The Odyssey: Return of the King (Part 2)

**Dominic Sandbrook** (0:11)
Let us now speed Hermes the Guide, the Slayer of Argos, toward Ogygia Island, so that he can speedily announce your steadfast decision to the nymph of the beautiful braids, that Odysseus, whose mind stands fast, shall make his journey home. For my part, I will embark for Ithaca, there to breathe purpose into his son, that I might instill a man's courage within his heart, and to make him call an assembly of the long-haired Ithacans and tell all the suitors to go. Those men who never leave off slaughtering throngs of his sheep and his lumbering twisty-horned cattle. To Sparta, I shall send him, and to Sandy Pylos too, to learn whatever he can of his dear father's journey home, and to help him as well to earn a noble renown among men.
So that was Dame Edna Reverage playing the goddess Athena, and Athena is talking to her father Zeus, King of the Gods, and this is in the first of the 24 books that constitute Homer's great epic, The Odyssey. As we were saying in our first episode, there is something very Australian about the expedition of Odysseus and his men across the Aegean, barbecuing on the beach, drinking unnecessarily, behaving badly, and basically comporting themselves like Australians on the beaches of the Dardanelles. And so we felt that Australian voices, Russell Crowe in the last episode, a cross between Kylie Minogue and Dame Edna in this one were the most appropriate.

**Tom Holland** (1:43)
I was imagining Kylie, I have to say.

**Dominic Sandbrook** (1:45)
Right. It turned into Dame Edna.

**Tom Holland** (1:48)
If I shut my eyes, I could imagine Kylie, and then I'd open my eyes and see you, and it would all go.

**Dominic Sandbrook** (1:52)
Yeah, nice.
That's a lot. I mean, a lot of people's fantasy, actually. Anyway, the translation there is by Daniel Mendelsohn, who's on our bonus episode for Rest Is History Club members talking about The Odyssey. Of course, we're doing this series because the film by Christopher Nolan is out this week. It goes on general release on the 17th. Tom, I know you've gone online, haven't you, to book your tickets because you don't want to miss out. Is that right?

**Tom Holland** (2:17)
Actually, I went to the preview.

**Dominic Sandbrook** (2:18)
Okay. That's just showing off, isn't it? It's just showing off.
It's the sort of boastful behavior, you would expect of a Greek hero, I guess.

**Tom Holland** (2:28)
Yeah. It's a key in behavior and I will regret it when I end up in the underworld.
This episode is brought to you by the Lloyds 5K house deposit. This is something that was last seen in 1996

**Dominic Sandbrook** (2:43)
The 1990s looks now like a lost golden age of prosperity and positivity, doesn't it? Think of the advent of the Blair administration in 1997, all the enthusiasm and excitement that surrounded that.
The economic growth of the time, the technological developments, the sort of sense of an endless golden summer where everybody is listening to Blair and Oasis and looking forward to buying their first houses. That of course takes us to mortgages. Now, the good news is that in a nod to the 1990s, Lloyds are offering 5K deposit mortgages to first-time buyers. So search 5K first-time buyer.

**Tom Holland** (3:20)
1996 average first-time buyer deposits are based on ONS data. Subject to status, your home may be repossessed if you don't keep up repayments and conditions apply.

**SPEAKER_4** (3:35)
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**Dominic Sandbrook** (4:26)
So recap to remind people where we are in the story. In the first episode, we heard how Odysseus, the wildest, the smartest of all the Greek heroes, fought for 10 years in the Trojan War. He was the maestro behind the Trojan Horse. Then he tries to get home with his men and he is blown fatally off course. Tom, remind us of all his adventures and what happened.