Myth · Adventure
The Odyssey
After the Trojan War, Odysseus spends ten years trying to get home past monsters, witches and angry gods.
Five levels, about 80 languages
- A2ElementaryShort sentences and everyday words.
- B1IntermediateYou follow clear stories about familiar things.
- B2Upper intermediateLonger sentences, richer vocabulary.
- C1AdvancedClose to the original, lightly condensed.
- C2ProficientThe complete novel.
One purchase is one book, in one language, at one level: $4.99. Another level of a book you own is $1.99. Editions nobody has asked for yet are written on request: chapter 1 in a few minutes, the rest while you read. How the levels work.
About the book
The long way home
The Trojan War has been over for ten years, and of all the Greek heroes only Odysseus has not come home. In Ithaca, his wife, Penelope, is besieged by suitors who eat his food and demand she marry one of them; his son, Telemachus, now grown, sets out to find news of him. Odysseus himself is held on the island of the nymph Calypso. When he finally escapes and is shipwrecked among a kindly people, he tells them the story of his wanderings: the Lotus-eaters, the one-eyed Cyclops, the witch Circe, the land of the dead, the Sirens, Scylla and Charybdis. The Odyssey was composed in Greek, probably in the eighth or seventh century BC.
Why it works for learners
The adventures are among the most famous stories ever told, and each episode is short, vivid and complete: a monster, a trick, an escape, a loss. Recognition helps; you’ll often know what’s coming. Odysseus is a hero of words as much as strength. He escapes the Cyclops by telling him his name is Nobody, so that when the monster cries for help, no one comes. Seeing how that joke is handled in the language you’re learning is a small pleasure of its own. The vocabulary is the sea and the home: ship, oar, wind, island, cave, wine, house, guest, gift.
Which level to start at
A2 and B1 both work well; the episodes are clear at any level. B2 and above bring back the long speeches and the poem’s repeated phrases, like rosy-fingered Dawn. If you’re learning Greek, reading The Odyssey in modern Greek is a fine way to meet one of the oldest stories in your new language.
Read next
- Beowulf, the great hero-poem of Old English
- The Arabian Nights, whose editor, Andrew Lang, thought some of Sindbad’s adventures might come from Homer
- Robinson Crusoe, another sailor shipwrecked far from home