Please time yourself (giving yourself 45 minutes with no distractions) then write on the following topic. When you are done, please post your practice essay on the homework section of your personal website.
In-class essay on The Odyssey, Book X
English 1
Question: What common idea, value or theme runs throughout all three passages?
Directions: Please write on a separate sheet of paper and give equal time to all 4 sections.
Pre-writing/thinking: 5 mins
Part 1: 10 mins
Part 2: 10 minutes per passage = 30 minutes
= 45 mins total
Part 1: Introduction
1-2 introductory sentences then a thesis sentence that answers the above question. (Just a thesis sentence is fine.)
Please don’t quote from the text in this section.
Parts 2: Body Paragraphs
Make sure to have a basic topic sentence for each passage.
Embed or quote at least three pieces of text that support your topic sentence.
Analyze the three passages to show how each passage explores this common thread or theme you stated in your thesis
The wind that carried west from Ilion
brought me to Ismaros, on the far shore,
a strongpoint on the coast of the Kikones.
I stormed that place and killed the men who fought.
Plunder we took, and we enslaved the women,
to make division, equal shares to all—
but on the spot I told them: ‘Back, and quickly!
Out to sea again!’ My men were mutinous,
Fools, on stores of wine. Sheep after sheep
they butchered by the surf, and shambling cattle,
feasting,--while fugitives went inland, running
to call to arms the main force of Kikones.
This was an army, trained to fight on horseback
or, where the ground required, on foot. They came
with dawn over that terrain like leaves
and blades of spring. So doom appeared to us,
dark word of Zeus for us, our evil days. (IX.46-60)
In the glare he saw us.
‘Strangers,’ he said, ‘who are you? And where from?
What brings you here by sea ways—a fair traffic?
Or are you wandering rogues, who cast your lives
like dice, and ravage other folk by sea?’
We felt a pressure in our hearts, in dread
of that deep rumble and that mighty man.
But all the same I spoke up in reply:
‘We are from Troy, Akhaians, blown off course
by shifting gales on the Great South Sea;
homeward bound, but taking routes and ways
uncommon; so the will of Zeus would have it.
We served under Agamemnon, son of Atreus—
the whole world knows that city
he laid waste, what armies he destroyed.
It was our luck to come here; here we stand,
Beholden for your help, or any gifts
you give—as custom is to honor strangers.
We would entreat you, great Sir, have a care
For the gods’ courtesy; Zeus will avenge
the unoffending guest.’
He answered this
from his brute chest, unmoved:
‘You are a ninny,
or else you come from the other end of nowhere,
telling me, mind the gods! We Kyklopes
care not a whistle for your thundering Zeus
or all the gods in bliss; we have more force by far.’ (IX. 274-300)
‘Godsake, Captain!
Why bait the beast again? Let him alone!
That tidal wave he made on the first throw
all but beached us.’
‘All but stove us in!’
‘Give him our bearing with your trumpeting,
he’ll get the range and lob a boulder.’
‘Aye
He’ll smash our timbers and our heads together!’
I would not head them in my glorying spirit,
but let my anger flare and yelled:
‘Kyklops,
if ever mortal man inquire
how you were put to shame and blinded, tell him
Odysseus, raider of cities, took your eye:
Laertes son, whose home’s on Ithaka!’ (IX. 537-552)