TOP 10 ODYSSEYS / ODYSSEY ICEBERG (SPECIAL MENTION)

 

Sing, Muse, of the special mentions for my Top 10 Odysseys.

I’ve counted out my Top 10 Odysseys, the top ten odysseys to be found within the Odyssey.

That is, the demarcations or parts, narrative or thematic, identified within the fundamental continuity of the Odyssey, such as the standard demarcation of the Telemachy, the first four books with Odysseus’ son Telemachus as protagonist, from the balance of the Odyssey – with the latter also often divided into two parts, his wanderings and his homecoming (or more).

So yes, another of my mostly tongue-in-cheek top tens where I look at demarcations or parts within what is the fundamental continuity of the Odyssey – you could think of it as my Odyssey iceberg.

But as usual, wait – there’s more! There’s my typical twenty special mentions I like to have for my top ten lists, and yes, we’re in wild-tier here, at the bottom of or below the iceberg. We’re not talking the odysseys within the Odyssey itself, but increasingly weird and wild odysseys interpreting or reinterpreting the Odyssey

Except for my first special mention…

 

(1) EPIC CYCLE / TROJAN CYCLE

 

Not an odyssey within the Odyssey, but instead what the Odyssey itself was within – the larger mythos of the Trojan War.

What often surprises people about the Iliad and Odyssey is how small a timeframe of the events of the Trojan War or aftermath they actually narrate.

The Trojan War lasted ten years but the Iliad only shows a few weeks of the final year of the war – and even then does not depict the Trojan Horse or fall of Troy, contrary to popular belief from adaptations such as the film Troy.

The Odyssey is somewhat better. Yes, it ultimately does narrate the events of its ten year duration for Odysseus’ homecoming from Troy, although again the actual events depicted in it are the last few weeks of the final year – with everything before that being told by the characters, primarily Odysseus himself when it comes to his fantastic voyage, to other characters.

What follows from that is the other thing that often surprises people about the Iliad and Odyssey is that they are only two books, albeit the two books that survived intact, from the epic “cycle” of poetry in oral tradition for the larger mythos of the Trojan War.

One suspects that the Iliad and Odyssey were superior in quality to the other books, hence their survival, but six other books are usually identified for all eight books of Epic Cycle:

• Cypria – the Trojan War before the Iliad
• Aethiopis – the Trojan War after the Iliad to the death of Achilles
• Little Iliad & Iliupersis – the Trojan Horse and fall of Troy
• Nostoi – the return of other Greek heroes from Troy
• Telegony – sequel to the Odyssey

Speaking of which…

 

(2) TELEGONY

 

The sequel to the Odyssey (not attributed to Homer), the original text of which was subsequently lost as in did not survive except in fragments or commentary.

It takes up after Odysseus has returned to Ithaca and “comprises two distinct episodes” – “Odysseus voyage to Thesprotia, and the story of Telegonus”, Odysseus’ son with Circe. You could argue that it draws from elements or hints within the Odyssey, such that is an odyssey inherent within the Odyssey.

The first is presumably to make the sacrifices to appease Poseidon as instructed by the underworld shade of Tiresias in the Odyssey, such that it might have been dubbed the Tiresiad. Predictably given his track record in the Odyssey, Odysseus shacks up with the Thesprotian queen Callidice and they have a son, Polypoetes.

The second deals with his son with Circe, Telegonus, having grown to adulthood. Telegonus seeks out Odysseus as his father but ironically slays Odysseus instead by the kind of mistaken identity common in classical mythology – and fulfilment of prophecy, although I think it was stretching Tiresias’ prophecy that death would come to Odysseus “out of the sea” for Telemachus to use a supernatural spear tipped with the poisonous sting of a stingray.

“As Odysseus lies dying, he and Telegonus recognize one another, and Telegonus laments his mistake”. Telegonus then makes it weirder by bringing his father’s corpse, Odysseus’ widow Penelope, and Odysseus’ other son Telemachus back to Circe in Aeaea. Circe makes it even weirder by making them all immortal swingers who shack up with each other – Telegonus marries Penelope and Telemachus marries Circe.

 

(3) CULT OF ODYSSEUS

 

Like all good Greek heroes, Odysseus had a cult dedicated to him. There’s evidence suggesting a cult dedicated to him in – where else? – Ithaca, with “public games called the Odysseia” and “a designated public gathering place or a sanctuary, known as the Odysseion”

 

(4) AENEID

 

The Roman Odyssey or Virgil’s Odyssey – essentially imperial propaganda for Augustus, seeking to outdo the Iliad and the Odyssey by combining both.

After fleeing the falling Troy with family and companions, Trojan hero and legendary founder of Rome, Aeneas, has his own odyssey to Italy, matching many of the same beats from the Odyssey including his own prophetic visit to the underworld. In Italy, he fights his own version of the Iliad but founding a kingdom rather than destroying one.

Bonus points for name-dropping Odysseus (in his Latin name Ulysses) – and with snark to boot.

 

(5) DIVINE COMEDY

 

Dante out-Virgils Virgil, with his epic fantasy voyage through the afterlife, starting of course with the most famous (and fun) of its three parts, Inferno – the characteristic katabasis of heroes or poets into the underworld, or Hell in Dante’s case, with Virgil as his guide no less.

 

(6) ON THE CAVE OF THE NYMPHS IN THE ODYSSEY

 

From a few lines in Book 13 describing a cave on Ithaca, this is sadly not a raunchy romp involving the titular nymphs but an exegesis of those lines by Neoplatonist philosopher Porphyry as an allegory of the cosmos and soul.

 

(7) THE AUTHORESS OF THE ODYSSEY / HOMER’S DAUGHTER – NAUSICAAD

 

Sing, muse!

