Les Grands Mythes

- Season 3

(2021)

Ten years after the massacre of Troy by the Greek army, Zeus is alone on Olympus. Only his daughter Athena is still by his side. She tries to convince her father to help Ulysses, the last Greek fighter yet to return home, in Ithaca.

Devastated by this war, Ulysses is indignant at the gods, guilty of having allowed this carnage to take place. He only wants to return to Ithaca. The beginning of his journey takes him from the island of the Cicones to that of the Cyclops.

Ulysses and his companions are locked in the cave of Polyphemus the Cyclops. To escape, they cut a stake and drive it into his one eye. But in revenge, the Cyclops calls on his father, the god Poseidon. Immediately, a storm erupted.

Ithaca, Penelope undergoes the presence of the Suitors who covet her hand and the throne of Ulysses. On the sea, scalded by the terrible ordeals they have gone through, disembark on a new island, that of the magician Circe.

A year has passed. It is time for Ulysses and his men to leave the island of Circe and return to Ithaca. For that, they must go to meet the diviner Tiresias in the Underworld. He alone is able to tell them the rest of their journey.

Ulysses descends into the depths of the Underworld and meets the souls of the Greek heroes who fought with him. Back on his boat, he is confronted with the song of the Sirens. Then the fleet finds itself facing Charybdis and Scylla.

Scylla, horrible creature, destroys three ships. Despite Ulysses's warning, the sailors devour the god's cows. The penalty is terrible. Odysseus finds himself alone drifting to the island of the nymph Calypso, who falls in love with him.

For seven years, Ulysses has lived with Calypso. Then he decides to leave. Poseidon destroys Ulysses's ship, which runs on an unknown island. There he meets the Pheacians, who promise to take him to Ithaca.

The Suitors learned that the queen had duped them and locked him in the gynoeceum. Odysseus meets Athena who tells him that he is in Ithaca. She transforms him into a beggar so that he goes unnoticed, then he finds his son Telemachus.

Penelope, forced to choose a husband, offers the Suitors a test to decide between them: they must shoot an arrow and pass it through twelve axes. All try without success, before the beggar tries his luck and reveals his true identity.