Dominic Sandbrook

Let us now speed, Hermes the guide, the slayer of Argos, toward Ogygia island, so that he can speedily announce your steadfast decision to the nymph of the beautiful braids, that Odysseus, whose mind stands fast, shall make his journey home. For my part, I will embark for Ithaca, there to breathe purpose into his son that I might instil a man's courage within his heart and to make him call an assembly of the long haired Ithacans and tell all the suitors to go, those men who never leave off slaughtering throngs of his sheep and his lumbering, twisty horned cattle. To Sparta I shall send him, and to Sandy Pylos too, to learn whatever he can of his dear father's journey home and to help him as well to earn a noble ren renown among men. So that was Dame Edna Everidge playing the goddess Athena. And Athena is talking to her father Zeus, king of the gods. And this is in the first of the 24 books that constitute Homer's great epic, the Odyssey. And as we were saying in our first episode, there is something very Australian about the expedition of Odysseus and his men across the Aegean, barbecuing on the beach, drinking unnecessarily, behaving badly, and basically comporting themselves like Australia on the beaches of the Dardanelles. And so we felt that Australian voices, Russell Crowe in the last episode, a cross between Kylie Minogue and Dame Edna and this one were the most appropriate.

Tom Holland

I was imagining Kylie, I have to say.

Dominic Sandbrook

Really, I became turned into Dame Edna.

Tom Holland

If I shut my eyes, I could imagine Kylie and then I'd open my eyes and see you and it would

Dominic Sandbrook

all go, yeah, nice. That's a lot. I mean, a lot of people's fantasy, actually. Anyway, the translation there is by Daniel Mendelsohn, who's on our bonus episode for rest, is History Club members talking about the odd. Of course we're doing this series because the film by Christopher Nolan is out this week. It goes on general Release on the 17th. And Tom, I know you've gone online, haven't you, to book your tickets because you don't want to miss out, is that right?

Tom Holland

Actually, I went to the preview.

Dominic Sandbrook

Okay, that's just showing off, isn't it? It's just showing off. It's the. It's the sort of boastful behavior that you would expect of a. Of a Greek hero, I guess.

Tom Holland

Yeah, it's a key in behavior and I will regret it when I end up in the underworld. This episode is Brought to you by the Lloyds 5k house deposit. And this is something that was last seen in 1996.

Dominic Sandbrook

Yeah, so the 1990s looks now like a lost golden age of prosperity and positivity, doesn't it? Think of the sort of the advent of the Blair administration in 1997, all the enthusiasm and excitement that surrounded that, the economic growth at the time, the technological developments, the sort of sense of an endless golden summer where everybody's listening to Blair, an oasis and looking forward to to buying their first houses. And that of course takes us to mortgages. Now the good news is that in a nod to the 1990s, Lloyds are offering 5k deposit mortgages to first time buyers. So search 5k first time buyer 1996

Tom Holland

average first time buyer deposits are based on ONS data subject to status. Your home may be repossessed if you don't keep up. Repayments and conditions apply.

Dominic Sandbrook

That's right.

Tom Holland

It's heating up everyone. The rest is Football is on Netflix for the world's biggest tournament and we're

Dominic Sandbrook

officially in the business end.

Tom Holland

The knockouts are here. And don't worry, myself, Allan and Micah are still here every day from New York City. All the debates from the biggest games, and a special guest or two for good measure. What a time we're having.

Dominic Sandbrook

Don't miss it. So recap to remind people where we are in the story. In the first episode we heard how Odysseus, the wiliest, the smartest of all the Greek heroes, fought for 10 years in the Trojan War. He was the maestro behind the Trojan horse. Then he tries to get home with his men and he is blown fatally off course. And Tom remind us of all his adventures and what happened.

Tom Holland

So, loads of mad adventures, one eyed giants, beautiful sorceresses. He goes to the underworld, meets the ghost of his mother and various of his fallen comrades and he ends up losing all his fleet. He had 12 ships, they end up completely destroyed. And all his men. He is the only survivor of the entire expedition. And he has been washed up on the mysterious island of Ogygea, ruled by a nymph, the lady Calypso, that radiant goddess. And on a Gigia he has been kept essentially as Calypso, sex slave for seven long years. And every night he would spend with the nymph, doing as she commanded. And every day he would weep for Penelope, his beloved wife, his soulmate. And a Gigia is described by Homer as being the Omphalos of the sea, the navel of the sea, a place so remote that Plutarch, who was writing in the second century ad, so centuries after Homer wrote it, would place it five days sail west of Britain. So that would make it what, Newfoundland,

Dominic Sandbrook

I guess, or yeah, I mean, somewhere on the way to Canada anyway.

Tom Holland

Yeah, but I think Plutarch is wrong because in truth a gigia is a place that transcends geography and in fact time, because its meaning in Greek, ogygeos, it means primal before the dawn of time. So essentially Odysseus has passed into a strange dimension where the conventional rules that govern mortals no longer apply and he has vanished from the world of humans. And Calypso actually means in Greek, she who fails, she who conceals. So it's the same route as apocalypse, which means an unveiling. So Odysseus can't escape, partly because she won't let him go, but also I think because it is impossible for him to get out of this kind of strange dimension that she controls and coordinates. But the reason also why Odysseus can't escape, and people who listen to our first episode may recall this, is because Odysseus very foolishly has offended Poseidon, who is the God of the sea. And he'd done this by blinding his son, the one eyed giant Polyphemus. And so Poseidon, he doesn't necessarily want Odysseus dead. He's perfectly happy to leave him on this kind of island prison with Calypso as the governor. And as far as Poseidon is concerned, he can just stay there and rot and never get back home.

Dominic Sandbrook

But Odysseus has a powerful protector of his own, doesn't he? And this is the person who we heard voiced by Dame Edna at the beginning of the episode. So this is another Olympian and this is Athena and she likes Odysseus because she sees him as like minded, because they're both very wise and clever.

Tom Holland

Yes, I think she sees something of herself in Odysseus. And so during the Trojan War she had spoken to him, she'd occasionally appeared to him over the course of his adventures. She has not appeared to him or spoken to him because she doesn't want to offend Poseidon. Fortunately, however, as the Odyssey opens, Poseidon is in the land of the Ethiopians who are not to be identified with the people who live in what today we call Ethiopia. Their name means people with burned faces. So people on the edges of the world where the sun is at its brightest, they're blessed, they're noble, they're the kind of people that a God would like to spend time having a holiday with. And so Poseidon is away from Olympus. And so this gives Athena her chance. And as we heard in that passage with which we opened, voiced by Kylie Stroke, Dame Edna, Athena has a two prong strategy. So the first is to get Zeus to send Hermes, the messenger of the gods, to a Gigia to order Calypso to set Odysseus free. And secondly, Athena herself will go to Ithaca, Odysseus home island, and there visit Telemachus, Odysseus son, and basically kind of encourage him to man up, to stop being so wet.

