The Odyssey Coloring Pages
The Odyssey is Homer's story of Odysseus, the clever king of Ithaca, and his ten-year struggle to get home after the Trojan War. It's about 12,000 lines long and divided into 24 parts called "books."
Homer doesn't tell the story in order. The poem opens near the end, with Odysseus stuck on a faraway island and his son searching for news of him. We only hear about the Cyclops, Circe and the Sirens later, when Odysseus tells his own story at a king's feast. This page follows the poem the way Homer wrote it.
Jump to: Retellings | Telemachus | Calypso and the Phaeacians | Odysseus' Tales | Home to Ithaca
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Retellings of the Odyssey
People have been retelling the Odyssey for almost 3,000 years, and they haven't stopped. The Romans called its hero Ulysses, and that name stuck in a lot of later versions.
The poet Alfred Tennyson imagined an old Ulysses itching for one more voyage. Rick Riordan sent Percy Jackson to face Polyphemus and Circe in The Sea of Monsters, and Madeline Miller's Circe and Margaret Atwood's The Penelopiad told the story from the women's side. In 2017, Emily Wilson became the first woman to publish an English translation of the poem, and in 2026 Christopher Nolan brought it to theaters with Matt Damon as Odysseus.
One of the most popular new versions is Epic: The Musical by Jorge Rivera-Herrans, which turns the Odyssey into 40 songs across nine "sagas." It changes quite a bit from Homer, so it's fun to compare the two.
Epic: The Musical guide and coloring pages.e
Telemachus Searches for His Father (Books 1 to 4)
Twenty years have passed since Odysseus sailed off to war, leaving behind his wife Penelope and their baby son, Telemachus. Nobody on Ithaca knows if he's alive. More than a hundred suitors have moved into the palace, eating Odysseus' food and pushing Penelope to marry one of them and make him king.
Penelope has been stalling them for years. She promised to choose a husband once she finished weaving a burial cloth for Odysseus' old father, Laertes, then secretly unraveled her work every night. It worked for three years, until one of her maids gave the trick away.
Athena, disguised as an old family friend, visits Telemachus and urges him to stand up to the suitors and go looking for news of his father. He sails to Pylos to visit wise old King Nestor, then to Sparta, where King Menelaus and Queen Helen tell him Odysseus was last heard of on an island, held there by a goddess.
Calypso and the Phaeacians (Books 5 to 8)
Odysseus has spent seven years on the island of Ogygia with the goddess Calypso, who loves him and has offered to make him immortal if he stays. He'd rather go home. Zeus finally sends Hermes to tell Calypso to let him go, and she helps him build a raft.
Poseidon spots him at sea and smashes the raft with a storm. Odysseus swims for two days before washing up on the island of the Phaeacians, where the princess Nausicaa finds him and leads him to her father, King Alcinous.
At a feast in his honor, a blind bard sings about the Trojan Horse. Odysseus can't hold back his tears, and the king asks who he really is. Odysseus finally tells them his name and begins his story.
Odysseus Tells His Story (Books 9 to 12)
These are the adventures most people think of when they hear "the Odyssey," and Homer has Odysseus tell them himself, looking back on everything that happened after Troy.
The Lotus-Eaters
After a raid on the city of the Cicones goes badly, the fleet lands among the Lotus-Eaters. Anyone who tastes the lotus fruit forgets all about going home, and Odysseus has to drag his men back to the ships.
The Cyclops
In a cave full of sheep and cheese, Odysseus and his men are trapped by the one-eyed giant Polyphemus. Odysseus gets him drunk on strong wine, tells him his name is "Nobody," and blinds him while he sleeps. The men escape by clinging to the bellies of his sheep. As they sail off, Odysseus can't resist shouting his real name, and Polyphemus calls on his father, Poseidon, for revenge.
Cyclops coloring pages Poseidon coloring pages
Aeolus and the Bag of Winds
Aeolus, keeper of the winds, ties up every storm wind in a leather bag so Odysseus can sail straight home. Ithaca is in sight when Odysseus falls asleep and his curious crew opens the bag, thinking it's full of treasure. The winds blow them all the way back. Soon after, giants called the Laestrygonians wreck every ship but Odysseus' own.
Circe
On the island of Aeaea, the sorceress Circe turns half the crew into pigs. Hermes gives Odysseus a magic herb called moly that protects him from her spells, and Circe changes the men back. They end up staying with her for a whole year before she tells Odysseus he must visit the Underworld.
The Underworld
At the edge of the world, Odysseus makes an offering and the spirits of the dead gather around him. The blind prophet Tiresias warns him never to harm the cattle of the sun god. Odysseus also meets the ghost of his mother, who died of sadness waiting for him, and the spirits of heroes from the war. When he tells Achilles he must surely be a king among the dead, Achilles answers that he'd rather be the poorest farmhand alive than rule over all the dead.
The Sirens, Scylla and Charybdis
Odysseus plugs his crew's ears with beeswax and has them tie him to the mast so he can hear the Sirens' song without steering onto the rocks. Next comes a narrow strait with the six-headed monster Scylla on one side and the giant whirlpool Charybdis on the other. Odysseus steers closer to Scylla, and she snatches six of his men.
The Cattle of the Sun
Stuck on the island of the sun god Helios by bad weather, the starving crew breaks their promise and eats his sacred cattle while Odysseus is asleep. As soon as they set sail, Zeus strikes the ship with a lightning bolt. Only Odysseus survives, clinging to the wreckage for nine days until he washes up on Calypso's island, right where the story began.
Home to Ithaca (Books 13 to 24)
The Phaeacians carry Odysseus home on one of their magic ships, setting him down on the beach while he's still asleep. Half the poem takes place back on Ithaca.
Disguised as a Beggar
Athena disguises Odysseus as a ragged old beggar so he can find out who's still loyal. He stays with his faithful swineherd, Eumaeus, and reveals himself to Telemachus, home safely from his trip. At the palace gate, his old dog Argos recognizes him after twenty years. His childhood nurse, Eurycleia, knows him too, when she spots an old scar on his leg while washing his feet.
The Contest of the Bow
Penelope announces she'll marry whichever suitor can string Odysseus' great bow and shoot an arrow through the holes of twelve axe heads lined up in a row. None of them can even bend it. The old beggar asks for a turn, strings it easily, and makes the shot. Then, with Telemachus beside him, Odysseus turns the bow on the suitors.
Penelope's Test
Even then, Penelope isn't sure. She tells a servant to move their bed out of the bedroom, and Odysseus gets upset, because he built that bed himself around the trunk of a living olive tree. Only the real Odysseus could know that. At last, they're together again. The poem ends with Odysseus visiting his father, Laertes, and Athena making peace on Ithaca.
Odysseus coloring pages More of Homer's works