A Summary Of Odysseus

Summary: Odysseus and his crew return to Circe’s island and give Elpenor the proper burial before having Circe herself appear and feed them before she and Odysseus have relations, after which she tells him the two possible ways of returning home and how to avoid the Siren’s magic. She tells Odysseus that the rocks, known as Rovers, are not an option so he can only go past Skylla and Charybdis and will have to sacrifice six men to avoid losing his entire ship and gives Odysseus the warning to not kill Helios’ cattle or everyone will die. The crew leaves Circe’s island again. As they approach the Sirens, Odysseus has himself hung on the mast and his crew have their ears plugged with wax in order to not fall to their spell. After successfully passing the Sirens, they encounter Skylla and are encouraged by Odysseus to

Commentary: Aside from Odysseus infidelity, there is another problem he has that tends to cause great trouble for him and his crew: his curiosity. Because of this, and his lack of ability to follow instructions that are pretty clear, Odysseus causes greater harm to his crew than he would if he had just listened to Circe, who knows much more about what he is going to face than he does. Again, focusing on his curiosity, Odysseus takes a major risk when he decides he wants to hear the Sirens sing their magical song. There are so real scenarios where, if this wasn’t a myth, Odysseus would have been perpetually under the control of the Sirens and just continued to try to reach them. Let’s face it, if Odysseus didn’t have a few gods on his side, he would’ve been dead several times over now because of these same reoccurring reasons.

The Aeneid

24. Book I The Prologue and Aeneas at Carthage

Summary: Vergil begins by telling the reader that the story is of how Aeneas eventually founded the beginnings of Rome and reveals that Juno, or Hera in Greek, is