Book 1 of 24
Book 1: Athena visits Ithaca
The Gods in Council—Minerva’s Visit to Ithaca—the Challenge from Telemachus to the Suitors.
The poem opens by asking the Muse to tell of the ingenious hero who travelled far and wide after he sacked Troy, suffered much at sea, and could not save his companions.
On Olympus the gods meet. Odysseus (called Ulysses in the English text) is held on Calypso's island. Athena (Minerva) and Zeus (Jove) agree that it is time to let him go.
Athena goes to Ithaca disguised as a visitor called Mentes, chief of the Taphians. She finds Telemachus among the suitors who are eating his household's food. She tells him to call the Achaean heroes to an assembly the next morning, and to go to seek news of his father.
Telemachus then tells the suitors that he will give them formal notice, at an assembly the next morning, to leave his house.