Join 'The Odyssey' Read-Along (May - July 2026)
Translations, Schedule, Introduction.
Presents
The Odyssey
READ-ALONG
This is your invitation letter to join our crew and sail through The Odyssey read-along.
Please BookMark this Page!
You will find all the relevant information below, and if you have any questions please feel free to message me!
"And if a god will wreck me yet again on the wine-dark sea, I can bear that too, with a spirit tempered to endure.
Much have I suffered, labored long and hard by now in the waves and wars. Add this to the total — bring the trial on!"
Dear friend,
The Ancient Greek word deinos is perhaps the best word to describe the character of Odysseus. Deinos means both “remarkable” and “terrible,” and Odysseus is both of these things. Ever since I read Dante’s description of Odysseus in the Inferno, I could not stop thinking about his personality.
Dante portrays him as a doomed seeker of forbidden knowledge—a man who searches for the sake of searching. While there is no space here to fully describe Dante’s boundless wisdom, ever since I encountered those depths of the Inferno, I have kept thinking about Odysseus.
His personality represents so many figures I’ve met on my journey through life: intelligent people whose intelligence becomes their own demise; a cunning mind that can restore justice, yet destroy it in one swing; and perhaps the most precise archetype I’ve met: the eternal seeker who refuses to settle and continuously moves on.
I cannot deny that I see parts of Odysseus in myself. I am quite certain that through this read-along, you will as well. Perhaps this is why you should join The Odyssey read-along.
We are all heroes of our own stories—to use that cliché expression—and Odysseus shows us that going too far is both what makes a hero great and what makes them dangerous. Odysseus, they say, wept when he saw what the Trojan Horse, an invention of his own mind, brought to Troy. His intelligence and skill were his pain and his doom.
In other words, transcendence and transgression are the same act viewed from different angles. The Trojan Horse was glory to the Greeks, yet doom for the Trojans.
May the winds favor us as we sail through this masterpiece together.
Will you join my crew and sail through the pages of The Odyssey?
~ Vashik Armenikus, April 2026.
When does it start?
We are starting on Sunday, May 3 with the Books 1-2 and finishing on Sunday, 12th of July with the final part. Christopher Nolan’s film is hitting the screens of theatres on 17th of July, so you will be able catch up (if you’ve fallen behind) to head and watch
👁️ THE TELEMACHY — “A son in search of a father”
Sun May 3 — Week 1 · Books 1–2 · “Speak, Memory”
The world without Odysseus. Telemachus wakes up.
Sun May 10 — Week 2 · Books 3–4 · “Rumours of a Living Man”
Telemachus visits Nestor and Menelaus. Three versions of homecoming.
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🌊 CALYPSO TO SCHERIA — “The hero enters”
Sun May 17 — Week 3 · Books 5–7 · “A Raft, a Storm, a Shore”
Calypso releases Odysseus. He survives the sea. Nausicaä and Phaeacia.
Sun May 24 — Week 4 · Book 8 · “The Bard and the Games”
Demodocus sings of Troy. Odysseus weeps in secret.
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🌊 THE GREAT WANDERINGS — “Monster, goddess, ghost”
Sun May 31 — Week 5 · Books 9–10 · “Nobody and the Witch”
The Cyclops. Aeolus. Circe turns the crew to swine.
Sun Jun 7 — Week 6 · Books 11–12 · “Among the Dead and the Sirens”
The Underworld. Achilles’ regret. Sirens, Scylla, the Cattle of the Sun.
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🌊 THE RETURN — “A stranger in his own house”
Sun Jun 14 — Week 7 · Books 13–14 · “The Beggar King”
Ithaca at last — but in disguise. Eumaeus. Telemachus returns.
Father and son reunited in secret. Penelope’s contest begins.
Sun Jun 28 — Week 9 · Books 19–20 · “Recognition and the Edge of the Knife”
The scar. Eurycleia knows. Penelope’s dream. The suitors’ last night.
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🏹 THE RECKONING — “String the bow”
Sun Jul 5 — Week 10 · Books 21–22 · “The Bow and the Slaughter”
The contest of the bow. The hall runs red. Justice or massacre?
Sun Jul 12 — Week 11 · Books 23–24 · “Home” + Full Retrospective
The reunion of Odysseus and Penelope. The last ghost. And: what to watch for when you walk into the cinema.
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🎬 Nolan’s The Odyssey — in cinemas Thursday, July 17, 2026
Which translation?
