| The protagonist of the Odyssey. | Odysseus |
| Odysseus’s son | Telemachus |
| Wife of Odysseus and mother of Telemachus | Penelope |
| Daughter of Zeus and goddess of wisdom, purposeful battle, and the womanly arts. | Athena |
| God of the Sea. As the suitors are Odysseus’s mortal antagonists, Poseidon is his divine antagonist. He despises Odysseus for blinding his son, the Cyclops Polyphemus, and constantly hampers his journey home. | Poseidon |
| King of gods and men, who mediates the disputes of the gods on Mount Olympus. He sometimes helps Odysseus or permits Athena to do the same. | Zeus |
| The most arrogant of Penelope’s suitors; the leader of the suitors. | Antinous |
| A manipulative, deceitful suitor. | Eurymachus |
| The loyal shepherd who, along with the cowherd Philoetius, helps Odysseus reclaim his throne after his return to Ithaca. | Eumaeus |
| The aged and loyal servant who nursed Odysseus and Telemachus when they were babies. | Eurycleia |
| Sister of Melanthius and maidservant in Odysseus’s palace. Traitor to Penelope | Melantho |
| he beautiful nymph who falls in love with Odysseus and holds him captive on her island for 7 years. | Calypso |
| A Theban prophet who inhabits the underworld. | Tiresias |
| Odysseus’ father | Laertes |
| The beautiful witch-goddess who transforms Odysseus’s crew into swine when he lands on her island. | Circe |
| One of the Cyclopes (uncivilized one-eyed giants) whose island Odysseus comes to soon after leaving Troy. | Polyphemus |
| King of Sparta, brother of Agamemnon, and husband of Helen, he helped lead the Greeks in the Trojan War. | Menelaus |
| Wife of Menelaus and queen of Sparta. ‘The face that launched a thousand ships’ | Helen |
| Former king of Mycenae, brother of Menelaus, and commander of the Achaean forces at Troy. Murdered by his wife in the bath. | Agamemnon |
| Discovers Odysseus on the beach at Scheria; The beautiful daughter of King Alcinous and Queen Arete of the Phaeacians. | Nausicaa |
| King of the Phaeacians, who offers Odysseus hospitality in his island kingdom of Scheria. | Alcinous |
| Queen of the Phaeacians, wife of Alcinous, and mother of Nausicaa. | Arete |
| How long was Odysseus on Calypso’s Island? | 7 years |
| Which plant makes the sailors forget their desire to return home? | Lotus |
| Who is Argos? | Odysseus’s old dog |
| Who first finds Odysseus on the island of Scheria? | Nausicaa |
| Who has an affair with Eurymachus? | Melantho |
| How does the maid recognize Odysseus? | His scar |
| How is Odysseus able to listen safely to the Sirens’ song? | His men bind him to the ship’s mast |
| In which year was the Odyssey written? | Approx. 700 BCE |
| Who transforms Odysseus’s sailors into pigs? | Circe |
| Which goddess often assists Odysseus and Telemachus, and speaks up for them in the councils of the gods on Mount Olympus? | Athena |
| Why does Poseidon despise Odysseus? | Odysseus blinded his son, Polyphemus |
| Who does Zeus send to rescue Odysseus from Calypso? | Hermes |
| What are the two monsters Odysseus’s men must sail past? | Scylla and Charybdis |
| What is an epic? | A long, narrative poem. |
| What is an epithet? | A hyphenated adjective that describes a noun, usually a person. |
| What literary genre is the Odyssey? | An Epic |
| Who is believed to have written the Odyssey? | Homer |
| What is a Homeric simile? | A simile that is very very long. Usually paragraphs comparing to animals. |
| an English term for when a story opens right in the middle of the action, the explanations of what came before to come later. | in medias res |
| When gods intervene into the lives of men | Divine Intervention |
| Hubris | Excessive pride |
All About The Odyssey
April 24, 2020