112 pages • 3 hours read
Homer, Transl. Emily WilsonThe Odyssey
Fiction | Novel/Book in Verse | AdultA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Books 5-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Book 5 Summary: “From the Goddess to the Storm”
In Book 5 Odysseus is trapped on Calypso’s island, but the Olympian gods intervene to ensure his escape.
The gods hold a council. Athena complains that Calypso is keeping Odysseus on her island, Ogygia, against his will while Penelope’s suitors are plotting to kill Telemachus. Zeus tells her to ensure Telemachus’s safety and orders Hermes to inform Calypso that she must let Odysseus leave.
Calypso greets Hermes and offers him food and drink, after which he delivers Zeus’s message. Calypso is furious at the double standard but agrees to help Odysseus since no god or goddess can go against Zeus’s commands. After Hermes leaves, she finds Odysseus weeping and longing for Ithaca. She says that she will help him return home, making it clear that the gods have obliged her to do so. Odysseus does not trust her and makes her swear an oath that she is not secretly plotting against him. She complies, complimenting his wisdom in extracting an oath.
They eat, then Calypso questions him about his desire to return to Ithaca. She can offer Odysseus immortality and endless youth and is more beautiful than Penelope, yet he still pines for his wife. Odysseus acknowledges that Calypso is more beautiful, but he wants to go home and is prepared to suffer to get there.
The following day Calypso provides him with materials to build a raft, food and drink for his journey, and sailing advice. On his eighteenth day at sea, just as Odysseus approaches Phaeacia, Poseidon, who is returning from Ethiopia, sees him on his raft and becomes enraged that the gods have allowed him to escape. He sends a massive storm, and Odysseus struggles to stay afloat. Ino, a sea nymph, takes pity on him. She advises him to swim for shore and gifts him her immortal scarf to keep him safe, instructing him to return it to the sea after he reaches shore.
Odysseus is unsure whether to trust her and remains on his raft until Poseidon amplifies the storm, forcing Odysseus to follow Ino’s advice. Athena commandeers the winds to ensure his safe arrival on Phaeacia. He escapes the rocky shore and is guided into a gentle river. Odysseus returns Ino’s scarf to the sea, hides in a wooded area near the river, covers himself with leaves, and falls asleep.
Book 6 Summary: “A Princess and Her Laundry”
In Book 6 Athena contrives for Odysseus and the Phaeacian princess Nausicaa to meet and plan his safe delivery to her parents’ palace.
Athena appears to Nausicaa in a dream disguised as her best friend. She scolds Nausicaa for being so untidy when marriage is in her immediate future and instructs her to wash her clothes. When Nausicaa wakes up, she asks her father, King Alcinous, for a wagon to bring the laundry to the river, though she is too embarrassed to mention that she is thinking about preparing for marriage. He understands and offers her whatever she needs. Her mother, Queen Arete, provides lunch for Nausicaa and her slaves, and they set off for the river.
After they wash and lay out the clothes to dry, the girls play ball. When Nausicaa thinks about returning to the palace, Athena arranges for Odysseus to wake up and appear before the girls. His appearance, covered in salt and brine, terrifies all the girls except Nausicaa. He considers supplicating her by grasping her knees but decides that might frighten her. Instead, he flatters her, explains that he has just escaped Ogygia, and expresses his hope that the gods will favor her with a happy marriage.
Nausicaa commends him for his bravery and cleverness facing his troubles. She instructs the slave girls to wash and feed him, but Odysseus says that he would prefer to wash alone. After his bath, Athena amplifies his attractiveness, causing the girls to wonder at his beauty. Nausicaa interprets it as a sign of divine approval and instructs the slaves to give him food and drink, then forms a plan to bring Odysseus safely to her parents.
Concerned that local townspeople will gossip if they see her in a foreign man’s presence, Nausicaa instructs Odysseus to follow behind her procession. When they arrive at a sanctuary of Athena, he must wait there until Nausicaa returns home, then find his way to the palace and supplicate Queen Arete. If she accepts him, he will get safely to Ithaca. Odysseus follows her advice and, while waiting at Athena’s sanctuary, prays to the goddess for help. She hears his prayer but does not appear to him out of respect for her uncle’s anger.
Book 7 Summary: “A Magical Kingdom”
In Book 7, following Nausicaa’s advice and with Athena’s help, Odysseus successfully presents himself as a suppliant to Queen Arete and King Alcinous.
Odysseus patiently prays until Nausicaa returns home, then sets off for the palace. Athena surrounds him “with mist that kept him safe” (20). Disguised as a little girl, she offers to lead him to the palace, explaining along the way that the Phaeacians are descendants of Poseidon. She describes how they honor their queen, who “is extremely clever and perceptive” and “solves disputes to help the men she likes” (210).
