Each of these prompts asks you to dig into the story and make meaning from the passage or situation. Why is Homer singing about this scene in particular? How can you relate it to what you’ve read so far? Don’t just reiterate the events in the text; rather divine a meaning from the scenario as it is presented.
- Discuss Nestor’s story and how it relates to the epic. (7.141-70)
- Discuss the truce between Hector and Ajax. (7.292-320)
- Discuss Zeus’s counsel to the gods at the opening of Book 8. Draw on lines 71-82 in particular.
- Discuss the scheme of negotiation in war. We’ve seen it among men, but also among the gods. Look at Zeus’s words to Hera (8.490-6).
- Discuss Agamemnon’s call to retreat (9.20-5). Is this Achilles’s plan succeeding?
- Discuss Phoenix’s story about his past. (9.461-508)
- Discuss Phoenix’s story about Meleager. (9.544-615)
