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Documentary, History Channel, Clash of the Gods 6-10 Odysseus Part 1
#ClashoftheGods #Documentary #Odysseus
#ClashoftheGods #Documentary #Odysseus
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00:00The Odyssey. It is the ultimate adventure story.
00:06A warrior king in a desperate race to get home before he loses the woman he loves and the nation he rules.
00:15In his way are savage beasts, hurricane winds, giant cannibals.
00:22And he'll have to outsmart them all.
00:26Modern research is revealing some surprising truths behind this epic myth.
00:32This is the real story of Odysseus.
00:46Ten terrified sailors are trapped inside the lair of a one-eyed, man-eating cyclops.
00:53Two of their companions have been devoured before their eyes.
00:59Each fears he will be the next to die.
01:03The men need a miracle, and they look desperately to their leader to deliver one.
01:11His name is Odysseus.
01:19Odysseus never stops thinking.
01:21He never lets go.
01:23He refuses to believe that anything can defeat him.
01:26That's a fundamental part of his character.
01:28He's the sneaky guy who will do what it takes to beat you.
01:31Odysseus is a thinking man's hero.
01:34A leader who relies on his intellect rather than his strength.
01:40And he will need all of his uncommon wit to escape the cyclops alive.
01:46The cool thing about Odysseus is that, unlike other heroes, Odysseus is thoroughly mortal.
01:55He is man.
01:57We connect with him in a special way because of that.
02:00There was a popularity he had among the ancients because of that.
02:05The story of Odysseus, called the Odyssey, was written by a Greek poet named Homer in the 8th century BC.
02:16The story of the Odyssey I think we can all embrace because it's about a person faced with a lot of frustrations and a lot of obstacles.
02:27Odysseus' journey home from war is a timeless tale of perseverance.
02:33It is also a story that symbolizes the dawn of a new era in ancient Greece.
02:39I think the Odyssey in a way is a bit like a James Bond novel.
02:42If you think about what Ian Fleming wrote, he always put his hero into real life places.
02:48I think that's what Homer was doing.
02:51In a time when Greek sailors were exploring far off lands across the Mediterranean,
02:57Odysseus represented the modern adventurer.
03:01There are a lot of stories that are reflected in the Odyssey of this expansion of the Greeks,
03:09where the Greeks are beginning to colonize and reports are coming back about various monsters or various things sailor tells.
03:25The story of Odysseus begins on Ithaca, the mythical Greek island he rules.
03:31He was a happy and successful king.
03:38He had a wife whom he was very fond of, she was very fond of him, they had a young son.
03:44In the myth, Ithaca is an oasis of peace surrounded by a sea of enemies.
03:54Sparta and Troy, the regional superpowers, have been bitter rivals for years.
04:00Now, a sexual affair involving the most beautiful woman on earth will bring them to war.
04:10Helen, the Queen of Sparta, has run off with the Prince of Troy.
04:16Sparta pressures Ithaca to join the fight to bring her back home.
04:20Bound by honor, Odysseus enlists.
04:27He heads off to battle knowing that this may be the last time he ever sees his family or his kingdom.
04:42Odysseus leads a fleet of 12 ships to Troy, where he soon finds himself on the front lines of war.
04:48The battle for Helen rages for a decade, until the Greek forces hit a wall.
04:56Literally.
05:01The wall around Troy is so massive, so impenetrable, the Greeks believe it was built by gods.
05:09In antiquity, people thought it actually had been built by some kind of divine intervention on behalf of the Trojans.
05:16With the war on the line, Odysseus devises an ingenious strategy to get inside the wall.
05:31He says, we should build a hollow wooden horse, which we will leave on the beach.
05:36We will pretend that we've given up, that we've decided the Trojans are too much for us and we've gone home.
05:48Inside the horse is going to be our best heroes, myself included, Odysseus of course.
05:53And the Trojans are going to drag this horse inside because they're going to think it's a parting gift for the gods.
06:00When dawn breaks, the Trojans are stunned, the Greeks are gone, and there's a gigantic horse outside their walls.
06:13So goes the myth.
06:14So goes the myth.
06:16But what is the link to reality?
06:25Scholars long believed Troy was an imaginary city, and the Trojan War only a legend.
06:31But in the late 19th century, a five-acre hill in western Turkey yielded something startling.
06:41An ancient city with a massive wall.
06:46And the remains of a large palace.