Dominic Sandbrook

So this is the moment actually where the Odyssey begins, right, where the story that we encounter in the book starts with Athena going to see. Is it going to see Telemachus? That's the bit that it kicks off with, is that right?

Tom Holland

Yes. Important for listeners to understand who've not read the book that the epic does not begin with the fall of Troy. It doesn't begin with Odysseus embarking on his adventures. So not basically as we did it in the previous episode, it begins with this moment with Athena going down to see Telemachus. And 10 years have passed since the fall of Troy, so 20 years since Odysseus had left Ithaca. And people may remember that when he'd left Ithaca, Telemachus was just a baby, but now he is a young man. But to be fair to Telemachus, I mean, he is facing a very challenging situation because Odysseus, before he'd left for Troy, had told Penelope, and I quote, once you see our son starting to grow out his beard, marry whomever you wish. In other words, if I'm not back by this point, you should assume that I'm dead. And people know this. And so Odysseus's hall is now crowded with suitors who are slaughtering Odysseus's cattle and sheep and insulting his household. Penelope, she wants to hold out. You know, she's hopeful that Odysseus will come back. You know, she knows her husband, she's confident he'll come back. And so she doesn't want to marry any of these suitors. And so for years she's been keeping them at bay with again, a kind of very famous whis. It's a kind of. It matches the Trojan horse, her husband's great wheeze. And what she had done was she said to them, I will marry one of you once I have completed weaving a shroud for Laertes, the father of Odysseus. And so she sat at her Loom weaving at it all day. And then at night, secretly, she would steal down and unpick everything she had done in the day.

Dominic Sandbrook

Right.

Tom Holland

And so the suitors are. This shroud is taking a long time. It's taken about five years, but in the end, the scheme is betrayed by one of Penelope's servant girls, one of her maids. And so the scheme is rumbled. But at this point, Penelope is still holding out. You know, she doesn't want to give in. And Telemachus also is kind of backing her. But he's just a young man, you know, he hasn't had his. His father around. He's not kind of trained in the ways of. Of warfare and wiliness and all of that. He's very, very young and inexperienced. And so this is why Athena has decided to visit him, to offer him the kind of advice and encouragement that he hasn't been getting from his father. Because his father is absent.

Dominic Sandbrook

She disguises herself, doesn't she, as an old friend of Odysseus with the excellent name of Mentor.

Tom Holland

Yes, she's literally his mentor.

Dominic Sandbrook

Yeah. And when Mentor arrives, Telemachus is very courteous, he's very generous, but Telemachus is extremely embarrassed. There's basically this massive kind of. It's basically like a stag party that's got.

Tom Holland

Yeah, they're all wearing plastic breasts and kind of covering each other with shaving foam. Naked.

Dominic Sandbrook

Yeah. It's basically Wetherspoons at luton Airport. Yes. 8 o' clock in the morning. People are absolutely off their faces already. Like, there's a lot. There's all kinds of bants.

Tom Holland

So it's miserable for Port Telemachus. So Athena cheers him up first of all by saying, actually, I think, you know, I think it's okay. I think your dad is alive and I think he's going to be coming back home soon. And she then says, you should stand up for yourself. You should show your independence. And you could do this in a couple of ways. So you could summon an assembly of all the people of Ithaca and publicly make a stand in front of them against the suitors. And then when you've done that, you could go and visit some of Odysseus's old mates, some of, you know, some of his comrades from the Trojan War, and find out what they know. And then, to quote Homer, so saying Athena went off, she of the bright owl eyes, just as a bird will fly off in a flash, and into his heart she put fierceness and strength. And this fierceness and strength, as we've been saying, is something that hadn't previously been evident in Telemachus. And so the suitors, he holds this public assembly for the Ithacans, as Athena had advised. And the suitors go there and they shout it down. But they are startled that Telemachus has had the initiative and the gumption to call it, and a little bit worried about this sudden display of kind of character and independ. And even Penelope is surprised by the way in which her son is suddenly showing a kind of assertiveness. So that's a marker that he's laid down for the suitors. And then he heads off for the mainland. And again, he does it without telling them what he's doing. He slips away unnoticed, and he heads off to the mainland of Greece, to the Peloponnese. And there he's going to visit two of his father's old comrades in arms. And the first of these is a guy called Nestor, who is the king of Pylos on the west coast of the Peloponnese. And he had been the oldest warrior who'd fought at Troy, fabulously ancient and doddery and long white beard and all of that. And unfortunately, Nestor has no idea where Odysseus is, so he's not much use. But he, you know, he says it's like he's vanished off the face of the earth. I've heard no rumors about him whatsoever, but he kind of cheers Telemachus up by telling him war stories. You know, Nestor's an old man, and so the joke is that this is all he ever does is tell stories about the good old days. But these are stories that feature Odysseus being an absolute legend. I mean, literally. And he tells stories about how brave Odysseus had been, how clever, and how close he had been to Athena. So Telemachus had seen Mentor turn into a bird and flash off. So it's, you know, cogs in his brain are starting to whir, thinking maybe Athena is on the scene. And certainly the effect of Nestor and his conversation is to make Telemachus feel proud to be the son of such a man and make him want to be kind of worthy of such a father. And so from Pylos, Telemachus then heads inland to Sparta, where the king is Menelaus, and he is the husband of Helen, whose abduction had led to the entire war. And Helen, when she comes in to join Menelaus and Telemachus in the great feasting hall, she immediately recognizes him as Odysseus's son. Because Helen is the daughter of Zeus, she has a kind of witchy quality. She. She has kind of supernatural powers. And Helen sits with Telemachus and she tells him a story about Odysseus, how back in the days of the Trojan War, he had infiltrated Troy disguised as an old beggar. And that he had disguised himself so effectively that he'd had himself lashed across his back like a slave, so that when he. Troy people could see these marks. And it would have seemed impossible to the Trojans to think that this could actually have been a great hero. And Helen boasts to Telemachus, I alone saw through his disguise. And of course she could have betrayed him, but she chooses not to. And she says, for by then my heart had long since been bent on going back home. And Menelaus then tells the story also about Odysseus, how they've built the Trojan horse. And the Greek heroes, the Achaean heroes, have hidden themselves inside the great belly of the horse. And then Helen had come down to them and started calling out in the voices of their wives. So again, this is the kind of the witchy quality of Helen and it's undermining her claim, actually, that she was now on the Greek side.

Dominic Sandbrook

I was about to say she's playing both sides.

