Odyssey, Book 4 Notes

Lacedaimon

Major concepts:

• Greek hospitality
• Helen and her stories of Troy
• Menelaus's return from Troy
• Menelaus's news of Odysseus
• Menelaus's reaction to Helen's stories
• Proteus
• Plot to kill Telemachus

Study Guide Questions:

1. How do Menelaus and Helen compare to Nestor as hosts?
2. What clues cue Menelaus and Helen that Telemachus is Odysseus's son?
3. How does Menelaus represent himself as responding to his wanderings on the way home to Sparta?
4. What is Menelaus's opinion of Odysseus?
5. Why does Menelaus still value and accept Helen, even though her elopement to Paris led to the Trojan War?
6. What is impressive about the palace of Menelaus and Helen?
7. How does Menelaus's story of Proteus, the Old Man of the Sea, serve as an instructional tool for Telemachus in his quest to find his father?
8. Why is information withheld so frequently?
9. What does Penelope learn in this book?
10. Describe Antinous's plan to kill Telemachus.

Odyssey Notes, Trojan War

• War started over jealousy
• Greek gods were having a wedding party, but Eris, goddess of strife (displeasure), wasn’t invited
• Eris thought: I’ll show them
• She sends a golden apple rolling into party with a label: “to the fairest”
• Everyone thinks it belongs to them
• Three goddesses fight over the apple: Athena, Hera, and Aphrodite
• They want Zeus to decide who’s the fairest; he won’t
• Zeus sends Hermes to find a human to decide
• The goddesses try to bribe Paris, the man
• Athena offers: success in everything; best in war, best athlete, best artist
• Hera offers: power – the most powerful man on earth
• Aphrodite offers: the most beautiful woman on earth
• Paris chooses Aphrodite
• Problem is: the most beautiful woman is Helen
• Helen is married
• Paris thought: oh well – finds Helen (a Greek), and takes her back to Troy
• Helen’s husband = not happy, wants to start war
• Thus, the Trojan War begins
• Odysseus didn’t want to go to war
• O pretended to be crazy
• His plan didn’t work; had to go fight
• War lasted 10 years
• Troy was heavily armed; had walls around city
• O came up with plan: pretend to surrender
• Built giant horse as “gift” to people of Troy
• Other Greek ships sailed away
• Trojans thought Greeks went home
• Trojans took giant horse into city and celebrated
• Greeks came out of horse at night and sacked the city
• Greeks won the war
• Poseidon was originally on the Greeks’ side, but O made him mad – he had too much pride