Odyssey Study Guide Contents

1. After leaving the home of Aeolus, they almost reach the homeland, Ithaca. They get close enough to see activity on it, but then Odysseus falls asleep. His men must view this as their last opportunity to get what's theirs and since they suspect that Aeolus put valuables in the bag, they decide they will divide it among themselves, so they open the bag, with disastrous consequences.

1. They sail to the island of the Laestrygonians. Odysseus safely keeps his ship out of the harbor, but lets the other 11 crowd themselves in. He sends three scouts. They don't recognize the princess as a giant, but after she directs them to the home of the king, her father, they see the queen is as big as a mountain. The king comes in, smashes one man to eat. The king summons the other giants who smash the ships. Odysseus doesn't try to help the other ships or wait for any of them to flee to him, but sails off as quickly as possible.
2. On Aeaea, the island where Circe lives, Odysseus and his men recuperate for two days and then Odysseus goes out scouting. He finds a stag and kills it. Some think the stag was a human transformed, which would make the men eating its meat cannibals. It has also been suggested that the meat is just like the meat the men feasted on at Goat Island before they faced the Cyclops. The stag is described as noble, but the killing involved no challenge.

   See "Odysseus and the Stag," by Ruth Scodel. The Classical Quarterly,Vol. 44, No. 2. (1994), pp. 530-534.

1. When Odysseus tells his men they are on an island and must go to the house in the woods, they cry, unwilling to risk another cannibal adventure. Odysseus splits the men in two and makes his relative Eurylochus commander over half. They then draw lots to see which group will have to brave the unknown. It is Eurylochus' lot, so with the men still crying, they head off. At Circe's house, Eurylochus balks and doesn't go in. The rest of the men do and get turned into swine. Eurylochus returns to tell Odysseus how his plan fared. When Odysseus asks Eurylochus to go with him to rescue the men, Eurylochus refuses. After Odysseus extracts the sacred oath from Circe not to trick them any more, Odysseus goes to the ship to get Eurylochus and the rest of the men. Euryclochus blames Odysseus for the loss of the lives of many of their men. At this Odysseus wants to decapitate Eurylochus, but the other men intercede on his behalf. He then behaves.