The Odyssey question and answer booklet: Book 9

1. Refer back to book 8, where is Odysseus while he relates this?
The land of the Phaeacians (Scherie)
2. How does he feel about his home, Ithaca?
He misses it
3. Which two females have detained him on his way home?
Calypso and Circe
4. What mistake did Odysseus' "fools of men" make at Ismarus?
They refused to escape when Odysseus told them to and consequently six of the men died.
5. What happens to those who eat the lotus-fruit?
They forgot everything. "Those who ate the honeyed fruit of the plant lost any wish to come back and bring its news"
6. How does Homer deal with this situation?
"I had to use force to bring them back to the hollow ships" "once on board i tied them up and dragged them under the benches"
7. Quote the phrase that describes the Cyclops:
"a fierce lawless people" "who never lift a hand to plant or plow but just leave everything to the immortal gods"
8. What is Odysseus' plan?
He picks the twelve best men to go with him to try and find the Cyclops.
9. What do they find in Polyphemus' cave?
Baskets filled with cheeses and folds filled with lambs and kids (penned). Well made vessels and pails and bows used for milking whey.
10. What do the men beg Odysseus to do?
To kill the cyclops
11. Why wouldn't he do this?
They wouldn't be able to escape the cave because the boulder over the door is so big.
12. How does Homer indicate the size of the stone which closes the cave?
"it was a mighty slab, twenty-two-or-more wheeled wagons could not shift such a massive stone"
13. What is unusual in the Cyclops asking his questions as soon as he notices them?
"are you cruising the main on chance"
14. What information does Odysseus carefully omit when introducing himself?
He tells Polyphemus that his name is "Nobody" and that he is an Achaean on his way home from Troy
15. Why does Polyphemus reject the pleas of a supplicant?
"we cyclopes care nothing for Zeus" "I would never spare you or your men for fear of offending Zeus' emity unless I felt like it"
16. What barbarous act does he commit before sleeping?
"He jumped up and reaching put towards my men seized a couple and dashed their heads against the floor" "he tore them to pieces to make his meal"
17. What does he have for breakfast?
More of Odysseus' men
18. What gift does Odysseus give Polyphemus?
Some wine
19. What gift does Polyphemus offer Odysseus?
That he will eat Odysseus last
20. What does Odysseus say his name is?
Nobody
21. Give one horrid detail of what happens whilst Polyphemus sleeps?
"seizing the olive pole, they drove its sharpened end into the cyclopes' eye"
22. Give one horrid detail of the blinding episode?
"The scorching heat singed his lids and brow all round while his eyeball blazed and the very roots crackled in flames"
23.