedly connected with it, Poseidon, the divinity most bitter toward Troy, sent two fearful sea serpents swimming to the land. Advancing straight to the spot where Laocoön stood with his two sons, the serpents wrapped their coils around the children. Laocoön struggled to tear them away, but they overpowered him and strangled him and his sons. The Trojans, convinced that this was a signal from heaven to ignore Laocoön's advice, brought the horse within the city walls and thus directly contributed to their own destruction.

Alpheus - One day, while Arethusa was bathing in a stream belonging to the river god Alpheus, Alpheus appeared and proclaimed his love for her. Arethusa fled under the ocean to the island of Ortygia, where Artemis transformed her into a fountain. But Alpheus pursued her beneath the sea and was himself changed into a river whose waters united with those of the fountain.

Avernus - a lake. The sulfurous and mephitic vapors that rose from it in ancient times were believed to have killed the birds that flew over it—hence the name. Because of the forbidding appearance of the lake, ancient Greek and Roman writers believed it to be the entrance to Hades. It was the site, in mythology, of the grotto of the Cumaean sibyl, or prophet, the most famous sibyl, and of the grove in which the Greek goddess of the underworld, Hecate, dwelt.

Balaton - a large shallow lake in western Hungary.

Cabeirus - So, by the hands of Tydeus' son laid low Upon the Trojan plain, far, far away From their own highland-home, they fell. Nor these Alone died; for the might of Sthenelus Down on them hurled Cabeirus' corse, who came From Sestos, keen to fight the Argive foe, But never saw his fatherland again.

Antiphus - Son of Aegyptius, Antiphus was a Greek commander who sailed from Troy with Odysseus and was devoured by Polyphemus.

Cyclops - In Greek mythology, he was a member of a primordial race of giants, each with a single eye in the middle of its forehead.

Helen - Wife of Menelaus and queen of Sparta. Helen's abduction from Sparta by the Trojans sparked the Trojan War. Her beauty is without parallel, but she is criticized for giving in to her Trojan captors and thereby costing many Greek men their lives. She offers Telemachus assistance in his quest to find his father. Helen was known also as Helen of Troy (and earlier Helen of Sparta), was the daughter of Zeus and Leda (or Nemesis), daughter of King Tyndareus, wife of Menelaus and sister of Castor, Polydeuces and Clytemnestra. Her abduction by Paris brought about the Trojan War.

Ithaca - the home of Odysseus, whose delayed return to the island is one of the elements of the Odyssey's plot.

Lotus-eaters -

    Nine days after our departure from Troy my men and I found ourselves in a strange land and miles from our original course.  In order to learn a bit more about this alien place, I sent three of my bravest soldiers on a scouting mission.  Unfortunately they learned a lot more than I had counted on.

            On their expedition, my men found themselves among natives of our temporary habitat.  Like any good host, these natives introduced my men to one of their favorite appetizers: the lotus.  A single taste of this native fruit made my soldiers forget everything they had ever know; where they were from, where they were going, everything.

            Although many of my other men would have enjoyed this easy way of living at this point, I decided I wouldn't give them the chance to choose it.  For their own good, of course.

            Sadly, I had to put the three soldiers in chains and leave them behind.  Not only had they lost all sense of obligation and duty, but their sickness could have affected my entire crew.  Minus three, we sailed in the direction of our original course.

-Odysseus        

Scyros - According to Greek mythology, Theseus died on Skyros. Neoptolemus, son of Achilles, was from Skyros (or Scyros, as its name is sometimes transliterated), as told in the play bySophocles, Philoctetes. The north of the island is covered by forest, and includes the island's highest point, Mount Olympus.

Creon - is a figure in Greek mythology best known as the ruler of Thebes in the legend of Oedipus. He had three children: Megareus,Menoeceus, and Haemon with his wife, Eurydice. Creon and his sister, Jocasta, were descendants of Cadmus and of the Spartoi.