The Adventures of Odysseus and the Tale of Troy

By Padraic Colum The Iliad and the Odyssey are two of the world’s oldest and richest stories. Taking the threads of these epics in hand, renowned Irish folklorist Padraic Colum weaves them into a single, marvelous adventure. Here is the story of the wise Odysseus, who bids goodbye to his infant son, Telemachus, his young wife Penelope, and his father, old Laertes, in answer to Agamemnon’s summons that he join the heroic Achilles and other Greek warriors and wage war against Troy. After ten long and bloody years, the thread of war is wound up—yet Odysseus returns not to Ithaca. Ten more years pass as he wanders, encountering Calypso and the Cyclopes, Circe and the Sirens, the terrible Scylla and Charybdis, and more. Yet his wandering may come at a terrible price: presuming Odysseus dead, a host of suitors have presented themselves to Penelope, seeking to win her hand and thus to usurp Telemachus and take his kingdom for themselves. First published in 1918, The Adventures of Odysseus and