The Adventures of Ulysses
Lamb, Charles, 1775-1834
English
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Below is a summary of The Adventures of Ulysses
Anne Soulard, Juliet Sutherland, Charles Bidwell, and the Online Distributed
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THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES
BY
CHARLES LAMB
PREFACE
This work is designed as a supplement to the Adventures of Telemachus. It
treats of the conduct and sufferings of Ulysses, the father of Telemachus.
The picture which it exhibits is that of a brave man struggling with
adversity; by a wise use of events, and with an inimitable presence of
mind under difficulties, forcing out a way for himself through the
severest trials to which human life can be exposed; with enemies natural
and preternatural surrounding him on all sides. The agents in this tale,
besides men and women, are giants, enchanters, sirens: things which denote
external force or internal temptations, the twofold danger which a wise
fortitude must expect to encounter in its course through this world. The
fictions contained in it will be found to comprehend some of the most
admired inventions of Grecian mythology.
The groundwork of the story is as old as the Odyssey, but the moral and
the coloring are comparatively modern. By avoiding the prolixity which
marks the speeches and the descriptions in Homer, I have gained a rapidity
to the narration which I hope will make it more attractive and give it
more the air of a romance to young readers, though I am sensible that by
the curtailment I have sacrificed in many places the manners to the
passion, the subordinate characteristics to the essential interest of the
story. The attempt is not to be considered as seeking a comparison with
any of the direct translations of the Odyssey, either in prose or verse,
though if I were to state the obligations which I have had to one obsolete
version, [Footnote: The translation of Homer by Chapman in the reign of
James I.] I should run the hazard of depriving myself of the very slender
degree of reputation which I could hope to acquire from a trifle like the
present undertaking.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
The Cicons.--The Fruit of the Lotus-tree.--Polyphemus and the Cyclops.--
The Kingdom of the Winds, and God Aeolus's Fatal Present.--The
Laestrygonian Man-eaters.
CHAPTER TWO
The House of Circe.--Men changed into Beasts.--The Voyage to Hell.--The
Banquet of the Dead.
CHAPTER THREE
The Song of the Sirens.--Scylla and Charybdis.--The Oxen of the Sun.--The
Judgment.--The Crew Killed by Lightning.
CHAPTER FOUR
The Island of Calypso.--Immortality Refused.
CHAPTER FIVE
The Tempest.--The Sea-bird's Gift.--The Escape by Swimming.--The Sleep in
the Woods.
CHAPTER SIX
The Princess Nausicaa.--The Washing.--The Game with the Ball.--The Court
of Phaeacia and King Alcinous.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Songs of Demodocus--The Convoy Home.--The Manners--Transformed to
Stone--The Young Shepherd.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Change from a King to a Beggar.--Eumaeus and the Herdsmen--Telemachus.
CHAPTER NINE
The Queen's Suitors--The Battle of the Beggars.--The Armour Taken Down.--
The Meeting with Penelope.
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