Each student will be required to memorize and recite the following quotes from Homer’s
Odyssey. Students may recite the quotes privately; students will not be required to recite in
front of the class. This will count as a 70 point test grade. The recitations must be completed by
__________________________.
“My lady goddess, there is no cause for anger.
My quiet Penelope—how well I know—
Would seem a shade before your majesty,
Death and old age being unknown to you,
While she must die. Yet, it is true, each day
I long for home, long for the sight of home…”
Lines 113-118 Odysseus speaking to Calypso how home supersedes her beauty and immortality.
“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.”
(143-146) Odysseus speaking at Alcinous’ court
“You are a ninny,
or else you come from the other end of nowhere,
telling me, mind the gods! We Cyclopes
care not a whistle for your thundering Zeus
or all the gods in bliss; we have more force by far.”
(263-266) Polyphemus’ response to Odysseus’ reminder to treat guests hospitably
“Cyclops, if ever mortal man inquire
how you were put to shame and blinded, tell him
Odysseus, raider of cities, took your eye;
Laertes’ son, whose home’s on Ithaca!”
(502-505) Odysseus speaking to Polyphemus after blinding him