Homer's Odyssey – answers and explanations
Here are the answers to all 15 questions in the Homer's Odyssey quiz, each with a short explanation. Haven't played yet? Take the quiz first and compare your score.
Play the quiz · 15 questions1. Which one-eyed giant did Odysseus blind to escape from his cave?
Answer: Polyphemus
Polyphemus, the one-eyed Cyclops son of Poseidon, trapped Odysseus and his men in his cave in Book 9 of the Odyssey; they got him drunk and drove a fire-hardened olive stake into his single eye, then escaped clinging beneath his sheep.
2. Which island is Odysseus trying to get home to?
Answer: Ithaca
Odysseus is king of Ithaca, a rugged island in the Ionian Sea off western Greece near Cephalonia, and the whole epic drives toward his return there to Penelope and Telemachus.
3. Which war is Odysseus sailing home from when the Odyssey begins?
Answer: The Trojan War
The Odyssey opens ten years after the fall of Troy, with Odysseus still struggling home from the ten-year Trojan War told of in the Iliad; Poseidon's anger keeps him at sea.
4. What is the name of Odysseus's wife, who waits for him in Ithaca?
Answer: Penelope
Penelope, daughter of Icarius and queen of Ithaca, stayed faithful during Odysseus's twenty-year absence, famously delaying her 108 suitors by weaving a shroud for Laertes by day and unravelling it at night.
5. What does the sorceress Circe turn Odysseus's men into?
Answer: Pigs
In Book 10 of the Odyssey the enchantress Circe, on the island of Aeaea, drugs a scouting party's food and strikes them with her wand, turning them into swine that keep their human minds; Hermes's herb moly protects Odysseus.
6. What name does Odysseus give the Cyclops when asked who he is?
Answer: Nobody
In Book 9 of the Odyssey, Odysseus tells the Cyclops Polyphemus that his name is Outis, meaning 'Nobody', so that when the blinded giant screams for help the other Cyclopes assume no one is attacking him and stay away.
7. Why do Odysseus's sailors plug their ears with beeswax?
Answer: To resist the Sirens' song
On Circe's advice in Book 12, Odysseus kneads a wheel of beeswax soft and seals his crew's ears so the Sirens' deadly song cannot reach them, while he alone listens lashed to the mast.
8. Which god hounds Odysseus at sea for blinding his son, the Cyclops?
Answer: Poseidon
Poseidon, god of the sea, persecutes Odysseus because the blinded Cyclops Polyphemus was his son by the nymph Thoosa and prayed to his father for vengeance after Odysseus boastfully revealed his true name.
9. What is the name of Odysseus's son, who sets out to find news of him?
Answer: Telemachus
Telemachus, son of Odysseus and Penelope, travels to Pylos and Sparta to seek news of his father in the first four books of the Odyssey, known as the Telemachy, urged on by Athena disguised as Mentor.
10. What gift from Aeolus do Odysseus's men open too soon?
Answer: A bag of winds
Aeolus, keeper of the winds on the floating island of Aeolia, gave Odysseus an oxhide bag holding all the contrary winds; in Book 10 his crew, suspecting hidden gold, opened it within sight of Ithaca and were blown back.
11. Which six-headed monster lurks opposite the whirlpool Charybdis?
Answer: Scylla
Scylla, a monster with six long necks and heads each holding three rows of teeth, lived in a cliff cave facing the whirlpool Charybdis; in Odyssey Book 12 Circe advised sailing closer to her, and she snatched six of Odysseus's men.
12. Which nymph keeps Odysseus on her island for seven years?
Answer: Calypso
The nymph Calypso, daughter of Atlas, held Odysseus on her remote island Ogygia for seven years, offering immortality, until Zeus sent Hermes ordering his release so he could sail home on a raft.
13. What happens to sailors who eat the fruit of the Lotus-Eaters?
Answer: They forget about going home
In Odyssey Book 9 the honey-sweet lotus robbed the scouts of any wish to return home; Odysseus had to drag them back weeping and bind them under the rowing benches before sailing on.
14. What is the name of Odysseus's old dog, who recognises him at once?
Answer: Argos
Argos, the hound Odysseus bred as a pup before leaving for Troy, knew his disguised master instantly in Book 17, wagging his tail from a dung heap, then died after twenty years of waiting.
15. In the suitors' archery contest, what must the arrow pass through?
Answer: Twelve axe heads
In Odyssey Book 21 Penelope promised to marry whoever could string Odysseus's bow and send an arrow through twelve iron axe heads lined up in a row; only the disguised Odysseus managed it.