Books I to IV
Twenty years after leaving for the Trojan War, Odysseus, king of the island of Ithaca, has still not returned, and all the other surviving heroes are already home. He is held on the island of the nymph Calypso, who wants him as her husband, because the god Poseidon, angered that Odysseus blinded his son, the Cyclops Polyphemus, keeps him wandering far from his homeland. In Ithaca, the nobles of the island and of the neighboring islands court his wife, Penelope, and consume the house. It is this waiting that drives the story, together with the gods' decision that the year of return has come.
The poem begins with the son. On Olympus, Athena persuades Zeus to decide on the return, and goes down to Ithaca in disguise to urge Telemachus, sad among the suitors, to summon the assembly and set out in search of his father. At the assembly the people are moved and decide nothing, and Telemachus leaves at night, hidden from his mother, with the goddess in the form of Mentor. In Pylos, old Nestor knows nothing of Odysseus, but tells of the return of the Achaeans and the death of Agamemnon, killed at home by Aegisthus and avenged by his son Orestes. In Sparta, Menelaus and Helen recognize Telemachus by his face, and Menelaus repeats what the old man of the sea, Proteus, told him in Egypt: Odysseus is alive, held by Calypso. Meanwhile, in Ithaca, the suitors set an ambush of twenty men to kill the boy on his return.
Books V to VIII
The gods send Hermes to Calypso, who yields to Zeus's order. She offers immortality, he refuses because he wants to return home every day, and he builds a raft. Poseidon breaks it apart just as he sights the land of the Phaeacians, and Odysseus swims ashore with the veil of the goddess Ino, naked and with nothing, and sleeps under a bed of leaves, like someone keeping the ember under the ash. Athena arranges everything: she sends the princess Nausicaa to wash clothes in the river, and she, torn between the rule that every stranger comes from Zeus and the fear of gossip, brings the castaway to the city and tells him to ask help of Queen Arete. In the palace of King Alcinous, Odysseus embraces Arete's knees, is welcomed, and the king promises him an escort. At the games he is insulted by Euryalus and answers with a discus that goes past every mark. The blind bard Demodocus sings of the quarrel of Odysseus and Achilles, of the net of Hephaestus and, at the guest's request, of the Trojan horse, and the guest weeps. Alcinous then demands his name.
Books IX to XII
Odysseus gives his name and tells the journey, in the first person, to the Phaeacians. He sacks Ismarus, of the Cicones, and his companions disobey the order to flee; the Lotus-eaters offer the lotus, which erases the desire to return; in the cave of Polyphemus, the Cyclops devours six companions, Odysseus makes him drunk and blinds him, saying his name is Nobody, escapes beneath a ram and, once far away, shouts his true name; Polyphemus prays to his father Poseidon that he arrive late and in misery. Aeolus gives him a bag of winds, which the companions open with their homeland in sight; the Laestrygonians destroy the fleet, except his ship. Circe turns the scouts into pigs, and Odysseus, with the herb Hermes gives him, overcomes her, frees the men and stays a year. At her bidding he goes down to the house of Hades, where Tiresias prophesies a hard return and a gentle death, his mother Anticleia says she died of longing, and Agamemnon advises him to return in secret. He passes the Sirens, tied to the mast, and Scylla, who takes six companions; on the island of the Sun, the companions kill the sacred cattle while he sleeps, and Zeus destroys the ship with a thunderbolt. Only Odysseus reaches the island of Calypso, clinging to the mast.
Books XIII to XVI
The Phaeacians leave Odysseus sleeping in Ithaca, and Poseidon turns their ship to stone. Odysseus wakes without recognizing the land and lies to the first person he meets, a shepherd; Athena, who was the shepherd, laughs at the lie, shows him the harbor and disguises him as an old beggar. She sends him to the swineherd Eumaeus, who welcomes him out of fear of Zeus even without believing what he says about his master. Athena warns Telemachus in Sparta, and he returns by sea at night, avoids the ambush and reaches the hut. There Odysseus reveals himself to his son, after Telemachus has taken him for a god, and the two agree on the death of the suitors. In the city, the suitors, on learning of the boy's return, decide to kill him, and postpone the plan only because of a consultation of the gods.
Books XVII to XX
Telemachus returns to the palace, and Eumaeus leads the beggar. At the door, the dog Argos recognizes his master after twenty years and dies. Odysseus begs from hand to hand, is struck by Antinous's footstool, knocks down the beggar Irus in a fight, warns Amphinomus that the master's return will not happen without blood, and Penelope, at his request, questions him at night. She tells of the trick of the loom, hears a Cretan tale, and the nurse Eurycleia, while washing his feet, recognizes the scar; Odysseus forces her to silence. Penelope announces that in the morning she will propose the contest of the bow. On the eve, Odysseus does not sleep, Athena calms him, Zeus answers his request with a thunderclap, and the suitors, struck by a laughter that takes away their wits, hear from the seer Theoclymenus the vision of blood on the walls.
Books XXI to XXIV
Penelope brings out Odysseus's bow, and Telemachus, and then the suitors, fail to string it. Odysseus reveals himself to the servants Eumaeus and Philoetius, asks for the bow as a beggar, strings it effortlessly and shoots through the twelve axes. He shoots Antinous, refuses Eurymachus's compensation and, with Telemachus, Eumaeus and Philoetius, and with Athena, who raises the aegis from the roof, kills all the suitors; he spares the bard Phemius and the herald Medon, and Telemachus decides that the twelve shameless maids shall die by hanging. Penelope, informed by the nurse, does not believe it, and recognizes her husband only when he describes the bed built around the olive tree. The two tell each other what they suffered, and at dawn Odysseus sets out for the countryside to see his father. In Hades, the souls of the suitors tell Agamemnon and Achilles what happened, and Agamemnon praises Penelope. In the orchard, Odysseus makes Laertes weep with a lie, reveals himself by the scar and by the trees, and the kin of the dead, led by Eupeithes, march armed. Athena, in the guise of Mentor, halts the massacre, Zeus hurls the thunderbolt before her, and the poem ends with Athena, still with the figure and voice of Mentor, establishing the pact between the two sides.