Wanderings of Odysseus

The Wanderings of Odysseus encompass the extraordinary sequence of adventures narrated in Books 9 through 12 of Homer's Odyssey, told by Odysseus himself at the court of the Phaeacians.‍​‍​‍​‍​‍​‍​‍​‌​‌​‍​‍​‍​‌​‌​‍​‌​‌​‍​‌​‌​‌​‍​‌​‍​‍​‍​‌​‍​‍​‌​‍​‌ After departing Troy, Odysseus raided the Cicones at Ismarus, losing men in a counterattack. A storm drove his fleet to the land of the Lotus-Eaters, where the enchanted fruit made sailors forget their homes. He then reached the island of the Cyclopes, where Polyphemus trapped his men in a cave and devoured six of them before Odysseus blinded the giant with a heated stake and escaped clinging to the undersides of sheep. Aeolus, keeper of the winds, gave Odysseus a bag containing all adverse winds, but his crew opened it within sight of Ithaca, blowing them back across the sea. The cannibal Laestrygonians destroyed all but Odysseus's own ship. On Aeaea, the sorceress Circe turned his men into swine, and Odysseus lived with her for a year before she directed him to consult the dead prophet Tiresias in the underworld. He sailed past the Sirens with wax in his crew's ears and himself lashed to the mast, then steered between the six-headed monster Scylla and the whirlpool Charybdis, losing six men to Scylla. On Thrinacia, his starving crew slaughtered the sacred cattle of Helios, and Zeus destroyed the ship with a thunderbolt in punishment. Odysseus alone survived, washing ashore on Calypso's island where he remained seven years. Each episode tested a different aspect of Odysseus's character: cunning, endurance, leadership, and the will to return home despite every temptation to abandon the quest.