The Odyssey

* Original
* Clean

***Classics Summarized: The Odyssey*** is the fourth episode of the Classics Summarized series by Red. It covers the events of the Homer's *Odyssey*, which recounts Odysseus's return home to Ithaca and reunification with his wife and son.

## Introduction

Red begins by telling us how the *Odyssey* \*cough\**Troy Story II*\*cough\* chronicles the return home of some of the Greek heroes from the *Iliad*. She then says how it mostly focuses on Odysseus and his ten-year-long journey home to Ithaca while the universe tried to torture him with incontinent-bull levels of crap.

## Summary

The *Odyssey* begins with Odysseus being stranded on the beautiful goddess Calypso's island for seven years. Despite the lovely lady, however, he just wants to get back home to see his wife Penelope and son Telemachus again. Red notes that, despite the namesake, the story initially focuses on those two.

### *The Bachelorette Ithaca*

Since everyone on Ithaca has assumed that Odysseus is dead due to his ten-year absence, over a hundred suitors try to court Penelope to get that sweet, sweet kingship, and Telemachus is none too pleased with the frat party in his house. The gods, meanwhile, feel bad for everything they put Odysseus through, so Athena shapeshifts down and tells Telemachus that his father is still alive. Telemachus, a pretty smart guy, puts it together that this mysterious person who appeared for no apparent reason and who he doesn't know is actually a god, so takes her at her word. Before leaving, Telemachus tries and fails to get the suitors to leave his house, and tells them that he's gonna find his dad and then he's gonna beat them all up.

Telemachus secretly leaves with a small crew and heads off to the island Pylos, ruled by King Nestor, for news about his father. Nestor informs him that he last saw Odysseus when they all were leaving Troy; Menelaus and Agamemnon were arguing, so Nestor, Menelaus, Diomedes, and Odysseus left, although Odysseus turned back for a moment to intercept Agamemnon. Unfortunately, that is all that Nestor knows, so he tells Telemachus to go see Menelaus for more information.

### The *Menelaus-ey*

Telemachus arrives in Sparta to ask Menelaus and Helen, who are now happily remarried, about Odysseus. However, Menelaus then tells Telemachus about what happened to him, instead.

Menelaus was stranded on an island off the coast of Egypt when a goddess showed up and told him to ask her father Proteus about how to get off the island, so he found him and tackled him. Despite trying to shapeshift out of the fight, Proteus eventually gave up and told Menelaus that he was stranded because he forgot to make a sacrifice to Zeus when he left Troy, Ajax the Lesser drowned, Agamemnon was dead, and Odysseus was stranded on Calypso's Island.

With all that extraneous information now in his head, Telemachus now knows where his dad is. On Ithaca, meanwhile, the suitors find out that Telemachus left to find news of Odysseus, and begin plotting to kill him when he gets back. Red snarkily comments that Penelope knows how to pick 'em, and Penelope says that she didn't pick them, they just showed up.

### Odysseus Time!

Zeus, through Hermes, orders Calypso to let Odysseus go, and he sets sail on a raft while Calypso asks him to call her from the island. Poseidon, who currently has a grudge against Odysseus, whips up a storm in an effort to drown him. However, Odysseus refuses to drown and taunts Poseidon. A goddess then appears to him, gives him an anti-drowning scarf, and vanishes. Odysseus's raft is then crunched by the waves, and he swims to the nearby Phaeacia, gets to the forest, and passes out.

Athena, looking out for Odysseus, goes down to the Phaeacian princess Nausicaa and tells her to go to the forest. Nausicaa does this and runs into Odysseus. She brings him to her parents, the king and queen, and Odysseus explains how he ended up on Calypso's Island.

### Odysseus's Crew Being Idiots

After the Greeks sacked Troy, Odysseus advised them to quit while they were ahead and sail back to Greece. They didn't listen to him, and the next morning they were overrun by a retaliatory force. Some of the Greeks booked it and set sail to escape, but Zeus punished their bad sportsmanship by putting them off course with a storm. Now far out to sea, Odysseus and his crew started seeing weird things.

#### Drug Land

First, Odysseus and his crew arrive at the land of the Lotus-eaters, which is populated by mellow Lotus-Eaters. The lotuses, when eaten, make the person who eats them super mellow and want to stay forever. Most of Odysseus's crew eats them, so Odysseus drags them back to the ship by force.

#### Cyclopes!

After going out to sea for some time, the crew washed up on the island of the cyclopes with a nice cave and some sheep. Unfortunately, the cyclops Polyphemus, who lived in the cave, sealed them in, ate two of them, and fell asleep. To get out of the precarious situation, the crew waited for a day, at which point Odysseus got Polyphemus drunk and introduced himself as "Nobody." When Polyphemus fell asleep, Odysseus and co. took a large wooden stake and stabbed out his eye.

