No matter how many times I read the Odyssey, I'm always surprised at how little space is given to Odysseus's meanderings between Troy and his captivity with Calypso. The lotus-eaters get about a dozen lines, the sirens even fewer; the Laestrygonians accomplish their cannibalistic, fleet-wrecking revenge in less than a page. Meanwhile we get four whole books of Odysseus living it up with the Phaeacians (not that I ever get tired of hearing about the succulent roast meat, bread and wine) and seven books of caginess, dissembling, loyalty tests, and general crafty plotting from when he finally lands back in Ithaca to when he announces himself with that badass arrow-shot through the axe-heads.

My favourite moment will always be at the end of Book V, where Odysseus at his lowest ebb, exhausted and bedraggled having gone twelve rounds with Poseidon and only still alive thanks to the attentions of a passing naiad, crawls ashore on Scherie and beds down under the twin olive trees, covering himself in dry leaves. Just profoundly peaceful. Respite from the ever-terrifying ungovernable winedark sea. And of course the old "my name is Nobody" pranking of Polyphemus, ho ho.