The Odyssey Book Quiz
Eight multiple-choice questions on Homer’s The Odyssey (750 BC) — plot, characters and the moments everyone quotes. Two minutes, instant score, every answer explained below. For the full mixed-classics version, take the original book quiz — 15 questions across the whole canon.
All 8 questions and answers
Prefer to read the quiz instead of taking it? Expand for every question, answer and a one-line explanation.
- Where is Odysseus trying to return to? — Ithaca. His rocky island kingdom, ten years after leaving Troy.
- Who waits for him at home? — His wife Penelope and son Telemachus. Penelope weaves and unweaves a burial shroud to stall the suitors.
- Which nymph holds Odysseus captive for seven years? — Calypso. On Ogygia — until the gods order her to let him build a raft.
- What does Odysseus do to the cyclops Polyphemus? — Blinds him with a sharpened stake and escapes under sheep. Having told him his name is Nobody — which ruins Poseidon's ability to be mocked.
- What does Circe do to Odysseus's scouting party? — Turns the men into pigs. Eurylochus escapes and fetches Odysseus, protected by the herb moly.
- How does Odysseus survive the Sirens? — His crew plugs their ears with wax and ties him to the mast. The classic solution — he alone hears the song, bound to hear it and unable to act.
- What final blasphemy do the crew commit? — Slaughtering the cattle of the Sun god on Thrinacia. Odysseus sleeps; the men feast; the ship is destroyed and all die but him.
- What is the secret of the marriage bed? — It is built into the living olive tree — it cannot be moved. Odysseus mentions moving it — Penelope's test proves his identity.
About The Odyssey
Homer's epic of Odysseus's ten-year voyage home from Troy to Ithaca — cyclops, sorceress, sirens, underworld — while his wife Penelope holds off a hundred suitors and their son Telemachus searches for him. The template for every journey story since. The novel runs about 134,000 words (roughly 560 pages in a standard paperback) — about 9 hours and 23 minutes of reading at an average pace. Before you commit, see the full breakdown in how long it takes to read The Odyssey or calculate reading time for any other book.
Moderate — episodic and formulaic; translations (Fagles, Wilson, Lombardo) vary widely in ease. If you get 6 or more of the eight questions right, the book clearly stuck.
What this quiz covers
Homer’s The Odyssey sits in our epic, adventure & fantasy shelf, and the eight questions follow the book the way a reader experiences it: how the story opens, the turn in the middle, the characters who carry it, and the ending people still argue about. You will not be asked for page numbers or publication trivia — but three or four questions are built to separate people who read the book from people who read a summary. If a question stumps you, that gap is your reading list talking.
Fair warning for the ambitious: readers who clear this quiz often move straight to the reading-time breakdown for The Odyssey to plan the reread, then test the rest of their shelf against the mixed classic literature quiz.
More book quizzes
Moby-Dick quiz, Don Quixote quiz, Alice in Wonderland quiz, The Count of Monte Cristo quiz, 1984 quiz, Animal Farm quiz, Brave New World quiz — or browse every book quiz on the site. For scale, The Odyssey is the 34th longest of the 133 classics timed here — shorter than A Tale of Two Cities but longer than New Moon.
Doing the whole author? Our Homer books in order guide lists every book with the best entry point.
Frequently asked questions
How many questions are in the Odyssey quiz?
Eight multiple-choice questions covering Homer's plot, characters and most famous moments. The quiz takes about two minutes and your score is instant.
Is the Odyssey book quiz free?
Yes — no signup, no email, nothing to install. Answer the eight questions and get your score immediately.
What score should I aim for?
8/8 means you know the book cold; 6+ is a solid score. Below 4, the book is calling you back for a reread.
Is the Odyssey quiz hard?
Moderate — episodic and formulaic; translations (Fagles, Wilson, Lombardo) vary widely in ease. The questions themselves stick to famous, load-bearing moments — the scenes and lines the book is remembered for — so a genuine read usually scores 6+.
How long is the Odyssey reading itself?
About 134,000 words — roughly 560 pages, or about 9 hours and 23 minutes at an average pace. The full pace breakdown is in how long it takes to read The Odyssey. It runs 24 books, averaging 5,583 words each; see the book-count guide for its full structure.