Book one

Question 1

What does the narrator do?

Answer 1

*The narrator of the odyssey invokes the muse, asking for inspiration as he prepares to tell the story of Odysseus

Question 2

When does the story begin?

Answer 2

10 years after the trojan war

Question 3

What are the mob of suitors doing?

Answer 3

devouring Odysseus estate in Ithaca and courting his wife, Penelope, in hopes of taking over his kingdom

Question 4

What is Telemachus helpless against?

Answer 4

he was an infant when Odysseus left but is now a young man and is helpless to stop them.

Question 5

What has Telemachus resigned himself to the idea of?

Answer 5

That Odysseus is dead

Question 6

What does Athene do?

Answer 6

Travels to ithaca to speak with Telemachus

Question 7

Who does Athene disguise herself as?

Answer 7

Mentes, Odysseus old friend

Question 8

What does Athene tell Telemachus?

Answer 8

That he needs to make the journey to Pylos and Sparta to ask for news of his father

Question 9

What does Telemachus give the suitors notice of?

Answer 9

That he will hold an assembly the next day at which they will be ordered to leave his fathers estate

Question 10

Which two suitors rebuke telemachus?

Answer 10

Antinous and Eurmachus - two particularly defiant suitors

Question 11

What does the proem (lines 1-21) provide?

Answer 11

An introduction to the poem, it absolves Odysseus of any responsibility for his companions’ deaths, as it was their own recklessness that killed them

Question 12

What is Odysseus’ family and their situation contrasted with?

Answer 12

Agamemnon’s family

Question 13

“Tell me, muse of that man of many resources”

Answer 13

• Good Literary hook, The greeks want to know HOW? ‘That man’ insuinuates he is a legendary figure.
• The rhapsode is talking to themselves
• The muse is calliope
• This sets the scene at the start.
• A story in the context of the legendary trojan war which most listeners would be familiar with
• Contextualises that this is set in a time of the legendary age of heroes
• Kleos

Question 14

“Sorrows he suffered at sea”

Answer 14

• Sibilance of ‘s’ emphasise the terrible things odysseus suffered on his journey home
• prepares the listener for what is to come later on in the story
• creates the image of the rough sea odysseus had to face to get home

Question 15

“How surprising that men blame the gods, and say their troubles come from us, though they, through their own un-wisdom, find suffering beyond what is fated!”

Answer 15

Ekphrasis

Question 16

“But my heart aches for odysseus, wise but ill fated who sufferes far from his friends on an island deep in the sea”

Question 17

“Odysseys, who years for the mere sought of the smoke rising from his own country, only longs to die”

Question 18

“She appears as a visitor, metes”

Answer 18

Mentes is someone Odysseus knew
Xenia

Question 19

“Godlike telemachus, sitting troubled among the suitors, imagining how his noble father might arrive from somewhere, throw the suitors from the palace , with honour and rule his own again”

Question 20

“Ashamed a stranger should wait so long at the gates”

Question 21

“The insolent suitors entered and sat in rows on stools and chairs”

Question 22

Telemachus asks a lot of questions when he meets ‘mentes’, about his father.

Answer 22

Telemachus asks a lot of questions when he meets ‘mentes’, about his father.
He wants his father and hes just about to come of age so he wants guidance and his father is the person for that
He is under pressure and stress
Desperate to find out more

Question 23

“So he spoke, and they bit their lips, amazed at Telemachus’ bold speech”