Odysseus was king of Ithaca. His wife, Penelope, was having baby. Odysseus comes and the baby was born in a stable. It was boy, Odysseus named him Telemachus.
A noble of Ithaca brought a message, Odysseus had to go fight in Troy. He told Penelope that if he is not back by the time there was a beard on Telemachus’s face to remarry. Anticleia, Odysseus’s mother promised to watch over Penelope and Telemachus.
The fleet left and that night as Odysseus watched his men, Athena, the goddess of wisdom, appeared to him. She told him that she wanted him to go to Troy.
For ten years the people of Greece fought the people of Troy. One day a friend of Odysseus named Achilles killed one of the leaders of Troy named Hector. Some months later Achilles was killed, Troy had killed the best of them.
But Odysseus came up with a plan, the Greeks built a hollow horse out of some of their ships and got inside. One man stayed out and told the Trojans that Greece had given up and built a horse as a gift of surrender. A man almost foiled their plan but a sea demon belonging to the god Poseidon came and ate the man before he told anyone.
Some soldiers wheeled the giant horse inside. All of the Trojans celebrated and after they fell asleep Odysseus’s army climbed out and defeated the Trojans.
But since Odysseus did not offer thanks to Poseidon, Poseidon tells him that he will not allow Odysseus to return to Ithaca. Odysseus's ship is lost in the fog and it is along time before they came to an island. What they didn’t know was that it was the island of the cyclops’s.
Some of the men go into a cave and wait to see the shepherds who tend the sheep that live there. When Polyphemus saw the men he ate one of them before the group offered him wine. Then he fell asleep. They poke out the giant’s eye and get away only losing one more man.
After some more sailing, Odysseus and his crew came to another island. Odysseus goes to get water from a nearby waterfall but the god of the wind stops him to give him a gift. Aeolus, the god of the wind put three of the winds in a bag, leaving only the west wind which would carry them straight to Ithaca.
One of Odysseus’s men opened the bag and the wind burst out pushing them to a different island. Most of the group goes to hunt along the mountain path. But the rest searched around the shore. Suddenly a pig burst into the camp. Odysseus and the others caught it and were about to kill it when one of the one’s who had went hunting also rushed into the camp.
The man told Odysseus that a Sorceress had tempted the men to come inside her temple where she had turned them animals with her special drink. Odysseus tells his men not to kill the pig until he got back. He climbed the mountain that the man had told him the temple was on. While he was climbing, Hermes, the messenger god came to give him advice.
Odysseus did as Hermes told him and his men turned back into men. They stayed at her temple for five days. But she tells him that it has been five years outside. Circe told Odysseus that he must go to Hades and see the dead prophet Tiresias.
While in Hades Odysseus finds his mother who took her own life out of grief for her son. She tells him that Penelope is still faithful to him. Tiresias tells Odysseus of the troubles he will have.
With the ship Circe gave them they sailed into the cave belonging to the monster Skilla. She eats three men and a goat. At the end of the cave is the whirlpool monster. It kills the rest of his men.
Odysseus floats to the island that belongs to Calypso. She wouldn't let him leave the island until Hermes came and told Calypso that she had to let Odysseus go. Odysseus built a ship and left the island of Calypso.
Poseidon recked Odysseus’s raft and told him it was not his goal to kill him but to teach him a lesson. Odysseus was found on the shore of an island and the people there gave him a ship to get back home.
Odysseus came back to the place where his son was born and his son, returning from a trip to find Odysseus finally met his long lost father. Athena turned Odysseus into an old man so that he could see if Penelope was still faithful or not.
She was and Odysseus and Telemachus killed all the suitors. Athena showed Penelope where Odysseus was. She was very happy. And they all lived happily ever after.
The End
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