The Odyssey by Homer (Concise Version - Complete Audiobook)

The Odyssey by Homer Translated by Samuel Butler Homer's "The Odyssey" forms the template of practically every adventure story that has been told in the West since it was composed nearly three thousand years ago: a bold and ingenious hero (in this case Ulysses, one of the principal warriors who fought at Troy) undertakes a long and perilous journey in the course of which he (or she) must confront many different dangers and temptations, both physical and psychological, before engaging in one final struggle that will prove decisive for the hero, and for all who depend upon the hero. Many episodes in this work have entered into our common lore — Ulysses' encounter with the one-eyed Cyclops, his brush with the deadly, beckoning Sirens and his daring pass between Scylla and Charybdis. Many other less familiar episodes in this justly famous tale are likely to strike a modern listener as rich, strange, or downright appalling, reminding us powerfully that the past is, indeed, "another country". The Odysseys are a collection of stories about Ulysses' journey home from the war at Troy purportedly written in the 8th century BCE by Homer, a blind poet thought to have lived in the Greek colonies in Asia Minor, possibly at Smyrna. The events described are thought to have occurred centuries before being recorded by Homer, handed down orally since the twelfth century BCE, the golden era of the Greek Bronze Age when the world was populated by heroic mortals and often visited by the Gods. This verse translation in couplets by George Chapman was originally published in 1616, the first translation from the ancient Greek directly to English, although likely influenced by previous Latin translations. Chapman's translation has been admired by many, including John Keats and others. Many of these stories are familiar to us, Ulysses and the Sirens, Circe turning his crew to swine, their escape from the Cyclops on the bellies of his sheep, but Chapman's version includes violent episodes and suggestive innuendo that I don't recall from my childhood days. In the Western classical tradition, Homer (Ancient Greek: Ὅμηρος, Hómēros) is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest of ancient Greek epic poets. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature. When he lived is unknown. Herodotus estimates that Homer lived 400 years before his own time, which would place him at around 850 BC, while other ancient sources claim that he lived much nearer to the supposed time of the Trojan War, in the early 12th century BC. Modern researchers appear to place Homer in the 7th or 8th centuries BC. #theodyssey #homer #history #odyssey #classic #epic