The Odyssey: Book 12

"We burned

his body and his gear, and built a mound

and dragged a pillar onto it, and fixed

his oar on top."

Who is being described here?

• Polyphemus

• Elpenor

• Helius

• the pilot of Odysseus's ship

"If anyone goes near them

in ignorance, and listens to their voices,

that man will never travel to his home,

and never make his wife and children happy

to have him back with them again."

Whom is Circe describing?

• The six heads of Scylla

• Scylla and Charybdis

• The Sirens

• The cattle of the sun god

"The rock is sheer, as if it had been polished.

Right in the middle lies a murky cave

that faces west, towards dark Erebus."

Who lives here?

• The Sirens

• Scylla

• Charybdis

• Polyphemus

"She has twelve dangling legs and six long necks

with a gruesome head on each, and in each face

three rows of crowded teeth, pregnant with death."

Who is this?

• Calypso

• The head siren

• Circe

• Scylla

"Three times a day she spurts it up; three times

she glugs it down. Avoid that place when she

is swallowing the water."

Who is this?

• Charybdis

• Calypso

• Scylla

• Circe

"If you damage them, I must foretell

disaster for your ship and for your crew.

Even if you survive, you will return

late and humiliated, having caused

the death of all your men."

What is the "them" in the first line?

• The Sirens

• Helius's Cattle

• Scylla and Charybdis

• Nausicaa and Alcinous

"Odysseus! Come here! You are well-known

from many stories! Glory of the Greeks!"

Who says these lines?

• Athena

• Calypso

• Circe

• The Sirens

"As you hold the rudder,

direct the ship away from that dark smoke

and rising wave, and head towards the rock."

To whom and from whom are these directions given?

• The pilot/Odysseus

• The pilot/Circe

• Odysseus/Circe

• Odysseus/the Sirens

What does Odysseus describe as "the most heartrending sight I saw/in all the time I suffered on the sea"?

• The Sirens

• The death of Elpenor

• His men being eaten by Scylla

• His ship being destroyed by Charybdis

Whose plan was it to "poach" and eat the sun god's cattle?

• Odysseus

• Helius

• Elpenor

• Eurylochus