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Classics > The Odyssey > Flashcards

The Odyssey Flashcards

1
Q

Recall again the Atreus family tree

A
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2
Q

What is the story between Thyestes and Atreus

A
  • Thyestes and Atreus fight over the throne
  • Thyestes seduces Atreus’ wife for knowledge to overcome his elder brother
    • When this is discovered, Thyestes is banished
    • Later feeds Thyestes his own sons
      • All but Aegisthus survives and becomes Agamemnon and Menelaus’ cousin and worst enemy
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3
Q

What happens while Agamemnon leads the Greeks at Troy?

A
  • Clytemnestra is at home and seduced by Aegisthus
  • When Agamemnon returns home, Aegisthus murders him at dinner
    • Violation of marriage, hospitality, feasting rituals
    • Aeigisthus is warned by Hermes not to murder Agamemnon as Orestes will come of age and kill him
  • Indeed, Agamemnon’s son, Orestes, later comes of age and kills Aegisthus
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4
Q

Describe the role of each character:

  • Calypso
  • Circe
  • Nausicaa
  • Arete
  • Sirens Anticleia and Eurycleia
  • Orestes
  • Polyphemus
  • Tiresais
  • Eurylochus
  • Eumaeus
A
  • Calypso: a goddess who detains Odysseus for 7 years
  • Circe: a witch, daughter of Helios, who also detains Odysseus
  • Nausicaa: a Phaeacian princess, who would like to detain Odysseus
  • Arete: the queen of Phaeacia (Nausicaa’s mother)
  • Sirens
    • Anticleia: Odysseus’ mother
    • Eurycleia: Odysseus’ old nurse
  • Orestes: son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra
    • Role model for Odysseus’ son Telemachus
  • Polyphemus: cyclops, monstrous son of Poseidon
  • Tiresais: dead prophet and priest of Apollo
  • Eurylochus: Odysseus’ companion
  • Eumaeus: Odysseus’ swineherd
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5
Q

Describe Odysseus’ family tree

A
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6
Q

What happens in books 1-5 (Telemacheia)?

A
  • The first word in the Iliad is anger, and the first word in the Odyssey is man (andra)
  • Odysseus is being held on Calypso’s island
    • Calypso literally means hide/conceal
  • Many suitors are pressuring Penelope to remarry but the gods intervene
    • Athena in disguise tells Telemachus it is time to step up, but he replies saying “nobody knows who my father really is”; he has never met him
  • Hermes visits Calypso
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7
Q

What does Calypso offer Odysseus

A
  • Her name means ‘conceal’/’hide’
  • She offers immortality to Odysseus if he will be her husband
    • He refuses; he is focused on nostos
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8
Q

How does Zeus intervene with Odysseus’s concealment?

A
  • He sends Athena to Ithica and Hermes to Calypso
    • Hermes tells Calypso to let Odysseus go and she obeys
      • Odysseus builds a raft and sets sail for home
      • Poseidon sees him and sends a storm to wreck his raft
        • This is because he blinded Poseidon’s cyclops child Polyphemus on his journey
    • Athena visits Telemachus disgused as an old friend Mentes
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9
Q

What does Athena tell Telemachus?

A
  • Athena urges him to go on a journey to find news of his father, and reflects on how Orestes avenged his father
  • So, he visits the homes of Nestor and Menelaus whose households are functioning properly
    • Melenaus and Helen are at home celebrating the marriages of their children
    • Meanwhile, the suitors plot to kill Telemachus when he returns to Ithaca
      • The gods guide him to reenter Ithaca through a different path to avoid this
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10
Q

(Book 6) where does Odysseus wash ashore?

A
  • Odysseus is washed ashore the island of Phaeacia after Poseidon’s storm
    • A sea goddess gives Odysseus her scarf
    • He meets the princess Nausicaa who is on the shore with friends
  • Xenia: hosts must help their guests on their way home
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11
Q

How does the Phaeacian society treat Odysseus?

A
  • Phaeacian society is a miraculous utopia and model of xenia
    • They welcome Odysseus, bathe him, invite him to dinner, entertain him with songs, stories (Aphrodite and Ares, Trojan horse)
      • Odysseus weeps and king Alcinous questions who he is
      • Nausicaa fantasizes about marrying Odysseus but does not wish to keep him
  • Odysseus tells his own story to the Phaeacians
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12
Q

Odysseus tells the Phaeacians about the cyclops Polyphemus during his flashback to action before Calypso. What is the story?

A
  • Odysseus and his men enter and explore a cave in the land of the lotus eaters, hoping for a gift of xenia
    • However, the cyclops returns with his flocks and seals the cave with a boulder
    • Odysseus supplicates him and asks for xenia but the cyclops says he does not fear any gods, and eats men “like a lion”
      • Odysseus thinks to kill him with his sword but realises they would be trapped forever
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13
Q

How does Odysseus blind the cyclops?

A
  • By applying technology to a club of green olive wood, Odysseus creates a burning sharp weapon
    • When the cyclops returns, Odysseus offers him a gift of unmixed wine
    • They have a conversation, and Odysseus calls himself ‘nobody/no man’ (violates xenia)
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14
Q

What is Odysseus’ big mistake?

