Great Works Of Literature

1. What does Odysseus show the cowherd and swineherd to prove that he is who he says he is?
2. Who does Odysseus kill first?
3. How does Melanthius help the suitors in battle?
4. Who is Athena disguised as?
5. With what object does Penelope test Odysseus?

Bonus Questions:

1. Who does Odysseus go to see at the end of Book 23?
2. What genre of literature is the Odyssey?

1. What does Zeus suggest Poseidon do to punish the Phaeacians for bringing Odysseus home to Ithaca?
2. Why does Athena prevent Odysseus from recognizing his homeland?
3. Does Eumaeus believe that Odysseus is alive?
4. Helen interprets the portent of the eagle and the silvery goose in Book Fifteen. What does she say it means?
5. What does Telemachus think his father looks like when he sees him for the first time after Athena removes his disguise?

Taken from <http://www.crystalinks.com/greekgods2.html>

From Wikipedia:

In Greek mythology, Metis was of the Titan generation and, like several primordial figures, an Oceanid, in the sense that Metis was born of Oceanus and his sister Tethys, of an earlier age than Zeus and his siblings. Metis was the first great spouse of Zeus, and also his cousin. Zeus is himself titled Mêtieta, “the wise counsellor,” in the Homeric poems.

By the era of Greek philosophy in the fifth century BC, Metis had become the Titaness of wisdom and deep thought, but her name originally connoted “magical cunning” and was as easily equated with the trickster powers of Prometheus as with the “royal metis” of Zeus. The Stoic commentators allegorized Metis as the embodiment of “prudence”, “wisdom” or “wise counsel”, in which form she was inherited by the Renaissance.

The Greek word metis meant a quality that combined wisdom and cunning. This quality was considered to be highly admirable and was regarded by Athenians as one of the notable characteristics of the Athenian character. Metis was the one who gave Zeus a potion to cause Kronos to vomit out Zeus’ siblings.

Metis was both a threat to Zeus and an indispensable aid (Brown 1952:133):

“Zeus lay with Metis but immediately feared the consequences. It had been prophesied that Metis would bear extremely powerful children: the first, Athena and the second, a son more powerful than Zeus himself, who would eventually overthrow Zeus.”

In order to forestall these dire consequences, Zeus tricked her into turning herself into a fly and promptly swallowed her. He was too late: Metis had already conceived a child. In time she began making a helmet and robe for her fetal daughter. The hammering as she made the helmet caused Zeus great pain, and Hephaestus either clove Zeus’s head with an axe, or hit it with a hammer at the river Triton, giving rise to Athena’s birth. Athena leaped from Zeus’s head, fully grown, armed, and armored, and Zeus was none the worse for the experience.

Taken from M. H. Abrams and Geoffrey Galt Harpham, A Glossary of Literary Terms, 9^th ed.

Theme is sometimes used interchangeably with “motif,” but the term is more usefully applied to a general concept or doctrine, whether implicit or asserted, which an imaginative work is designed to involve and make persuasive to the reader.

1. Who does Zeus send to speak with Calypso about Odysseus’s release from Ogygia?
2. When we first meet Odysseus in Book Five, what is he doing?
3. When Nausicaa discovers Odysseus in Book Six, how does she greet him? What theme does this exemplify?
4. Does Odysseus offer his supplication to Queen Arete or King Alcinous when he first meets them?
5. Who is Demodocus?

The Fates = Moirai

From Wikipedia:

In Greek mythology, the Moirai (Ancient Greek: Μοῖραι, “apportioners”, Latinized as Moerae)—often known in English as the Fates—were the white-robed incarnations of destiny (Roman equivalent: Parcae, euphemistically the “sparing ones”, or Fata; also analogous to the Germanic Norns). Their number became fixed at three: Clotho (spinner), Lachesis (allotter) and Atropos (unturnable).

They controlled the metaphorical thread of life of every mortal from birth to death. They were independent, at the helm of necessity, directed fate, and watched that the fate assigned to every being by eternal laws might take its course without obstruction. The gods and men had to submit to them, although Zeus’s relationship with them is a matter of debate: some sources say he is the only one who can command them (the Zeus Moiragetes), yet others suggest he was also bound to the Moirai’s dictates. In the Homeric poems Moira or Aisa, is related with the limit and end of life, and Zeus appears as the guider of destiny. In the Theogony of Hesiod, the three Moirai are personified, and are acting over the gods. Later they are daughters of Zeus and Themis, who was the embodiment of divine order and law. In Plato’s Republic the Three Fates are daughters of Ananke (necessity).

Taken from M. H. Abrams and Geoffrey Galt Harpham, A Glossary of Literary Terms, 9^th ed.

• The hero is a figure of great national or even cosmic importance.
• The setting is ample in scale; it may be worldwide or larger, i. e.: the Mediterranean basin, the Underworld.
• The action involves extraordinary deeds in battle, or an arduous and dangerous journey.
• Gods or other supernatural beings take an interest or active part in the action.
• An epic poem is a ceremonial performance, and is narrated in a ceremonial style which is deliberately distanced from ordinary speech, i. e.: contains epic similes and Homeric epithets.

Food for thought …

In The Uses of Greek Mythology, Ken Dowden writes:

In fact Greek Mythology is a shared fund of motifs and ideas ordered into a shared repertoire of stories. These stories link with, compare and contrast with, and are understood in the light of, other stories in the system. Greek Mythology is an ‘intertext,’ because it is constituted by all the representations of myth ever experienced by its audience and because every new representation gains its sense from how it is positioned in relation to this totality of previous presentations. (it is a large tapestry)