Download Greek Mythology in The Odyssey (aka your Study Guide)

Greek Mythology in The Odyssey (aka your Study Guide)
1. In the Western classical tradition ____________, is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as
the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. The consensus is that "the Iliad and the Odyssey date from around the 8th
century BC, the Iliad being composed before the Odyssey, perhaps by some decades," making the Iliad being
the oldest work of Western literature.
a. What small fact about this author makes it interesting that he wrote poems?
2. _______________ or U_____________was a legendary Greek king of Ithaca and the hero of Homer's epic
poem the Odyssey. _____________also plays a key role in Homer's Iliad and other works in the Epic Cycle.
He is husband of Penelope, father of Telemachus, and son of Laërtes and Anticlea, Odysseus is renowned for
his guile and resourcefulness, and is hence known by the epithet “ __________ the Cunning”. He is most
famous for the ____________ eventful years he took to return home after the ten-year Trojan War and his
famous Trojan Horse trick.
3. _______________also referred to as Pallas ____________, is the goddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration,
civilization, warfare, strength, strategy, the arts, crafts, justice, and skill. Minerva, ______________’s Roman
incarnation, embodies similar attributes. ______________is also a shrewd companion of heroes and is the
goddess of heroic endeavour. She is the virgin patron of Athens. The Athenians built the Parthenon on the
Acropolis of her namesake city, Athens (____________ Parthenos), in her honor.
a. Why does this goddess like Odysseus?
4. ___________________was the god of the sea, and, as "Earth-Shaker," of the earthquakes in Greek
mythology. The name of the sea-god Nethuns in Etruscan was adopted in Latin for Neptune in Roman
mythology: both were sea gods analogous to ______________. Poseidon and Apollo, having offended Zeus,
were sent to serve King Laomedon of Troy. He had them build huge walls around the city and promised to
reward them well, a promise he then refused to fulfill. In vengeance, before the Trojan War, _____________
sent a sea monster to attack Troy. The monster was later killed by Heracles.
a. Why would it not be a good idea to make this god mad if you are sailing home from war?
5. The Greek legend tells how ______________, goddess of ________, caused the olive tree to appear in the
Acropolis with a blow of her lance. The Hellenes told the fable of the minor dispute that had broken out on
Olympus between ____________ and _________________ , in order to decide who would reign in Attica.
Jupiter proposed that the kingdom should be granted to whoever presented the most useful gift for Humanity.
________________presented a horse as swift as the wind, while ________________ brought a small
_____________ branch, affirming that in the future it would become a strong tree, capable of living for
centuries and whose fruits would be good to eat and from them an extraordinary liquid would be able to be
extracted for the nourishment of man, soothe his wounds, give strength to his body and light for his nights, since
he would know how to keep a small flame lit for hours. Fired with enthusiasm, _______________ decided that
Attica would be for ________________ and that its capital would be known as ______________.
6. ___________ is the Greek word for the concept of _________________, or generosity and courtesy shown to
those who are far from home. It is often translated as "____________________" (or "ritualized friendship")
because the rituals of _________________ created and expressed a reciprocal relationship between guest and
host. The Greek god ____________is sometimes referred to as _________________, meaning he was god of,
among other things, travelers. This created a particular religious obligation to be hospitable to travelers, but
guests also had responsibilities, beyond reciprocating hospitality.
7. A __________________ is a member of a primordial race of giants, each with a single eye in the middle of
his forehead. The name is widely thought to mean "circle-eyed". In a famous episode of Homer's Odyssey, the
hero encounters the ___________ Polyphemus, the son of ___________ (god), who lives with his fellow
________________ in a distant country.
a. What did Odysseus do to Polyphemus?
b. What name did Odysseus use with Polyphemus?
8. ___________________ was the ruler of the ______________ in Greek mythology. _________________was
a son of Hippotes who is mentioned in Odyssey book 10 as Keeper of the _______________who gives
Odysseus a tightly closed bag full of the captured _________________ so he could sail easily home to Ithaca on
the gentle _____________________. But instead his men thought it was filled with riches, so they opened it
which is why the journey was extended.
a. How close does Odysseus get to home?
9. _________________ is a minor goddess of magic (or sometimes a nymph, witch, enchantress or sorceress),
described in Homer's Odyssey as 'The loveliest of all immortals,' living on the island of Aeaea. ____________
is often described as the daughter of _________ the Sun god. ____________ transformed her enemies, or those
who offended her, into animals through the use of magical potions.
a. Who warns Odysseus about this sorceress?
b. What are the two possible outcomes of being with this sorceress?
c. How does he not become a beast?
d. How does she help Odysseus?
e. How long does Odysseus stay on Aeaea?