06:49Two key features of Homer's Troy.
06:52The structures had been burned just like the mythical city.
06:59The site is close to the coast, in the region where experts believe Troy would have been.
07:06And its terrain is similar to the landscape Homer describes.
07:10But there's more.
07:13Among the ruins, archaeologists found evidence of war.
07:18We have found a number of arrowheads and spearheads of Troy.
07:27We've also found an unburied skeleton inside the city of Troy.
07:32That's a dead giveaway, usually, of a war, because ancient people had a horror of leaving bodies unburied within the city walls.
07:40They wouldn't do so unless they were in very extreme circumstances.
07:45Did the Trojan War really happen?
07:52Is there also some truth behind the story of Odysseus?
07:57Our search for clues leads back to the myth.
08:09Odysseus and his men are huddled inside the wooden horse,
08:12as it rolls through the gates and into Troy.
08:16The Trojans have mistaken it for a peace offering.
08:20The horse was a symbol of Troy.
08:24The Trojans are known as great horse breeders.
08:27The countryside outside to Troy was to ancient horse breeding what Kentucky is to modern horse breeding.
08:32So by leaving a Trojan horse, it seemed as if this was an homage to the Trojans.
08:37A symbol of what Troy was all about.
08:44The Trojans fall for the stratagem.
08:47They celebrate because the war is over.
08:49At the end of a long party much wine and much eating has been done.
08:52Everybody is basically passed out in the city of Troy.
08:55As the Trojans sleep, Odysseus and his elite forces emerge from the horse.
09:10There's a wonderful description in our sources of the Trojans lying innocently.
09:18Sleeping, dreaming, relaxing, and the Greeks going through the city like a mist.
09:25And creeping through the dark alleyways.
09:30In the dead of night, the Greeks strike.
09:32The Trojans are caught off guard.
09:39And the city of Troy burns.
09:48Odysseus' unusual strategy has succeeded.
09:52His Trojan horse has won the war.
09:56And he emerges as the hero of the day.
10:00Many of the heroes from that period in Greek history and mythology were celebrated because they were great warriors.
10:08They were very strong, good with a bow.
10:11Odysseus was different.
10:13He was a hero who was celebrated because he was crafty.
10:18He was intelligent.
10:20Odysseus is at his best when he's under pressure.
10:23He, any number of times, gets into places where no human being should be able to escape.
10:27He faces certain death at all kinds of different turns.
10:31And he always seems to find a way through.
10:34He's like an ancient MacGyver.
10:40Odysseus has survived ten years on the front lines of a brutal conflict.
10:46He is anxious to get home to Ithaca.
10:48But the Trojan War was nothing compared with what still lies ahead.
10:54A menagerie of monsters.
10:57And mayhem.
11:01The Odyssey is just beginning.
11:03In Homer's Odyssey, the Trojan War has ended.
11:17Now the journey home begins.
11:21Odysseus' island of Ithaca is 565 nautical miles from Troy.
11:28In ancient times, that was a journey of a few weeks.
11:33When Odysseus left Troy, he wanted to get home.
11:37But I don't think in any way he's expecting that it's going to take him ten years to get home.
11:42Home!
11:44I think he thought that he might stop along the way to go on some raids,
11:48maybe to show off some of his success in a matter of a month or two.
11:54He had every reason to think he would be home in Ithaca.
11:57Odysseus sets out for Ithaca with a fleet of 12 ships
12:01and a crew of 600 war-weary sailors.
12:05It is an impressive fleet by ancient standards.
12:09But could it have been real?
12:101988.
12:20Two scuba divers stumble upon an unusual shipwreck off the coast of southern Sicily.
12:26The ship stretches nearly 60 feet long and 22 feet wide,
12:33making it the biggest ancient vessel of its kind ever discovered.
12:37But exactly how old is it?
12:43To find out, scientists analyzed the tree rings in wooden planks recovered by the divers.
12:50The results are stunning.
12:52The ship dates back to approximately 500 BC,
12:56within two centuries of the Odyssey.
12:59It's an exciting revelation.
13:01This could be exactly the type of ship Homer imagined for Odysseus.
13:122008.
13:14The entire ship is finally pulled from the Mediterranean Sea
13:18and dry docked in Portsmouth, England, to be studied piece by piece.
13:23Here, experts are able to compare the remains with Homer's description of how Odysseus' ships were built.
13:31The result?
13:33It's a perfect match.
