Odyssey: Activity Packet
*Answer on your own paper

QUESTIONS FOR DEEPER UNDERSTANDING:

1. Suppose you were Telemachus and your father had never returned from a long war, and your mother was pestered by men who wanted to marry her and who were sponging off her. How would you handle your problems?

2. Is there anything that you really want that your parents don’t want you to have or to do? Why won’t they let you? Why do you think you should be allowed to have or do this? Write a letter to your parents explaining to them that you are enough of an adult to handle this situation. Be persuasive and convincing!

3. If someone claimed to be your long-lost relative, how would you test them to be sure of their identity? Explain your plan and your reasons for it

ARTISTIC DESIGN: Choose one.

4. (a) Draw a map which illustrates a particular setting in the Odyssey (Cyclopes’ Island, Troy, Circe’s Temple, etc.) or the entire journey of Odysseus thus far. Label important places on the map.
EX.

4. (b) Draw a comic strip of the events of a particular episode (Cyclopes, Lotus Eaters, Circe, etc.) or the entire journey of Odysseus thus far. Include important characters, events, and dialogue.
EX.

MODERN APPLICATION:

5. Read the lyrics of the 2006 song “Calypso” by Suzanne Vega, and answer the questions below.

“My name is Calypso and I have lived alone
I live on an island and I waken to the dawn
A long time ago I watched him struggle with the sea
I knew that he was drowning and I brought him into me
Now today come morning light, he sails away
After one last night I let him go

My name is Calypso, my garden overflows
Thick and wild and hidden is the sweetness there that grows
My hair blows long as I sing into the wind
I tell of nights where I could taste the salt on his skin
Salt of the waves and of tears and while he pulled away
I kept him here for years now I let him go

My name is Calypso, I have let him go
In the dawn he sails away to be gone forever more
And the waves will take him in again but he'll know their ways now
I will stand upon the shore with a clean heart
And my song in the wind, the sand may sting my feet and the sky will burn
It's a lonely time ahead, I do not ask him to return
I let him go, I let him go”

a.  What narrative point of view is used in this song?

b.  What narrative point of view is used in the Odyssey?

c.  Who is narrating the song?

d.  Who is the man Calypso is referring to in the song?

e.  Is he a guest or prisoner on Calypso’s island?

f.  In the Odyssey, what does Calypso offer Odysseus to stay on her island?

g.  In the song, Calypso, says, “I let him go.” How does this differ from her action in the Odyssey?

h.  Would you consider this a love song? Explain why or why not.

i.  Suzanne Vega was born in 1959. Why do you think she wrote a song about a story that is more than 3000 years old?

READING GUIDE:

6. Begin reading the episode The Land of the Dead (p.999) as time permits. Answer questions 36 – 39 if possible. (Look over the Reading Guide and make sure all questions are answered up to this point)