Twenty years after leaving for the Trojan War, Odysseus fights his way home across a hostile sea only to find his kingdom overrun — and must return in disguise to reclaim his wife, his son, and his throne from the suitors laying siege to his house.

1. Scenes 1–9

   Ithaca frozen in a decade of waiting: Penelope weaving, the suitors feasting, Telemachus unheard.

2. Scenes 9–27

   Telemachus needs proof of his father's fate; Penelope needs the throne secured before the suitors force her hand.

3. Scenes 28–29

   Telemachus sails from Ithaca in secret, crossing into the unfamiliar world beyond his mother's house.

4. Scenes 30–144

   Odysseus's remembered ordeal — Troy, the Cyclops, Circe, Hades, Charybdis — paid for in men, ships, and years, while Telemachus searches the courts of Sparta.

5. Scene 145

   Odysseus makes landfall on Ithaca at last, alone but alive — what he wanted, stripped of everything else.

6. Scene 151

   At Eumaeus's hut, disguised as a beggar, Odysseus begins quietly assembling the plan to reclaim his house.

7. Just before
8. Scene 156

   In the inner sanctum, the "head priest" greeting them is revealed to the audience as Irus in disguise, offering suspicious wine.

9. Scene 157

   Outside the sanctum, the disguised priests turn and attack Telemachus's guards.

10. Scene 158

    Odysseus reveals himself, arms Telemachus, and the two fight off the ambushing false priests together in Athena's temple, forging a wary respect.

11. Scene 159

    This scene