The Odyssey
Book XII
"After we were clear of the river Oceanus, and had got out into the open
sea, we went on till we reached the Aeaean island where there is dawn and
sunrise as in other places. We then drew our ship on to the sands and got
out of her on to the shore, where we went to sleep and waited till day
should break.
"Then, when the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared,
I sent some men to Circe′s house to fetch the body of Elpenor. We cut firewood
from a wood where the headland jutted out into the sea, and after we had
wept over him and lamented him we performed his funeral rites. When his
body and armour had been burned to ashes, we raised a cairn, set a stone
over it, and at the top of the cairn we fixed the oar that he had been
used to row with.
"While we were doing all this, Circe, who knew that we had got
back from the house of Hades, dressed herself and came to us as fast as
she could; and her maid servants came with her bringing us bread, meat,
and wine. Then she stood in the midst of us and said, ′You have done a
bold thing in going down alive to the house of Hades, and you will have
died twice, to other people′s once; now, then, stay here for the rest of
the day, feast your fill, and go on with your voyage at daybreak tomorrow
morning. In the meantime I will tell Ulysses about your course, and will
explain everything to him so as to prevent your suffering from misadventure
either by land or sea.′
"We agreed to do as she had said, and feasted through the livelong
day to the going down of the sun, but when the sun had set and it came
on dark, the men laid themselves down to sleep by the stern cables of the
ship. Then Circe took me by the hand and bade me be seated away from the
others, while she reclined by my side and asked me all about our
adventures.
"′So far so good,′ said she, when I had ended my story, ′and now
pay attention to what I am about to tell you- heaven itself, indeed, will
recall it to your recollection. First you will come to the Sirens who enchant
all who come near them. If any one unwarily draws in too close and hears
the singing of the Sirens, his wife and children will never welcome him
home again, for they sit in a green field and warble him to death with
the sweetness of their song. There is a great heap of dead men′s bones
lying all around, with the flesh still rotting off them. Therefore pass
these Sirens by, and stop your men′s ears with wax that none of them may
hear; but if you like you can listen yourself, for you may get the men
to bind you as you stand upright on a cross-piece half way up the mast,
and they must lash the rope′s ends to the mast itself, that you may have
the pleasure of listening. If you beg and pray the men to unloose you,
then they must bind you faster.
"′When your crew have taken you past these Sirens, I cannot give
you coherent directions as to which of two courses you are to take; I will
lay the two alternatives before you, and you must consider them for yourself.
On the one hand there are some overhanging rocks against which the deep
blue waves of Amphitrite beat with terrific fury; the blessed gods call
these rocks the Wanderers. Here not even a bird may pass, no, not even
the timid doves that bring ambrosia to Father Jove, but the sheer rock
always carries off one of them, and Father Jove has to send another to
make up their number; no ship that ever yet came to these rocks has got
away again, but the waves and whirlwinds of fire are freighted with wreckage
and with the bodies of dead men. The only vessel that ever sailed and got
through, was the famous Argo on her way from the house of Aetes, and she
too would have gone against these great rocks, only that Juno piloted her
past them for the love she bore to Jason.
"′Of these two rocks the one reaches heaven and its peak is lost
in a dark cloud. This never leaves it, so that the top is never clear not
even in summer and early autumn. No man though he had twenty hands and
twenty feet could get a foothold on it and climb it, for it runs sheer
up, as smooth as though it had been polished. In the middle of it there
is a large cavern, looking West and turned towards Erebus; you must take
your ship this way, but the cave is so high up that not even the stoutest
archer could send an arrow into it. Inside it Scylla sits and yelps with
a voice that you might take to be that of a young hound, but in truth she
is a dreadful monster and no one- not even a god- could face her without
being terror-struck. She has twelve mis-shapen feet, and six necks of the
most prodigious length; and at the end of each neck she has a frightful
head with three rows of teeth in each, all set very close together, so
that they would crunch any one to death in a moment, and she sits deep
within her shady cell thrusting out her heads and peering all round the
rock, fishing for dolphins or dogfish or any larger monster that she can
catch, of the thousands with which Amphitrite teems. No ship ever yet got
past her without losing some men, for she shoots out all her heads at once,
and carries off a man in each mouth.
"′You will find the other rocks lie lower, but they are so close
together that there is not more than a bowshot between them. [A large fig
tree in full leaf grows upon it], and under it lies the sucking whirlpool
of Charybdis. Three times in the day does she vomit forth her waters, and
three times she sucks them down again; see that you be not there when she
is sucking, for if you are, Neptune himself could not save you; you must
hug the Scylla side and drive ship by as fast as you can, for you had better
lose six men than your whole crew.′
"′Is there no way,′ said I, ′of escaping Charybdis, and at the
same time keeping Scylla off when she is trying to harm my
men?′
"′You dare-devil,′ replied the goddess, you are always wanting
to fight somebody or something; you will not let yourself be beaten even
by the immortals. For Scylla is not mortal; moreover she is savage, extreme,
rude, cruel and invincible. There is no help for it; your best chance will
be to get by her as fast as ever you can, for if you dawdle about her rock
while you are putting on your armour, she may catch you with a second cast
of her six heads, and snap up another half dozen of your men; so drive
your ship past her at full speed, and roar out lustily to Crataiis who
is Scylla′s dam, bad luck to her; she will then stop her from making a
second raid upon you.
