The Complete Odyssey Explained - Odysseus' 10-Year Journey Home

[00:00:00]So, Troy has finally fallen.

[00:00:02]After a decade of brutal warfare, one massive wooden horse stunt, and plenty of trauma, Odysseus and his men are packing up their ships to head home.

[00:00:11]It sounds straightforward, right? Board the vessels, sail straight back to Ithaca, embrace your wife, feast on some roast meat, and relax.

[00:00:19]But this is the world of ancient myth, where nothing is ever simple, the deities are incredibly petty, and this specific road trip is going to take another 10 whole years. 10 years just to navigate a relatively short voyage.

[00:00:32]To put that in perspective, you can drive across the entire United States in less than a week.

[00:00:37]Odysseus required a full decade, and frankly a massive chunk of that delay was entirely his own fault. Let's dive into the beginning of what can only be described as [music] history's most disastrous commute.

[00:00:48]Right after setting sail from Troy, Odysseus makes his [music] first brilliant decision.

[00:00:53]He pulls over at a city called Ismarus, inhabited by the Cicones, and decides to plunder the entire place for absolutely [music] no strategic benefit. The war is literally over, man. You won. Just go home.

[00:01:05]Instead, the crew insists on looting, throwing a massive beach party, getting wasted, and completely ignoring Odysseus when he orders them to leave before local reinforcements arrive.

[00:01:15]Naturally, the Cicones call for backup.

[00:01:18]They return with a much larger army, slaughter a significant number of Odysseus's men, and the remaining survivors barely scramble back to their ships.

[00:01:26]Six sailors from every single ship are gone. Following the Ismarus catastrophe, a brutal storm batters the fleet and blows them completely off course, landing them straight in the territory of the Lotus-Eaters.

[00:01:38]Now, it sounds like a peaceful paradise, which is precisely the trap.

[00:01:42]The locals offer Odysseus's scouts some exotic lotus flowers to snack on, and instantly the crew loses all will to leave.

[00:01:49]They just lounge around in a euphoric daze, murmuring, "What's an Ithaca? I live here now. This plant is spectacular."

[00:01:57]It's essentially an ancient narcotics crisis.

[00:02:00]Odysseus is forced to physically drag his own men back to the boats kicking and screaming because those flowers hit like a substance that would make modern pharmaceutical executives very nervous.

[00:02:10]He chains them beneath the rowing benches and sets sail while they're still whining about wanting to go back.

[00:02:16]First official stop on the trip and he's already running a substance abuse intervention.

[00:02:21]Next on the itinerary is the island of the Cyclops, which is where things become genuinely terrifying and once again mostly Odysseus's fault.

[00:02:30]He takes 12 of his elite men to explore a cave that clearly belongs to someone extraordinarily massive, eats the owner's cheese without asking, and then decides to hang around just to see who lives there.

[00:02:42]You walk into a cavern filled with giant bones and oversized furniture and your immediate instinct is to sit tight and wait.

[00:02:49]The Cyclops, Polyphemus, returns home, seals the exit with a boulder the size of a skyscraper, and promptly snacks on two of the men like they're breadsticks.

[00:02:58]Odysseus's grand escape plan involves getting the giant blackout drunk on strong wine, plunging a sharpened stake into his eye, and sneaking out beneath the bellies of his giant sheep.

[00:03:09]But then Odysseus, being the arrogant guy he is, just can't help himself.

[00:03:13]As they are safely rowing away, he leans over the railing and bellows his actual name at the Cyclops, just screams it across the water. "Hey, I'm Odysseus of Ithaca, you giant moron!"

[00:03:24]Why would you ever do that?

[00:03:26]It turns out Polyphemus is the literal son of Poseidon, god of the sea, and now Poseidon knows exactly who blinded his boy. Brilliant. Fantastic.

[00:03:35]The most calculating mind in Greece just formally introduced himself to his most dangerous new adversary while standing on a wooden boat in the middle of the ocean.

[00:03:44]Poseidon immediately turns the sea hostile toward Odysseus, which is a pretty rough setback when your entire route home requires crossing the ocean.

[00:03:52]They next visit Aeolus, the ruler of the winds, who actually takes a liking to Odysseus.

[00:03:58]He gives him a leather bag containing all the world's turbulent winds, allowing them to sail smoothly using only favorable breezes.

[00:04:05]They get so incredibly close to Ithaca that the crew can actually see the shoreline bonfires. They can literally see home, but the sailors convince themselves that Odysseus is hoarding secret treasure in that sack, so they rip it open while he's asleep.

[00:04:19]Every single destructive [music] wind in existence bursts out simultaneously, blasting them all the way back to square one. Odysseus wakes up, realizes where they are, looks at his incompetent crew, and reportedly [music] just breaks down crying. And honestly, who wouldn't?

[00:04:33]After that disaster, they lose almost all their remaining fleet to a tribe of massive cannibals known as the Laestrygonians, [music] which I must emphasize was definitely not part of the vacation plan.

[00:04:43]Only Odysseus' own ship manages to escape.

[00:04:47]12 ships entered that harbor, only one made it out alive. Then they arrive at the island of the goddess Circe, who promptly transforms [music] half of the remaining crew into pigs, actual swine, with snouts, tails, and the whole package.