13:35The interesting thing about this ship, as opposed to North European ships,
13:41is that it was made with mortise and tenon and it was held together with rope.
13:45This is the same method of shipbuilding described in the Odyssey.
13:50Now, after two and a half millennia at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea,
13:55this ship is giving scholars an unprecedented glimpse into the world of Odysseus.
14:01This is not a primitive vessel.
14:04This is quite a sophisticated piece of technology.
14:06Odysseus' journey could well have taken place.
14:08And what's exciting about this is that we've got a ship that could well have been comparable to the ships that he would have been on.
14:19The myth continues.
14:21Odysseus is headed for home at last.
14:25His faithful wife, Penelope, and his now ten-year-old son, Telemachus, are eagerly awaiting his return.
14:32But in his absence, his palace has been overrun by lecherous men, who are out to steal his wife and his throne.
14:46Odysseus has been gone a while.
14:48Penelope, of course, is faithful, but she's surrounded by suitors and they want to marry Penelope.
14:54And in marrying Penelope, of course, they want to have the power that goes with it and take over Odysseus' dominion.
14:59So, it's not a good situation.
15:03If Odysseus doesn't make it home soon, all that he fought for will be lost.
15:15Odysseus' first stop after leaving Troy is the coastal city of Ismaris.
15:22There, he will seek vengeance against an old enemy.
15:25These were a group of people who had been allied with the Trojans, they helped the Trojans against the Greeks.
15:32And Odysseus wants to now exact revenge on him.
15:36Ismaris may have been one of the settings in the Odyssey that was based on a real location.
15:42In ancient times, it was said to be home to the fiercest warriors in the known world.
15:51They're absolutely terrific fighters and their particular specialty was unconventional warfare.
15:57Great guerrillas and insurgents of the ancient world.
15:59But that doesn't deter Odysseus.
16:03In the myth, he and his men come ashore, braced for battle.
16:08They clobber the city, steal all the treasure, and they're on their way home.
16:12Of course, they make a mistake, they drink a little too much, they eat a little too much, and they pass out on the beach.
16:17Their victory party is premature.
16:28Early the next morning, the natives ambush the men while they sleep.
16:33Within minutes, 72 sailors are massacred.
16:43The rest barely make it out alive.
16:47It is a hard lesson about underestimating the enemy.
16:51And the first in a series of deadly mistakes by Odysseus and his crew.
16:56He does get away with the better part of his force, but he loses a lot and learns a very painful lesson about keeping everybody on their toes at all times.
17:08This is going to be a very dangerous journey.
17:12There's a theme in Homer that we might simply describe as always be prepared, never let your guard down.
17:18Again and again, we see people who have a little taste of victory and they immediately party.
17:26And their enemy that's leaner and meaner, hunger for victory, takes advantage of it.
17:32This is a cycle we see again and again in the history of ancient and I might say in the history of modern warfare as well.
17:38Odysseus and his men are shell-shocked.
17:42They stay at sea for the next two weeks.
17:45But not by choice.
17:47The fleet encounters another devastating obstacle.
17:52A hurricane.
17:53This storm blows them off the map and from here until the very end of his adventures, Odysseus is kind of in never-never land.
18:03The hurricane carries the fleet all the way to North Africa.
18:07There on an exotic island just off the coast, Odysseus and his men unwittingly step into a mythological drug den.
18:20The natives here warmly welcome them with an offering of lotus, a sweet-tasting flower with mind-altering properties.
18:29Odysseus is suspicious and he's right to be wary in this situation because what happens when his men eat the lotus is that it's a kind of drug and they become very happy and forgetful of what they're trying to do which is to get home.
18:48They want to stay in the land of the lotus eaters forever.
18:55Some experts think the lotus eaters were meant to symbolize a real scourge of ancient Greece. Drug abuse.
19:05Greeks knew the poppy.
19:07There are many Mycenaean seals and objects in which you clearly see the poppy so they knew about opium and therefore hashish.
19:15The point being, human beings like intoxication. Within the Odyssey, its function is to show how people can get lost on their way home. And that's very human.
19:30Once again, the crew has been sidetracked by self-indulgence. It will become a running theme throughout the Odyssey.
19:43But their leader, Odysseus, stays sober. He has just one goal, to return home to Ithaca where his wife and son are waiting.
19:52He just says, come on. Come on, you knuckleheads. Let's get back on the boat. And off they go. It's this incredibly short episode and yet it's been written about so much.
