By now I am used to suffering-I have gone through so much, at sea and in the war. Warned by a prophet about the trouble he will encounter in trying to return to his island of Ithaca, Odysseus replies, “I will endure it. The island of one-eyed Cyclopes, Circe the witch, who turns men into pigs, and the deadly Sirens with their irresistible singing are just a few of the famous obstacles standing between Odysseus and his home. The Odyssey’s magical scenes make it a memorable and engaging story. While a passing familiarity with the Trojan War and some gods of Greek mythology is helpful, Wilson’s edition provides plenty of assistance to novice readers through the utilization of brief chapter summaries in the notes section, several maps, and a glossary of characters and places. Despite its temporal distance from today, readers of The Odyssey do not require any knowledge of ancient Greek history to follow Homer’s story.

Although, as classics scholar and translator Emily Wilson reports in her introductory essay, the poem almost certainly existed in oral form before then. Historians approximate the written text of The Odyssey to the 8th century BCE-older than Christianity, Islam, and many of the books of the Hebrew Bible. The battles for Fallujah and the Pech Valley may have ended, but many soldiers are still fighting. The Odyssey contains ancient wisdom of enduring value that is once again relevant for a country that has deployed and redeployed hundreds of thousands of service members during twenty years of expeditionary conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan. Homer explores this theme through the attempts of his hero, Odysseus, to return to his kingdom on the island of Ithaca after the Trojan War. The Greek poet Homer was one of the first to illuminate these overlooked aspects of post-war reintegration in his epic poem, The Odyssey. A new struggle often awaits veterans as they try to restore their place or find a new place in the families and communities they left behind. For many of the soldiers who fought the post-9/11 battles and lived, the war did not end when they departed the combat zone it has only just begun. However, there are unseen costs that are often overlooked. and allied service members’ casualties, refugees and civilian deaths, and the financial debt left for future generations to repay, these are the observable costs and the easiest to count. What are the true costs of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq? While a full audit would certainly include the U.S.

“You think of going home as honey-sweet, but gods will make it bitter.” Homer (282) The Odyssey, by Homer and translated by Emily Wilson (W.

Emily wilson the illiad