The Odyssey of Homer in English

BOOK XXIV Hermes of Kyllene summoned the souls of the suitors to come forth, and in his hands he was holding the beautiful golden staff, with which he mazes the eyes of those mortals whose eyes he would maze, or wakes again the sleepers. Herding 5 them on with this, he led them along, and they followed, gibbering.

BOOK XXIII The old woman, laughing loudly, went to the upper chamber to tell her mistress that her beloved husband was inside the house. Her knees moved swiftly, but her feet were tottering. She stood above Penelope's head and spoke a word to her: 5 ‘Wake, Penelope, dear child, so that, with your own eyes, you can see what all your days you have been longing for.

BOOK XXII Now resourceful Odysseus stripped his rags from him, and sprang up atop the great threshold, holding his bow and the quiver filled with arrows, and scattered out the swift shafts before him on the ground next his feet, and spoke his word to the suitors: 5 ‘Here is a task that has been achieved, without any deception.

BOOK XXI But now the goddess, gray-eyed Athene, put it in the mind of the daughter of Ikarios, circumspect Penelope, to set the bow before the suitors, and the gray iron, in the house of Odysseus: the contest, the beginning of the slaughter. 5 So she ascended the high staircase of her own house, and in her solid hand took up the beautiful, brazen and artfully curved key, with an ivory handle upon it.

BOOK XX Then the noble Odysseus bedded down in the forecourt, and spread beneath him the raw hide of an ox, and uppermost many fleeces of sheep the Achaians had dedicated.

BOOK XIX Now great Odysseus still remained in the hall, pondering how, with the help of Athene, he would murder the suitors. Presently he spoke in winged words to Telemachos: ‘Telemachos, we must have the weapons stored away inside 5 the high chamber; and when the suitors miss them and ask you about them, answer

BOOK XVIII And now there arrived a public beggar, who used to go begging through the town of Ithaka, known to fame for his ravenous belly and appetite for eating and drinking. There was no real strength in him, nor any force, but his build was big to look at. 5 He had the name Arnaios, for thus the lady his mother called him from birth, but all the young men used to call him Iros, because he would run and give messages when anyone told him.

BOOK XVII But when the young Dawn showed again with her rosy fingers, Telemachos, beloved son of godlike Odysseus, then bound underneath his feet the beautiful sandals, and took up a powerful spear which fitted his hand's grip, 5 on his way to the city, and going he spoke to his swineherd: ‘Father, I am going to the city, so that my mother

BOOK XVI These two in the shelter, Odysseus and the noble swineherd, stirred the fire at dawn, and arranged their breakfast, and sent the herdsmen out with the pasturing pigs. At this time the clamorous dogs came fawning around Telemachos, nor did 5 they bark at him as he came, and great Odysseus noticed that the dogs were fawning; above them he heard the loud noise of footsteps.

BOOK XV At this time, Pallas Athene made her way into wide-spaced Lakedaimon, to remind the shining son of great-hearted Odysseus of his journey home, and speed his homecoming. She found Telemachos there with the glorious son of Nestor, 5 sleeping in the forecourt of worshipful Menelaos.

BOOK XIV But Odysseus himself left the harbor and ascended a rugged path, through wooded country along the heights, where Athene had indicated the noble swineherd, who beyond others cared for the house properties acquired by noble Odysseus.

BOOK XIII So he spoke, and all of them stayed stricken to silence, held in thrall by the story all through the shadowy chambers.

BOOK XII ‘Now when our ship had left the stream of the Ocean river, and come back to the wide crossing of the sea's waves, and to the island of Aiaia, where lies the house of the early Dawn, her dancing spaces, and where Helios, the sun, makes his uprising,

BOOK XI ‘Now when we had gone down again to the sea and our vessel, first of all we dragged the ship down into the bright water, and in the black hull set the mast in place, and set sails, and took the sheep and walked them aboard, and ourselves also 5 embarked, but sorrowful, and weeping big tears.

BOOK X ‘We came next to the Aiolian island, whereAiolos lived,Hippotas' son, beloved by the immortal gods, on a floating island, the whole enclosed by a rampart of bronze, not to be broken, and the sheer of the cliff runs upward 5 to it; and twelve children were born to him in his palace,

BOOK IX Then resourceful Odysseus spoke in turn and answered him: ‘O great Alkinoös, pre-eminent among all people, surely indeed it is a good thing to listen to a singer such as this one before us, who is like the gods in his singing; 5 for I think there is no occasion accomplished that is more pleasant than when festivity holds sway among all the populace,

BOOK VIII Then when the young Dawn showed again with her rosy fingers, Alkinoös, the hallowed prince, rose up from his sleeping, and the descendant of Zeus, Odysseus sacker of cities, rose up, and Alkinoös, the hallowed prince, guided them 5 to the Phaiakians' place of assembly, which was built for them by the ships. They went and took their seats on the polished stones together, but Pallas Athene went through the city,

BOOK VII So long-suffering great Odysseus prayed, in that place, but the strength of the mules carried the young girl on, to the city, and when she had arrived at the glorious house of her father, she stopped in the forecourt, and there her brothers around her 5 came and stood, men like immortal gods.

BOOK VI So long-suffering great Odysseus slept in that place in an exhaustion of sleep and weariness, and now Athene went her way to the district and city of the Phaiakian men, who formerly lived in the spacious land, Hypereia, 5 next to the Cyclopes, who were men too overbearing,

BOOK V Now Dawn rose from her bed, where she lay by haughty Tithonos, carrying light to the immortal gods and to mortals, and the gods came and took their places in session, and among them Zeus who thunders on high, and it is his power that is greatest, 5 and Athene spoke to them of the many cares of Odysseus, remembering.

BOOK IV They came into the cavernous hollow of Lakedaimon and made their way to the house of glorious Menelaos. They found him in his own house giving, for many townsmen, a wedding feast for his son and his stately daughter. The girl 5 he was sending to the son of Achilleus, breaker of battalions, for in Troy land first he had nodded his head to it and promised to give her, and now the gods were bringing to pass their marriage; so he was sending her on her way, with horses and chariots,

BOOK III Helios, leaving behind the lovely standing waters, rose up into the brazen sky to shine upon the immortals and also on mortal men across the grain-giving farmland. They came to Pylos, Neleus' strong-founded citadel, 5 where the people on the shore of the sea were making sacrifice of bulls who were all black to the dark-haired Earthshaker.

BOOK II Now when the young Dawn showed again with her rosy fingers, the dear son of Odysseus stirred from where he was sleeping, and put on his clothes, and slung a sharp sword over his shoulder. Underneath his shining feet he bound the fair sandals 5 and went on his way from the chamber, like a god in presence.

BOOK I Tell me, Muse, of the man of many ways, who was driven far journeys, after he had sacked Troy's sacred citadel. Many were they whose cities he saw, whose minds he learned of, many the pains he suffered in his spirit on the wide sea

The Odyssey as we have it is an epic of over twelve thousand lines. It has been divided, like the Iliad and probably at the same time, into twenty-four books. Book number and line number are the standard terms of reference.