received by the king Alcinous, and narrates his recent adventures. (viii) The Phaeacians are called together, and offer the wanderer a ship to carry him to Ithaca; games and a feast are held; and at the feast the blind Demodocus sings of the siege of Troy and draws tears from Odysseus, who is persuaded to tell of his wanderings since leaving Troy.
In the third group the narrative is retrospective. (ix) Odysseus tells of his visits to the Cicones, to the Lotus-eaters, and to the country of the Cyclôpes, where he blinded the one-eyed Polyphemus; (x) of his adventures with Aeolus, god of the winds, with the Laestrygonians, and with Circe, the sorceress; (xi) of his descent into Hades, and his conversing with the spirits of the dead; (xii) of his escape from the Sirens, and from Scylla and Charybdis, and of the eating by his comrades of the sacred kine of the sun, which caused them to perish and left him alone on Calypso’s isle.
The main narrative is resumed in the fourth group. (xiii) The Phaeacians conduct the wanderer to his kingdom, but are punished by Poseidon, who turns their ship to stone. In Ithaca Athene disguises Odysseus as an old beggar, and directs him as to how to destroy the suitors. (xiv) He finds his old swine-herd Eumaeus, who fails to recognize him, and (xv) in the hut meets Telemachus, (xvi) to whom he reveals himself and his plans.
The fifth group deals with the return of Odysseus to his palace. (xvii) Telemachus goes home first, but does not tell Penelope of her husband’s return. The supposed beggar enters and is recognized by his old dog Argos, who gives him welcome and dies. (xviii) In the midst of the revelry of the suitors Odysseus has a fight with Irus, a beggar supported by their alms. (xix) Penelope, conversing with her lord, fails to recognize him, but tells him how she has baffled the suitors by the device of postponing her choice among them till the completion of a web woven by day and undone by night. The old nurse, Eurycleia, washes her master’s feet and knows him by a scar, but is told to keep the secret. (xx) Athene comforts the hero by night; and the suitors are warned of their impending doom by a seer.
In the last group the dénouement is reached. (xxi) Penelope proposes that the suitors should show their skill with the bow of her husband; and when all fail even to bend it, the disguised hero strings it easily and shoots an arrow through twelve axe-heads. (xxii) The disguise is now cast off; Odysseus, Telemachus, and two faithful adherents turn on the suitors and slay them; and the unfaithful servants are hanged. (xxiii) from the nurse Penelope hears the news, welcomes her lord home,
