Head of Odysseus from a Greek 2nd century BC marble group representing Odysseus blinding Polyphemus, found at the villa of Tiberius at Sperlonga

Odysseus ( /oʊˈdɪsiəs/ or /oʊˈdɪsjuːs/; Greek: Ὀδυσσεύς, Odusseus) or Ulysses (/juːˈlɪsiːz/; Latin: Ulyssēs, Ulixēs) was the Greek king of Ithaca and the hero of Homer's epic poem the Odyssey. Odysseus also plays a key role in Homer's Iliad and other works in the Epic Cycle.

Husband of Penelope, father of Telemachus, and son of Laërtes and Anticlea, Odysseus is renowned for his guile and resourcefulness, and is hence known by the epithet Odysseus the Cunning (mētis, or "cunning intelligence"). He is most famous for the ten eventful years he took to return home after the ten-year Trojan War and his famous Trojan Horse trick.

Name, etymology and epithets[link]

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The name has several variants: Olysseus (Ὀλυσσεύς), Oulixeus (Οὐλιξεύς), Oulixes (Οὐλίξης)^[1] and he was known as Ulyssēs in Latin or Ulixēs in Roman mythology.

The etymology of the name is contested, according to one view, the name Odysseus derives from the verb odussomai (ὀδύσσομαι), meaning "to be wroth against', 'hate", suggesting that the name could be rendered as "the one who is wrathful/hated".^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} Alternatively, it has been also suggested that this is of non-Greek origin and probably of non-Indo-European origin too, while it is of an unknown etymology.^[8]

In the Iliad and Odyssey there are several epithets to describe Odysseus. In Odyssey 19, in which Odysseus's early childhood is recounted, Euryclea asks Autolycus, to name him. Euryclea tries to guide him to naming the boy Polyaretos, "for he has much been prayed for" (19.403f).^[9] In Greek, however, Polyaretos can also take the opposite meaning: much accursed. Autolycus seems to infer this connotation of the name and accordingly names his grandson Odysseus. Odysseus often receives the patronymic epithet Laertiades (Greek: Λαερτιάδης), son of Laërtes.

His name and stories were adopted into Etruscan religion under the name 𐌄𐌂𐌖𐌈𐌖‎ Uthuze.^[10]

Genealogy[link]

Relatively little is known of Odysseus's background other than that his paternal grandfather (or step-grandfather) is Arcesius, son of Cephalus and grandson of Aeolus, whilst his maternal grandfather is the thief Autolycus, son of Hermes and Chione. According to The Odyssey, his father is Laertes^[11] and his mother Anticlea, although there was a non-Homeric tradition^[12] that Sisyphus was his true father, but that serves as an insult to his character. The rumor went that Laertes bought Odysseus from the conniving king ^[13]. However, his true lineage is always brought out in plays by the end. ^[14] Odysseus is said to have a younger sister, Ctimene, who went to Same to be married and is mentioned by the swineherd Eumaeus, whom she grew up alongside, in Book XV of the Odyssey.^[15] Ithaca, an island along the Ionian northwestern coastline of Greece, is one of several islands that has been proposed as the site of ancient Ithaca referred to in the Homeric epics.

"Cruel Odysseus"[link]

Homer's Iliad and Odyssey portrayed Odysseus as a culture hero, but the Romans, who believed themselves the scions of Prince Aeneas of Troy, considered him a villainous falsifier. In Virgil's Aeneid, he is constantly referred to as "cruel Odysseus" (Latin "dirus Ulixes") or "deceitful Odysseus" ("pellacis", "fandi fictor"). Turnus, in Aeneid ix, reproaches the Trojan Ascanius with images of rugged, forthright Latin virtues, declaring (in John Dryden's translation), "You shall not find the sons of Atreus here, nor need the frauds of sly Ulysses fear." While the Greeks admired his cunning and deceit, these qualities did not recommend themselves to the Romans who possessed a rigid sense of honour. In Euripides's tragedy Iphigenia at Aulis, having convinced Agamemnon to consent to the sacrifice of his daughter, Iphigenia, to appease the goddess Artemis, Odysseus facilitates the immolation by telling her mother, Clytemnestra, that the girl is to be wed to Achilles. His attempts to avoid his sacred oath to defend Menelaus and Helen offended Roman notions of duty; the many stratagems and tricks that he employed to get his way offended Roman notions of honour.

Before the Trojan War[link]

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The majority of sources for Odysseus' antebellum exploits—principally the mythographers Pseudo-Apollodorus and Hyginus—postdate Homer by many centuries. Two stories in particular are well known:

When Helen was abducted, Menelaus called upon the other suitors to honour their oaths and help him to retrieve her, an attempt that would lead to the Trojan War. Odysseus tried to avoid it by feigning lunacy, as an oracle had prophesied a long-delayed return home for him if he went. He hooked a donkey and an ox to his plough (as they have different stride lengths, hindering the efficiency of the plough) and (some modern sources add) started sowing his fields with salt. Palamedes, at the behest of Menelaus's brother Agamemnon, sought to disprove Odysseus's madness, and placed Telemachus, Odysseus's infant son, in front of the plough. Odysseus veered the plough away from his son, thus exposing his stratagem.^[16] Odysseus held a grudge against Palamedes during the war for dragging him away from his home.

Odysseus and other envoys of Agamemnon then traveled to Scyros to recruit Achilles because of a prophecy that Troy could not be taken without him. By most accounts, Thetis, Achilles's mother, disguised the youth as a woman to hide him from the recruiters because an oracle had predicted that Achilles would either live a long, uneventful life or achieve everlasting glory while dying young. Odysseus cleverly discovered which among the women before him was Achilles, when the youth was the only one of them showing interest to examine the weapons hidden among an array of adornment gifts for the daughters of their host. Odysseus arranged then further for the sounding of a battle horn, which prompted Achilles to clutch a weapon and show his trained disposition; with his disguise foiled, he was exposed and joined Agamemnon's call to arms among the Hellenes.^[17]

During the Trojan War[link]

