Episodes

  • EPISODE 1 PENELOPE
    Aug 23 2019

    STORY  0:00 – 1:15:00 Odysseus – “the polytropus man” – sets sail for home.  Adventures at Ismarus and in the Land of the Lotus Eaters follow.  A detailed flashback takes us to Ithaka, to explore Penelope’s three duties in her husband’s absence:  stewardship, sexual fidelity, and raising an heir.  The episode concludes with Odysseus and...

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    1 hr and 33 mins
  • EPISODE 2 CYCLOPS
    Aug 23 2019

    STORY  0:00 – 1:03:45 This episode includes all of the adventures – the horror, the comedy, and the strategy – inside the cyclops Polyphemus’ cave.  The episode concludes with Odysseus being cursed, followed by a short primer on how to curse one’s enemies, Bronze Age style. POST-STORY COMMENTARY:  UNDERSTANDING XENIA  1:03:45 – 1:25:37 The Odyssey’s...

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    1 hr and 26 mins
  • EPISODE 3 AEOLUS and THE LASTRYGONIANS
    Aug 2 2019

    STORY  0:00 – 45:00 The Great Wanderings continue, and disaster follows disaster.  First Odysseus squanders opportunity for easy homecoming via King Aeolus’ magical bag of wind.  And then Odysseus loses most of his ships and crew, in the Lastrygonian harbor of death. POST-STORY COMMENTARY:  THE ODYSSEY AS LITERATURE’S DEFINING QUEST STORY  45:00 – 1:13:00 I...

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    1 hr and 13 mins
  • EPISODE 4 CIRCE
    Aug 1 2019

    STORY  0:00 – 56:00 Odysseus’ crew arrive on Circe’s island, where they are transformed into pigs (most likely for behaving like pigs).  After rescuing his crew, Odysseus decides to postpone his homecoming a full year, unwilling to resist the pleasures of the Circe’s “gorgeous bed”. POST-STORY COMMENTARY:  MARITAL FIDELITY IN THE BRONZE AGE   56:00 –...

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    1 hr and 29 mins
  • EPISODE 5 ODYSSEUS IN THE UNDERWORLD
    Jul 31 2019

    STORY  0:00 – 53:00 Odysseus visits the underworld and has some interesting conversations with the dead.  His mom warns him about the deteriorating situation in Ithaka; Agamemnon warns him about the fidelity of wives (an Odyssey “recurring theme); and Achilles shares his post-life existential crisis: “was all of my earthly kleos really worth anything?”. POST-STORY...

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    1 hr and 13 mins
  • EPISODE 6 SIRENS, SCYLLA, CHARYBDIS and SOME COWS
    Jul 30 2019

    STORY  0:00 – 58:55 Odysseus listens to the Sirens.  I pause to provide a historical review of how Sirens evolved over time, following Homer’s Odyssey. Odysseus then chooses between Charybdis and Scylla, and I pause to relate a seriously twisted “Scylla back-story”.  And finally, we witness the incredibly disturbing deaths of all of Odysseus’ remaining...

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    2 hrs and 7 mins
  • EPISODE 7 CALYPSO
    Jul 29 2019

    STORY  0:00 – 54:30 The episode opens in year seven of Odysseus’ long, largely undocumented sojourn on Calypso’s island.  Odysseus is longing for home, apparently unmoved by the promise of immortality with a goddess.  Up on Mount Olympus: Athena pleads Odysseus’ case, Zeus relents, and Hermes is sent to Calypso’s island with orders that “Odysseus...

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    1 hr and 31 mins
  • EPISODE 8 TELEMACHUS
    Jul 28 2019

    STORY  0:00 – 53:15 At the same time as Hermes takes flight to Calypso’ island, in order to rescue Odysseus, Athena takes flight to Ithaka, in order to “rescue” 20-year old Telemachus: from his remarkable immaturity. This episode picks up the story in the twentieth year of Odysseus’ absence, and details the “Ithacan constitutional crisis”...

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    1 hr and 51 mins