Polyphemus woke up and started going off about how Nobody blinded him, but the other cyclopes made fun of him, asking him if "Nobody" was also taking his flock of sheep. Polyphemus opened the cave to check if his flock was being stolen, and Odysseus and his crew used the opportunity to get back to the ships. Unfortunately, Odysseus decided to taunt the Cyclopses, telling them that his name was Odysseus, which causes Polyphemus to tell his dad Poseidon about his troubles. In retribution, Poseidon resolved to make Odysseus's journey as hard as possible.

#### Haha Wind Bag Go Brrrrr

The crew arrived on Aeolia, and the king generously gave them a bag of wind to speed them on their journey. Unfortunately, right as they're about to reach Ithaca, the crew decided that the bag has gold in it and opened it, resulting in them being swept all the way back to Aeolia. Odysseus asked for another bag, but the king thought that his misfortune was due to a curse and told him to leave.

#### Canniba-Oh, No...

Odysseus and the crew arrived on the Laestrygonian island, where the population of cannibal giants began to eat them. The remainder of the crew then booked it back out to sea.

#### Circe's Island

The crew ended up on Aeaea, where Circe, the sorceress daughter of Helios, lives. She then used her Nefarious Glitter of Doom and Magic Sparkles to turn Odysseus's crew into pigs. When Odysseus found out about their swineification, he resolved to rescue them. Hermes then showed up and gave him some anti-magic drugs, at which point Red notes the contradictory nature of the gods that hate Odysseus helping Odysseus.

Circe gives Odysseus some enchanted booze, but it has no effect on him thanks to the anti-magic drugs, and Odysseus draws a sword on Circe. Circe begs for mercy, and Odysseus tells her to turn his crew back into humans, which she does. The crew then chill on the island for a year.

#### Adventures in Hades

At that point, Odysseus remembered that they, y'know, needed to get back to Ithaca. Circe then told them that they needed to talk to Tiresias to get home, but he was dead. The crew then sailed down to the Underworld to find him. After a ghost summoning ritual that summoned a few too many other ghosts, Tiresias appeared. He told them that Poseidon was making their journey extremely difficult, but they would probably be fine so long as they don't harm Helios's pet cows on Thrinacia; if they do, then they'll take forever to get home and most of them will die. Odysseus told his cowering crew what they had to do and then had a nice reunion with the ghosts of his fellow Greek comrades who died during the Trojan War.

The crew sailed out of Hades and back to Aeaea, where Circe gave them a map with a route back home, which had a bunch of monster in the way. The crew then set sail.

#### Wee-Woo-Wee-Woo

The first island the crew came upon was the island of the Sirens, whose singing is so beautiful it causes anyone who hears it to become entranced, jump off their boat, and drown. To counter this, Odysseus's crew put beeswax in their ears. Odysseus, however, decided he wanted to listen to the Sirens' dulcet tones, so he had his crew tie him to the mast so that he couldn't escape. As they passed by, the Sirens began singing *Turn the Beat Around*, and Odysseus, in his disco fever, demanded that he be released to hear them up close, but the crewmen refused.

#### Odysseus V. Snake Woman and the Living Garbage Disposal

After getting out of earshot of the Sirens, the crew came upon the monsters Scylla and Charybdis. Scylla is a six-headed monster on a cliff whose heads reach to the sea to eat anyone who gets too close, and Charybdis is a giant garbage disposal of a monster that sucks in ocean water and spits it back out. While trying to figure a way past the two without getting eaten by either of them, Scylla ate six of Odysseus's crew. However, her mouths were then full, so Odysseus and the rest of the crew used to opportunity to quickly zip by the two monsters.

#### Don't. Eat. Sacred. Cows.

Odysseus and his crew ended up on the island Thrinacia, aka the Island of the Sun, aka Where Helios's Golden Cows Live. Despite Odysseus's prophecy-based warnings about staying on the island, the crew made camp on the island, at which point Zeus stranded them on the island by making the wind blow the wrong way. After about a month, the crew started to run out of food, so the mutinous Eurylochus sacrificed Helios's golden cows to appease the gods and to get some food to eat. Then, when they set sail again, the boat was struck by lighting by Zeus, killing everyone except Odysseus, who remained clinging to the small bit of boat that was left. Unfortunately, Zeus decided to punish him even more by sending a gale to push him all the way back to Charybdis. Charybdis ate what was left of the boat; after he spat out the leftover timber, Odysseus used it to paddle all the way to Calypso's Island.

### Back Home to Ithaca

After finishing his story, the king offers to give Odysseus a boat to get home. Accepting the offer, Odysseus gets a boat with treasure and a crew and sleeps all the way back to Ithaca. Much to Red's dismay, the book is only halfway done and Odysseus still has to contend with the suitors in his house. Athena helps him by disguising him as an old man and going off to Sparta to inform Telemachus of his dad's arrival. Odysseus then goes to talk to some loyal swineherd while Telemachus, at Athena's word, gets back home to Ithaca with the fugitive prophet Theoclymenus of Argos and some riches from Menelaus and Helen.

