As soon as Euryclea had got the scarred limb in her hands and had well hold of it, she recognised it and dropped the foot at once. The leg fell into the bath, which rang out and was overturned, so that all the water was spilt on the ground; Euryclea’s eyes between her joy and her grief filled with tears, and she could not speak, but she caught Ulysses by the beard and said, “My dear child, I am sure you must be Ulysses himself, only I did not know you till I had actually touched and handled you.”
The Odyssey
By Homer
Translators and scholars have translated the main works attributed to Homer, the Iliad and Odyssey, from the Homeric Greek into English, since the 16th and 17th centuries. Translations are ordered chronologically by date of first publication, with first lines provided to illustrate the style of the translation.
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Bite reviewed this specific edition as public domain using the source, jurisdiction records, and dated evidence below. Public domain is a legal status rather than a licence, and it may differ by country or edition.
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- Project Gutenberg eBook #1727 — plain-text edition
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- 44 jurisdictions · latest check 31 Aug 2026
Review all jurisdiction evidenceauthor (original classical Greek epic) Homer died -700; translator (English prose) Samuel Butler died 1902; writer of Preface to Second Edition / editor of the 1921 second-edition material Henry Festing Jones died 1928. All identified copyright-relevant edition contributors are beyond the conservative expiry cutoff applied from the cited jurisdictional duration rule as of 2026-08-31.
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Read passages from The Odyssey. Each sample opens without an account.
- A Father's Tear
- Storm and Survival
- Ulysses Hesitates
- False vows and quiet plots
- Preparing the Household Coup
- Mentor's Charge
- Home Above All
- Helen's Sorrowless Wine
- A Wanton Kick and Restraint
- A Giant's Morning
- Antinous' Arrogance
- Argos, the neglected hound
- Summoning the Dead
- Silencing Anticlus
- A Deadly Plot
- Not a God, But a Father
- Return and Reckoning
- The Laestrygonian Massacre
- A Goddess's Touch
- Life Over Dead Glory
- Land of Cliffs and Surf
- Stools and scorn for a beggar
- The Bow and the Axe-Holes
- Homecoming Tears
- Minerva's Disguise
- Disguise in Troy
- Laughter That Turned to Blood
- Worn Down, Still Defiant
- Torn by the Sea
- Telemachus' Embrace
- Penelope's Veil
- Sing of the wandering man
- A glare that changes everything
- Tears Like Melting Snow
- Three Failed Embraces
- Sailing With Grief
- Choice Between Monsters
- The Sirens' Call
- He Shows the Scar
- Strength Revealed
- A Priest's Plea
- Where Have You Wandered?
- Forging the Stake
- The Final Test
- Plant the Oar
- Beasts at Circe's Door
- Between Two Dangers
- An Arrow in the Feast
- Calypso's anger at the gods
- When the God Ignored the Sacrifice
- Telemachus' Plea
- The Recognising Scar
- Clinging above Scylla and Charybdis
- The Choice of Immortality
- Mocked in His Own Hall
- Return to Aeolus
- Hunted Despite Rescue
- The Shape-Shifting Capture
- The Fatal Arrow at the Feast
- Blinding the Cyclops
- Ulysses Names Himself
- The Name 'Noman'
- A Lamp in the Night
- Feast of the Cyclops
- Disguise as Strategy
- Ulysses' Quiet Grief
- The Song of the Wooden Horse
- When the Winds Broke Free
- Lots Cast in a Helmet
- Beggar at the Fountain
- Beneath the Ram's Fleece
- Embrace of Return
- Bound to the Mast
- The Sirens' Bone-strewn Field
- Silence to Survive
- When the Bow Sang
- The Cyclops' Stone
- The Cyclops Taunted
- The City That Works by Night
- Argos' Last Recognition
- Silence of the Nurse
- Escape in the Fleece
- The Eagle and the Geese
- Murder at the Feast
- The Lotus-Eaters' Flower
- Riding a Plank
- The Eagle Omen
- The Wooden Horse at the Gates
- Broken Ashore
- The guest who cannot enjoy the song
- Noman and the Cyclops
- Invocation to the Muse
- A Fatal Name
- The Prophecy and the Eye
- The Suitors Routed
- Penelope's Bitter Proof
- The Question of the Shirt
- Penelope's Unravelled Web
- Taunting the Cyclops
- A Sea Turned Black