Odyssey VI And VII

Odyssey VI and VII by Homer (Bristol Classical Press, 1993)
ISBN: 0862920051
Condition: Good — which, in the Crappy Old Books dialect, means this little paperback has survived its own mini-epic: it’s a touch weathered from the journey, perhaps a faint crease here or there like battle scars from too many seminars, but otherwise solid, intact, and ready to help you navigate both Homer and your next essay deadline.

This is not the full Odyssey, oh no. This is the Bristol Classical Press way: slice the great epics into manageable, academic-friendly portions, complete with notes, commentary, and all the scholarly apparatus needed to make sense of dactylic hexameter and why Odysseus can never just go home quietly. Here we get Books VI and VII — the episodes where our weary hero washes up, salty and bedraggled, on the shores of the Phaeacians and encounters the lovely Nausicaa. Cue laundry scenes (yes, Homer includes laundry), courtly hospitality, and more divine meddling than a Greek tragedy family reunion.

It’s Homer at his most charming and peculiar: gods disguised as mortals, royals doing chores, and Odysseus spinning yarns that would put any modern storyteller to shame. And thanks to Bristol Classical Press, you also get commentary that gently (and sometimes not-so-gently) tells you what’s going on when the Greek gets knotty or when you start wondering why ancient audiences loved this sort of domestic interlude as much as the cyclops-smashing bits.

Our copy is Good, which means no one’s used it as a shield in an actual battle re-enactment, but you may find the faint aura of past students’ intellectual sweat clinging to the pages. Don’t worry — there’s no intrusive highlighting or sacrilegious doodles of Odysseus in sunglasses, just a well-used, well-kept guide to one of the Odyssey’s gentler but sneakily important sections.

If you’ve ever thought:

• “I’d like to read Homer, but only the laundry chapters,”

• “What if Odysseus was less ‘warrior’ and more ‘awkward house guest’?”

• Or “Can’t I just get the bit with Nausicaa instead of the whole 24 books?”

…then this is your volume.

Perfect for: Classics students, lecturers who like to dish out “just one book at a time,” lovers of Homeric hospitality, or anyone who enjoys owning oddly specific slices of epic poetry.

This is an ex-school book from Old Palace school in Croydon.

Keep browsing: See more Ancient Classics books Other books by Homer