The Odyssey

by Geraldine McCaughrean

  ‘Here, sir. You may have my dinner and my wine,’ said Penelope. ‘It would choke me to eat in the company of these uncharitable dogs. Here, sit in my chair and rest yourself. I pray that somewhere someone has meat and drink to spare for my dear husband.’ She rose to leave the room, but when the suitors caught sight of her they set up a roaring:

  ‘Where are you going? You can’t go yet! You’ve not chosen! Choose!’

  ‘Choose!’

  ‘Or shall we choose for you?’

  ‘Tomorrow you’ll be sitting down to dinner alone with your new husband!’

  White-faced, Penelope silenced them with a glance of her piercing eyes. She drew herself up to her full height and seemed about to refuse marriage one last time.

  ‘Yes! Choose, Mother!’ cried Telemachus, jumping to his feet. ‘It’s time you did. Obviously my father is dead. How could anyone spend ten years coming home? Choose, Mother. I was once heir to Ithaca, but I don’t care any more: let one of these noble gentlemen have the crown, and his sons after him.’

  ‘Well said, boy!’ crowed the suitors. ‘At last he’s grown up!’

  Queen Penelope was dumbstruck. ‘My own son tells me this? Then I give up.’ She added bitterly, ‘Since you think I should give myself away into the hands of these men, Telemachus, perhaps you should choose which one I marry.’

  ‘Let them compete,’ said Telemachus quickly. ‘Since your first husband was a man skilled with weapons, why don’t you marry the one who can match Odysseus in skill? Look! There’s father’s bow still hanging over the fire. Marry the man who can string it and shoot an arrow and hit a target of your choosing.’

  Forlorn, desolate, and betrayed, Penelope searched about for the most difficult target she could name. Each suitor carried a cleaver or axe swinging from his belt by a leather loop. ‘Set your axes head-down on the table, and let the man who strings the bow and fires an arrow through the belt loops make me his wife tomorrow morning.’ And she swept out of the hall and went to her bedroom.

  With a drunken cheer, the suitors swept the dishes off the table, and kicked aside the beggar who was sitting in the Queen’s seat. They slammed down their axes and they clawed the bow off the wall – the great hunting bow of young King Odysseus. One by one, they strained to bend it so as to slide the string’s loop into the cleft at the tip of the bow.

  They grunted and struggled. They swore and they failed. Each man that gave up threw the bow away from him in disgust. ‘It’s impossible. It’s gone stiff with age. It would take the strength of three men to bend it!’

  ‘Let me try,’ said the beggar, who had sat silently all this while.

  ‘You, you piece of dirt?’ Again they showered him with fruit and kicks.

  ‘Let him try,’ said Telemachus, scornfully tossing the bow at the beggar’s head.

  The tattered man stood up – not a tall man, but broad-shouldered and stocky. He leaned the bow across one thigh and braced it behind the other ankle, then slipped the string loop into its cleft. The bow was strung.

  Blustering with rage, one of the suitors snatched it away. ‘Well, let’s get on with the contest, then! Me first!’

  The axes tumbled, the arrows shied left and right until the walls of the hall bristled. They were failing, failing, failing. They were furious at failing. They were wild with disappointment. They hated one another in case one at long last succeeded. They threatened Telemachus with clenched fists because he dared to laugh at their miserable efforts.

  The beggar did not laugh. He waited until the bow was thrown aside by the last unsuccessful suitor. All the axes were standing. He took aim through the dozen leather loops and fired.

  The arrow plunged through the loops as straight as light through the iris of the eye – and pierced a suitor in the heart. After that the beggar leapt on to the middle of the table, amid the forest of axes. His head and chest were bare, his grey hair curled to his shoulders. ‘I am Odysseus, home from the wars of Troy, and you are the ants I found in my larder, the rats I found in my cellar! Penelope will marry none of you. She has a husband already, as you will soon regret!’ He loosed a dozen arrows. Every one found its target. His son leapt up beside him, with two swords, and back to back they fought.