[edit] The Iliad

Odysseus was one of the most influential Greek champions during the Trojan War. Along with Nestor and Idomeneus he was one of the most trusted counsellors and advisers. He always championed the Achaean cause, especially when the king was in question, as in one instance when Thersites spoke against him. When Agamemnon, to test the morale of the Achaeans, announced his intentions to depart Troy, Odysseus restored order to the Greek camp.^[18] Later on, after many of the heroes had left the battlefield due to injuries (including Odysseus and Agamemnon), Odysseus once again persuaded Agamemnon not to withdraw. Along with two other envoys, he was chosen in the failed embassy to try to persuade Achilles to return to combat.^[19]

When Hector proposed a single combat duel, Odysseus was one of the Danaans who reluctantly volunteered to battle him. Telamonian Ajax, however, was the volunteer who eventually did fight Hector. Odysseus aided Diomedes during the successful night operations in order to kill Rhesus, because it had been foretold that if his horses drank from the Scamander river Troy could not be taken.^[20]

After Patroclus had been slain, it was Odysseus who counselled Achilles to let the Achaean men eat and rest rather than follow his rage-driven desire to go back on the offensive—and kill Trojans—immediately. Eventually (and reluctantly), he consented.

During the funeral games for Patroclus, Odysseus became involved in a wrestling match with Telamonian Ajax, as well as a foot race. With the help of the goddess Athena, who favoured him, and despite Apollo's helping another of the competitors, he won the race and managed to draw the wrestling match, to the surprise of all.^[21]

Odysseus has traditionally been viewed in the Iliad as Achilles's antithesis: while Achilles's anger is all-consuming and of a self-destructive nature, Odysseus is frequently viewed as a man of the mean, renowned for his self-restraint and diplomatic skills. He is more conventionally viewed as the antithesis of Telamonian Ajax (Shakespeare's "beef-witted" Ajax) because the latter has only brawn to recommend him, while Odysseus is not only ingenious (as evidenced by his idea for the Trojan Horse), but an eloquent speaker, a skill perhaps best demonstrated in the embassy to Achilles in book 9 of the Iliad. And the two are not only foils in the abstract but often opposed in practice; they have many duels and run-ins (for examples see the next section).

Other stories from the Trojan War[link]

When the Achaean ships reached the beach of Troy, no one would jump ashore, since there was an oracle that the first Achaean to jump on Trojan soil would die. Odysseus tossed his shield on the shore and jumped on his shield.^{[citation needed]} He was followed by Protesilaus, who jumped on Trojan soil and later became the first to die.

Odysseus never forgave Palamedes for unmasking his feigned madness, leading him to frame him as a traitor. At one point, Odysseus convinced a Trojan captive to write a letter pretending to be from Palamedes. A sum of gold was mentioned to have been sent as a reward for Palamedes's treachery. Odysseus then killed the prisoner and hid the gold in Palamedes's tent. He ensured that the letter was found and acquired by Agamemnon, and also gave hints directing the Argives to the gold. This was evidence enough for the Greeks and they had Palamedes stoned to death. Other sources say that Odysseus and Diomedes goaded Palamedes into descending a wall with the prospect of treasure being at the bottom. When Palamedes reached the bottom, the two proceeded to bury him with stones, killing him.^[22]

When Achilles was slain in battle, it was Odysseus and Telamonian Ajax who successfully retrieved the fallen warrior's body and armour in the thick of heavy fighting. During the funeral games for Achilles, Odysseus competed once again with Telamonian Ajax. Thetis said that the arms of Achilles would go to the bravest of the Greeks, but only these two warriors dared lay claim to that title. The two Argives became embroiled in a heavy dispute about one another's merits to receive the reward. The Greeks dithered out of fear in deciding a winner, because they did not want to insult one and have him abandon the war effort. Nestor suggested that they allow the captive Trojans decide the winner.^[23] Some accounts disagree, suggesting that the Greeks themselves held a secret vote.^[24] In any case, Odysseus was the winner. Enraged and humiliated, Ajax was driven mad by Athena. When he returned to his senses, in shame at how he had slaughtered livestock in his madness, Ajax killed himself by the sword that Hector had given him.^[25]

Together with Diomedes, Odysseus went to fetch Achilles' son, Pyrrhus, to come to the aid of the Achaeans, because an oracle had stated that Troy could not be taken without him. A great warrior, Pyrrhus was also called Neoptolemus (Greek: "new warrior"). Upon the success of the mission, Odysseus gave Achilles' armor to him.

It was later learned that the war could not be won without the poisonous arrows of Heracles, which were owned by the abandoned Philoctetes. Odysseus and Diomedes (or, according to some accounts, Odysseus and Neoptolemus) went out to retrieve them. Upon their arrival, Philoctetes (still suffering from the wound) was seen still to be enraged at the Danaans, especially Odysseus, for abandoning him. Although his first instinct was to shoot Odysseus, his anger was eventually diffused by Odysseus's persuasive powers and the influence of the gods. Odysseus returned to the Argive camp with Philoctetes and his arrows.^[26]

Odysseus and Diomedes would later steal the Palladium that lay within Troy's walls, for the Greeks were told they could not sack the city without it. Some sources indicate that Odysseus schemed to kill his partner on the way back, but Diomedes thwarted this attempt.

Perhaps Odysseus' most famous contribution to the Greek war effort was devising the strategem of the Trojan Horse, which allowed the Greek army to sneak into Troy under cover of darkness. It was built by Epeius and filled with Greek warriors, led by Odysseus.^[27] After Troy was sacked, Odysseus threw Hector's son Astyanax from the city walls to his death, lest the child reach manhood and avenge his father.

Journey home to Ithaca[link]

This is a painting of Odysseus's boat passing between the six-headed monster Scylia and the whirlpool Charybdis. Scylla has plucked six of Odysseus's men from the boat. The painting is an Italian fresco dating to 1560 C.E.

Odysseus is probably best known as the eponymous hero of the Odyssey. This epic describes his travails as he tries to return home after the Trojan War and reassert his place as rightful king of Ithaca.

On the way home from Troy, after a raid on Ismaros in the land of the Cicones, he and his twelve ships were driven off course by storms. They visited the lethargic Lotus-Eaters and were captured by the Cyclops Polyphemus, only escaping by blinding him with a wooden stake. While they were escaping, however, Odysseus foolishly told Polyphemus his identity, and Polyphemus told his father, Poseidon, who had blinded him. They stayed with Aeolus, the master of the winds; he gave Odysseus a leather bag containing all the winds, except the west wind, a gift that should have ensured a safe return home. However, the sailors foolishly opened the bag while Odysseus slept, thinking that it contained gold. All of the winds flew out and the resulting storm drove the ships back the way they had come, just as Ithaca came into sight.

