A Night With Eumaios

So I found Eumaios outside of his hut. He didn't recognize me with Athena's disguise on. He was very nice still and let me in. He was very hospitiable. I had some delicious pork that he had made. He told me of the stories of his master. His master was me, not the me that was withered and old, but the one who was powerful and loving. He feared that his master was to be lost forever. I had never heard anyone's honest opinion about me before and I found it quiet interesting. Just imagine someone telling you ever honest thing that they loved or hated about you to your face, thinking you were someone else. I might have had some crazy adventures in my life but that was quiet an experience. I sucked it in and swallowed it whole as he told me of his love for his old master and his hatred for his new masters, the disgusting suitors. I predicted to the man that his master would be back soon and that he was still alive but he would not hear of it. He said that old men like me came around all the time to see Penelope and tell her lies of my whereabouts. This made me kind of angry knowing all of these other men were trying to steal my woman. I could tell the Eumaios liked me though which was comforting. He let me stay the night and when I was cold he gave me a cloak to wear. He asked me where I was from and I lied and told him I was from Crete and that I had fought with Odysseus at Troy and had made it home safely. But on an unfortunate trip to Egypt things happened and I ended up in poverty. On my way back I heard information about Odysseus and I was here to report it. Sometimes you have to lie to tell people the truth.

Home At Last!

I was finished with my story and finally ready to return to the home I had left so many years before. Alkinoos gladly gave me a ship full of gifts and a hardy crew. I was very grateful. I began my finally physical journey to Ithaka as the sun went down. I was so at peace with myself that I fell asleep on the boat. I was able to sleep the entire trip back home. It was so nice to not have to worry about anything anymore and just get home. Home is the place your heart is and will always be and I needed to get my body back to my heart. I was so worried about how everyone would react and say when I returned home and I hoped for the best as I slept my worries away. The crew of Phaiakians kept the boat going. I awoke after the trip was over in an unknown land. I was horrified at first that the crew had dumped me on some foreign soil and I would have to find a new way home. The gifts were with me as I sat on the shore. I was trying to figure out where I was. When all this was going on I later found out that Poseidon had become so outraged the the Phaiakians had helped me that he asked Zeus if he could punish them which he did. By turning their ship to stone and sinking it and every crew member aboard he had fufilled the prophecy. People on the shore of Skheria saw this all happen but didn't bother to help knowing that the prophecy was fufilled and could not be changed now. A shepard found me and told me that I was home, on the shores of Ithaka. After a while of keeping my identity a secret and trying to reveal the shepard's I found out he was Athena! Athena was proud of my wit to uncover her identity that she cooked up a new plan for me. I was to hide in a hut. Here, she told me that my son had gone out searching for the news of me and she turned me into a vagabond so no one would recognize me to get to the next part of our plan.

The Tellings of the Truth, part 4

So, after being in the underworld and speaking to Elpenor's spirit I decided the best thing to do was to return to Aiaia and give Elpenor a proper burial. I also was able to have one last night with Kirke. She told me of the things I would face in the near future and what I could do to save myself. I left the next morning and just like Kirke said I would, my men and I passed the island of the Seirenes. The Seirenes were beautiful with their seductive songs that any man would die to hear but would soon find out that they could not reach the Seirenes and would drown. To prevent this from happening to me and my crew I was able to stick beeswax into the ears of my men and blind them from the sight of the Seirenes with the mass. They tied me up because I was going to listen to the songs but if I heard them I would want to swim out to the island which I must not do. So I tried to very hard to get off but they just tied me tighter as I heard the Seirenes sing of the future they could tell me. After that island next me and my men had a choice in path that we had to make. We could either take the path of Skylla or Kharybdis. Skylla was a six headed monster that would eat sailors as they passed by and Kharybdis was a huge whirlpool that was sure to sink any ship. We made the choice of Skylla and while crossing by it ate six of my sailors but we continued on. Next we came to Thrinakia, the island of the Sun. I wanted to completely avoid stopping at the island but Eurylokhos begged and persuaded me to stop for the crew to rest on the shore. There was a mighty storm that kept us on the shore of the island for a month. We were fine for the most part until we became out of food from our supplies we had on the ship. I told the men not to take anything from the island but one day while I was asleep Eurylokhos convinced the rest of the men to go and kill some of the cattle of the Sun. Zeus was now very upset with us and as we left Thrinakia he sent a horrible storm apon us. It destroyed our boat and killed everyone on it but myself. I just barely made it out. Sometimes, for a specific reason, we live in a tragic accident to do more with our lives and I think what I have to do is spread the story of my journey and continue on to be with my family. Later I ended up at Kharybdis where I nearly escaped for a second time. I was now on a broken piece of my ship, hungry, lonely, heartbroken and scared. I reached Ogygia Isle where I ended up with Kalypso and the rest need not be told.

