Name:
English 12
1
The Odyssey begins with Homer, who is credited with the first telling of The Odyssey, asking a Muse for help in telling the story of Odysseus
Muse - any one of the nine goddesses of the arts, literature, and the sciences; the spirit that is thought to inspire a poet or other artist
According to this introduction by Homer, Odysseus has many qualities that make him a hero
he has “weathered many days and nights…at sea”
he has “a deep heart”
he fought for the noble purpose of saving his own life and bringing “his shipmates home”
Words to Know
Ambrosial: fit for the gods, divine
Contending: fighting, dealing with difficulties
1.
The Odyssey . As well as the Iliad , begins with an epic convention—the poet’s prayer to Calliope, the
Muse of epic poetry. What does the poet ask of the Muse?
“Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story of that man skilled in all ways of contending, the wanderer, harried for years on end, after he plundered the stronghold on the proud height of Troy.”
2.
How does the poet stress a moral theme in the lines “But not by will nor valor could he save them, for their own recklessness destroyed them all—“ (10-11)?
3.
Why does Odysseus not return home with his fellow Greeks?
“Begin when all the rest who left behind them
Headlong death in battle or at sea
Core Value: Higher Order Thinking
21 st CLE: Students should communicate clearly and effectively
CC.11-12.RL.3 Analyze the impact of the author’s choices regarding how to develop and relate elements of a story or drama

Had long ago returned, while he alone still hungered
For home and wife. Her ladyship Calypso
Clung to him in her sea-hollowed caves—
A nymph, immortal and most beautiful,
Who craved him for her own.”
4.
What does Homer tell you about the hero and about what is going to happen to him?
2
5.
How long did the Trojan War last?
6.
How many years has Odysseus spent trying to return home?
7.
Who is Calypso and what is her relationship to Odysseus?
8.
Who is narrating the story?
9.
Who is Hermes and what is his mission?
10.
Of whom is Calypso seemingly jealous?
11.
How does Odysseus regard his wife Penelope?
12.
How does Calypso assist Odysseus on his journey home?
Words to Know
Guile________________________________________________________________________________
Formidable___________________________________________________________________________
Teeming_____________________________________________________________________________
Rowlocks___________________________________________________________________________
Core Value: Higher Order Thinking
21 st CLE: Students should communicate clearly and effectively
CC.11-12.RL.3 Analyze the impact of the author’s choices regarding how to develop and relate elements of a story or drama

13.
Why does Odysseus not give his name before the minstrel plays?
3
14.
Do you think he may be reluctant to identify himself in the home of the Phaecians, who are sailors and thus worshippers of Poseidon?
15.
What does Phaeacia represent and how does it contrast with Cyclops’ island?
16.
What impression do you get about Odysseus from the following passage? (lines 34-36)
“Men hold me
Formidable for guile in peace and war:
This fame has gone abroad to the sky’s rim.”
17.
What is the epithet or descriptive phrase that names someone found in line 48, “…though I have been detained long by Calypso,/loveliest among goddesses, who held me/in her smooth caves, to be her heart’s delight,/ as Circe of Aeaea, the enchantress
,/desired me, and detained me in her hall.” ?
18.
How does Odysseus express one of the main themes of the poem in the passage in lines 51-53?
“But in my heart I never gave consent.
Where shall a man find sweetness to surpass
His own home and his parents? In far lands
He shall not, though he find a house of gold.”
19.
What is compared in the simile in lines 69-71? “This was an army, trained to fight on horseback/or, where the ground required, on foot. They came/with dawn over that terrain like the leaves and blades of spring. So doom appeared to us,”
20.
What time do you think is “unyoking time”? “but when the sun passed toward unyoking time,” (line
What does the phrase tell you about the way the people of the era tell time?
21.
Which part of the poet’s description of dawn tells you that the event is personified ? What is the resulting image? (line 95) “then two long days and nights we lay offshore/worn out and sick at heart, tasting our grief, until a third Dawn came with ringlets shining.”
Core Value: Higher Order Thinking
21 st CLE: Students should communicate clearly and effectively
CC.11-12.RL.3 Analyze the impact of the author’s choices regarding how to develop and relate elements of a story or drama