After pleading in vain with Aeolus to help them again, they re-embarked and encountered the cannibalistic Laestrygones. Odysseus' ship was the only one to escape. He sailed on and visited the witch-goddess Circe. She turned half of his men into swine after feeding them cheese and wine. Hermes warned Odysseus about Circe and gave Odysseus a drug called moly, a resistance to Circe’s magic. Circe, being attracted to Odysseus' resistance, fell in love with him and released his men. Odysseus and his crew remained with her on the island for one year, while they feasted and drank. Finally, Odysseus' men convinced Odysseus that it was time to leave for Ithaca.

Guided by Circe's instructions, Odysseus and his crew crossed the ocean and reached a harbor at the western edge of the world, where Odysseus sacrificed to the dead and summoned the spirit of the old prophet Tiresias to advise him. Next Odysseus met the spirit of his own mother, who had died of grief during his long absence; from her, he learned for the first time news of his own household, threatened by the greed of Penelope's suitors. Returning to Circe's island, they were advised by her on the remaining stages of the journey. They skirted the land of the Sirens, passed between the six-headed monster Scylla and the whirlpool Charybdis, where they rowed directly between the two. However, Scylla dragged the boat towards her by grabbing the oars and ate six men. They landed on the island of Thrinacia. There, Odysseus' men ignored the warnings of Tiresias and Circe and hunted down the sacred cattle of the sun god Helios. This sacrilege was punished by a shipwreck in which all but Odysseus drowned. He was washed ashore on the island of Calypso, where she compelled him to remain as her lover for seven years before he escaped.

Odysseus finally escapes and is shipwrecked and befriended by the Phaeacians. After telling them his story, the Phaeacians led by King Alcinous agree to help Odysseus get home. They deliver him at night, while he is fast asleep, to a hidden harbor on Ithaca. He finds his way to the hut of one of his own former slaves, the swineherd Eumaeus, and also meets up with Telemachus returning from Sparta. Athena disguises Odysseus as a wandering beggar in order to learn how things stand in his household.

Odysseus then returns to his own house, still pretending to be a beggar. He experiences the suitors' rowdy behavior and plans their death. He meets Penelope and tests her intentions. Odysseus' identity is discovered by the housekeeper, Eurycleia, as she is washing his feet and discovers an old scar Odysseus received during a boar hunt. Odysseus swears her to secrecy, threatening to kill her if she tells anyone.

The next day, at Athena’s prompting, Penelope maneuvers the suitors into competing for her hand with an archery competition using Odysseus' bow. The man who can string the bow and shoot it through a dozen axe heads would win. Odysseus takes part in the competition himself; he alone is strong enough to string the bow and shoot it through the dozen axe heads, making him the winner. He turns his arrows on the suitors and with the help of Athena, Telemachus, Eumaeus and Philoteus the cowherd, all the suitors are killed. Odysseus tells the serving women who slept with the suitors to clean up the mess of corpses and then has those women hanged in terror. He tells Telemachus that he will replenish his stocks by raiding nearby islands.

Now at last, Odysseus identifies himself to Penelope. She still does not recognize him, until she brings up a subject that only Odysseus would know about.

The next day Odysseus and Telemachus visit the country farm of his old father Laertes. The citizens of Ithaca follow Odysseus on the road, planning to avenge the killing of the Suitors, their sons. The goddess Athena intervenes and persuades both sides to make peace.

Other stories[link]

Odysseus is one of the most recurrent characters in Western culture.

Classical[link]

According to some late sources, most of them purely genealogical, Odysseus had many other children besides Telemachus, the most famous being:

• with Penelope: Poliporthes (born after Odysseus's return from Troy)
• with Circe: Telegonus, Ardeas, Latinus
• with Calypso: Nausithous, Nausinous
• with Callidice: Polypoetes
• with Euippe: Euryalus
• with daughter of Thoas: Leontophonus

Most such genealogies aimed to link Odysseus with the foundation of many Italic cities in remote antiquity.

He figures in the end of the story of King Telephus of Mysia.

The supposed last poem in the Epic Cycle is called the Telegony, and is thought to tell the story of Odysseus's last voyage, and of his death at the hands of Telegonus, his son with Circe. The poem, like the others of the cycle, is "lost" in that no authentic version has been discovered.

In 5th century BC Athens, tales of the Trojan War were popular subjects for tragedies. Odysseus figures centrally or indirectly in a number of the extant plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, (Ajax, Philoctetes) and Euripides, (Hecuba, Rhesus, Cyclops) and figured in still more that have not survived. In the Ajax, Sophocles portrays Odysseus as a modernistic voice of reasoning compared to the title character's rigid antiquity.

As Ulysses, he is mentioned regularly in Virgil's Aeneid, and the poem's hero, Aeneas, rescues one of Ulysses's crew members who was left behind on the island of the Cyclops. He in turn offers a first-person account of some of the same events Homer relates, in which Ulysses appears directly. Virgil's Ulysses typifies his view of the Greeks: he is cunning but impious, and ultimately malicious and hedonistic.

Ovid retells parts of Ulysses's journeys, focusing on his romantic involvements with Circe and Calypso, and recasts him as, in Harold Bloom's phrase, "one of the great wandering womanizers." Ovid also gives a detailed account of the contest between Ulysses and Ajax for the armor of Achilles.