The Tellings of the Truth, part 3

So I continue to tell my very long story of my journeys and how I got this far. We left off when I was told by Kirke to take my ship and my men and head to the Underworld. We made a sacrifice as we were told to do by Kirke to attract the souls. We needed to talk to Teiresias for a prophecy he would make for me. At first, the soul of Elpenor appeared. Elpenor was the man on my crew who got himself drunk the night before we left Kirke's island and broke his neck in a nasty fall off of her roof. He begged to return to the island to give his body a proper burial since we had left it just sitting there, untouched. I promised him that I would return to bury it but this was more of a lie because at this moment I was on a mission. When there are so many things on the line for yourself sometimes you must forget about the others and their wellbeing to make sure you can take care of yourself first. Next the prince of Thebes appeared to us. His name was Teiresia and he was the spirit we were looking for. He told me that Poseidon was punishing the Akhaians for the blinding of his son, Kyklops which was me and my men's wrongdoing. Then Teiresia told me of my fate. I was to first return home and reclaim my palace and wife from the suitors. Then when that business was taken care of I was to go on another journey to finally end this thing between Posiedon and I and I agreed it was about time by then. He ended his wise tellings by informing me to not touch the flocks of the sun when I reached the land of Thrinakia. If I were to I would not return home without suffering and loosing all of my crew. After I spoke to the spirit of my dead mother. She gave me a report on how Ithaka was doing and told me of how she died of the grief of my absense. After speaking to my mother I met many interesting, famous men and heroes and listened to their stories of what they did in their lives and how they died. At this point I was exhausted and asked the king and queen if I could go sleep but they insisted I continue with my stories from the Underworld so I did as I was told. I continued with the story of Agamemnon. He told me of how he was murdered by his wife Klytaimnestra. After speaking with him I met the spirit of Akhilleus. He asked me how his son, Neoptolemos was doing back in the real world. I also wanted to talk to the spirit of Aias. He had killed himself after loosing to a contest against me. He gave no reply and then turned away from me. I also met Herkales, King Minos and the hunter Orion. I had to watch the horrible sufferings of Sisyphos and Tantalos. Sisyphos was punished and had to roll a huge boulder up and down a large hill. Tantalos was starving and parched but whenever he would try and drink the water from the pond it would sink away from him and whenever he would try to grab a grape off a branch the branch would move out of reach. Suddenly, all these souls surrounded me asking about their loved ones that were still alive. I was so harrassed by the souls I ran back to my ship.

The Tellings of the Truth, part 2

So I continued my journey on from the land of the Kyklopes. I reached the home of Aiolos, ruler of the winds. There, Aiolos presented me with a very special gift. It was a bag containing all the winds. He stirred up a vicious wind to send me and my men home. I was so honored with the gift it was such a noble and nice thing for him to do for me. Things were looking good. We had been going towards home for 10 days and we were in sight of home! We could see Ithaka. I was so happy but I found out my crew was not. They thought that Aiolos had given me a gift of silver and gold and wanted in on the gift so they ripped the bag open! It stirs up big winds that sent me and my men all back to Aiolia Island but when we arrived Aiolos refused to help us. He said he wouldn't help us because the gods hated me and wanted to do me harm. This is something you do not want to hear from anyone because this was a very horrible future to look at. If the gods wanted to hurt you they probably would. Now without the help of the wind me and my men row to the land of the Laistrygonian. Laistrygonians are a powerful breed of giants. Their king, Antiphates and his queen wanted to make me and my crew into their dinner. Horrified, we ran to our ships but the giants had thrown huge boulders at them sinking almost all of them but mine. From there me and my ship traveled to Aiaia. There lives the beautiful witch goddess Kirke. While we were there she poisoned a band of my men and turned them into pigs! I was on my way to rescue them when I was stopped by Hermes, except he was in the form of a young man. He gave me a plan to help keep me safe from Kirke. He told me to eat the herb moly to protect myself from being turned into a pig and then grab her when she tries to stab me with her sword. I was able to do all of this and I totally beat her! I was able to make her release my friends and turn them back into humans again. Somehow, in the mist of all this craziness, Kirke and I ended up becoming lovers and my men and I lived on her island in pure happiness. But my men soon wanted to continue with our trip so I asked Kirke for the way to return to Ithaka and she told me that we must go to Hades and speak the spirit of Tiresias. She was a blind prophet and Kirke told us she could tell us how to get back to Ithaka. One of my men had gotten drunk the night before and somehow after a strange series of events ended up falling off the roof and breaking his neck. After dealing with that I told my crew about where we had to head to next and they weren't all that pleased to tell you the truth.