22.
Do armies behave like this in modern times?
23.
What is Zeus’ command to Calypso?
24.
Which god/goddess brings Zeus’ command to Calypso?
THE LOTUS EATERS
25.
What can you conclude about Odysseus’ character from him sending his men to investigate the unknown island?
26.
What is the effect of eating the lotus flower?
27.
How did Odysseus solve the problem?
THE CYCLOPS
4
Words to Know
Dismember-__________________________________________________________________________
Gape-_______________________________________________________________________________
Whey-_______________________________________________________________________________
Felled-_______________________________________________________________________________
Lugger sailboat
Profusion- large supply, abundance
Bored-_______________________________________________________________________________
Seared-_______________________________________________________________________________
Smithy- blacksmith’s shop
Adze- tool like an ax but with a longer curved blade
Sage- wise
Carrion rogue- rotten scoundrel
Tallying-_____________________________________________________________________________
Adversary-___________________________________________________________________________
Lob-toss
Heed-_______________________________________________________________________________
21 st CLE: Students should communicate clearly and effectively
CC.11-12.RL.3 Analyze the impact of the author’s choices regarding how to develop and relate elements of a story or drama

28.
Why do you think Odysseus and his men burn an offering for the gods?
“We lit a fire, burnt an offering,/and took some cheese to eat; then sat in silence/around the embers, waiting…”
5
29.
Why does Odysseus lead his men into Polyphemos’ cave?
30.
What happens when Polyphemos finds Odysseus and his men in the cave?
31.
Why is it wrong that the Cyclops is treating his guests badly? (lines 163-168)
32.
How does Odysseus’ narration where he gives an “aside” to his audience give the reader insight into the events he recounts? (lines 178-179)
33.
Why does Odysseus tell the lie to Polyphemos about the ship?
34.
Why do you think Odysseus tells the Cyclops that his name is Nohbdy?
35.
What is ironic about the Cyclops’s saying he will eat Nohbdy last?
36.
What steps does Odysseus take to prepare for escape?
37.
What does the double negative of “Nohbdy will not get out alive” literally mean? (361)
38.
Why does Odysseus reveal his name to Polyphemos after he has escaped?
39.
What are the men’s reasons for not wanting Odysseus to call out to the Cyclops?
40.
Who is the god of earthquakes of whom the Cyclops speaks?
41.
Why does the Cyclops refer to Poseidon as “blue girdler of the islands”?
42.
What do you think the Cyclops’s curse foreshadows for Odysseus and his men?
Core Value: Higher Order Thinking
21 st CLE: Students should communicate clearly and effectively
CC.11-12.RL.3 Analyze the impact of the author’s choices regarding how to develop and relate elements of a story or drama

6
Words to Know
Stealth- secret action/behavior
Beguile- _____________________________________________________________________________
Mast- various kinds of nuts used as food for hogs
43.
What natural phenomenon is controlled by Aeolus? How does Aeolus show his goodwill when
Odysseus is about to leave?
44.
Should Odysseus have told the sailors what was in the bulls-hide bag?
45.
Briefly explain what happened to Odysseus’ men who encountered the Laestrygonians and what
Odysseus did there.
46.
How does the Circe episode parallel the episode of the Lotus Eaters in Book 9?
47.
What has happened to the men?
48.
What have the men done to deserve the fate Circe gives them?
49.
How did Circe violate the laws of hospitality?
50.
Who is Persephone? Hint: “the cold homes of Death and pale Persephone,”
Words to Know
Assuage-___________________________________________________________________________
Flaystrip the skin from
Somber-___________________________________________________________________________
51.
Why must Odysseus journey to Hades, the land of the dead?
Rancor- bitterness, ill will
52.
How does Odysseus summon the spirit of Tiresias?
Bereft-____________________________________________________________________________
Winnowing fan device used to remove the useless dry outer covering from grain
Hecatombs sacrifices of one hundred cattle at a time to the gods
21 st CLE: Students should communicate clearly and effectively
CC.11-12.RL.3 Analyze the impact of the author’s choices regarding how to develop and relate elements of a story or drama

53.
What does Teiresias state that Odysseus needs?
54.
What advice does Tiresias give Odysseus regarding the island of Thrinakia?
55.
What does Teiresias predict for Odysseus?
56.
What should Odysseus do to the suitors at his house?
57.
What does Teiresias say Odysseus should do after dealing with the suitors?
THE SIRENS, SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS
Words to Know
Harpies- half bird-half woman; greedy for victims
Whelp’s
- puppies
Abominably an extremely unpleasant manner
Serried - crowded together, densely packed
Promontory - highland that juts out into a body of water
Maelstrom - large, violent whirlpool
Furl - wrap-up
Plumb - vertical
Ardor passion; enthusiasm
Tumult commotion, uproar
Founder (verb)- fail
Combers- large waves
Smother - commotion, violent action
Cuirass - armor for the breast and back
Travail - hard, exhausting work
Gurge throat and jaws of a greedy, all-devouring
Spume- foam
Blanched grew pale
Astern/Aft - behind
Dire grapple - terrible struggle
58.
What advice does Circe give Odysseus when he returns from the underworld?
59.
Describe the Sirens. What danger do they pose?
Core Value: Higher Order Thinking
21 st CLE: Students should communicate clearly and effectively
CC.11-12.RL.3 Analyze the impact of the author’s choices regarding how to develop and relate elements of a story or drama
7

