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The epic follows a resourceful hero's prolonged voyage home after a great war, presenting episodic adventures involving sea passages, enchanted islands, perilous monsters, and divine interventions. Parallel strands depict the struggle at his household with intrusive suitors and the family members who await his return, while themes of cunning, loyalty, hospitality, identity, and fate are explored. Composed in twenty-four books and accompanied by shorter hymns and poems, the work moves between vivid narrative set pieces and reflective passages on human conduct and the gods' influence.
Saturnia, and her throne of gold, I sing,
That was of Rhea the eternal spring,
And empress of a beauty never yet
Equall’d in height of tincture. Of the great
Saturnius (breaking air in awful noise)
The far-fam’d wife and sister; whom in joys
Of high Olympus all the Blessed love,
And honour equal with unequall’d Jove.