Homer, The Odyssey

Odysseus prefers living in Troy to Ithaca.

Calypso has imprisoned Odysseus in her cave.

Zeus has requested Odysseus’s presence in Olympus.

Odysseus wants to earn a fortune before sailing home.

Poseidon, lord of the sea, is angry with Odysseus.

Zeus refuses to interfere in the events of mortals’ lives.

Zeus intends the journey to be a trial for Odysseus.

Odysseus never offers sacrifices to placate the gods.

He has taken a new wife in Troy.

He has been sold into slavery.

He has died on the battlefield.

He had died on the journey home.

She has to manage her husband’s extensive estate by herself.

She must suffer the loss of social rank in Greek society as a widow.

She cannot convince Telemachus to accept his inheritance.

She must resist the advances of suitors who wish to marry her.

She convinced them that Odysseus was returning home.

She wove a cloth and then undid the work secretly at night.

She contrived for her slave girls to engage the men romantically.

She had Athena cast a spell on the men to put them to sleep.

patience until he is old enough to rule Ithaca

money to bribe spies to send to Troy

sacrifices to gain answers from the gods

a boat and crew to travel to Sparta and Pylos

Hera

Zeus

Athena

Hermes

He proposes a toast to her at dinner.

He gives her a cloak of spun gold.

He offers to make a sacrifice to her.

He provides her a chariot for her journey.

a wedding feast

a child’s funeral

a harvest festival

a birthday celebration

She informed Priam of the Greeks’ secret plot.

She called to the Greeks using their wives’ voices.

She warned the Trojans not to accept the horse.

She wanted to burn the horse outside of Troy.

He captures Proteus while disguised as a seal.

Athena reveals the answers in a dream.

He meets Nestor when he arrives on a ship.

Achilles comes to visit Menelaus from Hades.

make him choose a bride

ambush and kill him at sea

make him ruler of Ithaca

send him into exile in Egypt

She realizes that he misses his wife.

She has become bored of his attentions.

She is ordered to free Odysseus by Zeus.

She wants to gain favor from the Olympians.

She will be arrested for bringing an uninvited foreigner into the town.

The townspeople are quarantined due to a plague raging in the city.

People will suspect that Odysseus wishes to cause harm as a stranger.

She will be shamed for socializing with a man as an unmarried woman.

sailing

wine-making

soldiering

painting

He uses his men to remove the rock blocking the door.

He blinds Polyphemus after getting him drunk.

He sneaks out when Polyphemus is sleeping.

He cuts through the bars of his cage with his sword.

Zeus

Hermes

Poseidon

Hades

Zeus casts a mist over the shoreline.

A large wave throws them into open seas.

They are blown off-course by a storm.

They open the bag of Aeolian winds.

She kills them with poison.

She turns them into pigs.

She traps them in a spider web.

She lulls them to sleep with opium.

heartbreak from missing her son

one of Artemis’s cruel arrows

typhoid from the village well

poison from Penelope’s suitors

They make a deaf man their captain.

They sail far from the island’s shore.

They stuff their ears with wax.

They wrap rags around their heads.

They are turned into cattle.

They are drowned in the ocean.

They are poisoned by the meat.

They are branded on their hands.

He asks Zeus to strike the ship that assisted Odysseus with hail.

He creates a whirlpool that sucks down the ship carrying Odysseus.

He causes a tidal wave that engulfs the ship holding Odysseus.

He turns the ship that held Odysseus into stone, sinking it.

Other men have lied about Odysseus.

He knows the truth of Odysseus’s fate.

Penelope warns him to trust no one.

He believes the suitors’ stories of Odysseus.

near the town well

in Telemachus’s bedroom

at Eumaeus’s hut

on the road to Ithaca

Penelope

Argos

Eumaeus

Medon

peace in her household

money for Telemachus

a new slave from each man

each suitor’s best gift

She recognized the shape of his feet.

She saw a red birthmark on his thigh.

She felt the scar from a boar on his knee.

She knew he had a deformed finger.

The men must play a tune that Penelope invents on the lyre.

The men must shoot an arrow through a dozen axe-handles.

The men must create a story that makes Penelope forget Odysseus.

The men must run a foot-race and then box against each other.

He wants his friends to know his true identity.

He needs their assistance in fighting the suitors.

He wants to test their allegiance to his family.

They have been loyal to Odysseus in his absence.

It is Apollo’s feast day.

Odysseus has cursed the bow.

Penelope has tricked the men.

it is a different bow.

Eumaeus

Eurycleia

Melanthius

Penelope

Agelaus and Amphinomus

Eurymachus and Antinous

Phemius and Medon

Penelope and Polybus

They are hung in a communal noose.

They are struck with arrows in their hearts.

They are beheaded in the town square.

They are forced to drink poison.

She asks Odysseus about the fate of their other children.

She says she has moved their old bed out of the bedroom.

She pretends that Odysseus left her on false pretenses.

She insinuates that Odysseus had a mysterious birthmark.