Greek legend tells of Ulysses as the founder of Lisbon, Portugal, calling it Ulisipo or Ulisseya, during his twenty-year errand on the Mediterranean and Atlantic seas. Olisipo was Lisbon's name in the Roman Empire. Basing in this folk etymology, the belief that Ulysses is recounted by Strabo based on Asclepiades of Myrleia's words, by Pomponius Mela, by Gaius Julius Solinus (3rd century A.D.), and finally by Camões in his epic poem Lusiads.^[28]

Middle Ages and Renaissance[link]

Dante, in Canto 26 of the Inferno of his Divine Comedy, encounters Odysseus ("Ulisse" in the original Italian) near the very bottom of Hell: with Diomedes, he walks wrapped in flame in the eighth ring (Counselors of Fraud) of the Eighth Circle (Sins of Malice), as punishment for his schemes and conspiracies that won the Trojan War. In a famous passage, Dante has Odysseus relate a different version of his final voyage and death from the one foreshadowed by Homer. He tells how he set out with his men for one final journey of exploration to sail beyond the Pillars of Hercules and into the Western sea to find what adventures awaited them. Men, says Ulisse, are not made to live like brutes, but to follow virtue and knowledge.^[29]

After travelling west and south for five months, they saw in the distance a great mountain rising from the sea (this is Purgatory, in Dante's cosmology) before a storm sank them. Dante did not have access to the original Greek texts of the Homeric epics, so his knowledge of their subject-matter was based only on information from later sources, chiefly Virgil's Aeneid but also Ovid; hence the discrepancy between Dante and Homer.

He appears in Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida, set during the Trojan War.

Modern[link]

The bay of Palaiokastritsa in Corfu as seen from Bella vista of Lakones. Corfu is considered to be the mythical island of the Phaeacians. The bay of Palaiokastritsa is considered to be the place where Odysseus disembarked and met Nausicaa for the first time. The rock in the sea visible near the horizon at the top centre-left of the picture is considered by the locals to be the mythical petrified ship of Odysseus. The side of the rock toward the mainland is curved in such a way as to resemble the extended sail of a trireme

Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem "Ulysses" presents an aging king who has seen too much of the world to be happy sitting on a throne idling his days away. Leaving the task of civilizing his people to his son, he gathers together a band of old comrades "to sail beyond the sunset".

James Joyce's novel Ulysses uses modern literary devices to narrate a single day in the life of a Dublin businessman named Leopold Bloom. Bloom’s day turns out to bear many elaborate parallels to Odysseus’ twenty years of wandering.

In Virginia Woolf's response novel, Mrs. Dalloway, the comparative character is Clarisse Dalloway, who also appeared in Voyage Out and several short stories.

Cream's song "Tales of Brave Ulysses" speaks somewhat of the travels of Odysseus including his encounter with the Sirens. An unnamed Odysseus figure is the narrator of the Steely Dan song, "Home at Last."

Frederick Rolfe's The Weird of the Wanderer has the hero Nicholas Crabbe (based on the author) travelling back in time, discovering that he is the reincarnation of Odysseus, marrying Helen, being deified and ending up as one of the three Magi.

In Dan Simmons' novels Ilium and Olympos, Odysseus is encountered both at Troy and on a futuristic Earth.

Nikos Kazantzakis' The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel, a 33,333 line epic poem, begins with Odysseus cleansing his body of the blood of Penelope's suitors. Odysseus soon leaves Ithaca in search of new adventures. Before his death he abducts Helen; incites revolutions in Crete and Egypt; communes with God; and meets representatives of various famous historical and literary figures, such as Vladimir Lenin, Don Quixote and Jesus.

Ulysses 31 is a Japanese-French anime series, published in 1981, which updates the Greek and Roman mythologies of Ulysses (or Odysseus) to the 31st century. In the series, the gods are angered when Ulysses, commander of the giant spaceship Odyssey, kills the giant Cyclops to rescue a group of enslaved children including Telemachus. Zeus sentences Ulysses to travel the universe with his crew frozen until he finds the Kingdom of Hades, at which point his crew will be revived and he will be able to return to Earth. In one episode, he travels back in time and meets the Odysseus of the Greek myth.

Early 20th century British composer Cecil Armstrong Gibbs's second symphony (for chorus and orchestra) is named after and based on the story of Odysseus, with text by Essex poet Mordaunt Currie.

Suzanne Vega's song "Calypso" shows Odysseus from Calypso's point of view, and tells the tale of him coming to the island and his leaving.

Joel and Ethan Coen's film O Brother Where Art Thou? (2000) is loosely based on the Odyssey. However, the Coens have stated that they hadn’t ever read the epic. George Clooney plays Ulysses Everett McGill, leading a group of escapees from a chain gang through an adventure in search of the proceeds of an armoured truck heist. On their voyage, the gang encounter—amongst other characters—a trio of Sirens and a one-eyed bible salesman.

In S.M. Stirling's Island in the Sea of Time trilogy, Odikweos (Mycenean spelling) is a 'historical' figure who is every bit as cunning as his legendary self and is one of the few Bronze Age inhabitants who discerns the time-traveller's real background. Odikweos first aids William Walker's rise to power in Achaea and later helps bring Walker down after seeing his homeland turn into a police state.

Between 1978 and 1979, German director Tony Munzlinger made a documentary series called Unterwegs mit Odysseus (roughly translated: "Journeying with Odysseus"), in which a film team sails across the Mediterranean Sea trying to find traces of Odysseus in the modern-day settings of the Odyssey. In between the film crew's exploits, hand-drawn scissor-cut cartoons are inserted which relate the hero's story, with actor Hans Clarin providing the narratives.

The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood retells the story from the point of view of Penelope.

Lindsay Clarke's The War at Troy features Odysseus, and its sequel, The Return from Troy, retells the voyage of Odysseus in a manner which combines myth with modern psychological insight.

Progressive metal band Symphony X have a song based on Odysseus's journey, and called "The Odyssey", on the album of the same name. At 24 minutes and 7 seconds long, it has a six-part orchestra playing in it, each part comprising about sixty musicians.

Irish poet Eilean Ni Chuilleanain wrote "The Second Voyage", a poem in which she makes use of the story of Odysseus.

A cartoon show named Class of the Titans has a character named 'Odie' who is a direct descendant of Odysseus. One of the episodes, "The Odie-sey", portrays the story of the Odyssey, with characters like Calypso, Scylla, and Aeolus, and also including modern twists.

Actor Kirk Douglas portrayed Odysseus in the Italian 1955 feature film Ulysses. Actor Sean Bean portrayed Odysseus in the feature film Troy. Actor Armand Assante played Odysseus in the TV miniseries The Odyssey. He had also been played by John Drew Barrymore in the 1961 film The Trojan Horse and by Piero Lulli in the 1962 film The Fury of Achilles.

