The West Wind blew the ship steadily in the right direction until Ithaca could be seen on the horizon. The men were overjoyed to see their home after ten years at war.
Odysseus, however, was so overcome with relief that he gave in to his exhaustion and fell asleep. As Ithaca drew closer, the men turned their attention toward the mysterious bag their captain had been guarding. They were convinced that he watched it so closely because it contained some type of great treasure.
The crew began to grumble among themselves that Odysseus was being cruel and greedy. As their king, he had already taken the largest portion of the spoils of war and now he was hoarding whatever treasure Aeolus had given as well. The men wanted to at least see what riches their captain could be hiding from them. They pulled on the magical silver string that held the ox-hide bag closed. Odysseus woke with a start as the winds were released from the bag.
The resulting tempest blew the ship far off course and Ithaca quickly disappeared from view. The people were amazed to see him again since the help of Zephyr should have taken him safely home.
He asked Aeolus to once again contain the winds to help him reach his home. The Warden of the Winds refused, however. The failure of Odysseus, he felt, was a sign that the gods were against him and the mortal king could not cross the will of the gods.
Aeolus demanded that Odysseus and his men leave the island immediately. They continued on their journey and, without the supernatural aid of Aeolus, would not reach Ithaca for ten years.
While later writers characterized Aeolus as a god, Homer made it clear that he was a human king. Despite this, however, he exhibited many powers that would normally be attributed to the divine. His command over the winds was not the only way in which Aeolus seemed to have more in common with the gods of Olympus than ordinary men. His family, too, was more like that of a god than a man. The six sons and six daughters of Aeolus married one another, the daughters becoming wives to their own brothers.
This type of incestuous family relationship was forbidden by Greek society, but was commonplace among the gods.
Virtually all of the Olympians were closely related; Zeus and Hera themselves were siblings whose parents had also been brother and sister.
In fact, some modern historians believe that this may have been an earlier characterization of the king. Before Homer referred to him as a human, Aeolus had been identified with a god. In particular, Aeolus seems to have many similarities with Uranus. Both had powers related to the sky or air and both had twelve children who married one another.
Since the people of Greece took their gods from many different cultures, it is likely that Uranus was worshipped in some form long before Zeus. It is possible, therefore, that the earliest versions of the Odyssey were told before Zeus was worshipped in the region. While later Greek mythology had Uranus supplanted by his children, earlier religions may have retained him as an important god. By the time of Homer, Zeus was considered to be the supreme deity and Uranus had been banished to the upper sky.
She replies he must sail to Hades, the realm of the dead, to speak with the spirit of Tiresias, a blind prophet who will tell him how to get home. The next morning, Odysseus rouses his men for the imminent departure. He discovers, however, that the youngest man in his crew, Elpenor, had gotten drunk the previous night, slept on the roof, and, when he heard the men shouting and marching in the morning, fell from the roof and broke his neck. Odysseus explains to his men the course that they must take, which they are displeased to learn is rather meandering.
See Important Quotes Explained. Odysseus travels to the River of Ocean in the land of the Cimmerians. There he pours libations and performs sacrifices as Circe earlier instructs him to do to attract the souls of the dead. Odysseus then speaks with the Theban prophet Tiresias, who reveals that Poseidon is punishing the Achaeans for blinding his son Polyphemus. When Tiresias departs, Odysseus calls other spirits toward him.
He speaks with his mother, Anticleia, who updates him on the affairs of Ithaca and relates how she died of grief waiting for his return. He then meets the spirits of various famous men and heroes and hears the stories of their lives and deaths. Odysseus now cuts short the tale and asks his Phaeacian hosts to allow him to sleep, but the king and queen urge him to continue, asking if he met any of the Greeks who fell at Troy in Hades.
He relates his encounters there: he meets Agamemnon, who tells him of his murder at the hands of his wife, Clytemnestra. Next he meets Achilles, who asks about his son, Neoptolemus. Odysseus then tries to speak with Ajax, an Achaean who killed himself after he lost a contest with Odysseus over the arms of Achilles, but Ajax refuses to speak and slips away. He sees Heracles, King Minos, the hunter Orion, and others. He witnesses the punishment of Sisyphus, struggling eternally to push a boulder over a hill only to have it roll back down whenever it reaches the top.
He then sees Tantalus, agonized by hunger and thirst. Tantalus sits in a pool of water overhung by bunches of grapes, but whenever he reaches for the grapes, they rise out of grasp, and whenever he bends down to drink, the water sinks out of reach. Odysseus soon finds himself mobbed by souls wishing to ask about their relatives in the world above.
He becomes frightened, runs back to his ship, and immediately sails away. Blessed with his mother's immortality but lacking the prestige of the Olympian gods , Aeolus was placed on the island Aeolia. Locked within the island was the Anemoi Theullai: the four spirits of the four winds. However, in the Odyssey, we know of a few women he did sleep with. When she feeds the men, all but Odysseus change into swine. Odysseus had been warned about Circe by Hermes, and given an herb that protected him from her spell.
Having come to Ithaca, he drove away some of the cattle, and when Odysseus defended them, Telegonus 3 wounded him with the spear he had in his hands, which was barbed with the spine of a stingray, and Odysseus died of the wound. But others say that Odysseus died of Old Age, as Tiresias predicted.
Aeolus was a defender of Thebes against the Seven Against Thebes. He was killed by Parthenopaeus. As Odysseus approaches his home, he finds Argos lying neglected on a pile of cow manure, infested with fleas, old and very tired. Unable to greet his beloved dog, as this would betray who he really was, Odysseus passes by but not without shedding a tear and enters his hall, and Argos dies.
Odysseus went to the Land of the Dead after being advised to do so by Circe, an immortal goddess who had turned some of his men into swine. The purpose of his visit was to contact the spirit of Teiresia.
Odysseus also spoke briefly with his deceased mother. One of the most important literary works in which Aeolus had an important role is Odyssey that was written by Homer. It is interesting that Homer described Aeolus as a mortal who had powers of overseeing and controlling winds.
As you can see, in Homer's Odyssey the god Aeolus was not presented as a god. Aether - primeval god of the upper air. He was one of the first-born gods who personified the pure bright upper air , below Uranus heaven , that only gods could breathe. Anemoi - gods of the winds. Aeolus is most known for giving Odysseus a bag of wind which later on when Odysseus was almost home had taken him all the way back to the start.
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