Some readers have been intrigued, as I have been, by the higher prevalence for female characters in the Odyssey has a higher prevalence for female characters than its Homeric counterpart of the Iliad, perhaps not surprisingly for the former’s theme of homecoming or return from the latter’s war. The Odyssey’s protagonist Odysseus is strikingly dependent on the help of women for his homecoming, indeed without whom he would not have been able to return home – or not had a home to which he could return.

Such was the prevalence of female characters in the Odyssey, particularly when compared to the Iliad, that there’s something of a fringe theory – originating with nineteenth century English novelist Samuel Butler – that the “Homer” who wrote the Odyssey was a woman. Butler opined that it was a Sicilian woman, hence setting much of the Odyssey’s fantastic voyage in Sicily – and inserting herself in the Odyssey as Nausicaa, one of the women whose help was critical to Odysseus’ homecoming.

Butler “described his evidence for this in The Authoress of the Odyssey (1897) and in the introduction and footnotes to his prose translation of the Odyssey (1900).”  Not surprisingly, Robert Graves picked up this ball and ran with it in his book Homer’s Daughter.

Which in a very real sense would make it Nausicaa’s Odyssey – or as I would dub it, the Nausicaad.

 

(8) FOLK ODYSSEY – HOMECOMING HUSBAND

 

We think of the Odyssey as a literary work, but it originated as a folk odyssey – a composition of bardic oral poetry, which probably varied somewhat between performances, and which was subsequently transcribed from one of its extant versions.

No doubt it has a number of folklore motifs throughout it, but a predominant one as classified in the Folklore Index (or Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index named for its authors) is The Homecoming Husband (ATU 974). Although that just prompts to mind the classic recurring subject of Playb0y cartoons for a husband coming home to apprehend his adulterous wife in flagrant delicto with the absurd excuse or explanation as the punchline – “Now you grab the choking victim like this…”

 

(9) LITERARY ODYSSEY – TWENTY READINGS

 

But yes, the folk Odyssey became a literary Odyssey – and an odyssey of literary theory.

There’s an intriguing book by literary theorist Nuria Perpinya, The Crypts of Criticism: Twenty Readings of the Odyssey, which offers up the titular twenty readings of the Odyssey by various theories of literary criticism – Freudian, Marxist, and so on.

 

(10) GEOGRAPHIC ODYSSEY – HOMER’S ITHACA

 

And then there’s the geographic Odyssey – the geography of the Odyssey, given the various named points of Odysseus’ wanderings and Ithaca itself for that matter.

This has arguably been the most fascinating odyssey within the Odyssey, certainly when it comes to speculation as to its locations, and essentially the subject in one way or another for (almost all) the balance of my special mentions.

Although there is a modern Ithaca, traditionally accepted to be Odysseus’ island kingdom, alternative locations have been speculated or theorized.

And then you get to the wider geography of the Odyssey. I tend to subscribe to the speculation or theory that the geography of the Odyssey is mythic – that is, otherworldly or locations in the mythic imagination rather than reality, albeit with some correlation or overlap.

However, there has been speculation about real world locations for the Odyssey, virtually since Homer’s ancient contemporaries onwards – although coinciding with such expressions of skepticism as that by the geographer Eratosthenes (as reported by Strabo, one of those who offered the most detailed list of real world locations): “You will find the scene of Odysseus’ wanderings when you find the cobbler who sewed up the bag of winds”.

 

(11) WESTERN ODYSSEY

 

Go west, young man!

Perhaps the most common geographic Odyssey, both in ancient tradition and in modern opinion, placing the locations of Odysseus’ wanderings in the central or western Mediterranean, particularly around Italy – with Scylla and Charybdis for example traditionally being identified as the Straits of Messina between Sicily and the Italian mainland.

There’s also something of a double entendre here for the place of the Odyssey, and the Iliad for that matter, as a foundational text of Western literary culture.

 

(12) CELTIC ODYSSEY

 

Yes, this is a fringe theory but it’s too fun not to include here. Britain associated itself with Troy through Brutus, a descendant of Aeneas, as legendary king and founder of Britain, indeed with his name as the origin of the name of Britain.

Dutch writer Iman Wilkens took that a step further in his 1990 book, Where Troy Once Stood: The Mystery of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey revealed, to propose that Troy itself was in England and that the Trojan War was fought between rival Celts. It was then the Celts, as the Sea Peoples, who brought the Homeric epics with them to the Mediterranean.

Accordingly, the Odyssey was in the Atlantic – for example with Scylla and Charybdis located at St Michael’s Mount in Cornwall.

Which brings me to…

 

(13) ATLANTIC ODYSSEY

 

You don’t have to subscribe to fringe theories that Troy and the Trojan War were in Britain to propose that at least some of the locations in the Odyssey were in the Atlantic.

Some ancient traditions proposed this. Apollodorus of Athens proposed all the wanderings were in some sort of mythic realm in the Atlantic. Strabo similarly proposed that Phaeacia and Calypso’s island Ogygia were in the Atlantic, as did Plutarch for Ogygia.

That probably influenced modern authors to propose Atlantic locations, some even proposing as far afield as North America, Caribbean, and South America – I particularly like one theory that has the Amazon as the river Acheron in the underworld.

 

(14) BALTIC ODYSSEY

 

Go north, young man?

And then there’s the fringe theory of Felice Vinci, who proposed the Baltic Sea and northern Europe as the setting for the Odyssey.

Funnily enough, there seem to be hints of this in Nolan’s film – some of which seems closer to a Baltic setting than a Mediterranean one.