While I prefer Fagles’ translation please feel free to choose a translation that you prefer. I tried T.E. Lawrence’s (Lawrence of Arabia) translation but it did not resonate with me for example.
I selected the first few lines of the epic for you to read and choose which ones you prefer. I’ve been told Mendelssohn’s translation (2017) is good as well, but my wife will kill me if I get another edition of The Odyssey, so if everyone has it, please, paste the first 16 lines in the comment section below.
Robert Fagles Translation (My Choice)
Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns driven time and again off course, once he had plundered the hallowed heights of Troy. Many cities of men he saw and learned their minds, many pains he suffered, heartsick on the open sea, fighting to save his life and bring his comrades home. But he could not save them from disaster, hard as he strove — the recklessness of their own ways destroyed them all, the blind fools, they devoured the cattle of the Sun and the Sungod wiped from sight the day of their return. Launch out on his story, Muse, daughter of Zeus, start from where you will — sing for our time too. By now, all the survivors, all who avoided headlong death were safe at home, escaped the wars and waves. But one man alone . . .
Emily Wilson’s Translation
Tell me about a complicated man. Muse, tell me how he wandered and was lost when he had wrecked the holy town of Troy, and where he went, and who he met, the pain he suffered in the storms at sea, and how he worked to save his life and bring his men back home. He failed to keep them safe; poor fools, they ate the Sun God's cattle, and the god kept them from home. Now goddess, child of Zeus, tell the old story for our modern times. Find the beginning. All the other Greeks who had survived the brutal sack of Troy sailed safely home to their own wives — except this man alone. Calypso, a great goddess, had trapped him in her cave; she wanted him
Martin Hammond’s Translation
Note: Hammond’s translation is just text, the way you see below. Every other translation divides it into verses, Hammond just decided to give us a wall of text.
Muse, tell me of a man: a man of much resource, who was made to wander far and long, after he had sacked the sacred city of Troy. Many were the men whose lands he saw and came to know their thinking: many too the miseries at sea which he suffered in his heart, as he sought to win his own life and the safe return of his companions. But even so, for all his efforts, he could not save his companions. They perished through their own arrant folly — the fools, they ate the cattle of Hyperion the Sun, and he took away the day of their return. Start the story where you will, goddess, daughter of Zeus, and share it now with us. At that time all the others, all those who had escaped stark destruction, were in their homes, safe from war and sea. He alone was still yearning for his return to home and wife. The great nymph Kalypso, queen among goddesses, was keeping him in her hollow cave, eager to make him her husband.
I'm looking forward to reading along Vashik! Here are the first 16 lines of Daniel Mendelsohn's new translation, as requested:
Tell me the tale of a man, Muse, who had so many roundabout ways
To wander, driven off course, after sacking Troy's hallowed keep;
Many the peoples whose cities he saw and whose ways of thinking he learned,
Many the toils he suffered at sea, anguish in his heart
As he struggled to safeguard his life and the homecoming of his companions.
But he did not save his companions even so, though he longed to,
For their heedlessness destroyed them, theirs and nobody else's -
Fools that they were, like children, who devoured the sun-god Hyperion's
Cattle, and so he took from them the day of their homecoming.
Goddess, start where you will; daughter of Zeus, share the tale with us too.
Now all of the other men - those who'd fled looming destruction -
Were home again, escaped from the war or saved from the depths of the sea,
Except for him. Though he yearned to come home, though he yearned for his wife,
A nymph - the Lady Kalypso, that radiant goddess - kept him
Back in her smooth-hollowed caves, burning to make him her husband.
But at last the time came around, as the seasons wheeled in their cycles...
For the read-along, I want to read a translation that’s new to me, so I’ve chosen Peter Green. Here’s a sample:
The man, Muse—tell me about that resourceful man, who wandered
far and wide, when he’d sacked Troy’s sacred citadel:
many men’s townships he saw, and learned their ways of thinking,
many the griefs he suffered at heart on the open sea,
battling for his own life and his comrades’ homecoming. Yet
no way could he save his comrades, much though he longed to—
it was through their own blind recklessness that they perished,
the fools, for they slaughtered the cattle of Hēlios the sun god
and ate them: for that he took from them their day of returning.
Tell us this tale, goddess, child of Zeus; start anywhere in it!
Now the rest, all those who’d escaped from sheer destruction,
were home by now, survivors of both warfare and the sea;
Him alone, though longing for his homecoming and his wife,
the queenly nymph Kalypsō, bright among goddesses,
held back in her hollow cavern, desiring him for her husband.