20:04And I think the reason is because everybody knows that experience. Everybody's tired. Everybody's been through too much.
20:10What could be more attractive than to eat, drink, smoke, ingest something that would just let you forget.
20:18The journey home has begun again. But the crew's curiosity may yet be its death.
20:24When the fleet comes across another island teeming with wild game, it seems like a dream come true.
20:35But it's about to become hell on earth.
20:39Odysseus and his men have stumbled upon the land of a giant man-eating cyclops.
20:44And it's almost dinner time.
20:54The mythical hero Odysseus is trying to get back to his wife and son after a decade at war.
21:01But this is not the trip home he envisioned.
21:04After several weeks at sea, he has lost 72 of his men in an ambush.
21:11And confronted hurricane winds that pushed him far off course.
21:17Now, an unknown island offers a chance to replenish both supplies and morale.
21:24Or so it seems.
21:26There are a number of reasons why Odysseus would have to put to shore.
21:31One, they've been out to sea for a while.
21:33And you need to put ashore for supplies and provisions.
21:38But the other thing that you always have to remember about Odysseus is he is just fundamentally curious.
21:43Sometimes too curious for his own good.
21:46He wants to know.
21:48He is intrigued by knowledge.
21:51And so sometimes he pushes it a little bit too far.
21:53And there's such an insight into the Greek character here.
21:57This is a period of vast Greek expansion and colonization.
22:01The Greeks themselves in Homer's day wanted to go out into the world for many solid economic reasons.
22:09But also because they were simply curious.
22:16Odysseus selects his 12 best men to explore the island with him.
22:19Just before he sets off, he grabs one last item.
22:25A goatskin full of wine.
22:27It will prove to be a lifesaver.
22:30Priority number one for the explorers is to find something to eat.
22:34Just offshore, the men hit the jackpot.
22:40They come across a cave filled with food.
22:46Only one thing is missing.
22:50The cave's owner.
22:51When they get into the cave, Odysseus' men see wonderful stores of food.
22:55And they're ready to steal it and take off and get out of danger.
22:59Odysseus though is very curious.
23:01He wants to stick around.
23:03He thinks that the person that lives there should owe him a gift.
23:06And this is traditional in ancient Greek society.
23:09That a person who arrives as a stranger on someone else's shores is owed a gift.
23:14When a stranger shows up in your town, you take him in.
23:19You give him a place to rest.
23:21You give him food.
23:22You treat him kindly.
23:24Inside the cave, Odysseus and his men help themselves to a long-awaited feast.
23:31As the sun sets, the man of the house finally returns.
23:36But he is not what the sailors were expecting.
23:41He is a giant cyclops.
23:44A ravenous beast with the strength of 20 men and one massive eye in the middle of his face.
23:52The sight of him sends Odysseus and his men cowering into a dark corner.
23:57The cyclops lights his nightly fire and the men are exposed.
24:12When the cyclops arrives home, he sees that these men have come in to steal his food.
24:17He is angry.
24:19And then Odysseus steps up and kind of beats his chest and says,
24:21Hello, we've just arrived from far away lands.
24:24Where's our gift?
24:25And he's being a little bit rude, too.
24:27So you can kind of see how the cyclops is a little bit miffed.
24:30This has all just gone terribly wrong.
24:35In the blink of an eye, the cyclops lunges forward,
24:40grabs two of the sailors,
24:42and devours them.
24:43He leaves not a morsel behind.
24:50Not even the bones.
24:52When the Greeks see the cyclops eat two of their fellow Greeks,
24:56they're shocked, they're frightened.
24:59Cannibalism in ancient Greece was an incredibly barbarous act.
25:04For them, a mark of a civilized person was actually the way they ate and drank.
25:12The men are terrified.
25:15They're also frustrated with Odysseus for leading them into this ungodly mess.
25:20And they decide, well, while he's asleep, let's kill him.
25:25But Odysseus, fortunately, is the smartest guy in the bunch.
25:29And he says, we can't kill him.
25:31Odysseus has a problem.
25:34If the sailors, if Odysseus, kill the cyclops now,
25:37they'll be trapped within the cave because they are not strong enough to move the stone on their own.
25:43On the other hand, if the men don't kill the cyclops, they will surely die.
25:49It is a hopeless situation.
25:53But Odysseus has overcome too much to give up now.