Tom Holland

Yeah, she is playing both sides, yeah. And the men inside the horse, they hear that what seems to be their wives, they're so homesick, they're so longing for their wives that lots of them want to kind of call out and reply. But Odysseus knows what's going on. He keeps very silent. He keeps them motionless. He puts his hand over the mouths of those who look as if they're about to call out. And these two stories, the story firstly told by Helen, then by Menelaus, again, they're illustrating the qualities of Odysseus, how intelligent he is, how bold, how daring, and also how self disciplined he is. But the most crucial thing that Menelaus tells Telemachus is that he does actually have news of Odysseus. And this is because he had ended up on his journey back from Troy in Egypt. And there he had captured the old man of the sea. He's called Proteus, who is a kind of shepherd of seals, has all kinds of weird supernatural powers, able to change his shape. So that's where the word protean comes from. But Menelaus had captured him and held him, despite all this shape shifting and fighting, finally had got Proteus to reveal to him all kinds of things. And among the things that Proteus had revealed is the fact that Odysseus is alive. And to quote what Proteus had told Menelaus, I saw Odysseus on an island, his eyes brimming over with tears in the halls of the nymph Calypso, who is holding him there by compulsion. He is not able to return to the land of his fathers. So now Telemachus knows he is alive.

Dominic Sandbrook

So that's where we left Odysseus last time and we left on the cliffhanger. Is he ever going to escape from the arms of Calypso? And I'm happy to say that the answer is yes. And this is down to Athena, isn't it? Because basically we said that she does two things. She goes to see Telemachus, but she also goes to see Zeus, yes, her father.

Tom Holland

And Athena is Zeus's favorite daughter. Poseidon is absent. And so Athena is basically kind of sassing around Olympus trying to sort things out for Odysseus and hassling her father. And finally Zeus gives in to her and sends Hermes, the messenger of the gods, down from the summit of Olympus all the way to the island of a Gigia, this navel of the sea. And when Hermes arrives there, he tells Calypso, you've got to let Odysseus go. And Eclipse has a massive strop about it. And Hermes says, do not provoke Zeus to anger, you know, do not make him angry. And so, very reluctantly, Calypso permits Odysseus to build a boat and she gives him provisions and says, okay, you can go. But before he goes, she makes him a great offer and she offers him the gift of immortality if he will stay with her. And listeners may remember that in the previous episode we talked about how Odysseus had met with Achilles, the great hero who is now just a kind of a shadow in the underworld. And Achilles had basically said, you know, life is so much better than death that you should embrace any opportunity you, you can to perpetuate it. So this is a massive, massive offer. But Odysseus turns it down. And it's one of the great eulogies in ancient literature to the, the joys and the comforts of marital love. It has to be said there aren't actually that many. And it, it begins, it doesn't sound like a unity to his wife, it has to be said, but it kind of pivots. So she, Odysseus says to Calypso, look at my wise Penelope. She falls far short of you, your beauty, your stature. But she is mortal after all. She's not A goddess. So you'd expect that you. You never age or die. Nevertheless, I long, I pine all my days to travel home and see the dawn of my return. So he would rather live with Penelope and die than live with Calypso and live forever. And it's a kind of moving moment, I think.

Dominic Sandbrook

Not many wives who would welcome that tribute to themselves that begins with them saying, she falls far short of you. Anyway, Odysseus sets off from a gig year and, well, these things always end up going one way, don't they? But actually, at first, it's a bit like a Titanic. Everyone talks about the bit where it went wrong, but no one talks about the first couple of days. So in this case, the first 17 days of the voyage are a triumph. But then on the 18th day of the voyage, Poseidon is on his way back from the land of the Ethiopians, and he sees Odysseus below him, doesn't he? So Poseidon's in the sky.

Tom Holland

Yeah, and it's just this tiny little dot. But he's a God. I mean, of course he can recognize him. He's furious about it. And so he strikes the sea with his trident, churns it up, pulverises Odysseus. Raft, all the gifts that he's been given by Calypso, all his provisions, even his clothes, he loses them all. So he's now kind of naked, literally naked in the salty, boiling sea, almost drowns. There's an island ahead. He's almost smashed onto the rocks by the waves. And in fact, had it not been for Athena, who personally intervenes to save him, he would have been killed. But as it is, with the assistance of the goddess, he is able to crawl himself up onto a sandy beach. And he totters up into a nearby wood and there's kind of leaves scattered around everywhere. So he hides himself under the leaves and understandably collapses, falls completely asleep and sleeps for who knows how long. But then abruptly, he is woken by the sound of a ball splashing into a pond and the sound of girls shouting and giggling. And obviously, when you've been through a series of adventures that involve giants devouring your. Your men or spearing you in harbors or whatever, I mean, these are. These are the kind of things that you want to hear. He's still dreading the worst because he's gone through so many terrible experiences, but he thinks, oh, well, maybe, you know, they're just girls, maybe it's all right. And also, he's desperately hungry, he's desperately thirsty, and so he picks Up a kind of a branch with leaves on, bit like Adam in the Garden of Eden. He uses it to conceal his nakedness. And he steps out and emerges from the wood and in a clearing. It's the most domestic scene imaginable. It is a group of girls doing the laundry and they look round and see, see what seems to be this awful kind of briny pervert, stark naked, who stepped out from the woods like a kind of flasher. And they understandably scream and run away. But one of the girls does stay and bravely stands her ground. And Odysseus addresses her from a distance. He doesn't want to frighten her and he talk to her with absolutely perfectly pitch flattery. So he compares her to Artemis, the daughter of mighty Zeus, and he narrates his ordeals. And then he appeals to her for help. And finally, and I love this moment, and I think it's clearly betraying his own longing for Penelope. He's seeing this girl and he's thinking of his own family and he wishes her a happy marriage. And he says, for there's nothing as powerful or as great as when a husband and wife united by oneness of mind in their thinking, keep their home together. A great bane to their enemies, a blessing to their friends. And their renown is on everyone's lips. And Sadie and I had that at our wedding.

Dominic Sandbrook

Oh, nice.

Tom Holland

Which we had in a church. But important to emphasize this is very much not a Christian ideal of marriage. This is an ideal of marriage in a world in which it is households rather than individuals who are being joined. And so to be a bane of one's enemies, a blessing to one's friends, this is a dream that's particularly suited to royal couples because obviously the whole health of a city, of a kingdom can depend on it. And as it turns out, Odysseus's words are perfectly suited to the young girl that he has addressed them to. Because the girl that he is addressing is not an ogress, not a witch, not a ghost, but a mortal princess.

Dominic Sandbrook

So the name of this princess is Norsoka. She's the daughter, we're told, of Alkinous the Great hearted. And in his hands lie the power and might of the Phaeacians. And who are these people?

