Produced by Liz Hanks, Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks

and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

THE STORY OF THE ODYSSEY

BY THE REV. ALFRED J. CHURCH, M.A.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

THE ODYSSEY:

I. THE COUNSEL OF ATHENE

II. THE ASSEMBLY

III. NESTOR'S TALE

IV. IN SPARTA

V. MENELAUS'S TALE

VI. ULYSSES ON HIS RAFT

VII. NAUSICAA

VIII. ALCINOUS

IX. THE PHAEACIANS

X. THE CYCLOPS

XI. AEOLUS; THE LAESTRYGONS; CIRCE

XII. THE DWELLINGS OF THE DEAD

XIII. THE SIRENS; SCYLLA; THE OXEN OF THE SUN

XIV. ITHACA

XV. EUMAEUS, THE SWINEHERD

XVI. THE RETURN OF TELEMACHUS

XVII. ULYSSES AND TELEMACHUS

XVIII. ULYSSES IN HIS HOME

XIX. ULYSSES IN HIS HOME (continued)

XX. ULYSSES IS DISCOVERED BY HIS NURSE

XXI. THE TRIAL OF THE BOW

XXII. THE SLAYING OF THE SUITORS

XXIII. THE END OF THE WANDERING

XXIV. THE TRIUMPH OF ULYSSES

PRONUNCIATION OF PROPER NAMES

INTRODUCTION

Three thousand years ago the world was still young. The westerncontinent was a huge wilderness, and the greater part of Europewas inhabited by savage and wandering tribes. Only a few nationsat the eastern end of the Mediterranean and in the neighbouringparts of Asia had learned to dwell in cities, to use a writtenlanguage, to make laws for themselves, and to live in a moreorderly fashion. Of these nations the most brilliant was that ofthe Greeks, who were destined in war, in learning, in government,and in the arts, to play a great part in the world, and to be thereal founders of our modern civilization. While they were still arude people, they had noble ideals of beauty and bravery, of dutyand justice. Even before they had a written language, theirsingers had made songs about their heroes and their great deeds;and later these songs, which fathers had taught to children, andthese children to their children, were brought together into twolong and wonderful poems, which have ever since been the delightof the world, the Iliad and the Odyssey.

The Iliad is the story of the siege of Ilium, or Troy, onthe western coast of Asia Minor. Paris, son of the king of Troy,had enticed Helen, the most beautiful of Grecian women, and thewife of a Grecian king, to leave her husband's home with him; andthe kings and princes of the Greeks had gathered an army and afleet and sailed across the Aegean Sea to rescue her. For tenyears they strove to capture the city. According to the fine oldlegends, the gods themselves took a part in the war, some sidingwith the Greeks, and some with the Trojans. It was finally throughUlysses, a famous Greek warrior, brave and fierce as well as wiseand crafty, that the Greeks captured the city.

The second poem, the Odyssey, tells what befell Ulysses, orOdysseus, as the Greeks called him, on his homeward way. Sailingfrom Troy with his little fleet of ships, which were so small thatthey used oars as well as sails, he was destined to wander for tenyears longer before he could return t

BU KİTABI OKUMAK İÇİN ÜYE OLUN VEYA GİRİŞ YAPIN!

Sitemize Üyelik ÜCRETSİZDİR!