10. The realm of ________________ is the misty and gloomy abode of the dead (also called Erebus), where all
mortals go. Later Greek philosophy introduced the idea that all mortals are judged after death and are either
rewarded or cursed. Very few mortals could leave his realm once they entered: the exceptions, Heracles,
Theseus, are heroic. Even ________________ in his Nekyia (Odyssey, xi) calls up the spirits of the departed,
rather than descend to them. There were several sections of the realm of Hades, including ______________
(the righteous and the “blameless” heroes), the ______________ Meadows (souls of people who lived lives of
near equal good and evil), and ______________ (a dungeon of torment and suffering)
11. __________________ is the ferryman of ______________who carries souls of the newly deceased across
the rivers _______________and _____________ that divided the world of the living from the world of the
dead. A coin to pay _________________ for passage, usually an obolus or danake, was sometimes placed in or
on the mouth of a dead person. Some authors say that those who could not pay the fee, or those whose bodies
were left unburied, had to wander the shores for ______________ years. In the catabasis mytheme, heroes —
such as Heracles, Orpheus, Aeneas, Dante, Dionysus and Psyche — journey to the underworld and return, still
alive, conveyed by the boat of _____________.
a. How does Odysseus get past this person?
12. The _____________were dangerous and devious creatures, portrayed as bird-women who lured nearby
sailors with their enchanting music and voices to shipwreck on the rocky coast of their island. In the Odyssey,
Homer gives the number of the ________________ as two instead of the typical _________________ The
______________ of Greek mythology are sometimes portrayed in later folklore as fully aquatic and mermaidlike; the fact that in Spanish, French, Italian, Polish, Romanian and Portuguese the word for mermaid is
respectively Sirena, Sirène, Sirena, Syrena, Sirenă and Sereia, and that in biology the Sirenia comprise an order
of fully aquatic mammals that includes the dugong and manatee, add to the visual confusion, so that Sirens are
even represented as mermaids. However, "the ______________, though they sing to mariners, are not seamaidens; they dwell on an island in a flowery meadow.”
a. How does Odysseus get past these “ladies”?
13. ____________was a monster that lived on one side of a narrow channel of water, opposite its counterpart
_______________. The two sides of the strait were within an arrow's range of each other—so close that sailors
attempting to avoid _____________ would pass too close to __________________ and vice versa.
__________________was a horrible sea monster with four eyes, six long necks equipped with grisly heads,
each of which contained three rows of sharp teeth. Her body consisted of twelve tentacle-like legs and a cat's
tail and with four to six dog-heads ringing her waist. Traditionally the strait has been associated with the Strait
of Messina between Italy and Sicily, but more recently this theory has been challenged, and the alternative
location of Cape Skilla in northwest Greece has been suggested by Tim Severin. The idiom
between____________ and ______________' has come to mean being between two dangers, choosing either of
which brings harm.
a. How many men did this monster get to eat?
14. _________________ was once a beautiful naiad and the daughter of ______________ and Gaia. She takes
the form of a huge bladder of a creature whose face is all mouth and whose arms and legs are flippers. She
swallows a huge amount of water _____________ times a day before belching it back out again, creating
________________. In some variations of the tale, ________________ is just a large _______________ rather
than a sea monster. __________________was very loyal to her father in his endless feud with
_______________; it was she who rode the hungry tides after _________________ had stirred up a storm, and
led them onto the beaches, gobbling up whole villages, submerging fields, drowning forests, claiming them for
the sea. She won so much land for her father's kingdom that ________________ became enraged and changed
her into a monster.
a. How many men did this monster get to eat?
15. _______________ the personification of the Sun in Greek mythology. Homer often calls him simply Titan
or Hyperion, while other writers refer to him as a son of the Titans Hyperion and Theia (Hesiod) and brother of
the goddesses Selene, the moon, and Eos, the dawn. The names of these three were also the common Greek
words for Sun, Moon and dawn. ____________ drove the chariot of the sun across the sky each day to earthcircling Oceanus and through the world-ocean returned to the East at night. Homer described __________
chariot as drawn by solar steeds. In the Odyssey, Odysseus and his surviving crew land on Thrinacia, an island
sacred to the sun god (whom Circe names Hy________ rather than ____________) the sacred red cattle of the
Sun were kept.
a. What did she tell the men not to do on Thrinacia?
b. What did they do on the island?
c. What is the punishment for what they did? Who punishes them?
16. _______________was a nymph in Greek mythology, who lived on the island of _______________, where
she detained _________________ for several years. She is generally said to be the daughter of the Titan Atlas.
_________________ is remembered most for her role in Homer's _____________, in which she keeps the
fabled Greek hero ________________ on her island so she could make him her immortal husband. According
to Homer, ________________ kept ________________ hostage at ______________ for
________________years. ______________ enchants ______________ with her singing as she strolls to and fro
across her weaving loom, with a golden shuttle. During this time they sleep together, although _____________
soon comes to wish for circumstances to change. ____________ cannot be away from his wife _____________
any longer and wants to go to ________________ to tell her. His patron goddess _______________ asks
_______________to order the release of _____________ from the island, and ______________sends the
messenger ________________, to tell _______________ to set _______________ free, for it was not his
destiny to live with her forever. She angrily comments on how the gods hate goddesses having relationships
with mortals. Then being worried for her not-meant-to-be love, ______________ sends him on his way with a
boat, wine, and bread. _____________tells her he knows she is more beautiful than his wife, but he wants to get
home for other reasons. Homer does not mention any children by __________________. By some accounts,
which come after the _______________, ____________ bore ______________ a son, Latinus, though Circe is
usually given as Latinus's mother. In other accounts _______________ bore ____________ two children,
Nausithous and Nausinous.