Odyssey-A-Day
Daily homemade dramatic mini-readings of Emily Wilson’s Odyssey translation. PennToday wrote a nice article about the project.
Book 1 (May 15, 2020) Characters featured: Narrator; Athena, with mighty spear, and in disguise, with sunglasses; Telemachus, in Phillies hat.
Book 2 (May 16, 2020) Athena, in disguise, instructs Telemachus to board a ship, equipped with rations, to go in search of news about his long-absent father.
Book 3 (May 17, 2020) Telemachus, in Phillies hat, aided by Athena in disguise (sunglasses), goes to visit old king Nestor in Pylos (clad in geometric scarf), to learn what happened to the Greeks on the way back from Troy.
Book 4 (May 18, 2020) Helen, daughter of Zeus by Leda, clever wife of wealthy Menelaus, is back home with her husband and family after her 10 years in Troy with the Trojan prince Paris. She welcomes Telemachus hospitably.
Book 5 (May 19, 2020) This passage from Book 5 is the farewell scene between a miserable Odysseus, wearing hideous travel-friendly sunhat, and the goddess Calypso (whose name suggests "hiding" or "covering"; wearing a bright red wig), with whom he has spent 7 years.
Book 6 (May 20, 2020) After leaving Calypso's island on a home-made raft, Odysseus is shipwrecked and survives only thanks to the help of another goddess, Ino. He washes up on Scheria, home of the Phaeacians.
Book 7 (May 21, 2020) Odysseus has arrived on Scheria, land of the Phaeacians. Athena meets him, in the guise of a young girl with a water pitcher. She guides him to the magical palace of Queen Arete and King Alcinous, where delicious fruit is in season all year round.
Book 8 (May 22, 2020) Odysseus is feasting with the Phaeacians—King Alcinous, Queen Arete and others. Their in-house blind poet-singer, Demodocus, is ordered to entertain them.
Book 9 (May 23, 2020) Odysseus (wearing his usual ugly hat, narrating his own traveler's tale to the Phaeacians) tells how he and his men landed on an island inhabited by cave-dwelling shepherd people, the Cyclopes.
Book 10 (May 24, 2020) Odysseus and the surviving crew members come to another island inhabited by a mysterious goddess, who turns out to have the ability to turn men into animals. But the god Hermes gives Odysseus a magic plant, moly, which enables him to drink her potion without being turned to a pig.
Book 11 (May 25, 2020) Odysseus goes to the end of the world and digs a ditch, fills it with blood, and manages to speak to spirits of the dead. Among others, he meets his dead companions from the Trojan War, including, here, the great warrior who is central in the Iliad: swift-footed Achilles, who died young.
Book 12 (May 26, 2020) Odysseus' men row the ship away from Circe's island and, as the goddess has predicted, they encounter dangers en route: first the Sirens, who know and can sing of everything all over the world (with microphone, for their special voice; usually depicted in Greek art as bird-goddesses, hence the feathers in hair); then the narrow strait between, on one side, the female-identifying-whirlpool-goddess, Charybdis, who drinks down whole ships, and on the other, the 6-canine-headed-goddess Scylla.
Book 13 (May 27, 2020) Odysseus' men row the ship away from Circe's island and, as the goddess has predicted, they encounter dangers en route: first the Sirens, who know and can sing of everything all over the world (with microphone, for their special voice; usually depicted in Greek art as bird-goddesses, hence the feathers in hair); then the narrow strait between, on one side, the female-identifying-whirlpool-goddess, Charybdis, who drinks down whole ships, and on the other, the 6-canine-headed-goddess Scylla.
Book 14 (May 28, 2020) Odysseus, in disguise as an old migrant beggar, is on his home island of Ithaca. He is welcomed by one of the many enslaved people on his own estate: Eumaeus the old swineherd, bought long ago as a child by Odysseus' father Laertes, and raised by Odysseus' mother "almost" like her own children, before being turned out to live with the pigs.
Book 15 (May 29, 2020) Odysseus, disguised by Athena as a ragged old migrant, is staying in the hut of Eumaeus, the enslaved swineherd who lives on the estate and takes care of the pigs. Here Eumaeus tells (in abridged form) the story of how he was trafficked into slavery as a little boy, and bought by Laertes, Odysseus' father.
Book 16 (May 30, 2020) Athena tells Odysseus it's time for him to reveal himself to his son Telemachus. She gives him a fabulous makeover, getting rid of his ragged old migrant look to make him young and handsome.
Book 17 (May 31, 2020) Odysseus, back in his disguise as a ragged old beggar/ homeless traveler (ugly hat), talks to the enslaved pig-keeper, Eumaeus, before entering his house, which is full of the men harassing/ courting his wife.
Book 18 (June 22, 2020) Penelope, wife of Odysseus, has been inspired by Athena to show herself to her suitors, to increase their desire for her. In this passage, Athena make Penelope take a little nap while she gives her a makeover
Book 19 (June 23, 2020) An old enslaved woman, Eurycleia, who breastfed & cared for Odysseus as a baby, has been told by Penelope to wash the feet of the visitor to the house, who is, unbeknownst to almost everyone, the disguised Odysseus.
Book 20 (June 24, 2020) Athena makes Penelope's suitors lose control of their own faces and bodies; they cackle and weep.
Book 21 (June 25, 2020) Penelope has set a contest: whoever can string the great bow of Odysseus, and shoot an arrow through twelve axe heads, lined up in a row in the hall, will get to marry her. The suitors, and Telemachus, all try and fail to do it.
Book 22 (June 26, 2020) Odysseus strips off his rags and begins shooting the suitors. His first victim is Antinous, one of their leaders, shot through the soft neck as he lifts his drinking cup; his nostrils spurt blood, like a double pipe (the aulos, a common musical instrument).
Book 23 (June 27, 2020) Odysseus has slaughtered all the suitors; the enslaved women have cleaned up the corpses and blood, and 12 of them, plus one enslaved man, have been killed by Telemachus.
Book 24 (June 28, 2020) The family members of the suitors -- fathers, brothers, sons -- are full of rage and grief at their deaths, as well as the deaths of all the other young men who went to Troy with Odysseus, none of whom came back home.