Ithacus, the alleged son of Poseidon, lacking a legal claim by which to rule, substituted a divine one, thus uniting himself forever with both the island and its populace; nor did the Ithacans protest, secure upon their rugged coast, content to base their dignity upon a parentage however fabulous in its origin, and from which soon arose a successor whose renown aspired to eclipse the splendor of the gods themselves.
The house of Odysseus, whether through feigned reluctance or martial inclination, answered the call to arms, leading the Ithacans to the remote and hostile shores of Troy, where they endured the protracted trials and tribulations of that grand old expedition; until their monarch, said to have been animated by a spirit of fantastical ingenuity, contrived the stratagem of a great wooden horse; which, as the bards so fancifully recount, pried apart the gates of Ilium and precipitated a massacre of unparalleled ferocity, affording Eris, the goddess of discord, her most exquisite and unmitigated satisfaction.
On the return voyage, Odysseus and his crew passed through the lands of the Laestrygonians, a place of seeming respite, but upon meeting Antiphates, king of the cannibal giants, the ceremonies of hospitality were at once dispensed with as the new guest was seized and devoured; not yet satiated that man-eating giant marshalled his kin upon the cliffs to execute their fatal barrage, hurling from that precipice enormous rocks upon the fleet, dashing the ships to ruin and spearing the unfortunate sailors like fish until only wreckage remained in their wake. Overlooked, however, was the intervention of that divine agent of discord, who preserved a remnant of the Ithacans, clinging tenaciously to floating debris amid the turbulent foam, and bore them upon seemingly favorable currents to the fog-shrouded isle of Red Caye.
Just as Penelope, Queen of Ithaca and wife of Odysseus, preserved her fidelity against the suitors, so too do the exiled Ithacans maintain their devotion, offering fervent prayers their savior might one day return to lead them back home. Unbeknownst to them, however, salvation’s call has already been answered by the goddess, and such pious aspirations prove eternally deferred.