 

(15) ARABIAN ODYSSEY – SINBAD

 

No, I’m not proposing a fringe theory for Homer’s Odyssey in the Arabian Sea, Persian Gulf or Red Sea, perhaps even involving a circumnavigation of Africa, although any of those would be awesome.

I’m proposing that the legendary voyages of Sinbad are effectively an Arabian Odyssey – I believe the influence of the Odyssey on the tales of Sinbad is generally acknowledged, even to the extent that some of the former reappears in the latter.

 

(16) AMERICAN ODYSSEY

 

I stand by my quip that the Second World War is the American Iliad and the Cold War is the American Odyssey.

However, that quip might well be made for American history elsewhere – Vietnam as Iliad (albeit in defeat rather than victory) and post-Vietnam history, the First World War as Iliad and the Lost Generation as Odyssey, the Civil War as Iliad and the American West as Odyssey…

That last leads me to the American West as a comparable setting to the Mediterranean for an adaptation of the Odyssey. Dare I propose an Australian odyssey along similar lines, an outback odyssey perhaps?

Arguably, Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey film was an American Odyssey along those thematic post-war lines, while O Brother Where Art Thou was more explicitly an American Odyssey, albeit set in the American South rather than the West.

Finally, I’d argue that the United State is the most Odysseyan modern nation, perhaps even the most Homeric one. No, I will not elaborate…

 

(17) APOCALYPTIC ODYSSEY

 

Okay, yes, this was partly me wanting to combine my two favorite classical works of mythic literature – Homer’s Odyssey and the Book of Apocalypse.

But it’s more than that – I’m joking and I’m serious.

Firstly, it wouldn’t take too much to adapt the Book of Apocalypse to tell it as the Odyssey (or vice versa) – just have St John as Odysseus, Patmos as Calypso’s island of Ogygia, the supernatural visions as mythic wanderings, and so on.

Secondly, there have been serious arguments for Homer’s Iliad and the Odyssey as literary models for the Gospel of Mark, albeit as something of a fringe theory by Dennis MacDonald.

Thirdly, it wouldn’t take too much to adapt the Odyssey to a post-apocalyptic setting – Odysseus as Mad Max, perhaps? Indeed, there’s something of a parallel with Max losing his crew (the Main Force Patrol, particularly Goose) and Pursuit Special vehicle, ending up a wandering stranger.

 

(18) SPACE ODYSSEY

 

Well, this one was obvious, wasn’t it – what with the subtitle of the film and book series (written by Arthur C. Clarke) of which the best known is the original Kubrick film 2001: A Space Odyssey?

However, this goes beyond the metaphorical use of odyssey in that film (whether for space exploration or the arc of human evolution) to space as a potential setting for an SF adaptation of the Odyssey. Indeed, the French-Japanese animated series Ulysses 31 did just that.

 

(19) FUNK ODYSSEY

 

I couldn’t resist this one, what with Jamiroquai borrowing from 2001: A Space Odyssey for the title of his (best) album, 2001: A Funk Odyssey.

There’s also the play on phonetic resonance between folk odyssey and funk odyssey. However, it’s more than just a play on similar sounding words – the folk odyssey of oral poetry was a funk odyssey, in that it was bardic performance. That’s right – the original Odyssey was…a musical? Where are the modern musical Odyssey adaptations – the rock operas and rap concept albums?

Yes – they had better feature an adaptation of John Denver’s Calypso – “aye Calypso, I’ll sing to your spirit” (even if it was more for Jacques Cousteau’s ship).

And yes – I know there are classical operas adapted from the Odyssey.

 

(20) NYMPHODYSSEY

 

As usual, I like to reserve my final (twentieth) special mention for my kinky (or kinkier) entry, so I give you…the Nymphodyssey!

Except…the original Odyssey is, was, and has always been something of a nymph odysseyt. I mean, Odysseus spends eight of his ten years of odyssey-ing shacked up with literal nymphs Calypso and Circe. (Now, if there was only some way to get a menage a trois with both of them…)

And there’s hints at more – Nausicaa for example – as well as a distinct s€xual subtext throughout the Odyssey, particularly in female figures such as the Sirens.

It doesn’t take too much to write the Odyssey with that subtext made explicit. The Roman writer Ovid essentially did – focusing on his romantic involvements with Circe and Calypso, and recasting him as, in Harold Bloom’s phrase, “one of the great wandering womanizers”.

And yes – there’s already adult film versions of Nolan’s film because of course there are.

 

 

 

TOP 10 ODYSSEYS / ODYSSEY ICEBERG

 

Sing, Muse, of my Top 10 Odysseys.

Wait, what?

Top 10 Odysseys? Plural?

Do I mean my Top 10 Books of the Odyssey, of which there are 24, essentially the equivalent of modern chapters, hence more than enough for a top ten? Or do I mean my Top 10 Adaptations of the Odyssey, particularly given the prominence of Christopher Nolan’s cinematic adaptation at the time of writing this in 2026?

No to both, as I do have separate top ten lists for them – my Top 10 Books of the Odyssey and my Top 10 Adaptations of the Odyssey.

Perhaps I mean literary odysseys – odyssey as a literary genre, fictional or picaresque journeys analogous to the Odyssey, such as those of Aeneas, Sinbad or Gulliver?

Again no, I do not, although that is an interesting idea so let’s put a pin in that.

Perhaps editions or translations of the Odyssey, whether prose or verse?

Yet again, no. While there are obviously enough editions or translations for a top ten, I am not familiar enough with the different editions or translations, relying as I did on the good old Penguin Classics edition.

Yes, I mean the top ten odysseys to be found within the text of the Odyssey.