Odysseus is also a character in David Gemmell's Troy trilogy, in which he is a good friend and mentor of Helikaon. He is known as the ugly king of Ithaka. His marriage with Penelope was arranged, but they grew to love each other. He is also a famous storyteller, known to exaggerate his stories and heralded as the greatest storyteller of his age. This is used as a plot device to explain the origins of such myths as those of Circe and the Gorgons. In the series, he is fairly old and an unwilling ally of Agamemnon.

In the second book of the Percy Jackson series, The Sea of Monsters, Percy and his friends encounter many obstacles similar to those in the Odyssey, including Scylla and Charybidis, the Sirens, Polyphemus, and others.

He is the hero of The Luck of Troy by Roger Lancelyn Green, whose title refers to the theft of the Palladium.

Comparative mythology[link]

• A similar story exists in Hindu mythology with Nala and Damayanti where Nala separates from Damayanti and is reunited with her.^[30] The story of stringing a bow is similar to the description in Ramayana of Rama stringing the bow to win Sita's hand in marriage.

"Odysseus himself was the only one who was able to strain his bow … he beat his competitors and regained his wife after his long absence due to the Trojan War. We can discover the same theme … for example in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata …."

^[31]

See also[link]

• Homer's Ithaca
• Odysseus Unbound
• Odyssey

References[link]

• Tole, Vasil S. (2005). Odyssey and Sirens: A Temptation towards the Mystery of the Iso-polyphonic Regions of Epirus, A Homeric theme with variations. Tirana, Albania. ISBN 99943-31-63-9. 
• Bittlestone, Robert; with James Diggle and John Underhill (2005). Odysseus Unbound: The Search for Homer’s Ithaca. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-85357-5.  Odysseus Unbound website
• Ernle Bradford, Ulysses Found, Hodder and Stoughton, 1963

Notes[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Odysseus

• "Archaeological discovery in Greece may be the tomb of Odysseus" from the Madera Tribune

Francesco Guccini
Background information
Born	(1940-06-14) June 14, 1940 (age 72) Modena, Italy
Genres	Folk Rock, Beat Music
Occupations	Musician, Songwriter
Instruments	Acoustic guitar
Years active	1960–present
Labels	EMI
Website	francescoguccini.it

For the album, see Guccini (album).

Francesco Guccini (Italian: [franˈtʃesko ɡutˈtʃiːni] ( listen), born June 14, 1940) is an Italian singer-songwriter, considered one of the most important Cantautori. During the five decades of his music career he has recorded 16 studio albums and collections, and 6 live albums. He is also a writer, having published autobiographic and noir novels, and a comics artist. Guccini also worked as actor, soundtrack composer, lexicographer and dialectologist.

Guccini moved to Pàvana during World War II, then returned to Modena where he spent his teenage years and established his musical career. His debut album, Folk beat n. 1, was released in 1967, but the first success was in 1972 with the album Radici. He was harshly criticised after releasing Stanze di vita quotidiana, and answered to his critics with the song "L'avvelenata". His studio albums production slowed down in the nineties and 2000s, but his live albums continued being successful.

His lyrics have been praised for their poetic and literary value and have been used in schools as an example of modern poetry. Guccini has gained the appreciation of critics and fans, who regard him as an iconic figure.^[1] He has received several awards for his works; an asteroid, a cactus species and a butterfly subspecies have been named after him. The main instrument in most of his songs is the acoustic guitar.

Origins[link]

Guccini was born in 1940 in Modena, Italy.^[2] His father, Ferruccio Guccini, was a postal employee, and his mother, Ester Prandi, was a housewife. While his father served in the Italian military during World War II, Guccini lived with his grandparents in a small village in the Apennine Mountains in northern Tuscany called Pàvana, where he spent his childhood.^[3] His years spent in the somewhat archaic society of the mountains of central Italy was to be a strong inspiration throughout his career, and it became one of the key recurring themes of his songs and books.^[4]

When World War II had ended, Guccini moved back to his family in Modena.^[5] He studied at the Istituto Magistrale Carlo Sigonio, the same school Luciano Pavarotti had attended, earning his high school diploma in 1958.^[6] Guccini spent his teenage years in Modena, as he later recounted in his second novel Vacca d'un Cane and in songs including "Piccola Città", which paints a bitter portrait of the city as "a strange enemy".^[7]

Youth and musical beginnings[link]

Francesco Guccini singing "La Locomotiva"

Guccini's first job was as a teacher at a boarding school in Pesaro, but he was fired after a month and a half. He then worked as a journalist at the Gazzetta di Modena for two years.^[8] In April 1960, Guccini interviewed Domenico Modugno,^[9] who had just won two consecutive Sanremo Festivals. This inspired Guccini to write "L'antisociale", his first composition as a singer-songwriter.^[10][11] In 1958 Guccini was guitarist and vocalist in a group first called Hurricanes, then Snakers and finally Gatti.^[12] The group included Pier Farri (drums), who would later become Guccini's producer; Victor Sogliani (saxophone), future member of Equipe 84; and Franco Fini Storchi (guitar). Guccini wrote his first songs while in the Snakers, in a style inspired by The Everly Brothers and Peppino di Capri. The group performed for two years, touring around Northern Italy and Switzerland.^[13] In 1961 the Guccini family moved to Bologna, and Francesco enrolled at the University of Bologna to study foreign languages. The next year he undertook mandatory military service, an experience he described as "substantially positive".^[14] When he returned to Bologna, Guccini was asked to join the band Equipe 84, but he declined in order to continue his studies.^[15] He later quit university just before taking his degree (he was conferred a degree honoris causa in science education in 2002).^[16] The band Cantacronache was an important influence in Guccini's artistic growth,^[17] as was Bob Dylan.^[18]

Debut (1967–1969)[link]

Record Producer CGD commissioned Guccini to write a song for the 1967 Sanremo Festival, "Una storia d'amore", to be sung by Caterina Caselli and Gigliola Cinquetti at . The song, though, was not selected for the event,^[19] and Guccini was embittered by the edits made by two lyricists engaged by CGD.^[20] Guccini made his debut as a singer-songwriter in March 1967, with the album Folk beat n. 1,^[21] which received little commercial success.^[22] Three of the songs recorded for the album had previously been successes for Nomadi and Equipe 84: "Noi non ci saremo", "L'antisociale" and "Auschwitz". The latter was translated and sung in English by Equipe 84, as well as by Rod MacDonald in his 1994 album Man on the Ledge.^[23] Another song from the album, "In morte di S.F.", later renamed "Canzone per un'amica", was recorded by Nomadi in 1968. From 1965 onward, Guccini spent 20 years teaching Italian at the off-campus Dickinson College, in Bologna.^[24]

