Aeolus

Aeolus, son of Hippotas, is the mortal king of the floating island of Aeolia and the divinely appointed master of the winds, whom Odysseus encounters after his harrowing escape from the Cyclops Polyphemus. His brief but decisive intervention in the hero's journey—offering a bag that contains all the contrary winds to guarantee a safe passage home—represents one of the most tantalizing near-successes in the entire Odyssey, and his subsequent refusal to aid Odysseus a second time marks a crucial turning point in the hero's prolonged wanderings.

Identity and Domain

Aeolus dwells on Aeolia, an island that floats upon the sea, encircled by an unbreachable wall of bronze. He lives in a state of perpetual domestic felicity with his six daughters and six lusty sons, whom he has married to one another; the household spends its days feasting in an atmosphere thick with the savor of roasting meats, and at night each couple sleeps on well-made bedsteads. This image of harmonious, self-contained abundance contrasts sharply with the disorder and violence that characterize so many of the places Odysseus visits. Aeolus's authority over the winds is a direct grant from Zeus, who has made him captain over every gale, able to stir or still each one according to his pleasure. When Odysseus arrives, Aeolus entertains him for an entire month, questioning him closely about Troy, the Argive fleet, and the return of the Achaeans, and Odysseus tells him the whole story exactly as it happened.

The Gift of the Winds and Its Betrayal

When Odysseus declares that he must leave, Aeolus makes no difficulty about furthering his voyage. He flays a prime ox-hide and sews inside it all the roaring winds that could blow the ship off course, binding the mouth of the bag with a silver thread so tightly that not even a breath of side-wind can escape. Only the fair West wind does he let blow freely, to carry the ships straight toward Ithaca. For nine days and nine nights the fleet sails, and on the tenth day the familiar coastline of Ithaca appears, with the stubble fires of the island visible on the horizon. Odysseus, exhausted from having kept the rudder in his own hands the entire time without sleep, falls into a light slumber. His men, seeing the bag and believing it to contain gold and silver that Aeolus has given their captain as a parting gift, open it out of greed. Instantly all the pent-up winds burst forth, raising a hurricane that drives the ships weeping back out to sea, away from their homeland. Odysseus awakens to find his homecoming undone by his own crew's folly and is torn between throwing himself into the sea and enduring the catastrophe.

The Refusal of Further Aid

The fleet is carried back to Aeolia, where Odysseus goes ashore with a herald and one companion and approaches Aeolus's house as a suppliant, sitting down on the threshold. Aeolus and his family are astonished to see him and ask what god has ill-treated him, since they took great pains to further him on his way. Odysseus answers sorrowfully that his men and cruel sleep have ruined him, and he begs them to mend the mischief. Aeolus, however, refuses absolutely. He tells Odysseus that he is the vilest of mankind and orders him to leave the island at once, declaring that he will in no wise help one whom heaven hates. He sends Odysseus away as a man abhorred of the gods, and the hero sails onward with his men, now forced to row without any wind to assist them, worn out by long and fruitless labor.

Significance and Narrative Role

Aeolus's episode functions as a compressed tragedy of near-deliverance: Odysseus is within sight of home, and the one obstacle that remains is entirely human—the insubordinate curiosity and greed of his own crew. The king of the winds is a model host who fulfills every obligation of xenia, yet he is also a strict moral realist: once he perceives that divine disfavor clings to Odysseus, he will not risk his own household's prosperity by associating further with a man the gods have cursed. His judgment that Odysseus is hated by heaven proves accurate in the larger structure of the poem, for Poseidon's relentless anger continues to drive the hero from shore to shore. The episode also establishes a pattern of failed homecomings that will culminate in the final destruction of Odysseus's ship and the loss of all his men after the slaughter of the Sun-god's cattle. Aeolus himself, having fulfilled his role as both benefactor and moral arbiter, disappears from the narrative, leaving Odysseus to face the Laestrygonians and Circe without the advantage of a controlled wind.