  Against boy and against beggar the suitors had been brave enough. Against Odysseus and the heir to his crown they fell into a panic and squealed and stampeded like men transformed by magic into pigs. But there was no escape. An hour later the room fell silent. Every suitor lay dead.

  Telemachus sat down in the middle of the table to catch his breath. But Odysseus touched him shyly on the shoulder and pointed in the direction of Penelope’s room. ‘You go and tell her I’m home. I don’t know how.’ Telemachus went and told her.

  When Penelope came to the head of the stairs, her face was unsmiling. She bowed her head to Odysseus and waved him towards a chair. ‘You must be weary, sir, after all your travelling. I am most grateful to you for ridding the palace of those wasters,’ and she waved her hand about her at the pile of dead bodies. ‘I shall prepare a bed for you.’

  It was Odysseus’ turn to be dumbstruck. So cold a welcome after twenty years? Well, perhaps he was not the handsome husband she had sent away to war. Perhaps he was a disappointment to her. ‘Could I not sleep in my own bed?’ he asked timidly.

  ‘Very well, I shall have it carried to the West Room. You will be comfortable there.’

  Odysseus clapped his hands. ‘Now I understand! You are testing me, lady! My bed is carved out of the strongest branch of the tree which stands in the centre of this house and which holds up its roof. How could it be moved “to the West Room”?’

  Then Penelope leapt across the dead suitors on the floor and kissed her husband and held him close. ‘After so long, I had to test you – I didn’t dare to believe my own eyes. I expected to see an old man worn out by struggles and hardships. But you’re just as handsome as the day you left Ithaca!’

  In the fields of the three-island kingdom the farmers danced. On the slopes of Mount Neriton the goatherds played their squawking pipes. Throughout Ithaca and Cephalonia and wooded Zanthe, beacon fires were lit and drums were beaten from morning till night to say that King Odysseus was home at last.

  In the peaceful days that followed, poets wrote down the griefs and triumphs of the Odyssey. But Odysseus would not hear the poems recited nor the songs sung, until he had made sacrifice to Poseidon and struck a peace between man and god, between sea and land, between Heaven and Earth.

  With Puffin Classics, the adventure isn’t over when you reach the final page.

  Want to discover more about your favourite characters, their creators and their worlds?

  Read on …

  CONTENTS

  AUTHOR FILE

  WHO’S WHO IN THE ODYSSEY

  DID YOU KNOW …?

  SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT …

  SOME THINGS TO DO …

  GLOSSARY

  AUTHOR FILE

  NAME: Homer

  BORN: around the eighth century BCE

  DIED: around the eighth century BCE

  LIVED: Greece

  What do we know about Homer?

  Unfortunately, not much. Homer lived such a long time ago that very little information about him survives. He was probably born on the coast of Asia Minor, which is now the Turkish coast but which was then part of the Greek Empire. He was the first Greek poet whose works survive today. He may even have been the first Greek poet, which would make him the first European poet ever.

  Poets in those days did not write anything down: they were ‘bards’, reciting or chanting even very long poems from memory. That is why so much simply disappeared. Both of Homer’s epic poems – The Iliad and The Odyssey – are over ten thousand words long. The wonder is that these were not also lost.

  What are Homer’s poems about?

  The Iliad, thought to be the earlier of Homer’s works, is a poem of death and glory. It tells of a few days in the struggle between the Greeks a
nd the Trojans, in which mortal men play out their fate under the gaze of the gods. Meanwhile, The Odyssey is the original set of travellers’ tall tales. Odysseus, who is trying desperately to get home after the Trojan War, encounters all kinds of marvels and adventures – from one-eyed giants to witches, from beautiful temptresses to shipwrecks – while his faithful wife, Penelope, waits at home.

  Did Homer definitely exist?

  Not everyone thinks that Homer wrote both The Iliad and The Odyssey, as the styles of both – one tragic, one fantasy – are so very different. Some scholars think that Homer wasn’t a real person and that his works were actually written by a group of poets. Others think that Homer was simply the person who wrote down poems that unremembered bards had been telling for a very long time. No one knows for sure. To this day, it remains one of the biggest mysteries in the history of literature.