Tom Holland

So the Phaeacians, to the degree that the Odyssey offers one, is a kind of a vision of an ideal society. So Nausicaa's parents, the. The king and queen of the Phaeans, Alcinous, the king, they are wise and generous. They have no idea who Odysseus is, but they greet him with great kindness and hospitality. So that this kind of, this great quality of Xenia, which is so important to the Greeks, welcoming strangers with hospitality. They have kind of perfect microclimate. So their fruit, their vines, their vegetables are always in season, there's no winter. And they have kind of incredible 1950s science fiction style labor saving devices. So kind of robotic guard dogs made of gold and silver. And they have ships powered by what sounds a little light AI. Wow. Kind of that's free thinking. They can think faster than. Than any human being. And these ships can travel at a completely miraculous speed. It can kind of travel the length of the Mediterranean.

Dominic Sandbrook

Self sailing ships.

Tom Holland

Self sailing ships, yeah. So again, it's this familiar thing that we were talking about in the first episode that you have the fantastical element of an island, but then also there are points of similarity with actual islands that exist in the Mediterranean.

Dominic Sandbrook

Right.

Tom Holland

And so to Homer's original audience, the location and the description of the kind of physical geography of fishermen made it seem like it was the island of Kulkyra, which is now Corfu. And we did a bonus with Alex Preston about this for club members. Go and listen to that. And as we said, Norsokea, you know, this princess who's doing the laundry and playing the ball with her friends and stuff. I mean, this is a world away from the island of Calypso or Circe or whatever. And most amazingly of all, and it's one of the great kind of postmodern moments in the Odyssey, there is a bar to at Alcinous Court who seems like Homer himself. So Homer traditionally is said to be blind, and this guy is blind. And it may well be that that description is what gives rise to the legend that Homer was blind. And he's inspired by the Muses, as Homer was thought to be. And he reduces grown men to tears with the, the power and the pathos of his, his epic singing. And this blind poet sings to the court at Fascia. And among the men at this course, of course, is Odysseus himself. And the bard is singing about the Trojan War and about the feats of arms that Odysseus himself had performed at Troy. And Odysseus weeps to hear them. You know, it's, it's noticed. And so, you know, Alchino says, stranger, why do you weep? And Odysseus finally reveals who he is. And it is this which prompts him to tell the story of his adventures. So the lotus eaters and the cyclops and everything. So this is the narrative that we told in episode one. So. So it's brilliantly, brilliantly meta.

Dominic Sandbrook

You were saying that it's kind of postmodern book. And of course, there's loads of stories within stories, aren't there, in the Odyssey? That's how it works. So you can see what would appeal to a filmmaker, you know, flashbacks and things like that.

Tom Holland

Yes, and particular, I guess, particularly one like Christopher Nolan, who loves all these kind of games with time and so on. And so this is, you know, he tells his story and at the end, everyone is silent, held, absolutely spellbound all through the shadowy palace. And Alkinous is. The king is so moved that he says, well, we've got to get you back to your home. We've got to get you back to Ithaca. And So at last, 20 years have gone by, but now Odysseus is ready to go home. And Alkinous loads one of these kind of free sailing AI powered ships with all kinds of gifts. And Odysseus boards it and he curls up and he falls asleep. And the ship speeds across the seas. Miraculous power. The morning star rises. And as the morning star rises, this ship reaches Ithaca at last. And the phishing crew lift the still sleeping Odysseus out of the ship and they place him and all the gifts that Alkinous had given him on a beach under an olive tree. And then we're told they themselves went back speeding homewards. And so it is in the most unglamorous, the most kind of anticlimactic manner possible that Odysseus returns to Ithaca. And as had been foretold, he has done so not on his own ship, but on someone else's ship. And he has arrived there alone. But he is at home at last.

Dominic Sandbrook

But is this the end of his troubles? Spoiler alert. It is not. His troubles are only just beginning. And we'll find out why after the break. Hi, everybody. It's Dominic here from the Rest Is History. I just wanted to let you all know that on our sister podcast, the Book Club, we have just released an episode digging deep into George R.R. martin's A game of Thrones, the first book in his Song of Ice and Fire sequence. We go deep into the history behind Game of Thrones. So we go into the wars of the Roses, Hadrian's Wall. We talk about the influence of J.R.R. tolkien and comparisons with the Lord of the Rings. But Tabby, we also talk, don't we, about George R.R. martin's apparent stagnation and whether he's actually ever going to finish the books, we

Josephine Quinn

investigate why it is that he has battle to finish them at all and whether he will ever be able to. But if you want to hear the lots more about the history behind some of the greatest novels of all time, fear not. Coming up on the book club we have the Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi de Lampertusa which is all about Italian unification. We talk about Circe where we delve into a particular part of the Odyssey and then after that we are doing the 39 steps which Dominic, you chose and you love.

Dominic Sandbrook

Please join us at the book club. It's loads of fun and you will never find a better way to spend your life. Bye bye bye.

Al Murray

Hello there. It's Al Murray here and James Holland there, hosts of the Second World War Pod. We have ways of making you talk.

Tom Holland

Al and I have been on the Rest is History a few times now, talking all things World War II with Tom and Dominic. If you've enjoyed their recent topics on 20th century history, then we have good news for you.

Al Murray

Yes, that's right Jim. We have our own show all about the fascinating history of World War II. Every Tuesday and Thursday, WWI podcast we have ways of making you talk discusses the fascinating people, amazing innovations and terrible tragedies of this most pivotal period in human history.

Tom Holland

Yeah, and the bottom line is other history has absolutely nothing on this. This past year alone we've done series on visionary US Presidents like FDR and Truman, HMS Hood versus Bismarck and Japan's road to war. We've also explored daring night raids behind enemy lines like Bruneville and the nerve wracking Atlantic convoys.

Al Murray

And right now we're doing the truly titanic Operation Barbarossa, the Nazi German invasion of the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941. So now is a great time to subscribe and get into the action. Search we have ways Wherever you get your podcasts, that's we have ways wherever you get your podcasts.

Mary Beard

Hello and welcome to Doing It Anyway, a brand new series from Goal Hanger. I'm Kati Kay. I've spent years studying the science and art art of confidence, writing books about how we can close the confidence gap between men and women, and talking to experts and younger women about how to pass it on. Confidence means taking risks, acknowledging your fears and, well, doing it anyway. In this series I'll be talking to psychologists, entrepreneurs and business leaders to unpack how you can rethink challenges and grow your own confidence. We'll talk about how to spot the difference difference between confidence and Competence, how to deal with office politics and stolen credit, and, yes, handling rejection, and ultimately, how you can become a better leader, teammate, and, yes, a better person doing it anyway, with Katie K every Friday, wherever you get your podcasts.

