In vase inscriptions, there are the variants Oliseus (Ὀλισεύς), Olyseus (Ὀλυσεύς), Olysseus (Ὀλυσσεύς), Olyteus (Ὀλυτεύς), Olytteus (Ὀλυττεύς) and Ōlysseus (Ὠλυσσεύς).

The form Oulixēs (Οὐλίξης) is attested in an early source in Magna Graecia (Ibycus, according to Diomedes Grammaticus), while the Greek grammarian Aelius Herodianus has Oulixeus (Οὐλιξεύς).

"[7] However, the change between d and l is common also in some Indo-European and Greek names,[8] and the Latin form is supposed to be derived from the Etruscan Uthuze (see below), which perhaps accounts for some of the phonetic innovations.

Ancient authors linked the name to the Greek verbs odussomai (ὀδύσσομαι) "to be wroth against, to hate",[9] to oduromai (ὀδύρομαι) "to lament, bewail",[10][11] or even to ollumi (ὄλλυμι) "to perish, to be lost".

[26] Odysseus himself, under the guise of an old beggar, gives the swineherd in Ithaca a fictitious genealogy: "From broad Crete I declare that I am come by lineage, the son of a wealthy man.

Two stories in particular are well known: When Helen of Troy is abducted, Menelaus calls upon the other suitors to honour their oaths and help him to retrieve her, an attempt that leads to the Trojan War.

Odysseus cleverly discovers which among the women before him is Achilles when the youth is the only one of them to show interest in examining the weapons hidden among an array of adornment gifts for the daughters of their host.

[33] After Patroclus is slain, it is Odysseus who counsels Achilles to let the Achaean men eat and rest rather than follow his rage-driven desire to go back on the offensive—and kill Trojans—immediately.

[39] When Achilles is slain in battle by Paris, it is Odysseus and Ajax who retrieve the fallen warrior's body and armour in the thick of heavy fighting.

Homer's Iliad and Odyssey portray Odysseus as a culture hero, but the Romans, who believed themselves the heirs of Prince Aeneas of Troy, considered him a villainous falsifier.

Turnus, in Aeneid, book 9, reproaches the Trojan Ascanius with images of rugged, forthright Latin virtues, declaring (in John Dryden's translation), "You shall not find the sons of Atreus here, nor need the frauds of sly Ulysses fear."

Penelope announces in her long interview with the disguised hero that whoever can string Odysseus's rigid bow and shoot an arrow through twelve axe shafts may have her hand.

Odysseus has now revealed himself in all his glory (with a little makeover by Athena); yet Penelope cannot believe that her husband has really returned—she fears that it is perhaps some god in disguise, as in the story of Alcmene (mother of Heracles)—and tests him by ordering her servant Euryclea to move the bed in their wedding-chamber.

[citation needed] This would seem to contradict The Odyssey, which says that Odysseus's family line can only produce a single child per generation by the order of Zeus, with Telemachus already existing as that sole heir.

Ovid retells parts of Ulysses's journeys, focusing on his romantic involvements with Circe and Calypso, and recasts him as, in Harold Bloom's phrase, "one of the great wandering womanizers".

Greek legend tells of Ulysses as the founder of Lisbon, Portugal, calling it Ulisipo or Ulisseya, during his twenty-year errand on the Mediterranean and Atlantic seas.

This folk etymology is recounted by Strabo based on Asclepiades of Myrlea's words, by Pomponius Mela, by Gaius Julius Solinus (3rd century AD), and would later be reiterated by Camões in his epic poem Os Lusíadas (first printed in 1572).

He tells how he set out with his men from Circe's island for a journey of exploration to sail beyond the Pillars of Hercules and into the Western sea to find what adventures awaited them.

[61] Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem "Ulysses" (published in 1842) presents an aging king who has seen too much of the world to be happy sitting on a throne idling his days away.

Before his death he abducts Helen, incites revolutions in Crete and Egypt, communes with God, and meets representatives of such famous historical and literary figures as Vladimir Lenin, Don Quixote and Jesus.

Frederick Rolfe's The Weird of the Wanderer (1912) has the hero Nicholas Crabbe (based on the author) travelling back in time, discovering that he is the reincarnation of Odysseus, marrying Helen, being deified and ending up as one of the three Magi.

James Joyce's novel Ulysses (first published 1918–1920) uses modern literary devices to narrate a single day in the life of a Dublin businessman named Leopold Bloom.

Return to Ithaca (1946) by Eyvind Johnson is a more realistic retelling of the events that adds a deeper psychological study of the characters of Odysseus, Penelope, and Telemachus.

In S. M. Stirling's Island in the Sea of Time (1998), first part to his Nantucket series of alternate history novels, Odikweos ("Odysseus" in Mycenaean Greek) is a "historical" figure who is every bit as cunning as his legendary self and is one of the few Bronze Age inhabitants who discerns the time-travellers' real background.

Rick Riordan's novel series Percy Jackson & the Olympians, which centres on the presence of Greek mythology in the 21st century, incorporates several elements from Odysseus's story.

Volodymyr Yermolenko, Ukrainian philosopher and essayist, wrote Ocean Catcher: The Story of Odysseus, Stary Lev, 2017, which is loose adaptation of The Odyssey, where after coming back home to Ithaca, where he cannot find either Penelope or Telemachus, he decides to have a reverse trip to Troy.

[65] The actors who have portrayed Odysseus in feature films include Kirk Douglas in the Italian Ulysses (1955), John Drew Barrymore in The Trojan Horse (1961), Piero Lulli in The Fury of Achilles (1962), Sean Bean in Troy (2004), and Ralph Fiennes in The Return (2024).

In folkloristics, the story of Odysseus's journey back to his native Ithaca and wife Penelope corresponds to the tale type ATU 974, "The Homecoming Husband" [de], of the international Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index for folktale classification.

[77] Pliny the Elder writes that in Italy there were some small islands (modern Torricella, Praca, Brace and other rocks)[78] which were called Ithacesiae because of a watchtower that Odysseus built there.

[79] According to ancient Greek tradition, Odysseus founded a city in Iberia which was called Odysseia (Ὀδύσσεια)[80][81] or Odysseis (Ὀδυσσεῖς)[82] which had a sanctuary of goddess Athena.