But Stark after Dark, I hear you ask, isn’t there just the one Odyssey within the text of the Odyssey?

Yes, there is one fundamental continuity of the Odyssey within its text, although I suspect the Odyssey was a lot more fluid when it was sung as bardic performance – while the core remained the same, I suspect peripheral or even large parts of it changed from performance to performance.

However, there are or have been demarcations or parts identified within the fundamental continuity of the Odyssey – perhaps most notably the standard demarcation of the Telemachy from the balance of the Odyssey, with the latter also often divided into two parts (or arguably more). So don’t be surprised if that standard demarcation plays a prominent role in my top ten, although I also look at “thematic” demarcations or parts in or that cut across books of the Odyssey.

So yes, this is another of my mostly tongue-in-cheek top ten lists where I look at demarcations or parts within what is the fundamental continuity of the Odyssey – you could think of it as my Odyssey iceberg. Hence, I won’t be my usual countdown but counting them out or going from the top of the iceberg to lower down.

 

S-TIER (GOD TIER – OR IS THAT ODYSSEY TIER?)

 

 

 

 

(1) ODYSSEY (OR THE WANDERINGS OF ODYSSEUS)

 

Well obviously, except I’m not talking about the Odyssey as a whole but the actual odyssey part of the Odyssey, often more formally titled the Wanderings of Odysseus. The otherworldly Odyssey. The mythic fantasy adventure Odyssey. The Odyssey’s monster mash. What we think of when we think of the Odyssey.

In other words, the part for which most people come to or keep coming back to the Odyssey, or at least remember most about it, in the style of the trope Just Here For Godzilla in TV Tropes.

Except in the case of the Odyssey, Godzilla is the Cyclops, or the Sirens, or any or all of the mythic fantasy elements of this part, which after all is the mythic fantasy adventure or otherworldly core of the Odyssey – and certainly has the most exciting action set pieces, with one arguable exception in the part in my second place entry. While the other parts certainly have their supernatural or divine elements, this is the part where those elements are wall to wall – and play their most direct role as antagonists or obstacles to Odysseus.

Ironically, it is only a third of the Odyssey – Books 5-12 out of 24 books. And let’s face it, Books 5-8 are the more mundane tail end of the fantasy odyssey part, recounting the wanderings of Odysseus from Calypso to the Phaeacians, which might more accurately be considered as the prelude to Odysseus’ homecoming.

The core fantasy odyssey of the Odyssey is in Books 9-12, which recount the wanderings of Odysseus from Troy to Helios’ cattle. Interestingly, the contents of these books are the story within the story, told by Odysseus himself to the Phaeacians – which begs the question of how true it is, given Odysseus’s defining traits of deception and disguise. Even more interestingly, Nolan’s cinematic adaptation plays with this question, despite omitting the Phaeacians – here the deception may be self-deception, lying in Odysseus’ own mind or memory through a lotus haze.

Also, without the seven years with Calypso, Odysseus only spends three of the ten years of the Odyssey, well, odysseying – two if you also knock off the year with Circe (in the book that is, not the Nolan film adaptation).

But who cares? We’re just here for the odyssey.

 

 

 

 

(2) THE WRATH OF ODYSSEUS (OR DADDY’S HOME)

 

The Return of the King.

More formally labelled along the lines of the Homecoming of Odysseus and the Fate (or Slaying) of the Suitors – although personally I think that people missed the chance to mirror the wrath of Achilles from the first line of the Iliad, hence my title.

Alternatively, in the parlance of Nolan’s film, Daddy’s home – and he’s here to hand out some spankings!

While the Wanderings of Odysseus is the adventurous soul of the Odyssey – “I am become a name for always roaming with a hungry heart” – his Homecoming is its emotional core. Home is where the heart is – certainly Ithaca is where the heart of Odysseus is, as well as that of the Odyssey.

The Wanderings of Odysseus are his adventure; the Homecoming of Odysseus is his quest.

It’s not simply a matter of coming home or even coming home after war, it is a restoration akin to resurrection – a restoration not so much of good over evil, but even more fundamentally of law or order over chaos.

As such, it is arguably of more thematic importance than even the adventurous odyssey, as the latter is, after all, just in the nature of titillating entertainment or divertissement.

This is reflected in that it is literally at least half the books of the Odyssey – Books 13-24 – and more if you count Books 5-8, which arguably you should. The entire Odyssey is set in the time of the Homecoming, at the tail end or in the very last year of its ten years, much like the Iliad is only a tiny segment of the ten years of the Trojan War or its events. Everything before that are essentially flashbacks, stories within the story – including the odyssey part of the Odyssey, the wanderings of Odysseus from Troy to Helios’ cattle, are told by Odysseus himself to the Phaeacians just before he returns to Ithaca.

 

 

 

 

(3) TELEMACHY (OR WAITING FOR ODYSSEUS)

 

Where’s Odysseus?

Effectively the introduction to the Odyssey, the Telemachy is the term traditionally applied to Books 1-4 of the Odyssey as they tell the story of Odysseus’ son Telemachus and Odysseus himself is nowhere to be seen.

That’s the whole point – the Odysseus-shaped hole at the start of the Odyssey that everyone is looking to fill. His wife Penelope and his son Telemachus desperately trying to hold the line in Ithaca against the rapacious suitors, in turn looking to take his queen as wife and hence his place as king usurping Telemachus as his heir, while abusing the hospitality of his household.

Yes, it’s not as gripping as the wanderings of Odysseus or his return to Ithaca, but it is vital as set-up for the Odyssey as a whole, particularly the tension to be resolved by Odysseus’ homecoming and the stakes involved, such that he has to infiltrate his own home in disguise and retake it by ruse – mirroring the ruse by Odysseus of the Trojan Horse to take Troy.

