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. Just before
3. Scene 24

   Flashback: Odysseus effortlessly strings the bow and shoots an arrow through a line of axes to a cheering hall.

4. Scene 25

   Present: Penelope reveals no other man has ever managed the bow's feat, and Telemachus insists on sailing to learn if his father is truly dead.

5. Scene 26

   In the hall, Eumaeus is publicly humiliated and threatened by the suitors' servant Melanthius over his loyalty to Odysseus's memory.

6. Scene 27

   This scene