Dominic Sandbrook

Hear me, daughter of Zeus, whose shield is thunder, standing by me always in every combat mission. No maneuver of mine slips by you. Now, again, give me your best support, Athena, comrade. So that was Odysseus talking to Athena. Now, that's actually not from the Odyssey, it's from the Iliad, as translated by Robert Fagles. So it perfectly illustrates how close the two of them had been in the Trojan War, how they'd been secretly communicating with each other. She'd spoken to him, for example, in that passage that we were just quoting. She speaks to him through the kind of cry of a heron. But here's the twist. Then, during the voyage, for the 10 years of the voyage, that communication basically died. She kept silent because she didn't want to offend her fellow Olympian, Poseidon. But now, at last, Tom, Athena is back.

Tom Holland

She absolutely is. And, you know, to have her on the scene for Odysseus is obviously brilliant news. But remember, at this point, he doesn't know where he is. So just to. To give people a reminder where we are at the story. Odysseus's wife, Penelope, is in his palace. There are 108 suitors by this point, all kind of competing for her hand in marriage. And they are all of them kind of insolent, violent, and, in fact, murderous. And I say murderous because people may remember that Telemachus had gone off on his voyage to see Nestor and Menelaus on the mainland of Greece. He is now sailing back from mainland Greece to Ithaca. And the plan of the suitors, now that they've rumbled where he's gone, is to ambush and kill him at sea before he can reach Ithaca. So that's bad news for Telemachus. Meanwhile, Odysseus, as we described at the end of the previous half, he has been left asleep deep beneath an olive tree on Ithaca. And when he wakes up, he, you know, you said he has no idea where he is.

Dominic Sandbrook

Yeah.

Tom Holland

And so he. He fears the worst. He thinks, oh, no, this is another terrible trick. Poseidon is still kind of intervening to make my life hell. And so he trudges mournfully, we're told, along the shore of the endlessly clamoring sea, kind of wondering, where am I? And then ahead of him, he sees a very handsome young shepherd lady. And so he hails the shepherd lad and says, where am I? And the shepherd boy answers, sir, you are in Ithaca. So you would think at this news that Odysseus would, you know, he'd kind of explode with joy. But he's Odysseus. He doesn't. He disguises, you know, his delight and instead invokes the cunning in his heart and tells this absolute kind of cock and bull story about how he's actually a fugitive from Crete. I mean, it's kind of making things up. Just for the joy of making things up. The shepherd boy kind of listens to this story and then starts laughing. It's not a shepherd's boy's laugh, it's a woman's laugh. And she starts stroking him with her hand and materializes before him as this beautiful, towering woman. And it is of course, Athena. And she says to him, a man would have to be crafty, a sly old fox, to outdo or all your tricks. She loves it. She can't get enough of Odysseus trick. She thinks it's great.

Dominic Sandbrook

So she basically explains to Odysseus the situation. This is what's going on with all the suitors and this is how you're going to deal with it. And she has a plan, doesn't she? So she's basically going to disguise him, she's going to turn him into a beggar so that you will look vile in the eyes of all the suitors and your wife as well as your child.

Tom Holland

Yes. And so she turns him into this kind of hideous old beggar. And then when she's done that, she says, go to the heart of the local swineherd, Eumaeus, who Odysseus remembers from when he was in Ithaca 20 years before. And this is a man who is still loyal to Odysseus and to his house. So Telemachus and Penelope, and meanwhile Athena tells Odysseus, I am going to go and I'm going to escort Telemachus safely back so that the suitor's plan to murder him is foiled. And all of this is what duly comes to pass. So Odysseus, he's disguised as a beggar, he goes to Eumaeus, hut Eumaeus treats him with great hospitality, with great generosity. He's just a humble swineherd, but, you know, again, he's kind of model of Xenia, of kind of hospitality. It soon becomes clear to Odysseus that Eumaeus is utterly devoted to Odysseus's memory. He remains completely loyal to him. But despite this, Odysseus is Odysseus. So he doesn't reveal himself again. He comes up with some MA story, says he's a Cretan. And there's a bit of a joke here, I think, because in antiquity the Cretans were always viewed as notorious liars. So Odysseus is kind of signaling that it's a lie. And he, he has this kind of great story saying that he'd served as a mercenary in Egypt and then he'd had a run in with Phoenician slave traders. And I think the thing that's interesting about this is that it clearly reflects the world in which Homer is writing this epic down, rather than the age in which Odysseus is meant to have missed. Because going to serve in Egypt as a mercenary or having run ins with Phoenician slavers, this is much more appropriate to the 8th or 7th centuries BC than to the, you know, to the Bronze Age.

Dominic Sandbrook

So it's like the register has kind of slipped.

Tom Holland

Yes, slightly.

Dominic Sandbrook

Yeah.

Tom Holland

And it may be that that's the whole point, you know, that this is a lie. You know, again, this is kind of quite postmodern that Odysseus is telling a lie, Homer is telling a lie. There's a kind of, you know, hall of mirrors there. Odysseus also having come up with this kind of, again, this cock and bull story to Eumaeus. He tells Eumaeus, I, I have news of your master, your missing master, Odysseus. He is on his way home. But Eumaeus, who's believed everything else that Odysseus has told him, all of which is a lie, this one thing which is the truth, Eumaeus does not believe it and he tells Odysseus the storm winds have snatched all his renown away. So Eumaeus basically thinks he is at the bottom of the sea. He is drowned and dead.

Dominic Sandbrook

Now Telemachus has gone away and the suitors are waiting to ambush him. But Athena saves him, doesn't she? And brings him back safe and sound to Ithaca. He goes straight to Eumaeus, to Eumaeus, hut but Eumaeus is out. And now comes one of your favorite moments in the whole story.

Tom Holland

It's one of the great, great moments in Homer because now is the meeting between the father and the son. So Athena, you know, she's disguised Odysseus as a beggar, all that goes. She restores him to his full stature and nobility, gives him a kind of little touch of stardust, so he looks even better than Normal. And at first Telemachus just cannot believe that this father who, you know, he doesn't remember at all, he'd just been a baby when Odysseus left. He can't believe that Odysseus is back. But then, to quote Homer, he twined round his noble father, wailed as the tears poured down and a desperate longing for weeping welled up in both of them. And so father and son, they embrace. Lots of sobbing. But you know, there's a time when the sobbing has to stop because there is a lot of suitor killing to be done. And this is now absolutely Odysseus's purpose. And at first when he tells Telemachus this, Telemachus is very skeptical because remember, there are 108 suitors and there's only the two them. But Odysseus says, look, I'm a hero. I've killed, I've killed a lot of people. And also we have Athena on our side. And on top of that, I am the cleverest man in the world and I have a cunning plan. So here is my plan. I am going to infiltrate the palace in my brilliant disguise as a beggar. Your role, Telemachus, when the moment comes, is to remove all the weapons that are hanging in the hall and which the suitors might otherwise be able to use. You've got to remove them and conceal them them. And what you should do is to leave just two swords, two spears, two shields, and that will be for our use. And then if we are armed, the suitors aren't, we should be able to deal with them. I am confident of our ability to pull this off.