Telemachus and Theoclymenus make their way to Ithaca and have the rational thought not to go to the palace but instead to go to a local swineherd's house where they meet the swineherd and an old man. Telemachus asks the swineherd if the situation at the palace has changed any, to which the swineherd responds no, but the old man tells Telemachus, rather overtly, that if he were the king, he would go up to the palace and kill all the suitors. While Theoclymenus dips out to do something else, Telemachus agrees with the old man but laments on how it wouldn't work since neither of them is the king. Athena then appears, decides to reveal Odysseus to Telemachus and removes his disguise, at which point he and Telemachus have a heartwarming reunion. The two then begin plotting to kill the suitors.

### More Disguises and a Sad Dog

Back at the palace, Penelope and the suitors hear of Telemachus's return, and the suitors immediately grumble that their ambush failed and then begin plotting to kill him again. Penelope hears them doing this and becomes quite angry, but the suitors insist that wasn't what they were doing, and Penelope backs off. The next day, Telemachus visits the palace while Odysseus, now disguised as a beggar, goes into town with the swineherd. In the palace, Telemachus tells Penelope about his visit to Sparta, and Theoclymenus gets the feeling that Odysseus is in Ithaca, which Penelope dismisses.

The swineherd and Odysseus head to the palace, but Odysseus's old dog Argos recognizes him through the disguise in another touching moment. Unfortunately, the dog dies immediately after, causing much undue sadness to Red and the audience alike.

When Odysseus arrives at the palace, he asks the suitors for some food, which they all do, except for one guy who throws a stool at him. The suitors then get drunk and start talking smack to Odysseus, but Telemachus tells them all to go to bed, at which point he and Odysseus begin their plan.

### *The Plan*

First, Odysseus and Telemachus hide all of the suitors' weapons and armor upstairs, then Odysseus promises Penelope that Odysseus will return before the end of the month. She asks him if she should just remarry, but Odysseus says she shouldn't and that her husband will return and solve the suitors issue. Penelope then decides that she will hold a contest so that only someone like Odysseus could win, and the beggar Odysseus is all aboard on the plan.

The next day, the suitors wake up and continue to discreetly plot to kill Telemachus, and Penelope tells them her plan. Red takes a moment here to describe Odysseus's bow; it was a gift to him, but he didn't take it to Troy; also, it was incredibly strong, so only someone like Odysseus could use it. She tells them that whoever can string Odysseus's bow and fire it through twelve axe heads can marry her. The suitors all try and fail miserably, and beggar Odysseus asks if he can have a try. The suitors decide to let him have a go, expecting the chump to fail miserably as well; unfortunately, because he's Odysseus, he strings and fires the bow with minimal effort.

### Murderin' Time!

Odysseus reveals himself in all of his glory, and he and Telemachus murder all the panicking suitors. After that, he takes a bath and finally reunites with Penelope. Meanwhile, Athena convinces the people of Ithaca to not take vengeance on Odysseus for killing all the nobles, and everyone lives happily ever after.

## Credits

Originally, the song *I'm Gonna Be* by the Proclaimers played during the credits, but it was removed due to copyright issues.

## Characters Appearing

* Odysseus
* Penelope
* Telemachus
* Calypso
* Nestor
* Menelaus
* Agamemnon
* Diomedes
* Ajax the Great
* Ajax the Lesser (mentioned)
* Proteus
* Polyphemus
* Achilles
* Patroclus
* Circe
* Tiresias
* Zeus
* Poseidon
* Athena
* Scylla
* Charybdis
* Eurylochus
* Argos

## Hecate (Trivia)

* This episode also has a clean version; the changes are listed below.

## Clean Changes

1. ↑ Alternatively, the description reads, "You asked, you received! Red's language is less colorful in this video than in the Iliad already, but the occasional too-lurid description or overly-adult synonym for "butt" had to be taken into account. Enjoy your child-friendly epic full of murder and adultery!"
2. ↑ Alternatively, "*CLEAN Classics Summarized: The Odyssey*"
3. ↑ Instead of the bull crap analogy, Red says "This analogy has been removed for violating gross mental image policies."
4. ↑ Proteus says "forget it" instead of "screw it" in this instance.
5. ↑ Instead of describing Odysseus as "Badass," Red calls him "Stalwart."
6. ↑ As he taunts him, Odysseus calls Polyphemus a "foolish individual" instead of a "dumbass."
7. ↑ When Odysseus tries to stop Eurylochus, he says "dang it" instead of "damn it."
8. ↑ Red describes Odysseus as paddling "the Hades out of there" instead of "the hell out of there."
9. ↑ When the suitors hear the news, they say "Curses!" instead of "Dammit!"
10. ↑ Again, Red calls him a "Stalwart Individual" instead of a "Badass."
11. ↑ No credits appear in the clean version.

## Links

* Classics Summarized: The Odyssey
* CLEAN Classics Summarized: The Odyssey