Odysseus enters the palace grounds alone, marveling at the opulence and fruits that grow “all year round” (212). Arriving at the hall, he throws his arms around Arete’s knees, identifies himself as a supplicant, and begs her for help returning home. Alcinous seats Odysseus beside himself and offers water for washing his hands, food, and drink. He declares that they will make libations to Zeus, “who loves the needy” (213). At dawn, they will sacrifice to the gods and make a plan to get the stranger home, unless he happens to be a god in disguise. Odysseus assures Alcinous that he is a mortal who has suffered and longs to return to home.
The other guests depart, and Odysseus remains in the hall with Alcinous and Arete. She recognizes his clothes as those she wove herself and asks him who he is. He reiterates that the gods have given him “so many troubles” (216). They brought him to Ogygia after all his comrades were killed, where Calypso kept him against his will for eight years until Zeus decreed that she must let him go. Poseidon foiled his escape, but Odysseus managed to land on Phaeacia’s shores, where Nausicaa found, fed, and clothed him.
Alcinous says that Nausicaa should have brought Odysseus to the palace herself, but Odysseus says that he was “too embarrassed / and nervous” (218), fearing that they would not want to see him. Alcinous praises Odysseus and offers him Nausicaa as his bride and a place as his own son, though he will not keep Odysseus against his will if he prefers to return home. Odysseus prays that he will “reach my home” (219). Arete instructs the slaves to make a bed for Odysseus, and all go to sleep.
Book 8 Summary: “The Songs of a Poet”
In Book 8 the Phaeacians hold a council, at which Alcinous orders a ship and rowers to take Odysseus back to Ithaca. The Phaeacians call for poetry, games, and a feast, and Odysseus reveals his identity.
Alcinous brings Odysseus to the Phaeacian council, while Athena, disguised as a messenger, walks through the city calling the men to assemble. She beautifies Odysseus to inspire the Phaeacians’ admiration and respect. Alcinous urges the men to help Odysseus return home. He calls for a new ship and 52 rowers, then invites Demodocus the blind bard to perform a song of his choice.
The ship is prepared, and the group proceeds to the palace for a feast. A boy leads Demodocus to the feast, where he sings a poem about a quarrel between Achilles and Odysseus that Apollo predicted to Agamemnon “would be the start of suffering / for Greeks and Trojans, through the plans of Zeus” (222). Odysseus surreptitiously weeps behind his cloak, prompting Alcinous to call for sports contests. Young athletes assemble and compete in running, wrestling, jumping, discus, and boxing.
Alcinous’s son Laodamas invites Odysseus to complete in the games for his share of glory, but Odysseus declines, reiterating his desire to return home. After another athlete named Euryalus taunts him, an offended Odysseus agrees to compete, grabbing a discus and hurling it. Athena in disguise marks the spot, noting it is the furthest attempt. Buoyed by the support, Odysseus offers to compete against anyone but Laodamas, his host’s son, and recounts his many successes at Troy. The crowd is silent, prompting Alcinous to intercede. He brings out Demodocus to perform another song and has a dance floor created for the boys to perform a complicated dance.
Demodocus sings of Aphrodite, who “shamed the bed of Lord Hephaestus,” her husband, by having an affair with Ares (229). Hephaestus hatched a plot to catch the lovers. He crafted an invisible net that he set above Aphrodite’s bed, then told her that he was going to visit Lemnos. Seeing Hephaestus depart, Ares brought Aphrodite to bed, where Hephaestus’s net promptly trapped them. He angrily called the gods to witness Aphrodite’s betrayal and demanded compensation. All the gods laughed except Poseidon, who begged Hephaestus to let Ares and Aphrodite go, promising to compensate Hephaestus if Ares did not.
After Demodocus’s song, the boys perform a dance with a ball, and Odysseus marvels. Alcinous calls for local residents to bring Odysseus gifts and instructs Euryalus to apologize. In addition, he presents Odysseus with a precious sword. Odysseus graciously accepts the apology and gift. At sunset, more gifts are collected and presented. Alcinous orders clean clothes and a bath drawn for Odysseus, after a banquet is held. Arete instructs Odysseus to secure the chest containing his gifts. Nausicaa asks him to remember her as his first helper, and he promises to pray to her as if to a goddess because she saved his life.
At the banquet, Odysseus offers Demodocus a choice part of his meal and asks him to sing about “the Wooden Horse” (237). Demodocus complies, singing of how the Greek pretended to sail away, leaving behind the horse, in which Odysseus and other warriors were hidden. The Trojans brought the horse into the city walls, and the warriors poured out and successfully sacked the city.
