How to play, and how to read the Odyssey without getting lost

This is a multiple-choice quiz drawn from Homer's Odyssey, the poem that follows Odysseus through the ten years between the fall of Troy and his return to Ithaca. The poem is divided into 24 books, and this app carries five questions from each, 120 in all.

It has nothing to do with Christopher Nolan's film. It is not licensed by any studio, it uses no stills or actor images, and it does not cover what the film changed. Everything here comes from the poem.

The questions ask only what the poem states: who did what, where it happened, in what order, and which god took which side. Questions of interpretation are left out.

Today's ten

Press play and ten questions come one after another. They are drawn from the date, so everyone playing on the same day gets the same ten. Open the page on another device or refresh it, and the ten do not change.

There are three levels. Easy questions fall out of the plot. Medium ones need names and places. Deep ones are details you notice only if you have read that book. Each day's ten is fixed at four easy, three medium, three deep.

Marking and sources

Pick an answer and you are told at once whether it is right. Either way you get the answer and the book and line that supports it. The line numbers follow the Greek text, so they point to the same place in any translation you open.

Your score is the count of right answers. Regular runs have no ranking and no timer. Turn on Compete and a perfect first run of the day goes on the shared leaderboard by server-measured time.

Where the questions come from

There are 120 questions, five per book. Today's ten are drawn four, three and three across the levels. Those counts are constants in the code, not something the screen decides.

The book and line on each question were not typed from memory. A script searches a public-domain English translation for the passage and fills the line number in. If even one question cannot be located, the question file is not written at all.

Citations are given as a five-line span because the digital edition marks every fifth line. Naming a single line would claim a precision we do not have.

What drawing from the date means

The date string is folded into a numeric seed, and one deterministic generator picks the questions from it. It is called random, but the same seed always gives the same result. No server hands you today's questions; your device works them out from the date alone.

The order of the four choices is shuffled daily too, seeded with the date plus the question's id, so a repeat question does not sit in the same place.

What this app does not do

It does not send your questions or answers anywhere. Play happens entirely on your device. What telemetry reports is the step names (page opened, play started, ten finished) and never your score.

Today's result is kept on this device only. Clear your browser data and it goes with it; it does not follow you to another device.

The result card is drawn on your own screen and saved as an image. Nothing is uploaded to make it.

There are no hints and no undo. The answer you pick is the answer that is marked.

Start with the names. Odysseus' wife is Penelope, his son Telemachus, his father Laertes, his old nurse Eurycleia. Those four carry half of everything that happens on Ithaca.

The gods take sides. Athena helps from first book to last. Poseidon blocks him over what was done to his son Polyphemus. Zeus opens the action, and Hermes comes down twice to carry a message.

Do not try to learn the places in order of events. Odysseus tells his adventures as a guest at the Phaeacian court, so the order on the page is not the order he lived them.

Split the 24 books into four blocks

Books 1 to 4 have no Odysseus in them at all. Telemachus goes looking for news of his father at Pylos and Sparta, which is why these books are called the Telemachy. Nestor and Menelaus belong here.

Books 5 to 8 take him from Calypso's island to the land of the Phaeacians. Nausicaa, Alcinous and the bard Demodocus belong here.

Books 9 to 12 are the adventures he narrates himself. The Cyclops, Circe, the land of the dead, the Sirens and Scylla all sit in these four books. Most of the famous names come from here.

Books 13 to 24 are Ithaca. The beggar's rags, the swineherd, the contest of the bow and the end of the suitors fill those twelve books.

Use the line numbers

Write down the book and line that comes with each answer and you can open a translation straight at that passage. Most printed translations carry the Greek line numbers in the margin.

Collect the citations from the ones you got wrong and read just those passages. Next time the question comes round you recall the scene rather than the answer, and that lasts longer.

The names are spelled differently everywhere

Translators romanise Greek names differently, so the same person shows up under several spellings. Aias is Ajax in most English editions, and Polyphemus is sometimes Polyphemos. This app keeps to the spellings closest to the Greek.

I want to replay today

Press play again on the result screen and the same ten start over. The questions stay the same and only the score is recounted. Tomorrow the ten change.

My result disappeared

The result lives in this browser's storage and nowhere else. Clearing site data or closing a private window takes it with you. With no account there is no way to get it back.

I think a question is wrong

Check the book and line given as the source. If it still does not match, write to the address below and we will measure it again and fix it.