25:57If he can't use his strength to beat this monster, he'll use his intelligence.
26:01He never gives up hope, even though his men in the cyclops cave feel it's over.
26:08Odysseus is always scheming, planning, thinking.
26:13The giant cyclops is one of mythology's most memorable monsters.
26:19But could it be more than just a figment of Homer's imagination?
26:26Today, some experts think it was inspired by a real-life beast.
26:31And this may be the proof.
26:34The mythical hero Odysseus and his men are facing all but certain death inside the cave of a monstrous cyclops.
26:53Two have already been eaten, and the beast is hungry for more.
26:57At sunrise, the cyclops devours two more men.
27:09Then, he heads out to graze his sheep, sealing the cave behind him.
27:15Time is running out for Odysseus.
27:19The mastermind of the Trojan horse desperately needs a new stroke of genius.
27:25And fast.
27:26Odysseus is someone who survives on his wits.
27:29But what makes Odysseus different than all of the other mythic characters is that he thinks before he acts.
27:37He's likely to come up with a cunning solution rather than a direct one.
27:42So goes the myth.
27:44But what is the link to reality?
27:50The giant cyclops seems like the work of a disturbed imagination.
27:54But it may be based on actual science.
27:57There are three very different facts of ancient life that could have inspired Homer's monster.
28:05The first is a rare disease that causes fetuses to develop only one large eye.
28:10It's a condition called cyclopia.
28:14And it may have been widely known to the ancient Greeks.
28:19Exposure to certain sorts of alkaloid toxins that are found in some herbs can cause pregnant women to deliver children that have cyclopia.
28:27Now this is very interesting because some of those herbs that happen to have these dangerous compounds happen to be ones that ancient Greek medical men prescribed to their patients.
28:42Cyclopia results when these toxins prevent the brain from developing properly.
28:46As a result, instead of having two separate eye sockets, you get one big one.
28:53You have a cyclops birth.
28:55And this could have served as a kind of inspiration for legends about these one-eyed creatures that roamed the earth.
29:00But it's also possible that Homer's cyclops was inspired by something much bigger.
29:07A volcano.
29:10In the myth, Odysseus describes the cyclops as a man mountain rearing head and shoulders over the world.
29:18It's very possible that the ancient Greeks looking at erupting volcanoes like Mount Etna might have looked at that huge angry red eye of the volcano as it erupted hot rocks and lava.
29:31And they might have pictured a sort of monstrous man mountain with a single eye that was angrily raging at mankind.
29:38But there is one more potential real world inspiration for the cyclops.
29:48Fossils dug up by ancient archaeologists.
29:52The ancient Greeks were all extremely interested in the natural world and they collected lots of specimens of everything.
29:59And of course they did find samples of fossils out in the wild as well.
30:03Now if you look at the skull of an elephant, it's a pretty impressive thing because there's a huge opening right in the middle of the forehead.
30:11The actual eye openings look relatively small in comparison and are shunted off to the side.
30:17So if you didn't know what it was, you might very easily imagine that this was the skull of some sort of gigantic one-eyed creature.
30:33The odyssey continues.
30:38Odysseus and his men are hostages in the cave of the cyclops.
30:43Unless something changes fast, they will all be eaten.
30:48But Odysseus remains focused.
30:53There's a great fear that surrounds the entire episode and the men around him tend to fall apart under this fear.
31:00Odysseus never does.
31:01He realizes in a very cold, calculating, rational way that these emotions will only get in the way.
31:07And will only get in the way of his escape and his solution to the problem.
31:10He focuses always on the problem and only on the problem.
31:15While the cyclops is out tending his sheep, Odysseus spots the massive wooden club he left behind and gets an idea.
31:23With the help of his men, he shaves the narrow end to a fine point, hardens it over a flame, and waits.
31:33As night falls, the cyclops returns.
31:40He snatches two more sailors and eats them alive.
31:45As the dust settles, Odysseus steps forward with the wine he brought from his ship.
31:56He offers it to the cyclops.
32:01The beast downs one bowl.
32:03Then another.
32:05And a third.
32:07Instantly, he begins to teeter.
32:10Some people might think, when they hear that the cyclops has a couple of glasses of wine and then passes out on the floor, that he must have been a real lightweight.
32:22He didn't really have any tolerance for alcohol.
32:24The truth is that ancient wine was a lot stronger and a lot harsher than wine is today.
