Poseidon
Poseidon embodies the sea's violence, turning distance, shipwreck, and delay into instruments of divine revenge.
Poseidon in the Odyssey
Poseidon, god of the sea and of earthquakes, is the great obstacle of the Odyssey. His anger has a precise cause: Odysseus blinded his son, the Cyclops Polyphemus, and Polyphemus prayed to his father to keep the hero from ever reaching home, or to let him arrive late, alone and on a foreign ship.
Every part of that curse comes true. Poseidon cannot kill Odysseus, whose return is fated, but he can delay him: he shatters his raft with a storm off Scheria and punishes the Phaeacians for carrying him home.
Key moments
- Book 9
Blinded, Polyphemus prays to his father Poseidon for revenge on Odysseus.
- Book 5
Returning from the Ethiopians, he spots Odysseus' raft and raises the storm that wrecks it.
- Book 13
He turns the Phaeacian ship that brought Odysseus home to stone at the entrance of their harbor.
Relationship to Odysseus
He becomes Odysseus' great divine enemy after the blinding of Polyphemus, forcing every mile of the return to be earned.
Where this figure enters the journey
Poseidon's anger rises from the Cyclops episode, where an act of survival becomes the cause of years of punishment.
Open the map locationIsland of the Cyclops