The Odyssey Book X, Homer tells stories of Odysseus journeys to Aeolia, Laestrygonians and Aeaea. First he goes to Aeolia where he meets Aeolus, Odysseus stays with Aeolus and his family for a month at his home, there Aeolus questions Odysseus about Troy, the Greek fleet and the Greeks return home, Odysseus tell him everything, and when Odysseus ask to leave Aeolia, Aeolus sends him off with a bag made of the hide of an ox that was nine years old which Aeolus skinned himself. In the bag he bound the wild winds ways, he was able to do this because he was made the keeper of the winds by Zeus. He tied the bag down in the hold of Odysseus ship, this was to blow his ship along and carry them home. They sailed on for nine days and nights on the tenth day they got to Ithaca but Odysseus got tired and fell asleep and his men started talking amount themselves saying that Odysseus was bringing home for himself gold and silver from Aeolus and they have nothing, so they decided to look in the bag Aeolus tied to the hold of the ship to see how much gold and silver was in it. This caused the winds to rush out and carried there ship far out to sea and away from Ithaca and back to Aeolia. Odysseus goes back to Aeolus and ask him to send him home and he refuses saying to him “ begone from this island instantly! You are the most cursed of all living things.” Odysseus leaves the island and sails on for six days and lands on Laestrygonians where he meets Antiphates a giant who eats one of his men and stones them and his ship as they try to escape killing more of the men. They sail away and come to the island of Aeaea where the goddess Circe lives. She bewitched some of Odysseus men and turned then into swine. So Odysseus goes to Circe’s house to free his men but He was meet by Hermes on his way there , who tells him he will never return if he goes to her house, but only with his help he would be kept out of harms way, so Odysseus did what Hemes asked of him, which was to eat a herb and it will protect him from Her deadly tricks. When Odysseus meets Circe at her house she invites him inside and prepares him a drink, which she laced with drugs, to try and bewitch him but it doesn’t work. Circe is then amazed that her potions did not work on him after he drank it. She says to Odysseus “no other man has ever resisted this drug once its past his lips but you have a mind that can’t be beguiled You must be Odysseus whom Quicksilver Hermes always said would come”. Odysseus then gain favor with Circe who free his men ,who stayed for a year at her house, when Odysseus ask to leave Circe sends him on another trip, to Hades and dead Persephone to consult the ghost of Theban Tiresias, this news sadden Odysseus. These stores told by Homer in book X, I think shows where the Gods continue to influence the lives of mortals, especially the life of Odysseus and continue influence all his decisions when it comes to him trying to return to Ithaca. And we can see why Aeolus said that Odysseus is cursed by heaven, his only wish is to return home but every time this gets delayed by different journeys sent to him by the Gods.

The first story in book X when Odysseus ship lands on Aeolia, Homer describes the island as being dear to the Gods. He even does further to say that Aeolus was made keeper of the winds by Zeus, this explains that the island is protected by the Gods and their lives influenced by them, Aeolus was even given god like Powers’s to influence the winds. Homer says:
“ And in the bag he bound the wild winds ways
To still or to rouse whichever he will.”
This makes me think was Aeolia a God disguised as human, the fact that he had the ability to send him directly to Ithaca, and why did the men become jealous of Odysseus and his treasures now when they got close enough to there home, not the nine other days and nights while at sea. It could have been an influence of a God that caused Odysseus men to open the bag and let the winds out and that cause the ship to drift far out to sea away from there home and the winds returning them to Aeolia. They could have ended up anywhere else but it ended where it started. This could be because the influence was not the wind itself but that of Aeolus directing the ship because he was a God and he didn’t want Odysseus to return home.

Not finished……