In May 1967 Guccini made his first appearance in television, on Diamoci del tu, hosted by Caterina Caselli and Giorgio Gaber singing "Auschwitz".^[25] He wrote several songs for Caselli and for Nomadi, who made his song "Dio è morto" become widely popular; it became one of his most famous songs, despite being censored by the RAI for blasphemy.^[26] In 1968 the 45 rpm record Un altro giorno è andato/Il bello was released; Guccini re-recorded the Side A song in an acoustic version for his 1970 album L'isola non trovata. His first concert was held the same year at the La Cittadella Cultural Centre in Assisi.^[27]

1970s[link]

Via Paolo Fabbri 43, the address in Bologna after which Guccini's album is named.

In 1970 Guccini released his second album, Due anni dopo, recorded in the autumn of 1969. The main themes of the album are the passage of time and the analysis of everyday life in the context of bourgeois hypocrisy,^[28] with a noticeable influence from French music ^[29] and from Leopardi's poetic style.^[30] After this album Guccini started his 10 year long collaboration with folksinger Deborah Kooperman, who played fingerstyle guitar on it, a style mostly unknown in Italy at the time.^[31] Eleven months after Due anni dopo, the album L'isola non trovata was released. The title was a literary reference to Guido Gozzano, and the song "La collina" contained a reference to J. D. Salinger.^[32] Guccini's fame began to spread beyond Bologna, partly thanks to the appearance in the TV show Speciale tre milioni, where he sang some of his songs and befriended Claudio Baglioni.^[33] In 1971 he married his long-time girlfriend Roberta Baccilieri, who was pictured on the back cover of his next album.^[34]

The turning point in Guccini's career was in 1972 thanks to the album Radici (roots), about the constant research of one's origins.. This was also conveyed by the image on the front cover of the album, portraying Guccini's grandparents and their siblings next to their old mountain home.^[4] Radici contains some of his most renowned and popular songs,^[35] like "Incontro", "Piccola Città", "Il vecchio e il bambino", "La Canzone della bambina portoghese", "Canzone dei dodici mesi", and "La locomotiva", based on a real event and dealing with themes of equality, social justice and freedom, with a style similar to the anarchic music of the end of the 19th century.^[36][37] In the same year Guccini brought Claudio Lolli, a young singer-songwriter, to his record label, EMI Italiana.^[38] He later wrote two songs with him, "Keaton" and "Ballando con una sconosciuta".

In 1973 Guccini released Opera buffa, a light-hearted and playful album, which showed his skills as an ironic, theatrical and cultured cabaret artist.^[39] Guccini was perplexed by the release of the disc, especially because of its arrangements and because it was recorded live (with overdubs made in a recording studio).^[40] One year later Stanze di vita quotidiana was released, with a mixed reception by fans and critics.^[41] It included six long and melancholic songs, a mirror of the crisis Guccini faced, worsened by constant disagreements with his producer Pier Farri.^[42] Guccini received harsh criticism, including a slating by the critic Riccardo Bertoncelli, who said the singer songwriter was "a finished artist, who has nothing else to say".^[43][44] Guccini answered with the song "L'avvelenata", a few years later.^[45]

Guccini had his first commercial success in 1976, with Via Paolo Fabbri 43, which was the sixth best-selling album of the year.^[46] It was named after the address of the house in Bologna where he lived. He sang with a more mature and determined voice, and the musical structure was more complex than in his earlier works.^[47] The album contained "L'avvelenata", a bitter and colourful reply to the criticism he received for Stanze di vita quotidiana, which cited one of his critics, Riccardo Bertoncelli.^[44][45] Later Guccini was reluctant in performing the song during concerts, saying it was obsolete.^[48][49]

	"Amerigo" noicon Guccini said about "Amerigo": "It is the most complete, refined, rich of themes, and maybe most beautiful song I've ever written"[50]
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

The title track was an abstract description of Guccini's life in Bologna, which referenced Borges and Barthes; it also mentioned the "three heroins of Italian song", Alice, Marinella and Lilly, three women from songs by Italian singer-songwriters De Gregori, De André and Venditti.^[51] Other notable tracks were "Canzone quasi d'Amore", characterised by existential poetry,^[52] and "Il pensionato", about an old neighbour of Guccini, focusing on the sad psychological situation of some old people.^[51] Guccini's next album, Amerigo was released in 1978. The most popular song was "Eskimo", but Guccini claimed the highest point was the title track, a ballad about an emigrant uncle of his.^[53] In 1977 the weekly magazine Grand Hotel featured Guccini on the cover titled "The father every teenager would have liked to have". Guccini did not endorse the article, which was based on an interview he did not know would be published,^[54] and commented: "I cannot understand how they chose that title, I write songs for an audience of people in their thirties, I do not see how an audience of sixteen year olds fresh out of school could relate with the things I say".^[55] In the same year, Guccini separated from his wife Roberta (the song "Eskimo" is about this event),^[56] and started cohabitating with Angela. In 1978 they had a daughter, Teresa, to whom the songs "Culodritto" and "E un giorno..." are dedicated.^[57] In 1979 the live album Album concerto, recorded in a concert with Nomadi, was released. It was peculiar because the songs were performed in duet with Augusto Daolio, and because it included previously unreleased songs: "Dio è morto", "Noi", and "Per fare un uomo".^[47]

1980s[link]