It also gives Telemachus an odyssey of his own, as he journeys from home to Pylos and Sparta after news of his missing father – as well as, not coincidentally, avoiding the threat to his life posed by the suitors now that he is coming of age as heir, including an assassination attempt by them left as cliffhanger at the end of Book 4 while we switch to Odysseus.

This journey evokes the most direct flashbacks to the Trojan War, given that Telemachus is seeking out the Greek heroes with the most fortunate homecomings or returns from the war – Nestor in Pylos, and Menelaus in Sparta, with the visit to the latter also featuring the figure behind the whole war and since essentially named for it, Menelaus’ wife Helen of Troy. Their fortunate homecomings are obviously in contrast to that of the missing Odysseus, but also that of the Greek hero with the most unfortunate homecoming – one that, as Nestor effectively points out to Telemachus, highlights the threat the suitors pose to Odysseus 0r his royal household – which was of course the leader of the Greek coalition against Troy and king of Mycenae, Agamemnon.

The Nolan film conflates Telemachus’ visit to Nestor with that to Menelaus, while also omitting the latter was able to impart to Telemachus, essentially by way of divine Grecian whispers via the shape changing god Proteus, that Odysseus was still alive and  Calypso’s captive on her island of Ogygia. That of course sets up Odysseus himself to appear with Calypso in Book 5, although as usual it takes divine intervention by Athena to allow him to leave.

Accordingly, the Telemachy is the shortest part of the Odyssey, a sixth or 4 books (Books 1-4) out of 24 books, followed by the Odyssey proper or the wandering of Odysseus, a third or 8 books (Books 5-12), and then the homecoming of Odysseus as the longest part, half or 12 books (Books 13-24).

 

 

 

 

(4) KATABASIS (DESCENT TO THE UNDERWORLD)

 

All true heroes and poets go down into the underworld…

A katabasis is a journey into the underworld, harrowing Hades as it were – “its original sense is usually associated with Greek mythology and classical mythology more broadly, where the protagonist visits the Greek underworld, also known as Hades”.

Yes, okay, it is one book of the Odyssey, namely Book 11, albeit as part of the core mythic part of the Odyssey in Books 9-12, in turn part of the wider Wanderings of Odysseus in Books 5-12. Although Robert Graves in his classic book The Greek Myths argues persuasively that almost every part of the wanderings of Odysseus is essentially through one aspect or another of death or the underworld.

And yes, okay, Odysseus barely went into the underworld, a liminal katabasis as it were, certainly when compared with those of some other Greek heroes who went to the very heart of the underworld. I understand there is even some dispute whether he went to the highest part of the underworld, or simply “the lowest edge of the living world” bordering it.

And yes, yes, okay, it’s also a combination of katabasis and nekyia, the latter being necromancy and tending to involve a vision of the underworld rather than a visit to it. Although it’s not so much that the dead in general have any particular gift of prophecy in the Odyssey, but rather the shade of Tiresias which retains the gift of prophecy he had when he was alive. He just happens to be, you know, dead, so doesn’t do prophecy house calls any more.

I don’t care. It is the single best book of the Odyssey, arguably its narrative and thematic crossroads that tie it all together.

It is also the definitive core mythic heart of the Odyssey (within its most mythic part for the wanderings of Odysseus), so much so that it easily earns its own place. It is the first literary katabasis of classical mythology, inspiring in turn the katabasis of the Aeneid, which in turn inspired that of Dante’s Inferno (with the Aeneid’s author Virgil as guide to Dante).

Although I anticipate that it was not the first katabasis in Greek mythology or religion, as it was probably preceded by cultic practice, in turn perhaps ultimately originating from shamanic practice. Of course, everyone goes down into the underworld at some point – the trick is to come back.

As such, I could compile a top ten katabases from Greek mythology (or a wider top ten of underworld journeys) but let’s face it – the katabasis of Odysseus is at the top.

 

 

 

 

 

(5) NOSTOS (RETURN)

 

“I have returned”

Nostos, literally meaning return home in Greek, is “a theme used in ancient Greek literature, which includes an epic hero returning home, often by sea”.- “in the Odyssey, Homer has nostos being the return home from Troy by sea”.

But wait a minute, I hear you say, haven’t I already included the homecoming of Odysseus in Books 13-24 as my second-place odyssey within the Odyssey?

Well yes, but I include nostos here as its own entry for four reasons.

Firstly, Odysseus has a threefold return in the Odyssey – his return home from Troy by sea (throughout the Odyssey in general but particularly Books 13-24), his return from the mythic realm of his fantastic voyage to the mundane one (within his return from Troy), and his return from the underworld or katabasis (within his return from the mythic realm).

Secondly, unlike the return of other heroes from Troy, Odysseus faces not only mortal dangers in the path of his return(s) but also temptations to entice or take him away from that path altogether, as an alternative to nostos.

Thirdly, there is more than one nostos in the Odyssey, arguably even for Odysseus himself as it has different aspects or “meant several different things in the epic” – “escaping death, safe landings, returning home from war, and being back home”. The lone nostos of Odysseus also contrasts with the lost nostos of his crew or men, since only he survives to return. He is also not the only narrator of nostos in the Odyssey – Nestor and Menelaus also tell Telemachus of their happy returns, while the unhappy returns of heroes like Agamemnon are warnings, including by Agamemnon himself in the underworld to Odysseus.

Fourthly and finally, the Odyssey is one of many nostoi from Troy, with other such nostoi being the subject of another poem of that title (Nostoi) within the eight or so books of the larger Epic Cycle or Trojan Cycle – of which now only the Iliad and Odyssey survive intact.

