The Odyssey

by Cameron
(Seattle)

I just thought I should tell you that a few of your facts are wrong. Exspecially concerning Poseidon and the Odyssey. Poseidon wasn't punishing Odyseuss because he harmed his son (starts with a P I think it Permithius, but it was the cyclops that Odysuess struck out his eye). That's wrong because when the son called upon his father to punish the man who came up against him Odyseuss had give the cyclops a fake name (Nobody)so when the cyclops was yelling "Father strike against Nobody. Punish Nobody. Avenge me by striking Nobody" the gods thought he was litterally talking about nobody so they did nothing. Also the reason why Poseidon was punishing Odyseuss was becaue during the Trojan war when the Greeks gave the Trogan horse to the people of Troy there plan was about to fail, but Poseidon sent one of his Sea Serpents to harm someone that was speaking out against the Greeks saying the Trojan horse was a trick. So a man who was trying to convince a representive from Troy used the fact that Poseidon had struck the man with his sea serpent to gain the Troy representive's trust. Later on after Odyseuss had defeated the Troy he was standing out facing the sea and was yelling out that he had defeated Troy single handedly without any help from the gods. Poseidon angry that Odyseuss wasn't ackowleding the fact that had he not used his sea serpent the plan would have failed because the man who was saying the Trojan horse was a trick would have convinced the others. And because Odyseuss wouldn't acknowledge Poseidon's help, Poseidon swore that Odyseuss would never return to Ithaca to be with his wife ever again because he was angry at Odysuess and became an enemy to Odyseuss at that point.

Hi Cameron,
thank you for all your comments, I can see that you are passionate about Greek mythology!
The story of Odysseus goes like this: he told the Cyclops Polyphemus, in the beginning, that his name is Nobody (in fact, he told the Cyclops that his name is "Outis", which is a diminutive from Odysseus, but it is a word which also means "nobody". So he was quite sincere, but the drunk Cyclops thought it meant "nobody").
After being blinded, Polyphemus started to cry and the other Cyclopes came and asked him what happened, and he told them that "nobody hurt him". When the others heard such an answer, they said that, if nobody hurt him, then he was being punished by the gods with that much suffering.

When Odysseus and his men managed to escape to their ship, Odysseus just couldn't keep his mouth shut, even if his men begged him to remain in silence. So he told Polyphemus that he was Odysseus, son of king Laertes of Ithaka. That's when Polyphemus asked his father, Poseidon, to punish Odysseus, eithen by preventing him to get home at all, or, if his fate was to get home, at least that should happen after many years, and may all his men perish during the journey, and may he get home in misery (and in the end that's exactly what happened).
As regards the Trojan horse, it was Odysseus' idea. Laocoon, who was a priest of Apollo, warned the Trojans against the gift of the Greeks. At that moment, they were all ashore, watching the Greeks go away, and Laocoon was the one designed to sacrifice to Poseidon. From what I've read, it was either Athena/Minerva who sent the sea-serpents, because she was helping the Greeks, or it was Poseidon who sent them, because he was against the Trojans, and there is yet another version about Apollo sending them, because Laocoon had married and had children agains the will of the god. The problem is the Trojans interpreted that he was punished because he threw a spear at the horse (we wanted to prove them that there were soldiers hidden inside).
We must be aware that the Greek mythology that we know does not come from an ancient "manual" or a "who's who". In fact we know it from literary fragments that survived until today or from summaries of other literary works which didn't survive. And, of course, each author told the story in a slightly different way or he told a version of the story that he knew from a certain region of Greece. And in the thousands of years that followed, many other authors were inspired by ancient Greek literature and retold these stories, adding their personal touch. That's why there are so many different version about the same story or character.