Odysseus weeps, and Alcinous calls for the song to end, since “[a]ny man of sense / will treat a guest in need like his own brother” (238). He shares that a prophecy suggests Poseidon resents the Phaeacians for their intuitive ships, which can guide men home independent of “men at helm,” and may one day make them pay for this gift (238). He asks Odysseus to identify himself and to explain why the bard’s song made him cry.
Books 5-8 Analysis
Odysseus enters the narrative in Book 5, “sobbing in grief and pain” on the shores of Ogygia (183), staring out at sea and longing for home. The poet and Odysseus himself repeatedly refer to him as Laertes’s son from Ithaca, indicating that genealogy and place are the two most significant identity factors. His persistent desire to return home and his willingness to suffer to do so demonstrate that he values his mortal identity and accepts its conditions (i.e., suffering). If he were to accept Calypso’s offer to become her immortal husband, he would lose both his genealogy and his home, thus his identity. Through his experiences, the narrative offers the audience a way to reconcile the suffering that comes with being mortal while demonstrating the proper conduct for mortals.
Odysseus’s responses to his experiences and the people he encounters during his wanderings endear him to Athena because they mirror her characteristics. His gentle rejection of Calypso and Alcinous’s offers demonstrate his wisdom and self-restraint, resulting in neither one becoming angry or offended but instead opting to help him. Their responses show why, in the poem’s world, acceptance can result in better outcomes than resistance. In keeping with the Homeric warrior, Odysseus also prides himself on his athletic and physical abilities, as evidenced when he responds to the Phaeacian athlete’s taunts by hurling the discus further than any other competitor.
Women play a significant role in Odysseus’s success throughout the narrative. Athena has acted on his behalf from the beginning and takes a more direct role in Book 5 by petitioning Zeus to assist Odysseus. In Book 6 she contrives for Nausicaa to find him by the river and later disguises herself as a child to lead him to the palace. Calypso provides him with provisions and advice to help his journey, even if she does so grudgingly. Ino gifts him her immortal scarf to protect him in Poseidon’s storm. Nausicaa offers advice for how he should present himself at the palace, and Arete’s approval dictates whether the Phaeacians will help him or not. Even her husband, the king, defers to her in this matter. Though clearly upholding a patriarchal system, in which men and women operate in separate spheres, the poem repeatedly demonstrates the importance of women to ensuring peaceful, prosperous, and successful households and families.
The scenes at the Phaeacian court introduce a second poet, the blind bard Demodocus. “Homer” himself was depicted as blind in statuary and poetry, causing some to interpret Demodocus as a stand-in for the Odyssey’s own poet. Other interpretations have noted that blindness was a stock characteristic of poets and prophets: In exchange for receiving their gifts of poetry and prophecy, the recipients had to sacrifice something in exchange, usually their sight. This notion of gifts requiring reciprocation repeats throughout the narrative, including in Book 8, when Alcinous mentions that Poseidon may make the Phaeacians pay for the gift of self-guiding ships. That prophecy is fulfilled in Book 13.
Demodocus’s song about Achilles and Odysseus’s quarrel reveals a significant feature of the Homeric world. Demodocus mentions that Zeus devised the Trojan War to cause “suffering / for Greeks and Trojans” (222). This statement references elements of both the Iliad and Theogony, a genealogy of the gods composed by Hesiod during the archaic Greek period. According to Hesiod, Zeus intended the Trojan War to end the age of heroes. The gods had fathered the heroes, who then became a source of competition among them. This is evidenced in the Iliad, in which the gods come into direct combat as they support either Greeks or Trojans, but their fighting threatens the Olympian order’s stability. In the new post-heroic age represented in the Odysseus, Zeus, to protect his position as top god, decrees that humans must accept their suffering and mortality, and the gods must not fight proxy wars through their children. This helps explain why, in the Odyssey, none of the gods directly confront Poseidon and why Zeus indulges his brother’s desire to punish the Phaeacians in Book 13 to ensure he does not feel disrespected.
As in the first four books, Books 5 through 8 provide glimpses of everyday life among various classes. Scholars have debated what historical period the epic depicts. It is seemingly set in the Mycenaean Age, but its details place it later; some details correspond with the Iron Age, and others with the archaic period in which the poem is believed to have been composed. Though they may not be specific to a single, real-life historical period, domestic scenes draw attention to the centrality of community life in the Homeric world. Nausicaa does laundry alongside her slaves, as Arete weaves alongside her handmaidens. Characters are not individuals but interconnected members of a larger social body across genders, generations, and classes.