  NAME: Geraldine McCaughrean

  BORN: 6 June 1951

  LIVES: Berkshire, UK

  MARRIED: to John

  CHILDREN: a daughter called Ailsa, who is an actress

  What is she like?

  She is quite shy and quiet. But she says that the one place she has always dared to have adventures is in her imagination, writing stories.

  Where did she grow up?

  Geraldine McCaughrean was born and grew up in London. Her father was a firefighter and her mother a teacher.

  Why did she become an author?

  When her older brother, Neil, had a book published when he was just fourteen, Geraldine decided that this was what she too longed to do. So as she grew up she wrote and wrote, never really expecting to get published, but always hoping that she would. And after ten years of working in all kinds of jobs, she did become an author … and went on to write rather more books than Neil.

  Why? What other books has she written?

  About 170, and many of them have won prizes. She even won a competition to write the sequel to J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan so that in 2006 Peter Pan in Scarlet was published, to great brouhaha. According to children’s author Philip Ardagh, ‘It’s enough to make you believe in fairies.’

  Other novels include A Little Lower Than Angels, set in the Middle Ages; Gold Dust, set in South America; Plundering Paradise, set in Madagascar among pirates; The Kite Rider, set in ancient China; The White Darkness, set in Antarctica; and The Middle of Nowhere, set in Australia. All of them are adventure stories. So you see that Geraldine’s writing has taken her on quite an odyssey herself! She calls it ‘rowing with pen and pencil over a sea of paper, to other times and places’.

  WHO’S WHO IN THE ODYSSEY

  MORTALS

  Odysseus – King of Ithaca and hero of Troy

  Polites – Odysseus’ best friend

  Penelope – Queen of Ithaca and wife of Odysseus

  Telemachus – Odysseus’ son

  Eurylochus – one of Odysseus’ men

  IMMORTALS

  Zeus – the father of all the gods

  Poseidon – the sea god

  Athene – the goddess of war

  Helios – the god of the sun

  Hades – the god of the dead, ruler of the Underworld

  CREATURES, MONSTERS AND BEINGS WHOM ODYSSEUS MEETS ON THE WAY

  The lotus-eaters – island people who feed visitors deadly lotus fruit

  Polyphemus – a Cyclops

  King of Aeolia – a kindly, curious king

  King Lamus of Laestrygonia – a cannibal

  Circe – a sorceress

  Teiresias – an Oracle

  Siren Singers – vile creatures who appear to sailors as beautiful women with bewitching voices

  Scylla – a six-headed serpent

  Calypso – a sea nymph

  King Alcinous – the rich and powerful king of Scheria

  Argos – the faithful hound

  DID YOU KNOW?

  Homer Simpson – star of The Simpsons – was created by cartoonist Matt Groening, who named the character after his father Homer Groening, who in turn was named after Homer, author of The Odyssey!

  Homer’s lotus-eaters inspired many, many other authors: W. Somerset Maugham wrote a short story entitled ‘The Lotus Eater’; Lord Alfred Tennyson wrote a poem called The Lotos-Eaters; the lotus-eaters also appear in James Joyce’s famous novel Ulysses. And in the 1980s there was even a famous pop group called The Lotus Eaters.

  If you’re curious about the Trojan War that preceded Odysseus’ wanderings, you can find out more in another Puffin Classic – Roger Lancelyn Green’s The Tale of Troy.

  The three islands of Odysseus’ kingdom still exist: Ithaca, Cephalonia and Zanthe (this is now called Zakinthos), though there are many ways of spelling them: Ithaka, Kefalonia, Zante.

  If you’d like to go on holiday there (as Geraldine did while she was writing this book) you will find them among the Ionian Islands, in the Ionian Sea off the west coast of mainland Greece.

  SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT …

  Odysseus is brave and clever, but during his journey he makes mistakes that cost him and his crew dearly. Can you spot them?

