The Adventures of Ulysses

Princess Nausicaa of Phaeacia is to be married to one of the nearby kings, but the lovely 16-year-old is picky and keeps refusing her suitors. A wedding will prevent war; her father, King Alcinous, is losing patience. Her mother, Queen Arete, argues that Nausicaa must choose wisely, and that this takes time, but she knows the pressure grows greater each day.

Nausicaa dreams that the goddess Athene instructs her to wash her clothes in the river to prepare for a wedding. The dream ends with a vision of a “snake-haired girl” depicted on Athene’s armor (130). Her mother suggests Nausicaa do as Athene asks; only in this way will she understand the dream’s meaning.

Nausicaa loads her servants and the castle laundry into a wagon and drives it down to the river. They clean the clothes, set them out to dry, and bathe themselves in the water. They frolic, tossing a ball back and forth. Ulysses awakens to their sounds just as the ball lands in front of him. A servant girl retrieves it and sees Ulysses, naked, bruised, and muddy. She screams.

Ulysses grabs a leafy branch and steps forward. He sees Nausicaa and thinks she is Artemis, the goddess of the hunt. He remembers that Artemis turned Actaeon, the last man who interrupted her during her bath, was turned into a stag and hunted and killed by her dogs. He falls to his knees, apologizes for appearing this way, and begs her not to kill him.

Nausicaa explains that she’s not a goddess but a princess. He tells her of his adventures and Poseidon’s vendetta. She suggests he bathe; he does so and her servants clothe him. He praises Nausicaa’s beauty; she asks if he’s married, and he says he is, but that after years at sea he doesn’t know if his wife still awaits him, especially as she’s courted by many men. Nausicaa says she, too, has many suitors but has rejected them.

She invites Ulysses to the castle so he can tell more of his stories. The king, meanwhile, hears from a seer who warns: “I see a mountain blocking your harbor, destroying your commerce.” (136). He adds that Poseidon is angry, but the seer doesn’t know why. Finally, he warns the king not to trust strangers who arrive telling stories of shipwrecks.

Nausicaa installs Ulysses in the guest house. She tells her mother about the strange man she found who has seen sleeping flower-eaters and escaped cannibals. Queen Arete interviews Ulysses and informs the king, who gets angry and wants to kill Ulysses as a sacrifice to Poseidon. She reminds him that the visitor is under his protection, and harming him will bring down the wrath of the other gods.

They decide to honor Ulysses with a feast, but the king scowls, and his courtiers decide to kill the journeyer. They’ll convince him to partake in athletic games like wrestling and archery, and perhaps an arrow will strike him by accident or his neck will be broken.

They begin the games. Ulysses stops to watch, and they invite him to join in. When he declines, they gently taunt him, suggesting he’s too old to play. Angry, he grabs a discus and hurls it a great distance. He then tears a wheel off a wagon and throws it even farther, and it smashes a hole in a distant wall, amazing the onlookers. He says it’s a “poor throw,” but that of course he’s “rather old for such sport” (140). They ask his name but he refuses to tell them, saying he’s being hunted by a god and doesn't want to alert him.

The courtiers inform the king, who decides that Ulysses is the danger prophesied by the seer. They’ll hold the banquet, and the next day, after he’s left the hospitality of the castle, they’ll see to it that his life is cut short.

Nausicaa schemes to learn his name, so she gets the court musician drunk and steals his lyre. At the banquet, she sings of the heroes of the Trojan War, including Ulysses, and notices that the visitor becomes dreamy at the words. Finally, he bursts into sobs and admits that he is Ulysses. The court roars its approval.

The king offers to help Ulysses in any way he can. Ulysses expresses his admiration for Nausicaa and would ask for her hand except that already he is married and must return home to his family. He requests a ship to take him to Ithaca. Arete whispers to the king that he should grant the request because their daughter clearly is smitten with Ulysses. The king agrees.

They outfit Ulysses with a fine ship, a crew, and rich gifts. The ship sails to Ithaca, Ulysses steps ashore, and the ship returns. As it enters port at Phaeacia, Poseidon steals Athene’s Gorgon-faced shield and flashes it at the crew, who turn to stone. This fulfills the seer’s prophecy that the harbor would be blocked by rocks.

Nausicaa never marries; instead, she becomes a traveling bard, singing of the battles at Troy and the tales of brave Ulysses.

After 20 years, Ulysses stands on a lonely beach of his home island, surrounded by chests and bales filled with treasure from King Alcinous. Ithaca, though, is as dangerous as the other islands he’s visited because his enemies have taken it over and will kill him on sight. He must win it back.

First, he finds a cave and hides the treasure; then he tears his clothes, puts mud on his face and arms, and walks to his estate. He visits first the swineherd Eumaeus’s hut. Now an old man, Eumaeus comes out to ask what this ragged man wants. Ulysses begs scraps, saying he’s from Crete and was once a ship’s captain, and he heard good things about Ithaca from its most famous citizen. Eumaeus scoffs at this, saying that all beggars make such claims.

The swineherd feeds him anyway and lets him sleep in the hut. Ulysses says he’ll visit the castle tomorrow and beg because he’s sure they’ll be happy to hear from someone who has encountered their lost king. Eumaeus warns him that the castle has been taken over by enemies of Ulysses. His son, Telemachus, escaped an assassination plot and hasn’t been seen since.

