Place in Homer’s Odyssey
Crete
Hundred-towned island of the tales
A broad, rich island of ninety towns and mixed tongues, ruled from Cnossus, where Minos spoke with Zeus. It is the homeland the disguised Odysseus claims in nearly every false life he invents — for Athena, for Eumaeus, for Penelope — always a Cretan, always almost home.
Bonds
- Menelaus visits Crete — half his storm-split fleet, ashore there
Appears in
- Book III Interview of Telemachus with Nestor
- Book XI Visit of Odysseus to the Land of the Dead
- Book XIII Arrival of Odysseus at Ithaca
- Book XIV Meeting of Odysseus and Eumaeus
- Book XVI Odysseus Discovering Himself to Telemachus
- Book XVII Return of Odysseus to His Palace
- Book XIX Odysseus Recognized by Eurycleia
Scenes
- Fates of the Heroes — Book III. Telemachus hears murder, longs for vengeance
- The Full Tale of Murder — Book III. Nestor tells of Aegisthus, Menelaus’s voyage
- Further Heroines — Book XI. Leda and Iphidameia pass by night
- The Shepherd’s Riddle — Book XIII. Odysseus spins a tale of fleeing Crete
- The Cretan’s Long Tale — Book XIV. Odysseus invents war, plunder, betrayal
- The Stranger’s Welcome — Book XVI. Telemachus clothes stranger, sends Eumaeus
- Eumaeus’s Report — Book XVII. Penelope asks Eumaeus about stranger’s news
- The Cretan Tale — Book XIX. Beggar claims he hosted Odysseus
- Ordering the Bath — Book XIX. Penelope orders a bath, he wants an elder