More handpicked essays just for you.
Homer and modern literature
Impact of Greek Mythology on Western Culture
Greek mythology influence on culture
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
As the men had returned to their human form, Odysseus yearning for home turned to Kirke, “Oh mighty Kirke, Goddess of the magical arts, would thou gudiest us home”. Kirke had slowly been falling for the likes of Odysseus and had wanted nothnig but him. She responded, “Son of Laertes, sprung from Zeus, Odysseus of many devices, you must not leave. There is much to explore in this island and you need’nt leave or yearn for home, For i can be your home.” Enrageed by the request of the witch, Odysseus looked at her and spoke sternly, “Witch! How dare you, i have only one home, in Ithaka, one wife, in Penelope, and one goal, in reaching the loving arms of my one true love”. Embarrassed and hurt Kirke turned around with tears in her eyes as they walked …show more content…
She would come to regret her next wave of actions. However, she called upon Poseidon, the god of the seas. She payed to him saying, “Oh mighty poseidon, son of the almihghty Kronos and brethren to king of the gods. I know Odysseus has wronged you, and your son Polyphemus, he has brough disgrace to your name as well as mine. He wronged the both us and has overstayed his welcome on this realm. I call on your wealth of powers to bring the man down. You must help me create a beast worthy of Odysseus …show more content…
He made his way to the home of Kirke where he said, “Kirke, we have a common foe, one of malicious intent on my mothers grear creation. Your anger is not misplaced. You said to bring a beast worthy of his sword, Scylla has fallen before him as well and the Kyklops Polyphemus. But i have one more offspring that can challenge the evil Odysseus, one so feared it has been put to rest by the gods of Olympus themselves, the Kraken”. Kirke shuddered at the sheer name of the beast, that had only been heard of in tales to discipline children. He continue, “you must put a spell on the beast, to make it impenetrable by sword as the Erythmanthean boar once was. And so Kirke did, using only an encantation and a piece of hide from the Kraken.
As Odysseus coursed thorugh the seas rather quickly with the wind bag, he felt the water beneath him rumble, he made nothing of it until the shrieks of man crowded the sky. A man has been sent flying by a large tentacle. Silence, the seas mellowed, the men were scared speechless, and Odysseus was looking at his man as he hit the water miles away. For many seconds there was nothing but silence, no wave, no tentacle, no singing from the shipmates. Until two more tentacles rose from the water grabbing
Through these voyages certain parallels are drawn concerning Odysseus and Telemachos: the physical journeys, the mental preparations they have produced, and the resulting change in emotional makeup. These play an immense role in the way the story is set up, due to the purpose of each character's journey, their personal challenges, and the difficulties that surround them.
Throughout the epic poem of The Odyssey readers are exposed to the man that captures the interest of many, Odysseus. Odysseus is portrayed as a ‘godlike’ man as well being deemed a warrior of his own class, beyond all men in mind and in comparison, the Hugh Heffner of his time. He is everything men aspire to be in many ways as well as being profoundly in touch with his emotions when it comes to women. Odysseus shows this in many different ways from tears for his wife Penelope to the heartbreak for his long-dead mother, Antikleia.
Kyklops just answers that, “We Kyklopes care not for your thundering Zeus…';(153). This is a big mistake because directly after this statement, the Kyklops eats some of Odysseus’s men. Zeus does avenge the men through Odysseus. Odysseus gets the Kyklops drunk and stabs out his eye, allowing an escape. One thing that is bad for Odysseus, though, is the fact that Kyklops is the son of Poseidon, god of the earthquake. This now spurs a new challenge for Odysseus: he must get home with Poseidon’s obstacles.
In the Odyssey, Odysseus angered Poseidon, the god of the sea, who made his hard journey harder with sea borne attacks. Odysseus stabs Poseidon’s son Polyphemus’ eye out which causes Polyphemus say this prayer:
While on the way home to Ithaca, Odysseus encounters two mythological women. Odysseus first encounters two Seirenes who he is warned about by the witch goddess Circe. The Seirenes are half bird half women who sing and lure sailors to their death. Odysseus received the options from Circe of listening to the song while tied to the ship’s mast or plugging his ears with wax like the rest of his crew. While tied to the mast Odysseus chose to listen to the song of the Seirenes and longed to follow their sweet singing. Odysseus had the opportunity to leave the ship and listen to the sweet singing, however, if this was his decision he would lose his life. The Seirenes offered Odysseus a life filled with sweet song, however, Odysseus remembers the instruction and remains tied to the mast continuing home to Ithaca. Another woman in The Odyssey who offers Odysseus an opportunity to stay with her is Princess Nausikka of the Phaeacians. Nausikka aids Odysseus when he asks for help and gives him instruction abou...
