FIFTY QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ON “PREPARATORY GREEK COURSE IN ENGLISH,” COMPRISING THE LATTER HALF OF THE VOLUME, OR “HOMER.”

By ALBERT M. MARTIN, General Secretary C. L. S. C.

1. Q. After Xenophon’s Anabasis what is it usual for the preparatory student to take up next in order? A. The Iliad of Homer.

2. Q. What is sometimes taken instead of the Iliad? A. The Odyssey.

3. Q. What is the position of the Iliad of Homer in literature? A. It is the leading poem of the world.

4. Q. From what is the Iliad entitled? A. From the word Ilium, which is the alternative name of Troy.

5. Q. What episode in the siege of Troy is the real subject of the Iliad? A. The wrath of Achilles.

6. Q. What occasioned the siege of Troy? A. The carrying off of Helen, wife of Menelaus, a Grecian king, by Paris, son of Priam, king of Troy.

7. Q. Who engaged in the siege against Troy? A. The confederate kings of all Greece, with Agamemnon as commander-in-chief.

8. Q. What was the occasion of the wrath of Achilles? A. The arbitrary interference of Agamemnon to deprive Achilles of a female captive, BriseÏs, and usurp her to himself.

9. Q. What at length incites Achilles to again return to the field? A. The death of Patroclus, his close friend, slain by the Trojans.

10. Q. What is the result as to Achilles? A. He slays Hector, the Trojan champion, and is himself killed by Paris.

11. Q. What forms the subject of the Odyssey? A. The adventures of one of the Greek chieftains, Ulysses, or Odysseus.

12. Q. When and how does the Iliad itself close? A. Before the fall of Troy, and with the death and funeral rites of Hector.

13. Q. What are some of the best known translations of the Iliad? A. Chapman’s, Pope’s, Cowper’s, Derby’s and Bryant’s.

14. Q. Of what are some of the most noted passages in the first book of the Iliad descriptive? A. The descent of Apollo, the wrangle between Achilles and Agamemnon, the promise of Jupiter to Thetis, and the feast of the gods.

15. Q. What does the second book of the Iliad recount? A. How Jupiter sends a deceiving dream to Agamemnon to induce that chieftain to make a vain assault on the Trojans.

16. Q. With what does the book close? A. With a catalogue of the Greek forces assembled.

17. Q. To us who read in the light of present views what is a feature of the Iliad fatal to any genuine interest in the story? A. The introduction of supernatural agencies into the action of the poem.

18. Q. What is one of the prominent scenes introduced in the third book of the Iliad? A. A duel between Paris, the thief, and Menelaus, the husband of Helen.

19. Q. What takes place at the crisis of the duel? A. Venus steps in and carries Paris off to his bed-chamber in the palace of Priam.

20. Q. In the fourth book what is described by a simile, one of the most nobly conceived and nobly expressed of all that occur in the Iliad? A. The advance of the Achaians to battle.

21. Q. What noted hero is introduced in the fifth book of the Iliad? A. Æneas, the Trojan hero of Virgil’s poem, the Æneid.

22. Q. Of what is one of the most famous passages in the sixth book of the Iliad descriptive? A. The parting of Hector and Andromache, his wife, bringing with her their little child.

23. Q. Who among the Greeks takes the honors of the seventh book of the Iliad? A. Ajax.

24. Q. What constitutes a prominent feature in the eighth book of the Iliad? A. Another account of the Olympian gods in council.

25. Q. Technically described what is Homer’s verse? A. Dactylic hexameter.

26. Q. What is a dactyl? A. A foot of three syllables, of which the first is long and the other two short.

27. Q. In dactylic hexameter how many of these feet are there in a line? A. Six.

28. Q. Name a classic English poem written in dactylic hexameter. A. Longfellow’s “Evangeline.”

29. Q. In what celebrated descriptive passage does Homer exhaust all his art? A. In his description of the shield of Achilles.

30. Q. What does the Odyssey mean? A. The poem of Odysseus, or Ulysses, king of the island of Ithaca.

31. Q. When Troy was taken, for what place did Odysseus and his followers sail? A. Ithaca.

32. Q. On their way, to what land were they driven? A. That of the Cyclops, a savage race of one-eyed giants.

33. Q. Here what did Odysseus do to the Cyclop Polyphemus? A. He put out the eye of the monster after he had eaten six of the hero’s comrades.

34. Q. What did Poseidon, the god of the sea and father of Polyphemus, do in revenge? A. He doomed Odysseus to wander far and wide over the sea to strange lands.

35. Q. When the Odyssey begins, ten years after the fall of Troy, where is Odysseus? A. In the island of Ogygia, at the center of the sea, where for seven years the nymph Calypso has detained him against his will.

36. Q. Meanwhile what has befallen Penelope, the wife of Odysseus, in Ithaca? A. She has been courted by more than a hundred suitors, lawless, violent men, who feast riotously in the house of Odysseus as if it were their own.

37. Q. When Odysseus at length gets permission to sail from Ogygia, and starts on a raft, what occurs to him? A. Poseidon wrecks his raft, and he is thrown upon the island of the PhÆacians, a rich and happy people near to the gods.

38. Q. Upon being entertained by the king of the PhÆacians, what are the subjects of some of the adventures he relates? A. The Enchantress Circe, the sweet-singing sirens, and the passage between Scylla and Charybdis.

39. Q. After Odysseus is taken back to Ithaca by a PhÆacian crew, what is the fate of the suitors of Penelope? A. They are all slain in the palace by Odysseus, assisted by his son Telemachus and two trusty servants.

40. Q. What are some of the most noted translations of the Odyssey? A. Chapman’s, Pope’s, Cowper’s, Worsley’s, and Bryant’s.

41. Q. In what form is Worsley’s translation written? A. The Spenserian Stanza, that adopted by Edmund Spenser for his great poem of the “Fairy Queen.”

42. Q. Name some other well-known poems written in the Spenserian Stanza. A. Thompson’s “Castle of Indolence,” Beattie’s “Minstrel,” and Byron’s “Childe Harold.”

43. Q. What part of the adventures of Odysseus does our author first give in an extended quotation from Worsley’s translation of the Odyssey? A. His stay in the country of the PhÆacians.

44. Q. What was the name of the king of the PhÆacians, frequently referred to in poetry containing classical allusions? A. Alcinous.

45. Q. What American author has written a version of the legend of Circe? A. Hawthorne in his “Tanglewood Tales.”

46. Q. Of what is the next extended quotation descriptive that is given by our author from Worsley’s translation of the Odyssey? A. The slaughter of the suitors of Penelope by Odysseus and his son.

47. Q. Of what are the remaining quotations given descriptive? A. Odysseus making himself known to Penelope, his wife, and to Laertes, his father.

48. Q. Who now intervenes to avert further bloodshed? A. Athene.

49. Q. In what manner is this accomplished? A. She stays the hand of Ulysses raised in fell self-defense against the avenging kindred of the suitors, and enjoins a solid peace between the two parties at feud.

50. Q. In this appearance what familiar form does the goddess Athene assume? A. That of Mentor, ancient friend of Ulysses.

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