60.
Why do you think Odysseus was determined to listen to the Sirens’ song? (Keep in mind what the
Sirens are supposed to represent).
8
61.
Why should sailors beware of Scylla? (Describe her)
62.
Who else, besides Circe has warned Odysseus to leave Helios’s cattle alone?
63.
What does it mean that “Scylla dropped astern”?
Words to Know
Supplication: humble requests, prayer
Insidious: crafty, sly
Strew: scatter about
Overweening: excessively prod
Lampetia: daughter of Helios; guarded his cattle
64.
Who owns the cattle on the island of Thrinakia?
65.
Of what consequence does Odysseus warn his men?
66.
When and why did Odysseus' men decide to kill the cattle?
67.
What threat did Helios make in response to the death of his cattle?
68.
Who punished Odysseus' men? How?
69.
Who survives the punishment?
70.
What does Odysseus’ failure to remember Circe’s warning about the uselessness of weapons reveal about how he thinks of himself?
71.
What happens to Odysseus’ companions on Tharinkia?
72.
What happens to Odysseus after Zeus intervenes with the fate of Odysseus’ men?
Core Value: Higher Order Thinking
21 st CLE: Students should communicate clearly and effectively
CC.11-12.RL.3 Analyze the impact of the author’s choices regarding how to develop and relate elements of a story or drama

9
Core Value: Higher Order Thinking
21 st CLE: Students should communicate clearly and effectively
CC.11-12.RL.3 Analyze the impact of the author’s choices regarding how to develop and relate elements of a story or drama

10
THE BEGGAR AND THE FAITHFUL DOG
73.
Why should a great epic concern itself with an old dog?
74.
In what way is the dog Argos, as he is described here (lines 759-765), similar to Odysseus and to the kingdom of Ithaca?
75.
What was Argos’s condition when Odysseus returned home?
76.
What does this scene reveal to the reader about Odysseus’ character? (768-770)
77.
Why is this scene in lines 778-781 ironic?
78.
What qualities does Penelope reveal about herself in this scene?
THE TEST OF THE GREAT BOW
79.
What are the suitors doing in the house?
80.
How has Penelope managed to hold off the suitors’ demands for the past four years?
81.
What is the conflict that Odysseus faces in lines 841 ½ - 843?
82.
Why does Odysseus promise the cowherd and swineherd rewards? (861-865)
83.
How is Penelope’s acceptance of the beggar as a competitor for her hand ironic?
84.
What do you learn about Odysseus’ state of mind from this scene?
85.
How is the suitor’s comment in line 899 ironic?
86.
What might the crack of thunder in lines 909-913 foreshadow? Explain
Core Value: Higher Order Thinking
21 st CLE: Students should communicate clearly and effectively
CC.11-12.RL.3 Analyze the impact of the author’s choices regarding how to develop and relate elements of a story or drama

11
87.
What does the phrase “cook their lordships’ mutton” mean? How would you express the idea? (928-
930)
88.
Why will Odysseus take revenge on the suitors and maids?
89.
What does the phrase “true son of King Odysseus” imply about Telemachus?
DEATH AT THE PALACE
90.
Where is the climax of the epic?
91.
What is Odysseus able to do that the suitors could not do?
92.
Why could he do this thing that the suitors could not do?
93.
After Odysseus won the contest, who was the first suitor he killed? Why?
94.
What can you infer about the suitors’ state of mind from their reaction to Odysseus’ attack? (956-958)
95.
Foils are contrasting characters. The violent, insulting Antonius has a foil in the epic; who is it? (980-
994)
96.
What happens to the disloyal serving women?
97.
What does this bloody scene add to the epic’s theme about the value of hospitality and about what happens to people who mock divine laws?
ODYSSEUS AND PENELOPE
98.
How does Homer portray Penelope?
99.
Why does Penelope have so much trouble recognizing Odysseus? (1024-1028)
100.
How does Penelope test Odysseus?(1076-1107)
101.
Explain the process by which Odysseus builds the bed. (1089-1099)
Core Value: Higher Order Thinking
21 st CLE: Students should communicate clearly and effectively
CC.11-12.RL.3 Analyze the impact of the author’s choices regarding how to develop and relate elements of a story or drama

102.
In what other episode was the olive tree significant?
12
Core Value: Higher Order Thinking
21 st CLE: Students should communicate clearly and effectively
CC.11-12.RL.3 Analyze the impact of the author’s choices regarding how to develop and relate elements of a story or drama