Objects

The bow, moly, the obol — things that carry weight in the story.

Odysseus's Bow The bow no other man can string. Hung in the storeroom for twenty years. Penelope sets it as the contest. The string sings like a lyre when the right hand finds it.
The Marriage Bed of Olive Built around a living olive tree. The roots in the earth beneath the floor. No man could move it without cutting the life out of it. Two people knew that.
Obol / OH-bol / A small ancient Greek coin — the fee paid to Charon to ferry the dead across the river Styx into the underworld.
Achilles's God-forged Armor The armor Hephaestus made for Achilles. After he fell at Troy the army awarded it to Odysseus, not Ajax. The choice broke Ajax. He fell on his own sword.
Ambrosia Food of the gods. Calypso eats it at her own table. She offers Odysseus immortality in the same breath, and he says no.
Antinous's Cup Raised to his lips. Never reaches them. The wine spills across stone, mixing with the blood that runs darker and faster.
Bronze Axe and Carpenter's Tools Calypso's gift, the only way off her island. She brings them without being asked. He takes them without looking up.
Calypso's Loom The goddess's loom in the cedar-smoke cave. She sings at it. When Odysseus leaves to build the raft, she returns to it and the singing stops.
Cassandra's Prophecies The Trojan princess's warnings. True every time. Believed never. She walked into Mycenae knowing what waited, and watched Agamemnon die because no one ever heard her in time.
Circe's Bowl / Potion Cheese, grain, honey, wine, spices Odysseus does not recognise. She mixes it for each guest. The wand only works after they drink.
Circe's Salve The counter to the wand. She touches each pig with it gently, hands on their snouts as the snouts shrink to noses. They stand from the mud.
Circe's Wand A rod. One touch and a man's face stretches, his back curves, his hands become hooves. The eyes stay the same. That is the cruel part.
Demodocus's Lyre The blind Phaeacian bard's instrument. He sings the war at Troy and the wooden horse, not knowing the man who built it is sitting at the table weeping.
Elpenor's Oar A young crewman's oar driven into the top of his pyre mound. So others will know he lived. So his shade can rest.
Elpenor's Pyre The largest pyre on Aeaea's western headland. Built by men who knew they had failed him. Ash and tears packed down with hands.
Hermes's Golden Sandals Winged sandals. Skim wave-tops. Touch dirt and stay clean. The mark of the messenger when he turns up where he is least wanted.
Ino's Veil A sea goddess's chest-wrap. Wound across the ribs it keeps a man afloat. Thrown back to the water when he reaches land.
Laertes's Spade An old man's gardening tool. It falls from his hands when his son tells him a lie about being dead.
Laertes's Spear An old man's last throw. Eupeithes leads the avenging fathers up the hill and Laertes — older than anyone there — puts a spear through him.
Libation Offerings The four flavours of the living. Poured into the pit before the blood, in strict order. Honey first. Then milk. Then wine. Then a scatter of barley.
Moly / MOH-lee / Black root, white flower. A god pulls it from the dirt and hands it over the way you hand a man a weapon. Eat it and Circe's wand fails.
Sulfur Bitter smoke from the storeroom. Burned in braziers to scour the hall. Strips the inside of your nose. Cannot reach what soaked into the air.
The Bag of Winds An ox-skin nine years old, bound with silver cord. Every wind that could blow them off course sealed inside. A homecoming wrapped in leather.
The Beggar's Rags / Disguise Athena's cover. Grey hair, bent shoulders, threadbare cloth. The king of Ithaca walks through his own house unrecognized for days.
The Black Ram and White Ewe Circe's sacrificial sheep, the two animals you must bring to call the dead. Their throats slit at the trench. Steaming blood fills the hole.
The Boar-Hunt Scar A long ragged line on the thigh. A boar's tusk in the high country in his youth. Eurycleia bandaged it then. Her hand finds it twenty years later.
The Boulder Door of the Cave The Cyclops's seal. Stone the size of a wall. He rolls it across the mouth and seats it into the rock face. No twenty men could move it.
The Bronze Bolt / Hall Doors The lock that turned a banquet hall into a killing room. Once the bolt slid home, the suitors had nowhere to run.
The Discus The heaviest stone on the Phaeacian field. Odysseus picks it up in his rags, throws it past every mark, and asks the young lords if anyone wants to try him next.
The Eighty-Eight Black Bulls Nestor's sacrifice to Poseidon when Telemachus arrives at Pylos. Eighty-eight black bulls, one beach, the smoke rising for the god who hates Odysseus.
The Living Olive Tree A living tree, rooted under the floor of the bedchamber. He built the room around it. He built the bed around it. Cut the tree, you cut the marriage.
The Loom / Penelope's Shroud A burial shroud for Laertes. Penelope weaves it by day, picks it apart by night. Three years of careful hands holding the suitors at bay.
The Magic Phaeacian Ship A ship that needs no helmsman. Knows every harbor in the world. Carries the sleeping Odysseus home in one night and pays for it on the way back.
The Mast and Ropes The mast he stands lashed against. The ropes that hold him through the song. The only thing between him and the only thing he has ever wanted.
The Mist of Concealment Athena's invisibility cloak. A grey wrap of sea-fog she throws over Odysseus when he needs to walk through a city without being seen.
The Oar to be Planted Inland Tiresias's strange last instruction. Carry an oar so far inland that a stranger cannot name it. Plant it. Make peace with Poseidon. Then be free.
The Phaeacian Gifts Armor, bronze tripods, gold cups. Alcinous's farewell, scattered in the black sand around a sleeping man who doesn't yet know he's home.
The Raft Bound logs of alder and poplar and fir. Crude, open to the sky, no rail worth trusting. Odysseus builds it himself and rides it seventeen days.
The Rope Strung from a beam in the storeroom. Twelve handmaidens who slept with the suitors and laughed about it. The hardest scene to read.
The Sharpened Stake An olive-wood pole the length of two tall men. They sharpen it, harden the tip in the embers, and hide it deep in the dung of the stalls.
The Stone Bench A bench across the room from the man who claims to be her husband. Far enough to see his face clearly in the lamplight. Close enough to know.
The Trojan Horse / Wooden Horse Odysseus's idea. Pine and rope and the patience to sit inside a wooden gut while a city celebrated its survival. Ten years of war ended in a single night.
The Twelve Axes Twelve axe-heads stood in a line, their ring-handles aligned. The arrow has to thread all twelve. A trick shot only Odysseus could make.
The Undiluted Wine of Ismarus The priest of Apollo's gift. So strong you cut it twenty to one with water and still lose your balance. Strong enough to fell a Cyclops.
The Wax Wax kneaded soft in the sun. Pressed into each man's ears so the Sirens cannot reach them. The captain holds each head like he would his own son's.
The White Dress White, the color of mourning and marriage both. She has learned to wear the same dress to mean two different things.
Tiresias's Golden Staff The blind prophet's mark of authority. He alone among the dead keeps his mind without drinking. He walks through the shades parting them.