Freshman English 212Name:

Homer’s Odyssey(translated by Stanley Lombardo)

Reading #3: Book 12 (178-191) GUIDED READING QUESTIONS

Burial of Elpenor, Scylla and Charybdis, and The Isle of the Sun

[Book 11 Summary—Odysseus Goes to the Underworld.

  • Odysseus follows Circe’s instructions and finds the fortune-teller Tiresias after offering prayers and a ram and black sheep for a sacrifice.
  • Tiresias warns that Odysseus has more difficulties returning home but that he eventually he’ll get there to become the master of Ithaca.
  • Before he leaves, Odysseus meets many dead people—his mother (who died after he left for Troy), Achilles, and his crew member Elpenor.

Return to Circe’s Island

178-179

  1. Briefly describe Elpenor’s burial in lines 8-15.
  1. Circe warns Odysseus of the dangers of his return.
  2. “First, you will come / To the Sirens,” she says. Briefly describe what the Sirens do to “all men / Who come near” (41-42).
  3. And what Odysseus must do if he has “a mind to listen” (52) to them.

180-181

  1. From line 75 Circe describes the route that Odysseus will choose—a strait between two rocks that has the monster Scylla on one side and the whirlpool Charybdis on the other.
  2. How does Circe describe Scylla?
  3. And what does Charybdis do?

182-183

  1. What is Circe talking about when she says, “But if you harm them, I foretell / Disaster for your ship and crew” (145-46)?

The Sirens

  1. Briefly describe how Odysseus survives the temptation of the Sirens?

Scylla and Charybdis

184-185

  1. Briefly describe the crew’s encounter first with Scylla and then with Charybdis.

The Island of Hyperion, the Sun

186-187

  1. What are the men forbidden to do while on the island?

188-189

  1. Odysseus’s men’s action and Helio’s response.
  2. What point is Eurylochus making from line 349?
  3. And What the men end up doing?
  4. And how does the furious Helios threatenZeus if nothing is done?

190-191

  1. So how does Zeus respond to Helio’s threat?
  2. Where does the South Wind bring Odysseus, just near the end of the chapter?

ACP: DISCRIMINATING—RANKING (recognizing differences and similarities among things or situations and distinguishing carefully as to category or rank).

Choose a sentence or passage from the reading that stands out for you for ANY reason (maybe it’s funny, important, puzzling—any reason). Be sure to cite its page number—and explain why it’s so important either to the story or to you.

LINE/PASSAGE:

RESPONSE: