Greek Word Polytlas In The Odyssey

The greek word polytlas is an accurate description of Odysseus’s personality, considering his many years of hardship such as staying alive on a nymph’s island for seven years, surviving through Poseidon’s wrath, and managing to return to civilization in Phaeacia. Odysseus ends up on Calypso’s island while trying to get home from the Trojan war. He is forced to stay with the only living being on the island, Calypso, with no hopes of returning home anytime soon. He did not like his actions on the island, but does these things to stay alive. Odysseus “had to sleep with [Calypso] in the vaulted cavern, cold lover, ardent lady”(5.155-156). The long-enduring Odysseus does not wish to sleep with Calypso. Every morning, he sits crying on the shore, heart filled with

Calypso does not want Odysseus to leave, as shown in her indignity from lines 90 to 140 in book 5. Therefore, in order to survive, Odysseus provides pleasure to Calypso despite his own guilt for cheating on Penelope. Another way Odysseus survives through a time of suffering is after he tries to leave Calypso’s island. Poseidon is not fond of Odysseus and does not like how he acted during the Trojan war, and how he blinded his son. Poseidon’s anger got the best of him and he made the long-enduring Odysseus’s attempt to get home a nightmare. “As he spoke, a mountainous wave, advancing with awesome speed, crashed down upon him from above and whirred his raft around. The rudder was torn from his hands, and he himself was tossed off the raft; at the same moment the warring winds joined forces in one tremendous gust, which snapped the mast in two and flung the sail and half-deck far out into the sea”(5.315-320). To survive the wrath of Poseidon, Odysseus must put his trust in the goddess Ino who tells Odysseus to leave his raft and swim in the tumultuous sea. Although his ability to trust the gods diminishes after what Poseidon did, the long-enduring Odysseus still puts his thoughts aside to