A
  • While originally calling himself nobody, once the cyclops is blinded he identifies himself to earn kleos
  • Polyphemus prays to Poseidon to destroy Odysseus, which later leads to his raft being hit by a massive storm
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15
Q

After Polyphemus is when Odysseus encounters Circe the Witch. Who is she?

A
  • She is a daughter of Helios, a singer and a weaver
  • She turns Odysseus’ men into pigs but Hermes protects Odysseus with a special herb
    • Impressed, Circe invites him to bed, taking an oath to change his men back
  • The men stay with her all year
    • When Odysseus wants to leave, she says he will not reach home unless he goes to the edge of the world and consults the ghost of prophet Teiresias
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16
Q

After the chthonic sacrifice, what does Tiresias tell Odysseus?

A
  • Tiresias tells Odysseus what to do on the way home, but does not tell him directions
    • He says:
      1. Do NOT have Helios’ cattle
      2. Make amends with Poseidon for blinding Polyphemus
        1. To do this, take an ore from the ship and walk so far inland that people do not recognise what the ore or the sea is
        2. Plant the ore in the earth and set up a monument in honour of Poseidon
17
Q

On his journey home, Odysseus encounters Sirens. What happens?

A
  • Anybody who hears the Sirens’ song never makes it home; the coast line is littered with skeletons of men and wrecked ships
  • Odysseus’ trick: make his men plug their ears with wax and tie him to the mast
    • The Sirens sing to Odysseus but he cannot walk toward the water; he earns kleos and nostos (self restraint)
    • The Sirens drop dead
18
Q

How does Odysseus encounter the cattle of Helios?

A
  • Recall Tiresias’ warning: “do not eat the cattle of Hyperion on the island of Thrinacia”
  • Odysseus wants to avoid the island altogether but the ships are becalmed due to the lack of wind, and his men are hungry
  • Odysseus hunts a deer but falls asleep (usually when he sleeps, something bad happens)
    • Eurylochus, second in command, persuades men to slaughter the sacred cattle; they would rather suffer some other death than starve
    • Helios causes a storm at sea and all the men are lost exceot Odysseus; he is washed up ashore on Calypso’s island, where he will now be kept for 7 years
19
Q

After concluding his story, the Phaeacians send him home to Ithaca. What happens once he washes ashore?

A
  • He doesn’t know where he is, because Athena put a mist on the land
    • Athena comes in disguise and Odysseus lies about his identity
    • She reveals herself and they hide his treasures in the cave of nymphs
  • Odysseus disguises himself as a beggar and identifies himself gradually
    • Eventually, the suitors are slaughtered and Penelope and Odysseus are reunited
    • Order is restored by divine intervention
20
Q

Describe the footwashing scene

A
  • Odysseus reaches his home and sees the suitors cosuming his food, livestock, etc.
  • Only reluctantly does he allow Eurycleia, the handmaid, to wash his feet. As she is putting them in a basin of water, she notices a scar on one of his feet, causing her to recognise him as Odysseus
  • She wishes to tell Penelope but Odysseus threatens her with death
21
Q

Inspired by Athena, how does Penelope set a test for the suitors?

A
  • She gets Odysseus’ bow from a storeroom (she keeps the key around her neck) and says that whoever can string it and shoot an arrow through a series of axe-heads will win her hand
    in marriage
  • No one can do it, not even Telemachus
    • The “beggar” is able to; his worth and identity is revealed
    • He shoots the suitors
  • The punishment of the handmaidens: they are killed, carried out by Telemachus
22
Q

What happens after the suitors are killed?

A
  • Odysseus orders Telemachus to pretend to hold a wedding in the halls
    • The problem: sons of the best families of Ithaca were just murdered
    • Will close the doors, scrub floors, play music to avoid suspicion
  • He bathes and Athena makes him beautiful
  • He meets Penelope again, who tests him for the 3rd and final time
    1. Interview with the beggar
    2. Test of the bow
    3. Test of the bed
23
Q

Describe Penelope’s “test of the bed”

A
  • She tests Odysseus by ordering her servant Eurycleia to move their marriage bed
  • Odysseus is angry; he tells how he made it himself, around an olive tree still rooted in earth and forming a pillar of the bedroom
    • If Penelope willing to move the bed, that means somebody must have cut the tree (whoever has access to her bed has power over household)
  • Penelope throws herself in his arms, asks him not to be angry referring to how even Helen was tricked by the gods, and all the grief that caused them
    • Athena’s favour: she holds back dawn so night is twice as long (smex)
24
Q

How does the story end?

A
  1. One last reunion: Odysseus and his father Laertes
    • He left Ithaca out of grief
    • Odysseus hides his identity, but his father responds so emotionally that he breaks down and begins to cry
  2. The families of the suitors seek revenge
    • Both sides prepare for battle
    • Athena, sent by Zeus, intervenes and order is restored to Ithaca
    • Odysseus is in his place as king, husband, father, son

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