Name: Date: Period:

Homer’s The Odyssey
Part II

Answer the following questions based on your reading in the classroom textbook. Answers should be given in complete sentences.

“Coming Home” and “The Meeting of Father and Son” (p. 690-694)

1. What details in this passage indicate Telemachus’s and Eumaeus’s hospitality?

2. Lines 974-990, who is still in disguise in this scene?

How does the ancient Greeks’ regard for hospitality affect the way the other characters treat him?

What do you think each character is feeling and thinking as he eats?

3. What does Telemachus’s response to Odysseus’s transformation suggest about the relationship between the ancient Greeks and their gods?

4. What epithets are used to characterize Odysseus here?

5. Lines 1015-1019, why has Athena changed Odysseus’s appearance?

6. Lines 1005-1035, which part of this recognition scene between father and son do you find most moving or most dramatic?

Sum up the problems that now face father and son in the palace at Ithaca.

“The Beggar and the Faithful Dog” (p. 694-695)

1. Lines 1030-1033, to what are Odysseus’s and Telemachus’s cries compared?

2. Lines 1036-1041, why would a great epic concern itself with an old dog?

3. Lines 1044-1049, how does this description of Argos make you feel?

4. What does this scene reveal about Odysseus’s character?

5. Lines 1063-1066, why is this scene ironic?

6. Lines 1072-1076, What do you think of Eumaeus’s statement about servants?

Slavery in Ancient Greece: Ipad Lab
Research slavery in ancient Greece. Answer the following questions with complete sentences.

1. How did the Greeks obtain slaves?

2. What were conditions like for people held as slaves in ancient Greece?

3. What kinds of work did slaves do in ancient Greece?

4. How did the Greeks regard those they held in slavery?

“The Epic Continues” (p. 696)

1. What qualities does Penelope reveal through her actions?

2. Judging from what you know about Odysseus, how do you predict he will deal with the suitors?

3. Why do you think Odysseus continues to conceal his identity from Penelope?

“Penelope to Ulysses” (p. 697)

1. How are Penelope’s actions like those of a spider committing suicide?

2. How does this student poem connect with Homer’s epic? What dimension does the student poem add to the portrayal of Penelope in the excerpts from the Odyssey?

“An Ancient Gesture” (p. 697)

1. How does this litany of words and phrases with positive connotations alter the tone of the poem?