The Odyssey

“Tell me, O muse, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide after he had sacked the famous town of Troy.”





Samuel Butler’s translation is an extraordinary rendering of Homer's Odyssey, easily the most accessible and enthralling epic of classical Greece.


The epic tale of Odysseus and his ten-year journey home after the Trojan War forms one of the earliest and greatest works of Western literature.


The Odyssey recounts the story of Odysseus’ return to Ithaca from the Trojan war, and how, championed by Athene, and hounded by the wrathful sea-god Poseidon, he encounters the terrifying one-eyed Cyclops, escapes Scylla and Charybdis, is seduced by Circe and Calypso, and finally reunites with his beloved Penelope.


Confronted by natural and supernatural threats—shipwrecks, battles, monsters and the merciless enmity of the sea-god Poseidon—Odysseus must continually test his bravery and cunning if he is to reach his homeland safely and overcome terrible obstacles that, even there, await him.




HOMER is believed to have lived circa 750 BC in Ionia and is thought to be the author of the earliest works of Western Literature: The Odyssey and The Iliad.