Sing to me, O muse, of the deeds of the widely travelled man who on his long wanderings after Troy’s destruction saw cities of many people and found sense from life and who endures so many unutterable sorrows on the high seas.

These verses open the epic work "Odyssey" by the Greek poet Homer who lived around 800 years B.C. It is under his name that the first two epic works of literature were recorded for posterity: The "Jliad“ in which the stories of the Greek heroes in the Trojan war are ...