How Is Odysseus Intelligent

In Homer's epic poem, The Odyssey, Odysseus' heroic traits of bravery. resourcefulness, and intelligence are revealed in each adventure. After winning the Trojan war, Odysseus is kept from returning to his kingdom and family in Ithaca by Poseidon, whom he had disrespected with his hubris personality. Odysseus and his men are searching for provisions, when they stumble upon the cyclops cave and become captives of the cyclops. Odysseus must use all of his wits, courage, and surroundings to formulate a plan to keep him, and his men from being eaten by the cyclops, Polyphemus, and get them them safely returned to their ship. Many more challenges await Odysseus even if he can escape the cyclops cave, luckily he will have his patron goddess helping

him along his way. Odysseus faces many obstacles throughout his journey and with his intelligence, bravery, and resourcefulness he will need to overcomes them all in order to reach his goal, home.

One of the first traits Odysseus used was intelligence, he had to come up with solutions to many situations in order to survive and achieve his goal.

For instance, during the Trojan war Odysseus came up with the idea of the Trojan horse and this led the Greeks to victory. "Finally, they decided to resort to a trick thought of by Odysseus..." (Trojan War reading section 6) This demonstrates how Odysseus proves himself by being able to come up with solutions to his problems in order to succeed in life-threatening situations. Odysseus had to prove himself and his intelligence in many occasions of his journey. For example, when his men and himself were trapped in the Cyclops' cave, Odysseus came up with a plan to trick the cyclops. First Odysseus told Polyphemus his name was “Nohbdy”, then he got the cyclops to keep drinking wine which resulted in getting the cyclops being drunk, following that he made a spear out of a cylinder of wood, and lastly when Odysseus stabbed Polyphemus in the eye and the cyclops bellowed in pain screaming “Nohbdy has tricked me, Nohbdy has ruined me” (P.766, line 403) none of his kin came to help because if nobody has done it the gods must have. Thus, Odysseus has shown himself to be very intelligent in many aspects which helped him reach his ultimate

goal.
Odysseus second trait that he shows through his journey is bravery. Many times he shows the act of bravery in the Odyssey for example when he needed to understand his fate he went down into Hades. While in Hades he seeks out Tiresias the blind prophet and when finding him Tiresias observes that one god, the earth shaker (Poseidon), has much malice for Odysseus for blinding his son (Polyphemus, the Cyclops) and will cause Odysseus and his men to go through many obstacles to achieve their goal.Although, Tiresias states, the Greeks can get home alive if they use proper judgment and control. Above all, they must not harm the cattle of Helios, the Sungod, no matter the temptation. If they do, Odysseus' men will die. Echoing the curse of the Cyclops (9.590-95), Tiresias warns that Odysseus himself might eventually arrive home, but he will be "a broken man — all shipmates lost" (11.130) and find his household in disarray. Even with receiving his destiny of hardships, he had the bravery to accept it and carry the burden of it alone, hence Odysseus’ second trait being bravery.