Francesco Guccini on stage

The first album released by Guccini in the eighties was Metropolis, which was characterised by the description of cities with a symbolic value: Byzantium, Venice, Bologna and Milan. Their histories mingle with the distress caused by life in the city and with symbolic references.^[58] The album had richer arrangements, with saxophones, bass guitars, drums, clarinets, flutes and zufoli.^[59] Byzantium is described by Guccini as a fascinating yet oppressive city at the crossroads of two continents and two eras. The song is set at the time of Emperor Justinian I (483–565), and there are many historical references to that period, that have been explained by Guccini himself.^[60] The narrator, Filemazio, who some critics believe to be a fictionalized Guccini,^[61] senses the decadence of his civilization and the coming of the end. The song was praised by critic Paolo Jachia, who described it as "moving and dreamlike".^[61] In 1981 Guccini was the co-author, along with Giorgio Gaber, Sandro Luporini and Gian Piero Alloisio, of the musical Gli ultimi viaggi di Gulliver.^[62] The eponymous song "Gulliver" was then included in Guccini's next album, Guccini, which dealt with the same themes found in Metropolis. Notable songs in the album include "Shomèr ma mi llailah?" ("Watchman, what of the night?", from Isaiah 21:11),^[63] "Autogrill", about a love only dreamt of, and "Inutile", which narrates a day two lovers spent in Rimini.^[64] The subsequent tour was the first in which Guccini performed with a backing band; previously, Guccini used to perform solo, or with just one or two guitarists.^[65] In 1984 the live album Fra la via Emilia e il West was released. It included live versions of many of his popular songs, recorded mainly at a concert held in Piazza Maggiore in Bologna, in which several guests performed alongside Guccini: Giorgio Gaber, Paolo Conte, I Nomadi, Roberto Vecchioni and Equipe 84.^[66]

In 1987 the album Signora Bovary was released. Several of the songs portray people from Guccini's life: "Van Loon" is his father, "Culodritto" is his daughter Teresa, and "Signora Bovary" is himself.^[66] Other songs include "Keaton", written with his friend Claudio Lolli, and "Scirocco", an award-winning song about an episode in the life of the poet Adriano Spatola, a friend of Guccini.^[67] In 1988 the singer-songwriter released a live album, ...quasi come Dumas..., which included some of his songs from the Sixties, in a rearranged version. The title is a homage to Twenty Years After, the novel by Alexandre Dumas.^[68]

1990s[link]

In 1990 Guccini released Quello che non..., which continued in the style of Signora Bovary.^[67] Songs included in the album are "Quello che non" and "La canzone delle domande consuete", which received the Club Tenco best song of the year award.^[69] Three years later, he released Parnassius Guccinii referencing a subspecies of butterfly which was named in his honour.^[70] The song "Farewell", included in the album, is a homage to Bob Dylan's "Farewell, Angelina", featuring its instrumental introduction and citing a verse ("The triangle tingles, and the trumpet plays slow").^[71] The literary criticist Paolo Jachia commented: "Guccini's enormous poetic and cultural effort has been opening the best tradition of Italian poetry to Dylan-esque ballads".^[72] Other songs included in the album are "Canzone per Silvia", dedicated to Silvia Baraldini, and "Acque", composed for Tiziano Sclavi's movie Nero.

It was three years until he released his next album, D'amore di morte e di altre sciocchezze, which achieved significant commercial success.^[73] Tracks included are "Cirano", inspired by the play Cyrano de Bergerac; "Quattro stracci", about the ending of the relationship with Angela (the same woman to whom Farewell was dedicated);^[74] "Stelle" about the feelings of powerlessness men feel when looking at the starry night sky; "Vorrei", dedicated to his new partner, Raffaella Zuccari, and "I Fichi", a farcical song.^[75][76]

2000s[link]

Stagioni was Guccini's first album of the 2000s. The key theme is the passage of time and the different temporal cycles connected to it. Songs included are "Autunno", "Ho ancora la forza" (with Ligabue), "Don Chisciotte", in which Guccini takes the role of Don Quixote, and his guitarist that of Sancho Panza), and "Addio", a song akin to "L'avvelenata".^[77] The album and its tour were successful, with the unexpected presence of many young people among the audience, establishing Guccini as an iconic artist for three generations.^[78] A special limited edition vinyl version of Stagioni was also released.

Francesco Guccini during a concert

In 2004 Guccini released Ritratti. Some of the songs contained in the album are imagined dialogues with historical figures, such as Odysseus, Christopher Columbus and Che Guevara.^[79] The first track of the album, "Odysseus", is on the theme of travel, and contains references to the Odyssey, to Dante (Canto 27 of Inferno), and to a poem by Foscolo.^[80] Another song in the album, "Piazza Alimonda", is about the death of Carlo Giuliani during the demonstrations at the G8 summit in Genoa.^[81] Ritratti received critical acclaim and commercial success, reaching the number one spot in the FIMI Albums Chart, holding it for two weeks, and remaining in the chart for eighteen weeks.^[82] In the same year, lyrics from "Canzone per Piero" were included in a final upper secondary school exam";^[83][84] Guccini claimed he was "embarrassed and glad" about being alongside Cicero and Raphael.^[85] In 2005 the live double-album Anfiteatro Live, recorded in the amphitheatre in Cagliari, was released; it also included a DVD of the concert. Anfiteatro Live was a commercial success, holding the number one spot in the FIMI Chart for one month, and remaining in the chart for twenty-two weeks.^[86] In 2006 Guccini received one vote in the 2006 Italian presidential election.^[87] The same year, the triple-album The Platinum Collection, containing 47 songs, was released as a celebration of his fortieth year as a musical artist. In October Guccini's official biography, Portavo allora un Eskimo innocente by Massimo Cotto, was published.

On 21 April 2008, an article on La Stampa affirmed that Guccini had stopped smoking, and that this had caused him to gain weight and lose his inspiration.^[88] He denied it on 18 May 2008, in TV show Che tempo che fa. In 2010 the Mondadori published Non so che viso avesse, a book which contains a Guccini autobiography and, in the second part of the book, a critical essay edited by Alberto Bertoni.^[89] Luciano Ligabue, friend and colleague of Guccini, entitled him a song, "Caro il mio Francesco" on his album Arrivederci, mostro!. On 28 September 2010 the collection Storia di altre storie was released, with songs selected by Guccini himself.^[90] In the same year the botanist Davide Donati named a new species of mexican cactus, the Corynopuntia guccinii, after him. In the article about the discovery on the botanical magazine Piante Grasse, Donati explained that he discovered the unknown plant whilst listening to Guccini's "Incontro", adding: "I could not have named it after anyone else".^[91] On 25 April 2011, Guccini married for the second time , with Raffaella Zuccari, who had been his partner in the last fifteen years.^[88]

Style[link]

Guccini's lyrical and poetic style has been praised by many, including famous authors and singer-songwriters.^[92][93][94] Fellow singer-songwriter Roberto Vecchioni said about Guccini: "he's not a singer of stories, he's a singer of thoughts and a singer of doubts", while Nobel prize winner Dario Fo called him a "voice of truth".

