Ten years after the fall of Troy, the victorious Greek hero Odyssey as still not returned to his native Ithaca. A band of rowdy suitors, believing Odysseus to be dead, has overrun his palace, courting his faithful -- though weakening -- wife, Penelope, and going through his stock of food. With permission from Zeus, the goddess Athena, Odysseus' greatest immortal ally, appears in disguise and urges Odysseus' son Telemachus, to seek news of his father at Pylos and Sparta. However, the suitors, led by Antinous, plan to ambush him upon his return.
As Telemachus tracks Odysseus' trail through stories from his old comrades-in-arms, Athena arranges for the release of Odysseus from the island of the beautiful goddess Calypso, whose prisoner and lover he has been for the last eight years. Odysseus sets sail on a makeshift raft, but the sea god Poseidon, whose wrath Odysseus incurred earlier in his adventures by blinding Poseidon's son, the Cyclops Polyphemus, conjures up a storm. With Athena's help, Odysseus reaches the Phaeacians. Their princess, Nausicaa, who has a crush on the handsome warrior, opens the palace to the stranger. Odysseus withholds his identity for as long as he can until finally, at the Phaeacians' request, he tells the story of his adventures.
Odysseus relates how, following the Trojan War, his men suffered more losses at the hands of the Kikones, then were nearly tempted to stay on the island of the drug-addled Lotus Eaters. Next, the Cyclops Polyphemus devoured many of Odysseus' men before an ingenious plan of Odysseus' allowed the rest to escape -- but not before Odysseus revealed his name to Polyphemus and thus started his personal war with Poseidon. The wind god Ailos then provided Odysseus with a bag of winds to aid his return home, but the crew greedily opened the bag and sent the ship to the land of the giant, man-eating Laistrygonians, where they again barely escaped.
