8220;fat flocks of sheep and handsome wide-browed oxen.” In the mist of starvation, and ignoring the prophecies of Teiresia the Theband and Aianian Circe, the hungry men feasted on the broad-faced horn-curved oxen. Assuming of course that they could assuage Helios by erecting a temple when they reached home. This all led to a chain of events that brought the furry of Zeus upon their ship, breaking the ship into splinters with a bolt a lightning. Miraculously, Odysseus survived on the bare keel of the ship. Now, floating about in the chaos, Odysseus manages to construct a makeshift boat using the bare keel and the mast of the boat. From there the winds take him back to the dreaded sea rock of the Scylla and the Charybdis. Of course he survives that event and is brought by the gods to the island Ogygia, home of Kalypso. At this point, Odysseus is offered a choice, much like Achilles’ choice: he may either live on the island with Kalypso and be immortal like the gods, or he may return to his wife and his country and be mortal like the rest of us. He chooses to return, and much of the rest of the work is a long exposition on what it means to be "mortal." If the Odyssey has a discernible theme, it is the nature of mortal life, why any human being would, if offered the chance to be a god, still choose to be mortal....
