Odyssey
Study Questions
Directions: As you read each epos, answer the following questions. Be sure to give specific,
thorough answers, or you will not get credit.
Book 1
1. In the opening lines of Odyssey, on whom does the poet call for inspiration?
2. What nymph holds Odysseus captive on an island for seven years? Why?
3. What does O say is sweeter than anything she can offer?
4. How does Odysseus leave the nymph’s island? Who helps him? What misfortune does he encounter
after he leaves?
5. Where does Odysseus wash up? Who is the king of this place?
6. What does Odysseus tell the king?
Book 9
1. Where is Odysseus’s home?
2. Who are the Cicones? What does Odysseus’s crew do to them?
3. How do the Cicones retaliate?
4. After being blown off course, on the tenth day, why did Odysseus land on the coastline of the LotusEaters?
5. What did Odysseus send two men and a runner to do?
6. What happened to these men?
7. What did Odysseus do to these men against their will?
8. Are the Cyclopes skilled farmers? How does food grow on their land?
9. Explain the manner of dealing out justice in this land.
10. When Odysseus and twelve men go to investigate the Cyclopes’ land, what does Odysseus take with
him?
11. Where is the Cyclops when Odysseus arrives at his cave?
12. What do Odysseus and his men find inside the cave?
13. What do Odysseus’ men plead with Odysseus to do?
14. Why does Odysseus refuse their request?
15. When the Cyclops returns to the cave, how does he block the entrance?
16. Shortly after their arrival at the cave, what does Cyclops do with two of Odysseus’ s men?
17. Why does Odysseus change his mind about stabbing Polyphemus with his sword?
18. What do Odysseus and his men do with the Cyclops’s club?
19. What does Odysseus offer the Cyclops and why?
20. What pseudonym does Odysseus offer the Cyclops? Why?
21. What do Odysseus and his men do with the charred and glowing spike?
22. How do Odysseus and his men escape the Cyclops’s cave?
23. What does Odysseus’s hubris cause him to do? What is the result?
Book 10
1. Who is Aeolus? What does he give Odysseus?
2. What do Odysseus’ men do with the gift? Why? What happens?
3. Who are the Laestrygones? What do they do to the ships?
4. Who survives the encounter with the Laestrygones? How many ships are left?
5. Who is Circe? Where does she live?
6. What happens to the men after they drink Circe’s potion?
Book 12
1. In the Underworld, to what two ghosts does Odysseus speak?
2. What advice did Circe give Odysseus about the sweet voiced, man-killing Sirens?
3. What is Charybdis?
4. Why does Circe advise Odysseus to “hug the cliff of Scylla” instead of nearing Charybdis?
5. How is the crew able to pass the Sirens safely?
6. What rude action does Scylla take against Odysseus’ crew? How many of them are affected?
7. What do Odysseus’s men do at Thrinacia that angers Helios?
8. How does Zeus appease Helios? Who survives the incident?
9. To where does Odysseus drift? Who lives there? How long does he stay?