New Delhi: Christopher Nolan’s upcoming film The Odyssey is dominating public discourse. From reels and conversations to headlines, the period drama is on everyone’s lips.
Intense debate is already ongoing about the translations and adaptations, as well as liberties taken by Nolan during the film’s worldwide promotional tour. Zendaya’s red carpet looks, too, are being scrutinised beyond their aesthetic and method-dressing to their historical accuracy and agency.
But what is the Odyssey? Well, it’s an ancient Greek epic, a long narrative poem detailing an adventure, composed circa the eighth century BC by Homer. It is one of two epics that chronicle the events and the aftermath of the Trojan War.
The Trojan War
According to legend, the conflict took place in the early 13th century BC between the Achaeans (Greeks) and the Trojans (present-day Turkey). The war took place after Helen, a famed beauty, left her husband, Menelaus (king of Sparta), for Paris, a Trojan prince.
An angered and wronged Menelaus sought the help of his brother Agamemnon to wage war against the Trojans and bring Helen back. It resulted in a decade-long war across the Aegean Sea and included heroes such as Hector, Achilles, Odysseus, and Ajax, among others.
In the Iliad, the first of the two epics, it is revealed that the Greek gods, namely Athena (Goddess of War), Hera (Queen of the Gods), and Aphrodite (Goddess of Love), also took sides and pushed their own agendas forward through the war.
In the end, the Achaeans tricked the Trojans by building a large wooden horse as a gift to Poseidon (God of the sea) and left it on the beach. The Trojans took the horse back to their city, Troy. Later that night, the Achaeans climbed out of the horse and burned the city to the ground.
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The Odyssey
After the fall of Troy, the Achaeans returned home. However, not all were able to successfully cross the blue sea. Odysseus, the king of Ithaca, who had come with the Achaeans, had a long and arduous journey home. On his quest to return home to his wife Penelope and his son Telemachus, he fights monsters, cyclops, and the raging seas.
Odysseus also has an affair with Circe, the Goddess of magic, on whose island he stays for almost a year. He is further detained for almost seven years by Calypso on the mythical island of Ogygia.
Meanwhile, in Ithaca, several suitors try to win the hand of Penelope. In a bid to stall the 108 aggressive admirers, Penelope tells them that she will make her decision on who she marries after she finishes weaving a funeral shroud for her husband. She would spend all day weaving, and then every night she secretly unravelled her work. She also makes the suitors take part in an archery contest.
Her son, on the other hand, has grown up and detests the suitors. The men have not only moved into his palace, eat his food, and waste his family’s money, but they also constantly demand that Telemachus’s mother, Penelope, marry one of them to claim the throne.
Telemachus takes a voyage of his own to try and find some answers as to when his father might return.
When Odysseus finally returns home, he kills the suitors who laid waste to his home and is finally reunited with his wife and son.
The Odyssey has been adapted into plays, comics, movies, and series. It has been translated into over a hundred languages and has birthed several popular sayings such as Achilles’ heel, winged words, and even the famous Microsoft virus, Trojan Horse.