Book 12 summary Flashcards
What happens at the start of book 12?
- The men return to Aeaea, perform all the proper funeral rites for Elpenor, and buried his body
What happens before Odysseus and his men leave Aeaea?
- Circe tells Odysseus that he must pass the island of the Sirens, who will try to lure the men to their deaths with their songs
How does Circe tell Odysseus to survive the sirens?
- To put beeswax in the men’s earns, and that they tie Odysseus to the mast if he insists on hearing the Siren’s songs.
Who does Circe say Odysseus will encounter second?
- Scylla, a terrible six-headed monster
- And Charybdis, who creates a whirlpool that sucks whole ships down into the sea three times a day
Who has passed Scylla and Charybdis with no casualties?
The Argo
How does Circe suggest surviving Scylla and Charybdis?
- Odysseus must sails his ship past Scylla and sacrifice six men rather than risk getting sucked down into the whirlpool and sinking
What does Odysseus ask when Circe tells him he must sacrifice six men to Scylla?
- He asks if its possible to escape Charybdis and fight off Scylla
- Circe chastises Odysseus for his stubbornness, as Scylla is immortal and can’t be defeated
What does Odysseus tell his men before they leave?
- Odysseus told the men Circe’s advice, but he told them that Circe said he must hear the Siren’s songs
- He didn’t mention Scylla and Charybdis, because he didn’t want to paralyse the men with fear
What happened as Odysseus and his men passed the Sirens?
- The men put wax in their ears and lashed Odysseus to the mast, and they passed without incident
What happens as Odysseus and his men pass Scylla and Charybdis?
- They carefully sail around the whirlpool
- Scylla grabbed and ate six men- filled with grief and pity, the men sailed away as fast as possible
After facing Scylla, Charybdis and the sirens, where did Odysseus and his men land?
- The island of the sun
What did Odysseus think about stopping on the island of the Sun?
- Odysseus wanted to avoid the island altogether
- However, Eurylochus insisted that the crew needed rest
- Odysseus made the men swear an oath not to eat any cattle
What happened on the island of the sun?
- They became trapped on the island for a month by a wind- eventually their stores ran out and the men began to starve
What happened one day after the stores ran out?
- Odysseus fell asleep, and Eurylochus convinced the men to eat the cattle of the sun, as he argued that it was better to die at sea from the wrath of the gods than to die of hunger
What did Odysseus wake up to find had happened?
- The sun god Helios asked Zeus and the other gods to punish Odysseus’ crew for killing his cattle.
- Strange things began to happen to the dead cattle- they bellowed and moved
- However, the men continued to feast for six more days before sailing away
What happened when Odysseus and his men left the island of the sun?
- As soon as they were out at sea, Zeus sent down a storm that destroyed the ship and killed everyone aboard, except Odysseus, who hung on to some pieces of wind
What happened to Odysseus when the boat was destroyed?
- The wind drove him back towards Charybdis, right when the monster opened the whirlpool, but Odysseus saved himself by hanging on to the branch of a fig tree
- After the whirlpool spat out his raft, he drifted at sea until he reached Calypso’s island
How does the book end?
Odysseus stops his tale, as he had told the rest of his story earlier