[00:05:01]Circe is powerful, stunning, and clearly holds strong feelings about uninvited houseguests.

[00:05:07]Odysseus manages to bypass her enchantments thanks to a tactical tip from the god Hermes, ultimately forcing her to restore his men to human form.

[00:05:16]After spending a year just hanging out with the woman who previously turned his crew into livestock, Circe finally informs him that he must journey to the underworld to secure navigation directions from the spirit of a blind prophet named Tiresias.

[00:05:30]So, Odysseus sails to the absolute edge of existence, digs a ritual trench, pours sacrificial blood into it to summon the deceased, and holds a conversation with several ghosts, including his own departed mother, which stands as one of the most heartbreaking moments in ancient literature. He attempts to embrace her three separate times and his arms pass right through her because she's nothing but smoke.

[00:05:51]After that, Tiresias provides the directions along with a very explicit directive. Whatever you do, do not touch the sacred cattle of the sun god Helios.

[00:05:59]On the return voyage, they navigate past the Sirens, creatures whose hypnotic melodies literally compel sailors to leap off their boats and drown, which is a highly dramatic obstacle for a commute. Odysseus orders himself bound tightly to the mast so he can listen to the music without acting on it. While his crew rows past with their ears sealed shut with beeswax, he's screaming at them to release him the entire time, but they can't hear a single thing.

[00:06:24]Next, the monster Scylla snatches six men, one for each of her horrific heads, straight off the deck. Odysseus is forced to watch them get devoured, completely powerless to stop it. Then they pull over at the island of Helios and the crew immediately spots the sacred cows grazing on the hillsides, looking incredibly appetizing.

[00:06:42]Odysseus gives a firm no. Absolutely not. Do not touch these animals. He forces the entire crew to swear a solemn oath. They swear it.

[00:06:52]But then a sudden lack of wind strands them on the island for a month. They run completely out of provisions and the absolute second Odysseus dozes off, his men go right ahead and barbecue the sacred cattle anyway.

[00:07:03]Their logic, according to the actual myths, was basically that drowning at sea would be preferable to starving to death while facing whatever Helios throws at them.

[00:07:12]Guys, seriously guys, the sun god finds out instantly. He goes straight to Zeus and demands retribution.

[00:07:19]Zeus personally hurls a cosmic thunderbolt, obliterating the ship the moment they clear the island.

[00:07:25]Every single crew member drowns, every single one. Odysseus only survives by clinging to a piece of the wreckage, drifting completely alone for nine days until washing ashore on the island of the nymph [music] Calypso. Calypso falls deeply in love with him and keeps him captive there for seven years.

[00:07:42]7 years. She offers him full immortality and ageless youth. Essentially, the greatest package deal anyone has ever been offered in human history.

[00:07:51]Odysseus rejects it every single time because he desperately misses Ithaca.

[00:07:56]He spends his days weeping on the shoreline and his nights sharing a bed with Calypso because life is complicated.

[00:08:02]Eventually, the gods intervene and command Calypso to let him go.

[00:08:06]She helps him construct a raft and he sets sail completely alone.

[00:08:11]Naturally, Poseidon smashes the raft almost immediately. He washes up on the island of the Phaeacians entirely naked, caked in seaweed, looking absolutely ruined.

[00:08:22]Fortunately, the Phaeacians are incredibly hospitable [music] people.

[00:08:26]Their king hosts a massive feast, listens to the entire [music] tragic story, and sails Odysseus back to Ithaca on one of their enchanted self-navigating ships while he peacefully sleeps. He finally steps foot on his homeland after 20 long years away, 10 spent in war and 10 spent getting utterly lost. His palace is currently overrun by arrogant noblemen who have spent years consuming his livestock, drinking his wine reserves, and aggressively pressuring his wife Penelope to select one of them as her new husband.

[00:08:55]Penelope has been stalling masterfully for years, weaving a burial shroud by day and secretly unraveling it by torchlight every single night. When Odysseus walks through his own doors disguised as a battered beggar, she still doesn't recognize him. He is forced to watch these parasitic men disrespect everything he ever built.

[00:09:13]And then comes the final challenge involving his own massive hunting bow, a weapon that none of these suitors can even manage to bend.

[00:09:21]Odysseus strings it effortlessly, fires an arrow perfectly through 12 axe heads in a row, and turns to face the suitors.

[00:09:28]That bow is the ultimate callback that shatters the illusion.

[00:09:32]He left it behind in that palace as a young idealistic king.

[00:09:36]He returns to it as a weathered man who has walked through the underworld, outmaneuvered deities, and buried every single companion he originally set out with.

[00:09:46]Not because he was the physically strongest, not because a god carried him across the finish line, but because he flat-out refused to ever stop trying to get back.

[00:09:55]20 years, mythical monsters, sorceresses, a deadly whirlpool, and a cyclops who now hates the ocean because of him, and yet [music] he still made it back to that bow, to that great hall, and to the mortal life he chose over eternal youth.

[00:10:09]The Trojan War made Odysseus a myth. The journey home proved what he was actually made of.