Dominic Sandbrook

So the excitement mounts. Are approaching the end game now. The climax of the Odyssey. We'll start the very next morning. Tom, take us into the story.

Tom Holland

Okay. The suitors have come back from their failed attempt to ambush Telemachus. Athena had managed to trick and fool them. And so now they've come back to Odysseus's palace and people may be wondering, well, you know, why don't they just kill Telemachus in Odysseus halls? Well, the reason for that is that they don't want to risk the anger of the gods or indeed the people of Ithaca by publicly murdering Odysseus son. And so that means that when Telemachus comes back from Eumaeus hut after to meeting with his father, they leave him alone. You know, they, they kind of eye him warily, but they don't attack him. And so Telemachus is able to go to Penelope to talk with his mother and to tell her what he has learned in Sparta, that Odysseus is alive. He does not tell her that Odysseus is back and that he has seen his father. So proving himself a slight chip off the old block there, he also introduces her to a guy called Theoclymenus who is a wandering seer that he has brought back with him from Sparta. So it's the kind of thing you bring back from your Greek holiday. You'd pick up a wandering seer, I think, say look what I've got. And Theocominas also has amazing news. And Theocominas says to Penelope, Odysseus, even now back in the land of his fathers already settled or on the move, learning of these wicked deeds is here and he is sowing seeds of evil for all the suitors. But Penelope doesn't believe him, thinks that this cannot be true. She's been told so many lies over the years she just can't bring herself to believe this news. But of course it is true, because all the while in his beggar's disguise, Odysseus is approaching the gates of his palace. And on the way he has a run in with his old called goatherd, a guy called Melantius. And Melantius is very much not like Eumaeus. Melantius feels no loyalty to Odysseus, shows no courtesy to strangers. And so when he sees this old beggar, he gives him a kick. And not realizing as he does so, of course he's kicking his own master. So that is something for Odysseus to bear in mind the fact that his goatherd has kicked him. Will he wreak an awful vengeance? Well, time will tell. And now he comes up to the gates of his palace and as he approaches them he sees on the side of the road, lying on a dung heap riddled with flies, an old scabby dog. And this dog is Argos, his beloved hunting dog. The dog that he had raised by hand as a puppy before he left for Troy. And as he walks past in his disguise as a beggar, nobody else recognizing him, him, Argos does recognize him. Raises his head, pricks up his ears, wags his tail and then quote Homer, his fate, Black Death took him in its grip the moment he saw Odysseus after 20 years had passed. So the single most tragic moment in the Greek history of relationships between pet owners and their pets. Very sad moment indeed. Very famous. Yeah.

Dominic Sandbrook

So now in his beggar's Garb, Odysseus, after 20 years away, goes into his palace. And Melantius the goatherd, mad from Melantius now. And who's got teamed up with his sister Melantho, who is a concubine of one of the suitors. They mock him, don't they? Because they just think he's a beggar. He's just a, you know, a tramp or whatever.

Tom Holland

Yeah, they've got no time for him. And also they've got no time for Penelope either. Neither of them loyal to Penelope in the slightest. Yeah, Odysseus, disguised as a beggar, is led into the hall. And one of the suitors, a guy called Antinous, Robert Paterson, I think in the Christopher Dolan film, he throws a footstool at Odysseus. And to be fair to the other suitors, they do think that this is poor behavior. They think, you know, you really shouldn't just throw stools at beggars, that that will bring bad luck, the gods will be angry. And so they, they make sure to give the old beggar some, some bread and meat and to, to kind of welcome him. And so the beggar is kind of sat at the side of the hall, the disguised Odysseus. And Penelope comes down and she notices him and she thinks he has the look of someone who, who might have wandered in far lands. Maybe he has news of my husband. And so that evening she summons him for a private conversation. She doesn't recognize him, but there's something about him that makes Penelope kind of confess to him all her grief, all her longing for her husband and all her dread that she simply won't be able to keep these suitors at bay for much longer. And the disguised Odysseus replies to this by saying, well, I have news of your missing husband. Husband, I've seen him. And he, he gives a description of Odysseus. It is so convincing that Penelope is persuaded that he's telling the truth and, and she starts weeping the thought that, that perhaps Odysseus, her husband really is out there. And the beggar says, you are right to have hope. Trust me. Odysseus is on his way. And Penelope is so happy about this that she says, look you, you, you know, you're covered in scabs and dirt. Let's have you washed. And so she summons an elderly attendant in the palace. Eurycleia, who had once been the nurse of Odysseus, so had knew Odysseus very well and intimately. Penelope orders Euryclia to wash the feet of this old beggar. And Eurycla does so and she sees that there is a scar on the thigh of this beggar and she recognizes it because this was a scar that Odysseus had got as a young man when he'd been out hunting boar with his grandfather and Euryclia because she had often washed Odysseus, of course she now recognizes it and she says to him, truly you are Odysseus, dear child. And Odysseus said, be silent, do not reveal who I am. Puts his hand over her mouth, almost throttles her with his desperation not to have his secret betrayed. And so Euryclaya keeps the secret and he then goes back to his conversation with Penelope. And Penelope says, look, I've got a plan. Best way that I can think of to keep the suitors at bay. What I'm going to do the next day I am going to go down to them and Odysseus, my missing husband, he has this great bow which only he had ever been able to string. And I'm going to tell the suitors whichever of you can string the bow and then shoot an arrow through 12 double headed axes lined up in a row in the all this was a favourite party trick of Odysseus's. If one of you can do that, then you will become my husband. And Odysseus hears this plan and he says, yeah, that is brilliant, that is a tremendous plan because of course it completely dovetails with what he wants to do. And I think there is an ambiguity in Homer. There is the possibility that maybe Penelope has recognized him but she is a woman of tricks like he is. They're kind of of starting to play this game where they're each telling tall stories to the other, not quite revealing. I mean it's not absolutely stated but I think part of the fascination of the scene is that that is clearly a possibility. The two of them now retire to bed. So Penelope, we're told, cried for her dear husband Odysseus until sweet sleep was poured onto her eyelids by Athena of the bright owl eyes. Meanwhile, Odysseus has gone down, he's lying in the hall and he can hear various slave girls in the household slipping out to have sex with the suitors who've taken them as concubines. And he's furious about this. He's anxious about how he's going to deal with the suitors. You know, is he taking on too much? And so he can't sleep. But then Athena appears to him, reassures him, and as she had granted Penelope the gift of Sleep. So Athena grants Odysseus the gift of sleep. And both husband and wife get the rest they're going to need for what is going to be a very, very momentous day.

