The poem opens with the poet calling on the Muse to tell of "that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide after he had sacked the famous town of Troy." The hero is Odysseus, the man of many turns, who saw the cities and minds of many peoples, and suffered greatly trying to bring himself and his crew home. He failed to save his men, the poet warns at once: they destroyed themselves through their own recklessness when they ate the cattle of the Sun god. Now, ten years after the end of the war, every other surviving Greek hero has returned home or died. Only Odysseus is still missing, held on the remote island of Ogygia by the nymph Calypso, who wants him for her husband.
On Mount Olympus the gods gather while Poseidon, Odysseus's great enemy, is away feasting with the distant Ethiopians. Zeus begins with a complaint: "See now, how men lay blame upon us gods for what is after all nothing but their own folly." His example is Aegisthus, who seduced Agamemnon's wife and murdered Agamemnon despite the gods' warning, and was then killed in revenge by Agamemnon's son Orestes. Athena seizes the moment to plead for Odysseus, a man who has always honored the gods yet is pining away far from home. Zeus agrees that it is time for him to return. Athena proposes a two-part plan: Hermes will be sent to order Calypso to release Odysseus, and she herself will go to Ithaca to stir up his son, Telemachus.
Athena arrives at Odysseus's palace disguised as Mentes, a chieftain of the Taphians and an old friend of the family. She finds the house overrun by the suitors — over a hundred young nobles from Ithaca and nearby islands who are courting Odysseus's wife, Penelope. They are sprawled about playing games, slaughtering the household's animals, and drinking its wine, consuming Odysseus's wealth while they wait for Penelope to choose one of them. Telemachus, now about twenty, sits among them daydreaming that his father might return and drive them out. He is the only one to notice the stranger at the door, and he welcomes her properly, offering a seat, food, and drink before asking any questions — a model of the hospitality the suitors so badly violate.
Still in the shape of Mentes, Athena tells Telemachus that his father is not dead but delayed, and predicts he will soon return. She urges the young man to take action: call an assembly of the Ithacans, order the suitors to go home, and then sail to Pylos and Sparta to seek news of Odysseus from Nestor and Menelaus. If he learns his father is dead, he should hold funeral rites, see his mother remarried, and then find a way to kill the suitors. She reminds him of Orestes, who won glory by avenging his father. As she leaves, she flies off like a bird, and Telemachus realizes he has been visited by a god.
Meanwhile the bard Phemius is singing to the suitors about the Greeks' painful homecomings from Troy. Penelope comes down from her rooms in tears and asks him to choose another song. Telemachus, newly confident, tells her to go back to her weaving and leave speech to the men, since he holds authority in the house. Astonished at the change in her son, she withdraws. Telemachus then announces to the suitors that he will call an assembly in the morning. The leading suitors, the arrogant Antinous and the smooth-talking Eurymachus, respond with sneers and veiled threats. That night the old nurse Eurycleia lights Telemachus to his room, where he lies awake planning his journey.
Quoted lines are from Samuel Butler’s 1900 prose translation (Project Gutenberg #1727).