32:30In antiquity, there was very strong wine, we might even call it fortified wine, that had a very high alcohol content.
32:38And typically what one would do is measure it out and then dilute it with water to be an appropriate drink at a dinner.
32:44The wine that Odysseus gives to the cyclops is an entirely undiluted form.
32:49As the drunk giant stumbles around the cave, he asks Odysseus his name and gets a clever answer.
32:57Odysseus says, oh, well, my name is Nobody.
33:01At that point, there's no way that any of us can quite realize how this will fit into the plan, but it's been part of Odysseus' plan all along.
33:09With that, the cyclops crashes to the floor and passes out.
33:15Odysseus springs into action.
33:18With the help of his men, he lifts the buried stake, charges forward, and plunges it into the eye of the beast.
33:29Hearing the screams of the cyclops inside of his cave, the other cyclopses come around and ask him, what's going on inside of there?
33:46We hear your screams. Something horrible must be happening.
33:49The cyclops at that point then answers, nobody is hurting me. Nobody is harming me.
33:53And the neighbor cyclopses then scratch their heads and say, well, I guess nobody is hurting him. We might as well go back to bed.
33:59So this trick that Odysseus has actually kind of put in place earlier on in the story by not giving his real name but by saying his name was Nobody, we now see it comes to fruition.
34:12The wounded cyclops opens the doorway in a blind rage.
34:20Odysseus sees his opening and makes his move.
34:25The cyclops are sitting in front of the door and Odysseus doesn't let the men try to creep out.
34:32He knows the cyclops will get them and he doesn't let them ride the sheep out because he knows he's going to be clever enough for that.
34:37He ties them beneath the sheep.
34:39As dawn breaks, the sheep head out to pasture, with Odysseus and his men clinging to their underbellies.
34:48The cyclops is not entirely a fool.
34:51He knows that the Greeks might be trying to escape from his cave.
34:55But as the sheep pass by, he feels each one on top.
34:59But the Greeks are underneath and he doesn't feel them underneath.
35:02Odysseus' escape from the cyclops cave is the perfect example of brain over brawn.
35:10It's Jack and the Beanstalk. It's David and Goliath.
35:14It is the sneaky little guy defeats the big dumb guy.
35:17These much, much bigger obstacles that we face, this brain of ours, can overcome them.
35:25It's this fundamental story that is absolutely core to humanity.
35:30Odysseus is a master of deception, but he hasn't yet mastered his own pride.
35:41As a ship sails away from the coast, he can't resist revealing his own true identity.
35:46It's a mistake that will haunt him for years to come.
35:54The cyclops is standing there cursing him.
35:58Suddenly, Odysseus almost inexplicably turns and says,
36:04You want to know who I am? I am Odysseus, son of Laertes.
36:08Now, to us, that seems like a really stupid move.
36:13But the most important thing for a Greek hero was something called klaus, fame.
36:19So it was your fame, your reputation, that really mattered.
36:23So one thing that Odysseus is doing at that moment is really making sure that he gets credit for what happened.
36:30The cyclops is blinded and beaten.
36:32But he has one last hope for revenge.
36:39His powerful father.
36:41It turns out, the cyclops is a son of the sea god Poseidon.
36:47And he intends to make Odysseus pay with his life.
36:56Mythology's greatest mortal, Odysseus, has been lost at sea for more than two months.
37:03He's desperate to get home to his kingdom and his family.
37:09But he's not even close.
37:12All the other heroes that are still alive from the Greek force of Troy have made it home.
37:21Only one is not home yet, and that's Odysseus.
37:24He's literally the last hero on the sea.
37:27From the outset, Odysseus' return voyage has not gone according to plan.
37:41He has come face to face with a lethal army and a bloodthirsty cyclops, and been driven hundreds of miles off course by hurricane winds.
37:50Threats like these would crush the spirits of most men.
37:55But Odysseus isn't most men.
37:58One of the things that I think makes Odysseus such an appealing character is really every challenge that comes along, he treats as just an obstacle to be overcome.
38:09Now Odysseus must confront his most terrifying obstacle yet.
38:16The cyclops he just blinded and escaped from is the son of one of mythology's most powerful gods.
38:23The master of the seas.
38:27Poseidon.
38:31The cyclops asks his father, the god Poseidon, to take vengeance on Odysseus.
38:36To kill him, or if not to kill him, to make the rest of his trip a living hell.