In Homer's Odyssey, Kirke, represents the catalyst who encourages Odysseus's transformation into a mature man. Homer uses Kirke, a godly nymph who displays divine powers, to portray the harlot. After sailing away from the Laistryones, Odysseus and his crew land on Aiaia. They disembark and scavenge the island for food, but instead find the nymph in her palace. Empowered by the gods to bewitch the crew, Kirke turns Odysseus's men into swine. Homer uses the word swine to describe the soldier's subconscious state of mind after years at war that involves raping women and plundering towns. "For ten years, [they] had been in Troy, fighting a war in a he-man world, where no dialogue between men and women takes place.." (Campbell 54). Both divine and mortal, the gods immunize Odysseus by sending the messenger, Hermes, with the black root and milky white substance to neutralize Kirke's power. 'The Lady Kirke mixed me a golden cup of honey wine, adding in mischief her unholy drug" (Homer 175). Casting her spell and thinking it took, Kirke sends Odysseus to lie with his crew in the sty. "Down in the sty and snore among the rest!" (Homer 175). Kirke's brew failing, Odysseus draws his sharpened sword and in one bound places it against her throat. Kirke asserts her power and Odysseus subverts it, a tryst the gods deploy to rid Odysseus of his rogue and a...
To start, within the course of The Odyssey, Odysseus displays hubris through many of his actions. The most prominent instance in which Odysseus shows hubris is while he and his men are trying to escape from the Cyclops Polyphemus. They drug the monster until it passes out, and then stab him with a timber in his single eye. Polyphemus, now blinded, removes the gigantic boulder blocking Odysseus’ escape, and waits for the men to move, so he can kill them. The men escape from the cave to their boat by tying themselves under flocks of rams, so they can easily slip by. Odysseus, now proud after beating the giant, starts to yell at Polyphemus, instead of making a silent escape. Odysseus’ men ask him to stop before Polyphemus would “get the range and lob a boulder” (436). But Odysseus shows hubris by saying that if they were to meet again, Odysseus would “take your life” and “hurl you down to hell!” (462; 463). Polyphemus, now extremely angry with Odysseus, prays to his father, Poseidon, to make Odysseus “never see his home” again, and after which, throws a mountain towards the sound of Odysseus’ voice. (470). Because of Odysseus’ hubris after blinding Polyphemus, Poseidon grants the prayer, and it takes Odysseus 20 years to return home, at the cost of the lives of all his men.
Odysseus encounters multiple higher beings in his travels, but few are in their true form and reveal their intentions making Kirke and Polyphemus oddities. Kirke is simply introduced by Homer as a goddess, with her, “beguiling voice” drawing Eurylokhos’ men into her home where she weaves cloth comparable to that which is woven by goddesses in heaven (X. 244-6). In The Odyssey, Goddesses almost never make their presences known, show or use their powers in view of man, nor demonstrate their great power. However, Kirke is different from the start. Notably, as heavenly as she appears to Odysseus’ men, she converts them into livestock before they even receive a proper meal. It seems slightly repetitive that Odysseus’ men are always eaten by male brutes, but now they are being saved possibly as tomorrow’s dinner by a female goddes...
All these things considered, the validity of Odysseus’s actions remain fair. Because of his denial of the power of the gods, Poseidon forced Odysseus to the raging sea. For these years that he was apart from Penelope and Telemachus he...
In Greek mythology as a whole, fate does have a sizeable role in most tales. However, the definition of fate for the ancient Greeks extends from the common definition. The definition of fate that is familiar to us is anything that happens for an unknown reason and is out of our control. But in Greek mythology fate also involves divine intervention from the gods of Olympus. They are able to change outcomes and alter situations to the point where what occurs might not have happened without them. In The Odyssey, gods have a very prominent role. But you cannot just discuss fate by itself. Free will is also a factor. Free will is mankind’s ability to make decisions control the aspects of one’s life. In The Odyssey life is the individual’s responsibility.
Odysseus was fine, just sailing the sea, then Poseidon returned and sent a storm that shipwrecked Odysseus.
The Greek tragedy Oedipus the King, by Sophocles, was written to show the common people of Greece how powerful the gods are and that your fate is pre-determined and nothing you do can change that. He does this by showing how people in this story try to escape their fate and how it is no use because in the end, what the oracles predict comes true. In the story there are many occasions in which people try to escape their fate.
When we look at Greek Mythology we often run into the gods of that era. Sometimes they are merely backdrops to the human element of the story but in stories such as The Odyssey the gods play a prominent if not vital role to the central themes of the story.
experienced trouble as fighting unique creatures such as Polyphemus. When Odysseus and his sailors arrived in Cyclopes Land, they encountered Poseidon’s son. Within hours, the sailors and Odysseus caught themselves in a sticky situation as Polyphemus fooled them. With creativity and humor, Odysseus managed to get out of it and escaped as grabbed into sheep cloth. Sailors were deeply thankful for this and admired him as this considered to be one of the biggest achievements. It goes without saying that without his help, they would’ve been into Polyphemus’s
Odysseus and his men land on the island of the Cyclops extremely hungry and looking for food. He and his men carefully search the island despite the “....instant foreboding that we were gong to find ourselves face to face with some barbarous being of colossal strength and ferocity, uncivilized and unprincipled” (Homer;9;213;216). The Cyclops also known as Polyphemus returns home from tending his animals to find twelve strangers in his cave. He quickly returns the boulder back in the door way and begins asking the men who they are and where they came from. At first Polyphenus shows hospitality to them until Odysseus replies to him with a lie. Polyphenus is outraged and quickly grabs two of Odysseus’ men and bashes their brains out and begins to eat them. Odysseus and his men are terrified that such a horrific creature could do such a thing. He then realizes that will have to use their whits to get away from this creature not their brute strength. He then hardens a stick out of a piece of olive wood and hides it under some dung in the cave. When Polyphenus returns to the cave Odysseus then sets out to ...