Dominic Sandbrook

All right, so the fateful day has dawned at last. This is the day when there's going to be this contest with the bow and the ax for the hand of Penelope. The suitors are in great form. They're feasting, they're fighting with each other. They're throwing bones at the beggar, who is, of course, Odysseus.

Tom Holland

Yeah.

Dominic Sandbrook

But Odysseus and Telemachus are getting ready for what they know will be a decisive moment. So Telemachus has taken the weapons out of the hall, hasn't he? And they have Eumaeus on hand, who's the one guy that they can trust. There's also another cowherd, I think. Is that right?

Tom Holland

Yeah. So Eumaeus is the pig herd, the swineherd. And this guy is the cowherd, Philotius. He's also loyal. And so Odysseus hasn't yet revealed who he is to either of these guys, but he knows that he can trust them, so they're on hand. And then we've got the. The wandering seer who Telemachus had brought back from his holiday to Sparta with him. And he pops up and the suitors all having a great time. And then he tells them what's coming. Blood is spattered all over the walls and the beautiful rafters. The entry is filled with ghosts. The courtyard filled with them, too, which isn't at all the kind of thing that you want if you're having a great time. So the hour arrives. Penelope enters the hall, and she is holding the great bow and quiver of Odysseus. And behind her, a train of her women holding the 12 axes made of bronze and iron. And Penelope announces to the suitors her decision that whoever can string the bow and shoot an arrow through the axe heads will become her husband. And Telemachus then sets the axes in a line along the hall. And the suitors all step forward in turn to try and string the bow. All 108 of them, and not one of them has the strength to string the bow. Meanwhile, as the suitors are doing this, Odysseus has taken Eumaeus, the loyal swineherd, and Philotius, the loyal cowherd, outside. And at last, now he reveals his true identity. And they think this is brilliant. You know, they fall to their knees, absolutely delighted, sobbing with joy. And he gives Them specific tasks. Eumaeus is to bring him the bow when the time comes. And Philtius is to lock the gates of the hall so that no one can escape or summon and help inside the hall. The suitors have all been trying to string this massive bow and. And failing. And so Odysseus goes back inside the hall and he makes a suggestion. He says, well, why don't we have a go? Tomorrow at dawn, the God will grant victory to whomsoever he wishes. And in the meanwhile, he says, while we're waiting, because you're all obviously now at a bit of a loose end, why don't I have a try? You'll find it entertaining, watching me, a stooped old beggar, having a go. Where's the harm? And at this, the suitors explode in indignation. And Antinous, who, you know, the guy who chucked the stool at him right at the beginning. So the most boorish of all the suitors, he rounds on, on, on Odysseus, disguised as the beggar with insults. But first, Penelope and then Telemachus tell Antinous, show some manners. You are in our hall. And Telemachus tells Penelope, go to your rooms. So again, you know, he's definitely manned up, I think it's fair to say. And then he gives a secret nod to Eumaeus. This is the signal to, you know, we're about to go. And so Eumaeus, as he'd been instructed to do, goes over, picks up the bow and gives it to Odysseus. And Odysseus tests the bow. He scans it. Homer says that he almost caresses it. And then, abruptly, to the absolute stupefaction of the watching suitors, he strings it and he plucks the string to test his pitch. And as he does so, we're told, Zeus sends a flash of lightning from the clear blue sky overhead. And then Odysseus takes an arrow and he knocks it and he draws and he lets fly. And the arrow passes through all 12 of the axe heads. Yes, the bronze weighted shaft sailed straight through them. And at this point, Telemachus reaches for his sword and spear and Odysseus strips off his rags and he aims an arrow at Antinous, the worst behaved of all the suitors, and he lets fly. And Antinous, who is obliviously lifting a great golden goblet to his lips as all this is happening, is struck directly in the throat and blood spurts out in a great jet. It's a very cinematic description from Homer. And at the spectacle of this is complete Pandemonium. And the suitors all think that the beggar must have done it by accident. I mean, surely this is the only explanation. But no, because now comes the moment when Odysseus announces himself to the hall. You dogs. You never imagined that I would make my way home from the country of the Trojans. Look how you've wasted my hand house, how you forced yourselves upon the slave women in bed, how while I was still alive but out of sight, you courted my wife. And the slaughter begins and it is terrible and it is total.

Dominic Sandbrook

But there is a chance for the suitors, isn't there? Because you'd mentioned earlier this goatherd Melanthius, who had identified himself as an absolute villain by kicking Odysseus when he was on his way in. And this bloke actually slips out of the hall and starts to bring them weapons and armor, doesn't he?

Tom Holland

He does, but fortunately for Odysseus, he's rumbled by Eumaeus and Philotius and they truss him up and they lift him up to the roof beams and they leave him hanging there. And this portends nothing good for Melanthius. And meanwhile the slaughter is continuing in the hall and Athena has turned up up for the fun. And she's not there to help Odysseus, but basically to goad him on and tell him to kill even faster. And she materializes first as Mentor. So this old friend of Odysseus', which was the form that she'd appeared to Telemachus at the beginning of this episode, and then she turns into a swallow and she perches on the great smoke blackened roof beam of the hall. And this is something that she loves doing, she loves taking on the form of a bird and particularly when there are spectacles of bloodshed. So in the Iliad she had disguised herself as a vulture and there are descriptions of her kind of shivering with delight at the spectacle of blood being spilled. And spectacles of blood being spilled is absolutely what she gets now in the hall of Odysseus. So tremendous violence, tremendous slaughter, all the suitors end up dead. And the metaphor that Homer uses is that of fish being dragged onto a beach in nets and speared. And there's an echo there of what had happened to Odysseus men in the harbour of the Laestrygonians, where the Laestrygonians had gone and speared all his men. So the suitors are wiped out. But they are not the only victims of Odysseus's terrible vengeance, because when the slaughter is done. He demands to know of Eurycleia, his old nurse, which of the servant girls have been sleeping with the suitors. And Euryclia replies, well, there were 12 of them. So it's a bit like post Vichy France, you know, they are female collaborators. Horizontale.

Dominic Sandbrook

That's exactly the. The analogy I thought of. And. And they. Their fate is horrible, isn't it?

Tom Holland

Yes. So they are told to carry out the corpses of the suitors, among them their dead lovers, and then to clean the hall, the tables, the benches. Meanwhile, Telemachus has strung a ship's cable from a pillar to a beam, and from this cable the maids are hanged, to quote Homer, horrible description. Just as when some thrushes with slender wings or some doves go crashing into a snare. And we're told that as they are throttled, the girl's feet twitch. And then Homer says, but not for very long.