38:40By attacking the son of a god, by attacking the cyclops, who's the son of Poseidon, he makes a double mistake.
38:49One is he angers a god, but the second is he angers the god of the sea.
38:55He's sailing home.
38:57Odysseus now faces two daunting challenges.
39:03Survive the wrath of Poseidon, and get home before another man steals his wife.
39:10As the days and weeks pass, the suitors courting Penelope grow more and more brazen.
39:21The locals realize that here is this wonderfully beautiful, capable woman, Penelope, and she's all alone.
39:30She also happens to be sitting atop a store of great wealth.
39:33So there are many people who would try to vie for her affections.
39:37But Penelope still clings to the hope that her husband is on his way home.
39:41She still believes that Odysseus is coming home, and she is willing to do everything in her power to make sure that his throne is still available for him when he returns.
39:56A few days after surviving the giant cyclops, Odysseus encounters someone who can help him get home.
40:08On the island of Aeolia, he meets a king named Aeolus.
40:15King Aeolus has a special power.
40:18He has control over the winds.
40:21He's able to regulate and control which way the winds blow.
40:25King Aeolus secretly gives Odysseus a present.
40:29A bag containing all the winds that could blow him off course.
40:33As long as that bag remains closed, he'll have smooth sailing all the way back to Ithaca.
40:40This is an enormously important gift for ancient travelers.
40:45It's the equivalent of him giving Odysseus a fleet of jet planes.
40:49The winds are the motive power of ancient shipping.
40:52So this is a very great gift because the winds can bring you home.
40:59For nine days and nights, the Greeks sail straight for Ithaca, aided by favorable winds.
41:06Finally, Odysseus is on his way home.
41:09He stays awake the whole way, working his ship round the clock.
41:16On the tenth day, Ithaca appears on the horizon.
41:22But in the last mile, fatigue finally overcomes the hero.
41:28As Odysseus dozes, his crew seizes the chance to find out what's in the mysterious bag.
41:34His men immediately decide there's gold, there's silver, there's treasures, and Odysseus doesn't want to share it with us.
41:43They want it for themselves.
41:45So curiosity, tinged with a bit of greed, leads to their undoing.
41:49With the shores of Ithaca in plain sight, they open the bag.
41:53And the Poseidon curse is unleashed with a vengeance.
42:05In seconds, Odysseus' hopes of getting home are destroyed.
42:12The winds immediately drive his fleet back to Aeolia.
42:15But this time, he won't get any help from the king.
42:25Odysseus says to Aeolus,
42:28Can you help us again?
42:30And Aeolus says, No.
42:32You are clearly cursed by the gods.
42:35It could not have been easier for you to get home given what I gave you.
42:39If you didn't get home, some god has it out for you, and I am not messing with that.
42:45Go on your way.
42:47It's another painful setback for Odysseus.
42:51But he wastes no time worrying about what might have been.
42:55He may be knocked down just as much as all the rest of us,
42:58and even harder than all the rest of us, but he always can get back up.
43:02He can always find a way.
43:03Odysseus' ability to persevere is put to the test again, just days after he leaves Aeolia.
43:14His fleet pulls into a mysterious harbor, and gets attacked out of nowhere by a race of giant cannibals.
43:21In a matter of minutes, Odysseus loses hundreds of men and all but one of his ships.
43:34The waves run red with blood.
43:38Once again, the Poseidon curse is devastating in its cruelty.
43:43When Odysseus left Troy, he did not think this was going to be an epic journey home.
43:55I don't think he could ever have imagined the kind of journey and the kind of troubles and adventures that he'd find along the way.
44:03For Odysseus, the adventures are just beginning.
44:08The rest of his journey home will present challenges more daunting than any man has ever faced.
44:16When the story of Odysseus continues, our mortal hero is a marked man.
44:22Poseidon has put a bounty on his head.
44:30Each day, his crew and his chances will diminish until Odysseus finds himself alone.
44:38One man, against all odds.
44:42One goal.
44:44Get home before it's too late.
44:46The hope is becoming regional.
44:49I'll understand.
44:51malign fucking
44:53the emotion
44:56tied against allyas.
44:59The enemy's how blinders keep the thwar.
45:01The enemy's how blinders keep the thwar.
45:04The enemy's how blinders keep the th joy gone.
45:06The limits don't ماذا's how blinders keep human withators.
45:09They're the ones that expires.
45:11Nope.
45:13Super elevate.
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