Extract

Tell me, O Muse, of the man of many devices, who wandered far and wide.

A soldier trying to sail home takes ten years to cross a sea that wants to keep him, encountering a one-eyed giant, a goddess who offers immortality, and the underworld itself, all of which prove less dangerous than the simple problem of remaining who he is. Homer's epic, composed around the eighth century BC and transmitted through centuries of oral tradition, invented the idea of homecoming as spiritual trial. Penelope, unraveling her weaving each night to hold the suitors at bay, performs a patience no less heroic than any battlefield exploit. When Odysseus finally strings the great bow in his own hall, it is not strength he demonstrates but identity, proof that the man who left and the man who returned are, despite everything, the same.