 

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

 

 

(6) ILIAD (OR THE SHADE OF ACHILLES)

 

Wait – isn’t this the other one?  How does the Iliad feature as a distinct odyssey within the Odyssey?.

Well, firstly, we’re now moving to the narrative or thematic odysseys I tease out from within the Odyssey as a whole.

But secondly, and more fundamentally, we’re not talking about the Iliad as such, we’re talking about the Iliad in the Odyssey. The Iliad is suffused throughout the Odyssey, as you might expect where the latter is told as a sequel of the former, although not quite a direct sequel as we use that term today but more as part of a shared universe – the Homeric mythic universe as it were.

And beyond the Iliad – which after all only tells a small part within a mythic war of ten years duration – the events and figures of the wider Trojan War are suffused through the Odyssey.

Hence, the Odyssey is very much a post-Iliad story, but arguably also an anti-Iliad one, the anti-Iliad as it were, with its direct counterpoint to the Iliad’s wrath of Achilles (as the Iliad’s opening line and subject) in the Odyssey’s shade of Achilles among its book of the dead in Book 11, lamenting what his wrath and choice of short-lived glory got him.

 

 

 

 

(7) ATHENIAD

 

As I said, now we’re moving to the narrative or thematic odysseys I tease out from within the Odyssey as a whole – except now moving away from Odysseus as protagonist, although he remains fundamental.

Hence, I present the Atheniad, as Athena plays the decisive moving role in Odysseus’ return and homecoming, effectively as his divine patron – and where he is essentially her champion, embodying the intellectual prowess that was one of her divine aspects.

Yes, he’s on his own in his fantastic voyage from Troy to the cattle of Helios he narrates in Books 9-12, but for all his survival by his own wits, he simply would not have been able to return home without her.

Her decisive moving role in the Odyssey is from the very outset in Book 1, where she successfully petitions Zeus to compel Calypso to release Odysseus from his captivity, albeit captivity with benefits, through to the conclusion in Book 24, where she intervenes to broker peace from blood feud by the families of the slain suitors.

She not only guides and protects Odysseus, but also his son Telemachus through Books 1-3 of the Telemachy, even taking human guise to help Telemachus as Mentes and Mentor, the latter lending his name as the source for our use of the term mentor.

She critically intervenes in the end of Odysseus’ wanderings in Books 5-8 to secure his release from Calypso, appear in a dream to Princess Nausicaa, and guide him among the Phaeacians for their aiding him to return to Ithaca.

And she doesn’t stop when Odysseus is back in Ithaca, appearing in almost every book of his homecoming in Books 13-24 to lend him and Telemachus critical assistance to defeat the suitors, again taking human guise when needed.

 

 

 

 

(8) PENELOPIAD

 

Yes, it’s the title of a novella by Margaret Atwood adapting the events of the Odyssey from Penelope’s perspective, but I’m claiming it as its own genuine part within the Odyssey – Penelope’s odyssey as it were.

Penelope might be absent from Odysseus’ fantastic wanderings within the Odyssey, for obvious reasons that the whole point of his wanderings was to return home to her, but she is very much present in the prelude with Telemachus (the Telemachy, in Books 1-2 and 4) and for his homecoming in Books 16-24 – indeed, giving Odysseus one final test, literally for their matrimonial bed.

Ultimately, all of Odysseus’ efforts in the Odyssey, even with Athena’s divine intervention, would have been for naught without Penelope’s steadfast fidelity to him and her cunning at keeping the suitors at bay.

Sadly, it might be noted that Odysseus didn’t reciprocate Penelope’s fidelity – cough Circe and Calypso cough” – although he cried about it a lot for the seven years he spent on Calypso’s island.

There was a variant legend that Penelope did sleep with all her suitors, giving birth to the god Pan, but not in my Odyssey – not my Odyssey, not my Penelope!

 

 

X-TIER (WILD TIER)

 

 

 

(9) CIRCEAD

 

Yes, okay, Circe only appears in one book of the Odyssey – Book 10 – and doesn’t even have that book to herself with Odysseus, albeit her scenes within that book are among the most iconic in the Odyssey, but her liaison with him has been the source of enduring fascination and influence ever since. Artists, poets, and writers have added to that liaison, most notably through adding her son with Odysseus, Telegonus.

Even in the Odyssey itself, her role extends beyond her book as she gives him critical guidance to find his way to the underworld in the following book.

Also, since he was with her for one year of the ten years of the Odyssey, it seems only apt that she have one entry out of ten in my Top 10 Odysseys.

 

 

 

(10) CALYPSONY

 

And yes – it might be pushing it to give Calypso her own odyssey within the Odyssey. Like Circe, she has her own book within the Odyssey – Book 5 – although she is also mentioned in two other books, Books 1 and 7.

However, since Odysseus spends the large majority of the ten years of the Odyssey – indeed, 70% of them or seven of the ten years  – with Calypso on her island, I feel she’s only due her place here. In a very real sense, in duration and in significance, most of the Odyssey is Calypso’s odyssey.

Also, she poses perhaps the most substantial temptation to Odyssey not to return home, over and above being the longest obstacle to his homecoming in duration of years – and that is her promise of immortality. For the narrative and thematic significance of that alone, she deserves her own odyssey within the Odyssey.

 

 

 

 

(9) CIRCEAD

 

Yes, okay, Circe only appears in one book of the Odyssey – Book 10 – and doesn’t even have that book to herself with Odysseus, albeit her scenes within that book are among the most iconic in the Odyssey, but her liaison with him has been the source of enduring fascination and influence ever since. Artists, poets, and writers have added to that liaison, most notably through adding her son with Odysseus, Telegonus.

