(Return)

The Odyssey was a Nostos Epic poem about Odysseus returning home

(In the middle of things)

The Odyssey starts out In Media Res

1. Narrative

2. Long

3. Celebrates a Hero

4. Celebrates culture the hero lived in

An island in the Odyssey in which the nymph Calypso lives.

It doesn't actually exist.

20 years old

Lazy at first and does nothing about the suitors.

Later gets motivated by Athena to find his father, and helps his father get rid of the suitors.

The first 4 books of the Odyssey.

Starts with an invocation.

Agammemnon's cousin.

Clytemnestra- Agamemmnon's wife- is so angry that their daughter Iphigenia was sacrificed, that she had an affair with Aegisthus and together they killed Agamemmnon when he returns from Troy.

Aegisthus is later killed by Agamemmnon's son, Orestes.

Agammemnon's wife.

Had an affair with Aegisthus.

Killed Agamemmnon.

Was ultimately killed by her son, Orestes.

A king of a place named Pylos.

Sought after by Telemachus for information on Odysseus.

Wasn't very useful.

After the Trojan War, Menelaus was blown off course by the gods and ended up in Egypt, where the winds stopped blowing.

He later gets them re-activated when he gets information out of the sea god Proteus.

Minor sea god.

Father of the sea goddess Eidothea.

Menelaus wrestles Proteus, who turns into many threatening shapes, but gives up and tells Menelaus whatever he wants to know:

1. how to get out of Egypt

2. what happened to the other men(including Odysseus)

(I will hide ______)

Nymph.

Falls in love with Odysseus and holds him captive, forcing him to make love to her every night.

Minor sea goddess.

Saves Odysseus when he's about to drown.

Human name for Leucothea when she was not a goddess.

Was later turned into a goddess, along with her son.

Ino's husband.

Was disillusioned by Hera and accidentally killed his own son.

Immediately after the Trojan War, Odysseus tries to raid a people called Cicones but loses a few men in the process.

This is a bad sign- even against ordinary people, his tries are unsuccessful.

Minor wind god.

Puts all the winds in a bag except for the one that leads to Ithica, and gives the bag to Odysseus, telling him to let the winds go when he gets back home.

On the way home, Odysseus' men open the bag and they get blown back to Aeolia.

Aeolia realizes the gods must really hate Odysseus, and tells him so.

A nymph that has an inclination to turn people into animals with a potion, and does so to Odysseus' men.

Hermes warns Odysseus of this, and Odysseus takes a dagger with him to bed with Circe, so Circe lets him go and gives him advice about his adventures to come.

Speaking to the dead while still alive.

Only the best of the best heroes are able to do this.

Loser who died without anyone knowing he was even missing.

Asks Odysseus to properly bury his body, which is behind Circe's house.

Blind seer in the underworld.

He tells Odysseus that he can appease Poseidon if he goes way inland with an oar on his back until the people don't recognize that it's an oar, but ask if it's a Winnowing Fan.

There he must pray and sacrifice to Poseidon.

Doomed forever in Tartarus for inviting the gods to dinner, and serving them his dead son, whom he killed for the occasion.

He is fated to stand waist-deep in water, within reach of the fruits of a tree. He is always starving and deathly thirsty.

Whenever he reaches for the fruit, it moves out of his reach.

Whenever he bends down to scoop up some water, the water disappears.

Ignored the time the Fates assigned for his death, and when the god Death came, he cleverly threw him into the closet.

The gods noticed people weren't dying, realized it was Sisythus, but still let him off pretty easy.

When he actually died, he told his wife not to bury his body, meaning he was not allowed into the underworld without a proper burial. He tells them he'll go talk to his wife about it, and doesnt come back.

So the gods throw him into Tartarus.

In Tartarus, he must push an impossibly heavy boulder up a hill, but once there, it rolls down the other side.

He does this for eternity.

A slave of Odysseus who herds pigs.

Helps Odysseus out when he is disguised as an old man.

Random seer that Telemachus picks up in Sparta.

He killed a man and needs to get off the island, so he goes with Telemachus to Ithica.

His role is to warn the suitors that Odysseus was coming back home.

A scene in Greek literature in which two long-lost people finally find each other again.

Touching.

Odysseus' father.

Is finally convinced that Odysseus is who he says he is when Odysseus shows him the scars he got when he was younger.