Odyssey Note Cards for Final Exam (Zachary Barnes)

"I see the Gods delay him. But never in this world is Odysseus dead -- only detained somewhere on the wide sea, upon some island, with wild islanders; savages, they must be, to hold him cpative." Book 1 (239-243)

Odysseus wil not be absent frrom his family long: he is laready near, carrying in him a bloody doom for al these men, and sorrow for many more on our high seamark, Ithaka. Let us think how to stop it; let the suitors drop their suit; they had better, without delay."

You, too, are tall and well set-up, I see; be brave, you too, so men in times to comewill speak well of you."

"Laertes' son, who home is Ithaka. I saw him weeping, weeping on an island. The nymph Kalypso has him in her hall. No means of faring home are left him now; so ship with oars, and no ship's company to pull him on the broad back of the sea."

"Goddess to god, you greet me, questioning me? Well, here is truth for you in courtesy. Zeus made me come, and not my inclination; who cares to cross that tract of desolation, the bitter sea, all mortal towns behind where gods have beef and honors from mankind? But it is not to be thought of and no use for any god to elude the will of Zeus."

"So came out rustling, like a mountain lion, rain-drenched, wind-buffeted, but in his might at ease, with burning eyes -- who prowls among the herds or flocks or after game, his hungry belly taking him near stout homesteads for his prey."

The lords and nobles of Phaikia were tipping wine to the wakeful god, to Hermes -- at last a libation before going to bed -- but down the hall Odysseus went unseen, still in the cloud Athena cloaked him in, until he reached Artete, and the king. He threw his great hands round Arete's knees, whereon the sacred mist curled back; they him; and the dinders hushed amazed"

You now, for instance, with your fine physique -- a god's indeed -- you have an empty noddle. I find in my heart inside by ribs aroused by your impertinence. I am no stranger to contests, as you fancy.

"So long, so big around, it seemed. Now I chopped out a six foot section of this pole and set it down before my men, who scraped it; and when they had it smooth, I hewed again to make a stake with pointed end. I held this in the fire's heart and turned it, toughening it, then hid it, well back in the cavern, under one of the dunge piles in profusion there. Now came the time to toss for it"

Sometimes in farmyards when the cows return well fed from pasture to the barn, one sees the pens give way before the calves in tumult, breaking through to cluster about their mothers, bumpting together, brawling. Just that way my crew poured round me when they saw me come -- their faces wet with tears as fi they saw their homeland, and the crags of Ithaka, even the very town where they were born." 

"But presently I gave command to my officers to flay those sheep the bronze cut down, and make burnt offering of flesh to the gods below -- to sovereign Death, to pale Persephone. Meanwhile I crouched with my drawn sowrd to keep the surging phantoms from the bloody pit till I should know the presence of Teiresias."

She ate them as they shrieked there, in her den, in the dire grapple, reaching still for me -- and deathly pity ran me through at that sight -- far the worst I every suffered, questing the passes of the strange sea."

"Whoever gets around you must be sharp and guileful as a snake; even a god migh bow to you in ways of dissimulation. You! You chameleon! Bottomless bag of tricks! Here in your own country would you not give your stratagems a rest or stop spellbinding for an instant?"

"May you be dear to Zeus as you are dear to me for this, Eumaios, favoring with choice cuts a man like me."

"Even as he spoke, a beat of wings went skyward off to the right -- a mountain eagle, grappling a white goose in his talons, heavy prey hooke d from a farmyard."