What is the symbolism of the soldiers eating the cattle when they were told not to? 

In the Odyssey, they symbolize Odysseus on his journey home, again just like the lotus eaters that I talked about in my previous essay. I think they symbolize how much temptation Odysseus has. He gets tempted with a lot of women, and they weren’t supposed to listen to the song of the sirens but Odysseus did anyway. Odysseus never thought of the most important thing to him when he was making decisions. He just did what he wanted and never thought about the future. 

Something we can learn from Odysseus is to learn from his mistakes. He was very thoughtless with everything he did. We learned that thinking about what we do before we do it is very important because, in the long run, Odysseus paid for most of the wrong he did. He got many punishments from the gods. Obviously there is only one God, but He can punish us for doing wrong. What I’m saying is always think about your decision because it can affect the future in a bad way.  The future is just as important as the present. You make decisions for the future and the future depends on your present decisions. 

Odysseus is a perfect example of how not to live. Although he ended up being with Penelope, he went through a lot, and I’m sure his conscience was bothering him. He wasn’t honest and that’s what will come back to get him. Although it did work out for him in the end nobody ever really gets away with anything. Your conscience will always be there telling you that you did wrong, and that’s a feeling that won’t go away because decisions are permanent. So, if there’s anything that you can learn from this essay it’s just think before you do.