Even in the Odyssey itself, her role extends beyond her book as she gives him critical guidance to find his way to the underworld in the following book.

Also, since he was with her for one year of the ten years of the Odyssey, it seems only apt that she have one entry out of ten in my Top 10 Odysseys.

 

 

 

(10) CALYPSONY

 

And yes – it might be pushing it to give Calypso her own odyssey within the Odyssey. Like Circe, she has her own book within the Odyssey – Book 5 – although she is also mentioned in two other books, Books 1 and 7.

However, since Odysseus spends the large majority of the ten years of the Odyssey – indeed, 70% of them or seven of the ten years  – with Calypso on her island, I feel she’s only due her place here. In a very real sense, in duration and in significance, most of the Odyssey is Calypso’s odyssey.

Also, she poses perhaps the most substantial temptation to Odyssey not to return home, over and above being the longest obstacle to his homecoming in duration of years – and that is her promise of immortality. For the narrative and thematic significance of that alone, she deserves her own odyssey within the Odyssey.

 

 

(7) ATHENIAD

 

As I said, now we’re moving to the narrative or thematic odysseys I tease out from within the Odyssey as a whole – except now moving away from Odysseus as protagonist, although he remains fundamental.

Hence, I present the Atheniad, as Athena plays the decisive moving role in Odysseus’ return and homecoming, effectively as his divine patron – and where he is essentially her champion, embodying the intellectual prowess that was one of her divine aspects.

Yes, he’s on his own in his fantastic voyage from Troy to the cattle of Helios he narrates in Books 9-12, but for all his survival by his own wits, he simply would not have been able to return home without her.

Her decisive moving role in the Odyssey is from the very outset in Book 1, where she successfully petitions Zeus to compel Calypso to release Odysseus from his captivity, albeit captivity with benefits, through to the conclusion in Book 24, where she intervenes to broker peace from blood feud by the families of the slain suitors.

She not only guides and protects Odysseus, but also his son Telemachus through Books 1-3 of the Telemachy, even taking human guise to help Telemachus as Mentes and Mentor, the latter lending his name as the source for our use of the term mentor.

She critically intervenes in the end of Odysseus’ wanderings in Books 5-8 to secure his release from Calypso, appear in a dream to Princess Nausicaa, and guide him among the Phaeacians for their aiding him to return to Ithaca.

And she doesn’t stop when Odysseus is back in Ithaca, appearing in almost every book of his homecoming in Books 13-24 to lend him and Telemachus critical assistance to defeat the suitors, again taking human guise when needed.

 

 

 

 

(8) PENELOPIAD

 

Yes, it’s the title of a novella by Margaret Atwood adapting the events of the Odyssey from Penelope’s perspective, but I’m claiming it as its own genuine part within the Odyssey – Penelope’s odyssey as it were.

Penelope might be absent from Odysseus’ fantastic wanderings within the Odyssey, for obvious reasons that the whole point of his wanderings was to return home to her, but she is very much present in the prelude with Telemachus (the Telemachy, in Books 1-2 and 4) and for his homecoming in Books 16-24 – indeed, giving Odysseus one final test, literally for their matrimonial bed.

Ultimately, all of Odysseus’ efforts in the Odyssey, even with Athena’s divine intervention, would have been for naught without Penelope’s steadfast fidelity to him and her cunning at keeping the suitors at bay.

Sadly, it might be noted that Odysseus didn’t reciprocate Penelope’s fidelity – cough Circe and Calypso cough” – although he cried about it a lot for the seven years he spent on Calypso’s island.

There was a variant legend that Penelope did sleep with all her suitors, giving birth to the god Pan, but not in my Odyssey – not my Odyssey, not my Penelope!

 

 

(6) THE ILIAD IN THE ODYSSEY (OR THE SHADE OF ACHILLES)

 

Wait – isn’t this the other one?  How does the Iliad feature as a distinct odyssey within the Odyssey?.

Well, firstly, we’re now moving to the narrative or thematic odysseys I tease out from within the Odyssey as a whole.

But secondly, and more fundamentally, the Iliad is suffused throughout the Odyssey, as you might expect where the latter is told as a sequel of the former, although not quite a direct sequel as we use that term today but more as part of a shared universe – the Homeric mythic universe as it were.

And beyond the Iliad – which after all only tells a small part within a mythic war of ten years duration – the events and figures of the wider Trojan War are suffused through the Odyssey.

Hence, the Odyssey is very much a post-Iliad story, but arguably also an anti-Iliad one, the anti-Iliad as it were, with its direct counterpoint to the Iliad’s wrath of Achilles (as the Iliad’s opening line and subject) in the Odyssey’s shade of Achilles among its book of the dead in Book 11, lamenting what his wrath and choice of short-lived glory got him.

 

 

(5) NOSTOS

 

“I have returned”

Nostos, literally meaning return home in Greek, is “a theme used in ancient Greek literature, which includes an epic hero returning home, often by sea”.- “in the Odyssey, Homer has nostos being the return home from Troy by sea”.

But wait a minute, I hear you say, haven’t I already included the homecoming of Odysseus in Books 13-24 as my second-place odyssey within the Odyssey?

Well yes, but I include nostos here as its own entry for four reasons.

Firstly, Odysseus has a threefold return in the Odyssey – his return home from Troy by sea (throughout the Odyssey in general but particularly Books 13-24), his return from the mythic realm of his fantastic voyage to the mundane one (within his return from Troy), and his return from the underworld or katabasis (within his return from the mythic realm).

Secondly, unlike the return of other heroes from Troy, Odysseus faces not only mortal dangers in the path of his return(s) but also temptations to entice or take him away from that path altogether, as an alternative to nostos.