Dominic Sandbrook

I wonder if Tom Holland's going to be doing this in the film. Because he's Telemachus, isn't he?

Tom Holland

I mean, it's genuinely interesting to see whether the slaughter of the servant girls is included. Can't imagine Matt Damon doing it, but who knows? It'll always be interesting to see whether Melanthius features as a character in the Nolan film because he is given a particularly horrible punishment. So his nose and ears are sliced off, his genitals are cut off and fed to dogs, and his hands and feet are amputated. And Homer does not specify whether he dies of this mutilations or whether he's just left to eke out a hideous living as a beggar.

Dominic Sandbrook

Yeah. What would one prefer? I don't know.

Tom Holland

There is a lot of brutality in this world. But Euryclea, I mean, she thinks it's all brilliant. She couldn't be happier. The spectacle of all this slaughter and bloodshed and castration. And in fact, she's almost laughing for joy as she rushes up to tell her mistress Penelop what has been going on. But Penelope still can't quite believe it. Or does she? Is she still playing games? And she comes downstairs and she gazes at Odysseus, and Homer says she is torn by uncertainty. Sometimes as she stared at him, she seemed to see his face. But sometimes she failed to recognize him dressed in vile rags. And Telemachus can't believe this. How can his mother possibly doubt that she is gazing at the. At her husband, Telemachus's father. But Penelope says, look, if he truly is Odysseus, we will know each other in our own ways. For we, you know, we. We have signs, we have secrets that are known only to the two of us. And Odysseus smiles at this. And again, I think there's this sense that they're playing the kind of games that perhaps they played before he left for Troy. And so he's to run me a bath. And Penelope obeys, and a bath is run for him. And then when he steps out from the bath, we're told that Athena poured great beauty upon his head. But Penelope, she's still. She's still not welcoming him back as her husband. And Odysseus says, your heart is made of iron. You are the hardest of women. But Penelope says, I don't care. I'm not going to be taken for a fool. And she says to Euryclea, go and move the bed out of our bridal chamber, the chamber that Odysseus, my husband, built with his own hands. And when Odysseus hears this, he explodes. And he says, what do you mean this bed can't be moved? Because when I made it myself, I fashioned one of the four boasts out of a living olive tree. And I had then built the bedchamber around this living olive tree, around this bed that I've made out of it, adorning it with inlays of gold and silver and ivory. So in other words, the only way that the. The bed could be moved is if someone had cut the living trunk of the tree. And this is something known only to Odysseus, only to Penelope. And so when he says this, at last Penelope's knees give way and her heart as well, and she embraces him and she kisses him and she is struck in her joy by the last of the poems, great similes. And it reverses what had happened because now it is Penelope who is being compared to the sailor lost at sea. She, Homer says, is like a shipwreck sailor crusted in Brian, who at last treads on dry land after escaping from disaster. And the great moment of husband and wife being joined together after all these adventures, all these many, many years of absence, at last it arrives and they retire to bed. And Athena holds back the coming of the dawn so that they can enjoy the ultimate reunion. And the amazing thing is, again, it's another kind of postmodern and kind of meta aspect of the poem that they have time because Athena has pushed the dawn back for the pair of them to catch up on what the other has been doing. And so Odysseus basically tells the story of his adventures. So essentially what we covered in episode one, and Penelope tells Odysseus what she's been up to. So basically, the outline of this episode. So in other words, the first people to narrate the action, the story of the Odyssey, are Odysseus and Penelope themselves.

Dominic Sandbrook

I'm the first people to hear it.

Tom Holland

I'm the first people to hear it, although obviously not the last.

Dominic Sandbrook

So the appeal of the Odyssey, Tom, what do you think it boils down to? Because it's obviously the product of a specific time and place, and yet it's proved so enduring and so influential on Western literary culture more generally.

Tom Holland

I think it's exactly that fusion. I think it's the fact that it has gods, it features, you know, famous monsters. Speaking for myself, I loved that as a child. That was the quality that I loved. But also, to be honest, you know, I loved the violence of it and the murderous quality of Odysseus, as well as the cunning aspect of him. Yeah, people, I think, enjoy that in stories.

Dominic Sandbrook

There's a savagery to it that's often lost in children's versions, I think, a cruelty.

Tom Holland

But also, I think, think the basic plot of it is so adaptable, it can be retold in so many ways. And it has been retold in. In lots of ways. I mean, there are elements of it in Virgil's poem the Aeneid that in turn influences Dante, who describes Odysseus. After he has returned to Ithaca, he ends up bored, and he sets sail for his last great voyage to the ends of the world. And that is then reworked by Tennyson in the 19th century in his great poem Ulysses. And I think it's a perfect way to end this because it describes a hero who will never come to rest, who will always be embarking on fresh adventures. And you can see that now with the Christopher Nolan film, there was the Ralph Fiennes film as well, which describes his homecoming. And that is just one of a kind of endless number of reworkings that continue to be made in film, in fiction, in poetry. So let's end it with Tennyson's Ulysses, Odysseus saying how he is going to leave on one last final voyage. Though much is taken, much abides, and though we are not now that strength which in old days moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are one equal temper of heroic hearts, made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Dominic Sandbrook

Well, thank you, Tennyson, and thank you, Tom. For what's been an epic journey, an odyssey, dare I say, literally so through this most influential of all great stories. So next week we will be somewhere very different. We'll be in late 1880s van der Sieck, Vienna for the murder suicide mystery of Myling. And Rest Is History Club members can get both of those episodes on Monday. You won't have to wait. And by the way, we are running our summer sale, so if you want to join the Rest Is History Club, this is the moment. For a limited time only, you can get 20% off an annual membership using the code Summer26. And that offer is valid until August 31st. So on that bombshell, thank you very much, Tom. Thank you everybody and goodbye.

Tom Holland

Goodbye.

Mary Beard

I'm Mary Beard.

Josephine Quinn

And I'm Josephine Quinn. At the Rest Is Fest this September, we're putting on a show that can only be described as an iconoclastic romp through the ancient world.

Mary Beard

We're talking about leaders behaving badly, emperors putting their their horses in charge, cities built by asylum seekers and empires getting their comeuppance. There will be some proper myth busting, but we'll also be asking why these myths matter even when we know they're wrong.

Josephine Quinn

So if you love your ancient history and you're free on September 6th, get your ticket now and join us at London's South Bank Centre.

Mary Beard

Tickets are on sale now.

Josephine Quinn

Just visit southbankcentre.co.uk that's southbankcentre.co.uk.