Despite the length of his career, there are some defining characteristics, such as the use of different registers, the literary references to several writers, and the use of a variety of themes in order to reach moral conclusions. His lyrics frequently have a metaphysical tone and existential motifs, and are often centered around portrayals of people and events.^[95] Guccini's voice is baritonal, with a noticeable rhotacism. Most of his songs, especially early in his career, are folk rock.^[22]

Guccini has been seen as a sociopolitical chronicler,^[96] and some of his songs express his opinion about a political issue. In "La primavera di Praga", he expressed criticism of the Sovietic occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1968 , and "Piccola storia ignobile" supported the Italian abortion law.^[97] "Canzone per Silvia" was dedicated to Silvia Baraldini, and both "Canzone per il Che" and "Stagioni" were dedicated to Che Guevara. "Piazza Alimonda" was about the riots at the G8 summit in Genoa and "La locomotiva" was about a failed anarchic railroad attack.^[37][81]

Guccini defines himself an anarchic,^[98] and he expressed his thoughts about the relation between music and politics in his song "L'avvelenata"; "I never said that with songs you can make revolutions or you can make poetry."^[99]

Books[link]

Francesco Guccini in 2006

In his career as a writer, Guccini published several novels and essays, experimenting with different genres.^[100] His first novel, Cròniche Epafàniche, was published by Feltrinelli in 1989,^[101] and was one of his most successful works.^[102] Even though it is not explicitly an autobiography, it can be considered the first of three autobiographical books. It describes past events of Pàvana, the town where he spent his childhood. Guccini recounts stories he heard from elderly people living on the Tuscan Apennines; critics praised the "philological accuracy" of the book.^[103]
His next two novels, Vacca d'un cane and Cittanòva blues were also bestsellers, and covered different periods of his life. Vacca d'un cane depicts a teenage Guccini in Modena, as he realizes that the city's provincialism will be an obstacle to his intellectual growth,^[104] while Cittanòva Blues the last part of his trio of autobiographical books, tells of his time in Bologna, seen as a "little Paris".^[105][106] Guccini also collaborated with Loriano Macchiavelli for a series of Noir books, and published a Dictionary of the dialect of Pàvana which showed his ability as dialectologist and translator.^[100][107]

Guccini has also worked as a comics artist. He is a lover of comics, and some of his songs reference them.^[108] He's been author and script writer of comic books, such as Vita e morte del brigante Bobini detto «Gnicche», illustrated by Francesco Rubino, and Lo sconosciuto, illustrated by Magnus, and script writer of Cronache di spazio profondo, drawn by his friend Bonvi.^[109][110]

Cinema[link]

Guccini's first experience as actor was in the 1976 movie Fantasia, ma non troppo, per violino, directed by Gianfranco Mingozzi, in which he played Giulio Cesare Croce, a poet who narrates the history of Bologna.^[111] He then appeared in: I giorni cantati, a 1979 movie directed by Paolo Pietrangeli, which featured two of Guccini's songs in its soundtrack, "Eskimo" and "Canzone di notte n°2"; Musica per vecchi animali, a 1989 movie directed by Umberto Angelucci and Stefano Benni;^[112] Radiofreccia, the 1998 directorial debut of singer-songwriter Luciano Ligabue;^[113] Ormai è fatta, the 1999 movie directed by Enzo Monteleone.^[114] In the 2000s he acted in three movies directed by Leonardo Pieraccioni, Ti amo in tutte le lingue del mondo (2005),^[115] Una moglie bellissima (2007)^[116] and Io & Marilyn (2009).^[117] Guccini wrote the soundtrack of the 1977 movie Nenè, directed by Salvatore Samperi, and his song "Acque" featured in the soundtrack of Nero, the 1992 movie directed by Giancarlo Soldi.^[112]

Awards[link]

The Corynopuntia guccinii flower

Awards, accolades and recognitions received by Guccini:

• In 1992 he received the Librex Montale Award "Poetry for Music", for the song "Canzone delle domande consuete".^[118]
• In 1992 an entomologist discovered a new subspecies of butterfly on the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines, naming it Parnassius mnemosyne guccinii.^[70]
• In 1997 Luciano Tesi and Gabriele Cattani discovered an asteroid, naming it 39748 Guccini.^[119]
• In 2001 his story "La Cena" was included in the anthology "Racconti italiani del Novecento" (I Meridiani – Mondadori).^[120]
• In 2002 the universities of Bologna, Modena and Reggio Emilia awarded him an honorary degree in Science of Education^[16]
• In 2003 the comune of Carpi celebrated Guccini's fortieth year of career dedicating him the show "Stagioni di vita quotidiana".^[121]
• In 2004 Carlo Azeglio Ciampi awarded him the title of Officer of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic.^[122]
• In 2004 he received the Targa Ferré, the award named after Léo Ferré.^[123]
• In 2005 he received the award "Giuseppe Giacosa – Parole per la musica".^[124]
• In 2007, in Catanzaro, he was awarded the "Riccio d'argento" for Best Singer-Songwriter Live Album.^[125]
• In 2008, in Carpi, he received the Arturo Loria award for his book of short stories Icaro.^[126]
• In 2010 the botanist Davide Donati discovered a new species of cactus, naming it Corynopuntia guccinii.^[91]
• In 2012 he was awarded with an honorary degree by the American University of Rome.^[127]

From the Club Tenco:

• 1975 – Premio Tenco, career award along with Fausto Amodei, Umberto Bindi, Fabrizio De André, Vinicius de Moraes, Enzo Jannacci.^[128]
• 1987 – Targa Tenco for the song "Scirocco".^[69]
• 1990 – Targa Tenco for the song "La canzone delle domande consuete.^[69]
• 1994 – Targa Tenco for the album Parnassius Guccinii.^[129]
• 2000 – Targa Tenco for the song "Ho ancora la forza".^[69]