The poem mainly centers on the Greek hero Odysseus (or Ulysses, as he was known in Roman myths) and his long journey home following the fall of Troy. It was probably composed near the end of the 8th century BC, somewhere in Ionia, the Greek-speaking coastal region of what is now Turkey. Indeed it is the second-the Iliad being the first-extant work of Western literature. The poem is fundamental to the modern Western canon. But the only way for Odysseus to get the kleos of the Odyssey is to get over it, that is, to get over the fact that he cannot be the primary hero of the story about Troy, since Achilles will always be the primary hero of the kleos or poetic ‘glory’ of such a story, which is the story of the Iliad. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work traditionally ascribed to Homer. The Odyssey (Greek: Ὀδύσσεια) is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. Along with the Odyssey, also attributed to Homer, the Iliad is among the oldest extant works of Western literature, and its written version is usually dated to around the eighth century BC. Although the story covers only a few weeks in the final year of the war, the Iliad mentions or alludes to many of the Greek legends about the siege. Composed around the 8th century BC, the Odyssey is one of the oldest works of literature typically read by an American audience for comparison, it’s almost 2,000 years older than Beowulf.

John William Waterhouse was an English Neoclassicist painter who was influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites.Set in the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of Ilium by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles. This painting shows the sirens as beautiful women-birds who fly to their prey instead of luring them from afar:

Odysseus has no Orpheus to drown out the lovely voices, so he orders his men to stuff their ears with wax and tie him to a mast so he can't escape, but can still hear them singing. In the adventure of the Argonauts, Jason and his men faced the danger of the Sirens with the help of the singing of Orpheus. In Odyssey Book XII Circe warns Odysseus about the dangers he will face at sea. In Greek mythology, the sirens who allured were sea nymphs beguiling enough to begin with, but with even more enticing voices. Even if you know better, the siren call is hard to resist. Courtesy of Wikipedia.Ī siren call means something that is alluring.

The iliad and odyssey story