  As if in a bad dream, Odysseus struggles over and over to reach home. Imagine your own challenging journey and write about it, sprinkling the story with obstacles to be overcome. You could borrow cannibals and lotus-eaters and six-headed serpents from Homer’s epic tale or maybe even make up your own terrifying monsters!

  Which do you think is Odysseus’ most difficult challenge?

  Penelope, Queen of Ithaca, is very, very patient as she waits for Odysseus to return. If you were Penelope, would you have waited twenty years for your husband to come home?

  Do you think Odysseus is a good leader? If so, why? And if not, why not?

  SOME THINGS TO DO …

  The sorceress Circe serves her victims tzatziki. It’s not a mysterious ancient dish, but actually a lovely dip that’s still popular today. Why not make your own and try it yourself?

  You will need:

  350g Greek yoghurt

  1 cucumber

  30ml lemon juice

  2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

  a splash of extra virgin olive oil

  a sprinkle of paprika

  What you do:

  Peel and de-seed the cucumber, before grating it.

  Wrap the grated cucumber in a teatowel and then squeeze out the juice.

  Mix together the yoghurt, cucumber and lemon juice.

  Add a splash of olive oil.

  Sprinkle with paprika.

  Now dip carrot sticks and crisps into your delicious dip and pretend you live in Ancient Greece!

  Compare the map at the beginning of this book with a modern-day map of the Mediterranean and then work out which places Odysseus would have visited if he’d gone on this journey in the twenty-first century.

  Now that you’ve read Geraldine McCaughrean’s retelling of The Odyssey, why not check out the original by Homer? It’s published by Penguin Classics.

  Odysseus often grandly introduces himself as Odysseus, King of Ithaca, hero of Troy. Make up your own Ancient Greek title – it can be as stupendously fabulous as you like!

  The Cyclops is said to be ‘a monstrous landmass of flesh and bone, whose knuckles trailed in the dirt and whose mouth was a cave in itself. In the centre of his forehead, rimmed with rheumy lashes, gaped a single massive eye’. Use this description to draw your own version of the Cyclops or pick another outrageous creature from The Odyssey to illustrate. There are plenty from which to choose …

  GLOSSARY

  alabaster – a slightly see-through type of gypsum, a white or grey mineral that is often carved into ornaments

  amphora – a container with two handles and a narrow neck

  bard – a poet who recites his works aloud

  beetling – overhanging

  belfry – the part of a bell tower where the bells are kept

  bilges – the almost-flat parts of a ship’s bottom

  clapper – the striker that hits t
he insides of a bell to make the ringing sound

  crystalline – like crystals

  fathom – a unit of measurement equal to the height of a man

  flotsam – floating wreckage

  hawser – a hefty rope used for mooring a ship

  hemp – a plant used to make fabric and rope

  islet – a tiny island

  latitude – a place’s distance to the north or south of the equator, measured in degrees

  maelstrom – a hugely powerful whirlpool or any wild and whirling situation that is a mass of movement and confusion

  mole – a wall at the edge of the sea, often part of a harbour

  moly – a plant with tiny white flowers

  odyssey – a very long and very eventful journey or experience

  oracle – a priest or priestess who passes on advice from the gods

  quiver – a case for holding arrows

  rheumy – weepy and watery

  slubbered – stained or spoiled

  spindrift – fine spray that flies from the tips of waves

  spit – a small piece of land sticking out into the sea

  trident – a three-pronged spear

  If you would like to …

  Turn the page for an extract from

  Tales of Ancient Egypt by Roger Lancelyn Green

  in which you will encounter Amen-Ra, Isis and Osiris and many other characters from the great myths . . .

  Roger Lancelyn Green

  TALES OF ANCIENT EGYPT

  Ra and his Children

  Before the land of Egypt rose out of the waters at the beginning of the world, Ra the Shining One came into being. He was all-powerful, and the secret of his power lay in his Name which was hidden from all the world. Having this power, he had only to name a thing, and that thing too came into being.