Oct 9

Paraprashing The Odyssey Assignment

Here is the text that needs to be paraphrased:

TELL THE STORY 

        Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story
        of that man skilled in all ways of contending,
        the wanderer, harried for years on end,
        after he plundered the stronghold
        on the proud height of Troy.
5                                                  He saw the townlands
        and learned the minds of many distant men,
        and weathered many bitter nights and days
        in his deep heart at sea, while he fought only
        to save his life, to bring his shipmates home.
10    But not by will nor valor could he save them,
        for their own recklessness destroyed them all--
        children and fools, they killed and feasted on
        the cattle of Lord Helios, the Sun,
        and he who moves all day through heaven
15    took from their eyes the dawn of their return.
        Of these adventures, Muse, daughter of Zeus,
        tell us in our time, lift the great song again.
        Begin when all the rest who left behind them
        headlong death in battle or at sea
20    had long ago returned, while he alone still hungered
        for home and wife. Her ladyship Calypso
        clung to him in her sea-hollowed caves--
        a nymph, immortal and most beautiful,
        who craved him for her own.
                                  And when long years and seasons
25    wheeling brought around that point of time
        ordained for him to make his passage homeward,
        trials and dangers, even so, attended him
        even in Ithaca, near those he loved.
        Yet all the gods had pitied Lord Odysseus,
30    all but Poseidon, raging cold and rough
        against the brave king till he came ashore
        at last on his own land. . . .
 
                                        (from Book 1)

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