First We Read: The Odyssey

Now he will not die in paradise. Raghu and Supriya come to the end of all things Odyssey. Verse in this episode quoted from C.P. Cavafy; Alfred, Lord Tennyson; and Louise Glück. Thanks to all our listeners, to Saachi for crafting these episodes, and to the ghosts of Samuel Butler and Simone Weil. Special thanks to Abhishikta Mallick, to Pri and to Sharada. Speak friend and enter.

The gyro returneth. A hall full of rivals spits and schemes; lovers reunite; and homecoming is a thundercloud darkening the skies of the epic. We also talk sausages and kebabs, which make an appearance in Fagles and Wilson respectively.

Odysseus is home and everything is about to go gloriously wrong. Right. I said RIGHT.

Everything you know about the Odyssey happens in these books. Raghu and Supriya talk through the books that contain a dozen of the world's most famous mythical stories. We continue to pronounce everything according to fantasy. Poetry credits: "The Shield of Achilles" by W. H. Auden, "The Lotos-Eaters" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

A nymph, a princess, a wanderer and a song. The Odyssey unravels the mystery of an unknown hero entering the halls of the king of Phaeacia. Raghu and Supriya have no idea how to pronounce these names. Thanks to Nikhil Krishnan for the correction on 'Telemachus.' We are accepting others.

A timid desperate young man sets out to find clues to the whereabouts of the father he lost two decades ago, to war and the wine-dark sea. Raghu and Supriya encounter the beginning of the Odyssey through English translations of its first four books.