Thirdly, there is more than one nostos in the Odyssey, arguably even for Odysseus himself as it has different aspects or “meant several different things in the epic” – “escaping death, safe landings, returning home from war, and being back home”. The lone nostos of Odysseus also contrasts with the lost nostos of his crew or men, since only he survives to return. He is also not the only narrator of nostos in the Odyssey – Nestor and Menelaus also tell Telemachus of their happy returns, while the unhappy returns of heroes like Agamemnon are warnings, including by Agamemnon himself in the underworld to Odysseus.

Fourthly and finally, the Odyssey is one of many nostoi from Troy, with other such nostoi being the subject of another poem of that title (Nostoi) within the eight or so books of the larger Epic Cycle or Trojan Cycle – of which now only the Iliad and Odyssey survive intact.

 

 

(4) KATABASIS

 

All true heroes and poets go down into the underworld…

A katabasis is a journey into the underworld, harrowing Hades as it were – “its original sense is usually associated with Greek mythology and classical mythology more broadly, where the protagonist visits the Greek underworld, also known as Hades”.

Yes, okay, it is one book of the Odyssey, namely Book 11, albeit as part of the core mythic part of the Odyssey in Books 9-12, in turn part of the wider Wanderings of Odysseus in Books 5-12. Although Robert Graves in his classic book The Greek Myths argues persuasively that almost every part of the wanderings of Odysseus is essentially through one aspect or another of death or the underworld.

And yes, okay, Odysseus barely went into the underworld, a liminal katabasis as it were, certainly when compared with those of some other Greek heroes who went to the very heart of the underworld. I understand there is even some dispute whether he went to the highest part of the underworld, or simply “the lowest edge of the living world” bordering it.

And yes, yes, okay, it’s also a combination of katabasis and nekyia, the latter being necromancy and tending to involve a vision of the underworld rather than a visit to it. Although it’s not so much that the dead in general have any particular gift of prophecy in the Odyssey, but rather the shade of Tiresias which retains the gift of prophecy he had when he was alive. He just happens to be, you know, dead, so doesn’t do prophecy house calls any more.

I don’t care. It is the single best book of the Odyssey, arguably its narrative and thematic crossroads that tie it all together.

It is also the definitive core mythic heart of the Odyssey (within its most mythic part for the wanderings of Odysseus), so much so that it easily earns its own place. It is the first literary katabasis of classical mythology, inspiring in turn the katabasis of the Aeneid, which in turn inspired that of Dante’s Inferno (with the Aeneid’s author Virgil as guide to Dante).

Although I anticipate that it was not the first katabasis in Greek mythology or religion, as it was probably preceded by cultic practice, in turn perhaps ultimately originating from shamanic practice. Of course, everyone goes down into the underworld at some point – the trick is to come back.

As such, I could compile a top ten katabases from Greek mythology (or a wider top ten of underworld journeys) but let’s face it – the katabasis of Odysseus is at the top.

 

 

(3) TELEMACHY (OR WAITING FOR ODYSSEUS)

 

Where’s Odysseus?

Effectively the introduction to the Odyssey, the Telemachy is the term traditionally applied to Books 1-4 of the Odyssey as they tell the story of Odysseus’ son Telemachus and Odysseus himself is nowhere to be seen.

That’s the whole point – the Odysseus-shaped hole at the start of the Odyssey that everyone is looking to fill. His wife Penelope and his son Telemachus desperately trying to hold the line in Ithaca against the rapacious suitors, in turn looking to take his queen as wife and hence his place as king usurping Telemachus as his heir, while abusing the hospitality of his household.

Yes, it’s not as gripping as the wanderings of Odysseus or his return to Ithaca, but it is vital as set-up for the Odyssey as a whole, particularly the tension to be resolved by Odysseus’ homecoming and the stakes involved, such that he has to infiltrate his own home in disguise and retake it by ruse – mirroring the ruse by Odysseus of the Trojan Horse to take Troy.

It also gives Telemachus an odyssey of his own, as he journeys from home to Pylos and Sparta after news of his missing father – as well as, not coincidentally, avoiding the threat to his life posed by the suitors now that he is coming of age as heir, including an assassination attempt by them left as cliffhanger at the end of Book 4 while we switch to Odysseus.

This journey evokes the most direct flashbacks to the Trojan War, given that Telemachus is seeking out the Greek heroes with the most fortunate homecomings or returns from the war – Nestor in Pylos, and Menelaus in Sparta, with the visit to the latter also featuring the figure behind the whole war and since essentially named for it, Menelaus’ wife Helen of Troy. Their fortunate homecomings are obviously in contrast to that of the missing Odysseus, but also that of the Greek hero with the most unfortunate homecoming – one that, as Nestor effectively points out to Telemachus, highlights the threat the suitors pose to Odysseus 0r his royal household – which was of course the leader of the Greek coalition against Troy and king of Mycenae, Agamemnon.

The Nolan film conflates Telemachus’ visit to Nestor with that to Menelaus, while also omitting the latter was able to impart to Telemachus, essentially by way of divine Grecian whispers via the shape changing god Proteus, that Odysseus was still alive and  Calypso’s captive on her island of Ogygia. That of course sets up Odysseus himself to appear with Calypso in Book 5, although as usual it takes divine intervention by Athena to allow him to leave.

Accordingly, the Telemachy is the shortest part of the Odyssey, a sixth or 4 books (Books 1-4) out of 24 books, followed by the Odyssey proper or the wandering of Odysseus, a third or 8 books (Books 5-12), and then the homecoming of Odysseus as the longest part, half or 12 books (Books 13-24).