Zeus does not appear so much as he presides. He is the law Odysseus invokes inside the Cyclops’s cave, the sacred bond between host and guest that even monsters are supposed to honor. Polyphemus laughs at him. Zeus remembers. He is the god Aeolus serves, the king who keeps the winds in trust. When Athena stands before the assembled Olympians and demands Odysseus be released from Calypso’s island, Zeus is the one who finally concedes and sends Hermes down with the order. [SPOILER: He is also the god whose patience runs out on Thrinacia. The men slaughter Helios’s cattle, Helios threatens to take his light into the underworld, and Zeus calls in the debt. The lightning that splinters the ship and drowns every man but Odysseus is his hand. Later, when Laertes throws the spear that drops Eupeithes and the feud threatens to spiral into another generation of killing, it is Zeus’s command that Athena carries down. The cycle ends here. He is rarely seen and almost never speaks. The weather speaks for him.]
Zeus
King of the gods. The law behind hospitality, the hand behind the lightning, the final word when Olympus speaks.