1. Summaries: “Land of the Dead,” “The Sirens,” “Scylla and Charybdis,” and “The Cattle of the Sun God”

2. “Land of the Dead” Odysseus and his men leave the Cyclops’ island
Aeolus gives him a bag of winds
Within 10 days they are in sight of Ithaca
The men think the bag is treasure, rip it open, and cause a storm
They get lost again
“Land of the Dead”

3. “Land of the Dead” They row to the island of the Laestrygonians
Men get eaten
Everyone else runs away to Aeaea
Circe turns Odysseus’s men into pigs
He defeats her, and she turns the men back into men
Then Odysseus and Circe become lovers, and he stays there for a year
Odysseus’s men convince him to leave
Circe tells him he must sail through Hades
The men aren’t happy
“Land of the Dead”

4. In the land of the Cimmerians, Odysseus offers a sacrifice like Circe said
Dead people start showing up
Elpenor – soldier who fell off Circe’s roof and wants to be buried
Tiresias – explains Poseidon is mad at them for blinding the Cyclops
Anticleia – Odysseus’s mother who guilts him for being gone so long
Agamemnon – tells that he got killed by his own wife when he got home from war
Achilles – asks about his son
Ajax – still mad at Odysseus and doesn’t talk
Various Greek Mythology characters (Hercules, King Minos, Orion, Sisyphus, Tantalus)
“Land of the Dead”

5. “The Sirens” They return to bury Elpenor
Then they have to travel past the island of the Sirens
Odysseus’s men plug their ears with beeswax and tie him to the mast
He begs them to let him go to follow the Sirens’ song
The men tie him tighter
“The Sirens”

6. “Scylla and Charybdis”
The crew has to sail between Scylla (a six-headed monster) and Charybdis (a living whirlpool)
As they are sailing, focused on Charybdis, Scylla’s heads swoop down and eat six men
“Scylla and Charybdis”

7. “The Cattle of the Sun God”
Eurylochus convinces Odysseus to stop and rest
They get caught in a storm and are beached for a month
When the men get desperate they slaughter the Sun God’s cattle
The Sun asks Zeus to punish Odysseus and his men
When they leave, Zeus creates a storm that takes them all out (except Odysseus who is almost swallowed up by Charybdis)
Odysseus ends up on Calypso’s island but doesn’t want to rehash all that in the story
“The Cattle of the Sun God”