Odysseus Timeline and Summary

We learn that Poseidon hates Odysseus and that Athene is trying to help him.
The gods reveal that Odysseus is at the moment stuck on Kalypso’s island.
Meanwhile, back in Ithaka, everyone thinks he’s dead.
We find out that, after the Trojan war, Odysseus stayed with King Agamemnon to try to appease the goddess Athene.
Finally, after seven years, Zeus sends down Hermes to tell Kalypso to let Odysseus go; he sets out on a raft.
Poseidon wrecks his raft, but the nereid Ino helps him get to shore.
The shore turns out to be Scheria, where Odysseus is found by the princess Nausikaa. She brings him to court, where he begs mercy of the queen and is welcomed.
King Alkinoös declares the next day a festal day in Odysseus’s honor.
Odysseus rocks in the athletic games. He just can’t help himself.
During the festivities, Odysseus hears stories of himself told by the bard and cries in sorrow.
When King Alkinoös sees him crying, he asks him to identify himself and tell his story.
Odysseus launches into the longest dinner party story ever:
After leaving from Troy, Odysseus and his crew land in the city of Ismaros and raid it for no good reason. The next day, the people retaliate with a late-arriving cavalry and kill many of Odysseus’s men.
Odysseus and his men suffer through three days of intense storms.
Ten days later, they land on the island of the Lotus Eaters. Odysseus explores the land with a scouting party. When he discovers that they lose their memory and all their will to go home after eating the lotus flower, he forces them all back to the ship as fast as he can and sails away.
They next arrive at the land of the Cyclopes, giants with only one eye, where Odysseus makes the mistake of not getting out as quickly as he can. Instead he wants to talk to Polyphemos.
Polyphemos traps the Ithakans in his cave and eats a few men.
Odysseus tells Polyphemos his name is "Nobody" and offers him enough wine to get him seriously drunk.
Odysseus blinds Polyphemos with a sharpened stake thrust into his eye as the Cyclops sleeps, drunk.
Odysseus laughs at Polyphemos when he calls for help; he tells his friends that "Nobody" is hurting him, which is a great way to not obtain help from your buddies.
Odysseus ties his men under the sheep so that they escape the next morning when the blinded Cyclops lets his flocks out to graze.
Odysseus taunts Polyphemos from his ship and reveals his true name and destination. Not a good decision.
Polyphemos calls down the wrath of his father Poseidon on Odysseus. He curses the man and hopes he loses all his companions and is generally miserable. Forever.
Next, the men land on Aiolia, where the god of the winds (Aiolos) plays host to them for a month before giving Odysseus a farewell gift: a bag of storm winds to blow his ship home safely.
Unfortunately, Odysseus jealously guards the secret of what’s inside the bag so when he falls asleep, his men, thinking the sack contains a treasure open it and let the winds escape.
The ship, just as it’s coming in sight of Ithaka, is blown back towards Aiolia. Aiolos refuses to help them, saying that Odysseus must be cursed by the gods.
Odysseus and his men sail until they reach Lamos. There, they are taken by the princess to the king, who promptly eats one of Odysseus’s men. The rest of them escape, totally freaked out.
The Ithakans then sail to Aiaia, island of the witch Circe, where Odysseus’s men are lured into her home and turned into pigs.
With Hermes’s help and a magical herb, Odysseus resists being turned into an animal and manages to get Circe to promise that she won’t use anymore magic on him. She does, so he sleeps with her (which is a nice reward for not doing magic).
They all stay with the witch for a year until one of the Ithakans reminds Odysseus that, hey, they’re sort of on a mission to get home here.
Once everyone’s ready to leave, Circe tells Odysseus he must visit the seer Teiresias in the Underworld.
Odysseus does not notice one of his men, Elpenor, fall off the roof and die, since he’s too busy loading up his ship.
In the Underworld, Odysseus makes blood sacrifices as commanded and talks to the shades.
Teiresias advises him not to eat any of Helios’s cattle on Thrinakia. He also tells Odysseus how to ensure himself a peaceful death.
Then Odysseus speaks to the shades of many famous dead princesses and heroes.
This is the one moment where Odysseus pulls out of his story and talks again to the Phaiakians. Of course, he shortly goes back to his tale:
Once out of the Underworld, Odysseus makes a funeral pyre for Elpenor as the man’s ghost requested in the Underworld.
Circe comes back and advises Odysseus on how to get past the Sirens as well as Skylla and Charybdis, all of which he has to pass to get home.
After doing so, the men have lost many of their friends and are shaken. They vote to stay on the island of Thrinakia, despite Odysseus’s desire to go onward.
The Ithakans are stranded for a month due to storms.
Starving, the men – led by Eurylochos – decide to kill and eat Helios’ cattle.
When they next sail, Zeus strikes them down with a thunderbolt, destroying Odysseus’s ship and killing everyone but our hero.
After escaping Skylla and Charybdis for a second time, Odysseus drifts for nine days until he washes ashore on Kalypso’s island.
There he is seduced and trapped for seven years by the enraptured nymph Kalypso, although he chooses not to go into details and ends his story.
The Phaiakians are so moved by Odysseus’s story that they offer his safe passage home.
When Odysseus wakes up in Ithaka, Athene reveals herself to him and they make plans to defeat the suitors.
Odysseus, dressed as a beggar, goes to the forest home of his swineherd Eumaios and crashes on his couch.
Shortly thereafter, having been advised by Athene, Telemachos shows up. Odysseus reveals his true identity to his son and together they plan to defeat the soldiers.
Odysseus comes to town disguised as a beggar and, well, begs in the great hall, his own home, to find out which suitors are decent men and which are wicked.
Antinoös throws a stool at him. (He goes on the "wicked" list.)
Odysseus gets into a fight with Iros, another tramp, and defeats him easily.
Still disguised, Odysseus speaks with Penelope. She welcomes him as a friend when he convinces her that he housed Odysseus, but she still doesn’t believe that her husband is alive.
The nurse Eurykleia sees through the beggar disguise when she washes his feet and uncovers an old hunting scar. He swears her to secrecy.
As the suitors are preoccupied with his bow, Odysseus approaches his two shepherds and asks if they would be loyal to their master if he returned. When they answer affirmatively, he reveals himself and enlists them as fighters in the upcoming battle.
Odysseus, still disguised as a beggar, wins Penelope’s contest by stringing his own massive bow and shooting an arrow through the twelve axe heads.
He and Telemachos, along with the loyal herdsmen, kill all the suitors in the great hall.
Afterwards, Odysseus forces all the disloyal maids to clean up the slaughter and then has them killed as well. Best to not leave any loose, treacherous ends.
Odysseus wins back Penelope by revealing their "secret" to her – the fact that their bed is carved from the roots of an olive tree and is therefore immovable.
The reunited couple spends the night together.
The next day, Odysseus visits his father Laertes and reveals himself to him. There is much rejoicing.
A group of Ithaka rebels shows up; they want revenge for their murdered sons (the suitors).
They fight.
Athene makes them stop fighting.
Eventually, the people and Odysseus form a pact. Restored to his kingship, Odysseus brings peace to Ithaka once more.

Next Page: Telemachos Timeline