Book one of the Odyssey begins at the top of Mount Olympus, where Zeus, the god of gods, consults with his favorite child, Athena, about whether or not she and Hermes should get involved in Odysseus' life, meaning he's stranded, his family's in Ithaca, and terrible things have befallen them, and they're deciding whether or not they should intercede or get involved and help them out. And it establishes a really important theme, that the gods are watching out for us. After a long discussion, it's finally decided that Athena and Hermes will get involved in helping Odysseus come home and counseling his family.
What's going on in Ithaca? Not so pretty. Basically, Penelope, Odysseus' estranged wife refuses to give up hope that her husband isn't going to come home. Meanwhile, these suitors, about 108 of them, including their servants and the family's turncoat servants, have taken up residence in their palace. drinking all the wine, eating all the food, and generally causing mayhem.
They say, hey, Penelope's royalty, she's available, and we're going to wait around until she picks one of us. That's hospitality, and that's the custom. Now, Telemachus, who hasn't seen his father since he was a baby, is 20 years old now. Odysseus left home 20 years ago to fight in the Trojan War, and 10 years ago, he began his journey home.
Now, in disguise, Athena comes down and meets with Telemachus. but oversees him conferencing with the suitors telling them it's time for them to go. It's finally time for him to step up and take a stand, to move forward, get these suitors out of the house, find his father and bring him home, and reunite his parents and their kingdom.
Meanwhile, Penelope, holed up in her room, is working on a death shroud for Odysseus'aging father Laertes. She holds onto that little bit of hope, another important piece of hope, theme in the book for homecoming to happen for justice to be restored and for things to become the way they were she works on this shroud but undoes her work every single night why because the custom is when that shroud is finished she needs to pick one of the suitors and the suitors are holding out hope but that's gonna happen the book establishes some really important themes not just about fate and the gods and about fathers and sons but about hospitality that these suitors are allowed to just come in pal around and generally live at the palace doing whatever they want because they are guests. And it also establishes another theme, justice. We see that so much has gone wrong and that Odysseus is going to need to come home to set it right.