The Wanderings of Odysseus

Odysseus remains on the island of Calypso for seven years. Calypso treats him well but wants to keep him as her lover, so she does not aid in his Quest for Home, but Odysseus never wavers in his desire to return to Ithaca.

Meanwhile, in Ithaca, everyone begins to think that Odysseus must be dead. His mother has died of grief and his aged father, Laertes, has retired to the country. Penelope, Odysseus’s wife, and Telemachus, Odysseus’s son, wait faithfully for his return, but their house has been beset by a mob of young nobles who want to marry Penelope and seize Odysseus’s possessions and kingdom for themselves. Penelope manages to hold off the unruly suitors with her cunning, telling them that she will choose a husband after she has finished weaving a funerary shroud for Laertes. Every night she unravels her progress in order to make the project last as long as possible.

Odysseus’s patron goddess Athene, the goddess of war and wisdom, convinces the gods that it is time for Odysseus to return home. She goes to Ithaca disguised as Odysseus’s old friend Mentes and speaks with Telemachus, advising him to call an assembly of the Ithacans to complain about

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