The two great epics which go under the name of Homer bring Western literature into existence with a bang. Its echoes, like those of the cosmic explosion which started the universe, are still reverberating. Whatever existed of verse or prose before Homer has been lost for thousands of years, while the Iliad and Odyssey have in all that time never ceased to be read, to be admired, and to be influential. The plot of the Odyssey is essentially simple: the wandering hero wins his way home and faces the intruders who plan to rob him of wife, son, and kingdom. It contains unforgettable adventure stories: the Sirens, the Lotus-Eaters, the Cyclops, the Land of the Dead. It also contains comedy of manners, irony, pathos. Heroism is subjected to a quizzical scrutiny, when the hero must face ogres and witches, or conciliate a princess who finds him naked on the sea-shore, or fight a boxing match with a professional beggar. The range of characters is extraordinarily wide, and so is the breadth of interest in different social types: goddesses, queens, bards, servants, swineherds. A poem which must have emerged from a tradition of oral verse and an illiterate society, it has a sophisticated structure and an over-riding unity which is unmistakable, despite its great length and its variety of tone and subject-matter.

In this book I have aimed to put the Odyssey into its historical setting, and to bring out its individual character.