Odysseus

Odysseus is one of the great heroes of our time. OK, so he lived around 3,000 years ago on a small rocky island west of Greece; but his story is still one of the best around. Ody wasn't much of a hero to look at: short, bandy-legged, squash-nosed and with a head of red hair that marked him out for trouble. When he set off home after the fall of Troy, he hadn't actually done anything wrong - the murder and pillaging wasn't his fault, though he opened the gate to the looters: his guilt lay in his complicity. But he took nearly ten years more to get home. Even when he was within sight of Ithaca, he fell asleep and let the boat blow off course: bit of a Freudian slip, that. So Ody visited a couple of nymphs, though they didn't mean anything to him; and managed to lose all his mates to various misadventures. He might have been a king, but he showed less restraint than a teenager out on a Saturday night binge. That is the basis of his enduring appeal: on his travels, he lives out the life that we are too scared or inhibited to try. And he tells us that it wasn't so much fun after all: there is no place like home, beside his loyal wife. But Penelope is more that a match for Odysseus. She ruled for twenty years in his absence and is just as quick-witted. Old Ody isn't allowed back into their bed until he has proved himself. The Odyssey doesn't tie things up neatly: but then, neither does life....