ABSTRACT
Homer’s Odyssey stands at the start of the Western literary tradition, yet seemingly paradoxically it is not about beginnings but about endings. Its action takes place at the end of the Trojan War and at the end of the homeward journey of the Nostoi, the Greek heroes who had fought at Troy. Odysseus is the very last of these, the only one who has not yet returned. With his homecoming the whole cycle of stories about Troy will come to an end.