Meanwhile, Telemachus approaches at sea, returning from a failed mission to find his father. A ship filled with castle conspirators and soldiers lies in wait in the harbor for Telemachus’s return, ready to kill him. Athene tricks Poseidon into thinking the ship belongs to Ulysses, so Poseidon covers it with a fog and they miss Telemachus’s ship as it sails past.

On shore, Athene disguises herself as a young swineherd, meets Telemachus, and informs him that news awaits him at Eumaeus’s hut. Telemachus hurries to the hut, where Ulysses reveals he is the young man’s father. They embrace, and Ulysses tells his son that they will attack the usurpers the next evening. The odds are long against them, but they have a few servants who are loyal, and Ulysses has a plan.

The next evening, Ulysses, Telemachus, and Eumaeus appear at the banquet hall, where Ulysses’s favorite dog, now ancient, rises to greet him and dies in his arms. The courtier Antinous rudely orders Ulysses to bury the dead animal. When Ulysses politely hopes that he might also have the honor one day of burying Antinous, the man breaks a footstool over Ulysses’s shoulders.

Ulysses carries the dog out. Telemachus informs the room that Ulysses has been confirmed dead and that his mother, Penelope, must choose a suitor. The men feast happily. Ulysses shuffles around the room, begging food. Another beggar, big and still strong, enters the hall and tries to fight Ulysses, who knocks him out with one punch and quickly removes him from the hall.

Telemachus brings Ulysses to Penelope’s chambers. Still acting the part of a beggar, Ulysses tells her that he served with her husband and hid with him in the Trojan Horse. When it was brought inside the city gates, Helen appeared, tapped on the horse, and, suspicious, imitated the voices of the heroes’ wives. Ulysses found that “your voice, even mimicked, struck him to the heart” (162), and it was all he could do to restrain himself and his cohorts. Penelope says this is the best of all the stories she’s heard about her husband. She gives the “beggar” a bracelet as a token of thanks.

Ulysses tells her that, at sea, he saw a fresh-water fountain billowing out of the ocean, and his fellows drew a water supply from it. He learned that Circe, who had lived with Ulysses, cried so much when he left to return to Penelope that her tears made the fountain. Penelope likes this story too, though not as much. She gives him a necklace.

He also says Ulysses once told him the war probably would make his wife a widow, and that she would have to choose a new husband: “Let her take a man who can bend my bow. For that man alone will be strong enough to serve her as husband, and Ithaca as king” (163). Thus, an archery contest for her hand will be held using Ulysses’s bow.

Ulysses departs and walks back down the hallway, where an ancient woman, his childhood nurse Eurycleia, recognizes him and calls to him. He silences her, whispering that no one, not even the queen, can know yet that he’s here. She nods, smiling.

To cheers, Penelope announces an archery contest for her hand to be held immediately in the courtyard under torchlight. Ulysses slips into the weapons room, dons a breastplate, covers it with his rags, and steps out into the courtyard.

12 axes stand in a row beneath the torches, their carrying rings aligned so that the archers may try to fire an arrow through all the rings at once. Penelope hands Telemachus his father’s great bow and departs.

The first contestant can’t string the bow: It’s too large and won’t bend for him. None of the others who try can budge it. Antinous insists the bow is old and must be rubbed with tallow and warmed near a fire. Telemachus orders it done. Antinous tries again and fails. He claims it can’t be done at all; the group’s leader, Eurymachus, agrees, saying the whole event is just another of Penelope’s tricks, and that she must be “taken by force” (167-68).

In a tremendous battlefield voice, Ulysses shouts, “Stop!” and steps forward as the beggar. He offers to try; Antinous leaps at him, but Telemachus pushes him back, warning that Penelope is watching from her window and won’t marry a coward. They back away, but Eurymachus promises to chop off the beggar’s arms when he fails.

Lovingly, Ulysses picks up the bow, strings it in one motion and strums the cord. It thrums loudly. He knocks an arrow, takes careful aim, and fires it straight through all 12 axe rings. Standing his full height, his breastplate gleaming through the rags, Ulysses declares, “I come to claim my own” (169). He prays briefly to Apollo, god of archery, and knocks another arrow. It flies and strikes Antinous in the throat and he falls.

Eurymachus apologizes, adding that they did not know of his return: “If we have done you evil, we will repay you, but hold your hand” (170). Ulysses answers that they can flee or die. Eurymachus draws his sword and calls on the others to fight. He runs toward Ulysses, who shoots him in the chest and kills him. The other suitors advance on Ulysses. Telemachus and Eumaeus protect him with shields; with each arrow he kills one of them, but they keep coming. The three retreat into the banquet hall, where they build a barrier of furniture against the door. A servant joins them.

The suitors hack at the door with axes, and soon they break through. Ulysses shoots so many of them so quickly that they pile up in the opening, slowing the rest. Soon, though, he is out of arrows. The invaders hurl spears and one grazes Telemachus, drawing blood. In a rage, Ulysses leaps to the fireplace, picks up the great hearth stone, and hurls it at the attackers, crushing several.

Four assailants remain, and the four defenders leap on them, killing them. Bloody and exultant, Ulysses and Telemachus let out whoops and embrace. Ulysses thanks Eumaeus and bids him inform the queen “that the contest has been decided, and the winner claims her hand” (172).