The Tale of Troy was written by Padraic Colum, it has 132 pages, and takes place in the ancient islands of Greece. The Tale of Troy is a fiction story. Even though Athena and Poseidon helped the Greeks during the Trojan War, Athena turns against the Greeks and convinces Poseidon to do the same. The Greeks are hit by storms on the way home and many ships are destroyed and the fleet is scattered. The war and his troubles at sea keep Odysseus away from Ithaka, for twenty years.
While he was gone, his son, Telemachus, has grown into a man, and his wife, Penelope, is overwhelmed by wooers who think Odysseus is dead. While Poseidon is away from Olympus, Penelope convinces the other gods to help Odysseus return home. In disguise in Ithaka, she convinces Telemachus to look for his father. Telemachus goes to Pylos and finds out that Odysseus is being held prisoner by Calypso. Zeus orders that Odysseus be allowed to go home so he leaves on a raft. When he is almost home, Poseidon sees him and sends a storm that sinks his raft.
Ino helps Odysseus by giving him her veil which protects him from any harm in the water. After two days of swimming, Odysseus reaches the Phaeacians and their kind king, Alcinos. The king’s daughter, Nausicaa, finds Odysseus and takes him to the king. Odysseus tells how he and his crew first saw the Lotus-Eaters, then they docked in front of a cave to search for food. There is wine, food, and pens full of sheep in the cave, but the cave’s owner, the giant Cyclops Polyphemus, comes back and seals the cave with a giant boulder.
Odysseus planned to escape by giving Polyphemus wine until he passed out. The men poke out the monster’s only eye. Polyphemus can’t find the men and finally rolls the boulder that was blocking the cave and puts his arms in front of it to catch the men as they try to run outside. Odysseus thought Polyphemus might do this so they hang onto the undersides of the sheep as they go out to pasture. When the men passed the entrance, Polyphemus felt only the sheep’s backs and the men escaped. Aeolus, the keeper of the Winds, gave Odysseus a leather sack that holds all the storm winds as a gift.
Odysseus can sail home safely as long as he keeps the bag closed, but his crew opened the bag, that started a storm that blew them to the land of the Laestrygons, cannibals who destroy every ship in the fleet except one. At their next stop, several men went ahead and all of them but one was turned into pigs by the sorceress Circe. Odysseus goes to Circe’s house with an herb that Hermes gave him. When Circe can’t use her magic on him, she returned his crew to human form and they lived in her house for a year.
Then, she used her magic to tell them how to get home: they must travel to Hades and speak to the dead prophet Teiresias. He says that Odysseus will eventually get home. Circe has also given them one more piece of informationnot to listen to the Sirens, women who lure men to death with singing that makes them forget everything. They finally arrive at the island of the Sun, where the starving men eat one of the oxen while Odysseus is away. The Sun destroys their ship, drowning everyone but Odysseus. He is carried to the island of Calypso, where he is held for many years.
The Phaeacians have pity on Odysseus and they get a ship ready to take him home. He falls asleep on board and wakes up on a beach in Ithaka. Athena comes to him, tells him he is home, and begins to figure out a way for him to get his wife back. She turns him into an old beggar and has him stay with Eumaeushful. Athena goes to Telemachus and tells him to go back home but to stop by Eumaeushful’s shack on the way there. Athena transforms Odysseus back to his normal form. The father and son are reunited and come up with a plan to get rid of the wooers.
Odysseus again disguises himself as a beggar and goes to his palace. The wooers make fun of the beggar and one even hits him. Penelope orders the old nurse of the house, Eurycleia, to help the beggar. The nurse noticed a scar on the beggar’s foot and she recognizes the scar and the beggar as Odysseus. He makes her promise not to tell anyone, not even his wife. The next day, Penelope held a contest to see who can string Odysseus’s gigantic bow and shoot an arrow through twelve rings. That person can marry her. All the wooers try and fail, but then the beggar stands up and asks for a try.
The beggar strings the bow and shot an arrow with perfect aim. Then he killed all the wooers. Odysseus finally showed himself to Penelope, and after twenty years of being apart, they live happily ever after. Odysseus is an exciting and adventurous character. He went through many hardships during the story but still managed to get back to Penelope and Telemachus. Odysseus is very strong, brave and smart. He showed how smart he was when he figured out how to escape from the Cyclops and found his way home. He showed how brave and strong he was when he slayed all the wooers and became King of Ithaka once again.
