edify
(verb) to instruct or improve morally or intellectually
Location in the text:
"And what did I amount to, once the official version gained ground? An edifying legend. A stick used to beat other women with" (2).
minstrel
(noun) musician or poet
Location in the text:
"Once, people would have laughed if I'd tried to play the minstrel—there's nothing more preposterous than an aristocrat fumbling around with the arts—but who cares about public opinion now?" (4)
asphodel
(noun) a type of herb of the lily family. In Greek mythology, the Asphodel Meadows were a part of the Underworld where ordinary or indifferent souls who did not commit crimes during life spent the afterlife.
Location in the text:
"There are of course the fields of asphodel" (15).
flagon
(noun) a large metal or pottery vessel with handle and spout and often a lid
Location in the text:
"There was lots of everything at my wedding feast—great glistening hunks of meat, great wads of fragrant bread, great flagons on mellow wine" (40).
tiller
(noun) a horizontal bar fitted to the head of a boat's rudder post and used as a lever for steering
Location in the text:
"He spent most of the time either at the bow, peering ahead (I imagined) with a hawk-like gaze in order to spot rocks and sea serpents and other dangers, or at the tiller, or directing the ship in some other way—I don't know how, because I'd never been on a ship before in my life" (55).
circumspect
(adjective) cautious, prudently watchful, and discreet in the face of danger or risk
Location in the text:
"My mother-in-law was circumspect" (60).
motley
(adjective) made up of many different people or things
Location in the text:
"Who were not royal queens, but a motley and piebald collection" (66)
piebald
(adjective) composed of different parts or colors
Location in the text:
"Who were not royal queens, but a motley and piebald collection" (66)
sagacious
(adjective) having or showing keen mental discernment and good judgement; shrewd
Location in the text:
"'It is the arrow of my love, Penelope of the divine form, fairest and most sagacious of all women,' he replied" (99-100).
blather
(verb) talk long-windedly without much substance
Location in the text:
"'You don't have to blather on in this fatuous manner down here—you have nothing to gain by it'" (100).
fatuous
(adjective) silly and pointless
Location in the text:
"'You don't have to blather on in this fatuous manner down here—you have nothing to gain by it'" (100).
lugubriously
(adverb) in a manner that looks or sounds sad and dismal
Location in the text:
"He gazed at me lugubriously, with eyes like a whipped spaniel's" (100).
auditor
(noun) listener
Location in the text:
"The truth, dear auditors, is seldom certain— / But let us take a peek behind the curtain!" (148).
affable
(adjective) friendly, good-natured, or easy to talk to
Location in the text:
"'Hello there, little cousin duck,' she said to me with her usual affable condescension" (153).
claptrap
(noun) absurd or nonsensical talk or ideas
Location in the text:
"No, sir, we deny that this theory is merely unfounded feminist claptrap" (166).
usurping
(adjective) having the qualities of one who seize and hold in possession by force or without right
Location in the text:
"But usurping strongman Odysseus refused to die at the end of his rightful term" (167).
gourmand
(noun) a person who enjoys eating and often eats too much
Location in the text:
"I has been alleged by my respected colleague that Odysseus was not so justified, since murdering these young men was a gross overreaction to the fact of their having played the gourmand a little too freely in his palace" (175-6).
comestibles
(noun) items of food
Location in the text:
"Also, it is alleged that Odysseus and/or his heirs or assigns had been offered material compensation for the missing comestibles, and ought to have accepted this compensation peacefully" (176).
Erinyes
(noun) also known as the Furies, female deities of vengeance in ancient Greek religion and mythology
Location in the text:
"A troop of twelve Erinyes appear. They have hair made of serpents, the heads of dogs, and the wings of bats" (183).
Sibyls
(noun) prophetesses or oracles in Ancient Greece
Location in the text:
"I can't say I miss the Sibyls much—them and their golden boughs, hauling along all sorts of upstarts to traipse down here, wanting knowledge of the future and upsetting the Shades—but at least the Sibyls had some manners" (185).