The Tellings of the Truth, part 1

The King had finally decided to question me on who I really was and where I've really been. I reluctantly began my story of my very long, truthful past. It is so long I have decided to break it down into four parts for my readers. So lets begin with after Troy. My men and I on my ship were sent to the island Ismaros, city of the Kikones. My men and I at once were distracted and taken by our greed when we reached the island. We stayed there until the Kikones turned on us unexpectantly and attacked us. We got back onto the boat where we were taken by a storm on the sea. We didn't find land for 9 days but on the 10th day we arrived at the land of the Lotos eaters. Some of my men went a talked to the natives and they gave them some of the Lotos. My men returned saying that the plant had been delicious but they didn't want to go home. They wanted to stay on the island. I forced them onto the boat and starved them for a while and didn't let any of my other men have any of this toxic plant. Later we reached the land of the Kyklopes. We avoided the mainland at first and ate some goat on an island offshore. After our meal we approached the mainland. As we were crossing we came across a cave full of glorious looking food. My men tried to convince me to steal some of it quickly but I waited to see whose cave this was. And of course it was the Kyklops Polyphemus who is the son of the god Posideon. You will now see why he doesn't like me very much. I know, it was not very smart of me the entire time and I learned my lesson but I think he has held his vengeance against me long enough. Kyklops was very nice to me and my men at first but then he became angry with us and ate two of my men and trapped me inside of his cave. At first I was going to stab him but I knew that he was the only one strong enough to push the rock that had me trapped inside the cave so I cooked myself up a plan. I had a wooden staff burning as I got Kyklops drunk. He asked me of my name and I told him my name was Nohbdy. When he was passed out after being drunk I had some select men help me stab him in the eye with the burning staff and when he awoke yelling "Nohbdy is killing me!" No one came to help him. So me and my men grabbed on to the bellies of the sheep since Kyklops had to release them to graze. He did not see us since he was now blinded. We took his men and got on board the ship. I revealed my identity as Odysseus which was probably not a very smart move but when you do something you are so proud of you should take credit for it. Well then Kyklops asked his father, Posideon, to take avengeance on me so I am forever on Posideon's bad list but can you blame him?

The Songs of Demodocus

So the king, Alcinous, had an assembly with the counselors. There had been talk about me around the island I was told and Alcinous had rounded up the men to ask if his guest, me, could use one of their ships to make my journey back home. The council thankfully approved of this and in my honor, Alcinous had a feast with games afterwards. I was very excited to know I would have my ship and then to go have a lovely feast with a little friendly competition afterwards. During the feast, Demodocus began to sing of the hard times between Achilles and myself. Everyone else seemed to enjoy this but me. I broke down at once with the horrible memories of this that haunt me. Alcinous saw me break down and stopped the singing and started the game portion of the celebration. I saw this compassion from him and it helped me settle down but still those memories being surfaced brings up a lot of emotions that I have been pushing down and hiding from everyone and myself. Sometimes, you just need something to remind you what you are really feeling so you can feel it. The song reminded me that I need to greeve and remember what happened during the war no matter how painful it may be. Still, I was in no mood to play games with the other athletes. Broadsea, one of the athletes, insulted me and gave me this fire to compete with them. After winning some events I started to get a little cocky and I challenged a group of athletes to some friendly competition which led to a little argument between us. Alcinous ended it though by suggesting that we all have another feast. They were all so entertaining to me and Demodocus sang another song about Aphrodite and Ares which wasn't upsetting like the last song had been. After the feast everyone was so kind and all gave me gifts to help me with my journey. Then I asked Demodocus to sing me a song about the Trojan horse. Again I broke down and Alcinous noticed and approached me about it. He asked me who I am, where I'm from and where am I going.