"′You will now come to the Thrinacian island, and here you will
see many herds of cattle and flocks of sheep belonging to the sun-god-
seven herds of cattle and seven flocks of sheep, with fifty head in each
flock. They do not breed, nor do they become fewer in number, and they
are tended by the goddesses Phaethusa and Lampetie, who are children of
the sun-god Hyperion by Neaera. Their mother when she had borne them and
had done suckling them sent them to the Thrinacian island, which was a
long way off, to live there and look after their father′s flocks and herds.
If you leave these flocks unharmed, and think of nothing but getting home,
you may yet after much hardship reach Ithaca; but if you harm them, then
I forewarn you of the destruction both of your ship and of your comrades;
and even though you may yourself escape, you will return late, in bad plight,
after losing all your men.′
"Here she ended, and dawn enthroned in gold began to show in heaven,
whereon she returned inland. I then went on board and told my men to loose
the ship from her moorings; so they at once got into her, took their places,
and began to smite the grey sea with their oars. Presently the great and
cunning goddess Circe befriended us with a fair wind that blew dead aft,
and stayed steadily with us, keeping our sails well filled, so we did whatever
wanted doing to the ship′s gear, and let her go as wind and helmsman headed
her.
"Then, being much troubled in mind, I said to my men, ′My friends,
it is not right that one or two of us alone should know the prophecies
that Circe has made me, I will therefore tell you about them, so that whether
we live or die we may do so with our eyes open. First she said we were
to keep clear of the Sirens, who sit and sing most beautifully in a field
of flowers; but she said I might hear them myself so long as no one else
did. Therefore, take me and bind me to the crosspiece half way up the mast;
bind me as I stand upright, with a bond so fast that I cannot possibly
break away, and lash the rope′s ends to the mast itself. If I beg and pray
you to set me free, then bind me more tightly still.′
"I had hardly finished telling everything to the men before we
reached the island of the two Sirens, for the wind had been very favourable.
Then all of a sudden it fell dead calm; there was not a breath of wind
nor a ripple upon the water, so the men furled the sails and stowed them;
then taking to their oars they whitened the water with the foam they raised
in rowing. Meanwhile I look a large wheel of wax and cut it up small with
my sword. Then I kneaded the wax in my strong hands till it became soft,
which it soon did between the kneading and the rays of the sun-god son
of Hyperion. Then I stopped the ears of all my men, and they bound me hands
and feet to the mast as I stood upright on the crosspiece; but they went
on rowing themselves. When we had got within earshot of the land, and the
ship was going at a good rate, the Sirens saw that we were getting in shore
and began with their singing.
"′Come here,′ they sang, ′renowned Ulysses, honour to the Achaean
name, and listen to our two voices. No one ever sailed past us without
staying to hear the enchanting sweetness of our song- and he who listens
will go on his way not only charmed, but wiser, for we know all the ills
that the gods laid upon the Argives and Trojans before Troy, and can tell
you everything that is going to happen over the whole
world.′
"They sang these words most musically, and as I longed to hear
them further I made by frowning to my men that they should set me free;
but they quickened their stroke, and Eurylochus and Perimedes bound me
with still stronger bonds till we had got out of hearing of the Sirens′
voices. Then my men took the wax from their ears and unbound
me.
"Immediately after we had got past the island I saw a great wave
from which spray was rising, and I heard a loud roaring sound. The men
were so frightened that they loosed hold of their oars, for the whole sea
resounded with the rushing of the waters, but the ship stayed where it
was, for the men had left off rowing. I went round, therefore, and exhorted
them man by man not to lose heart.
"′My friends,′ said I, ′this is not the first time that we have
been in danger, and we are in nothing like so bad a case as when the Cyclops
shut us up in his cave; nevertheless, my courage and wise counsel saved
us then, and we shall live to look back on all this as well. Now, therefore,
let us all do as I say, trust in Jove and row on with might and main. As
for you, coxswain, these are your orders; attend to them, for the ship
is in your hands; turn her head away from these steaming rapids and hug
the rock, or she will give you the slip and be over yonder before you know
where you are, and you will be the death of us.′
"So they did as I told them; but I said nothing about the awful
monster Scylla, for I knew the men would not on rowing if I did, but would
huddle together in the hold. In one thing only did I disobey Circe′s strict
instructions- I put on my armour. Then seizing two strong spears I took
my stand on the ship Is bows, for it was there that I expected first to
see the monster of the rock, who was to do my men so much harm; but I could
not make her out anywhere, though I strained my eyes with looking the gloomy
rock all over and over
"Then we entered the Straits in great fear of mind, for on the
one hand was Scylla, and on the other dread Charybdis kept sucking up the
salt water. As she vomited it up, it was like the water in a cauldron when
it is boiling over upon a great fire, and the spray reached the top of
the rocks on either side. When she began to suck again, we could see the
water all inside whirling round and round, and it made a deafening sound
as it broke against the rocks. We could see the bottom of the whirlpool
all black with sand and mud, and the men were at their wit′s ends for fear.
While we were taken up with this, and were expecting each moment to be
our last, Scylla pounced down suddenly upon us and snatched up my six best
men. I was looking at once after both ship and men, and in a moment I saw
their hands and feet ever so high above me, struggling in the air as Scylla
was carrying them off, and I heard them call out my name in one last despairing
cry. As a fisherman, seated, spear in hand, upon some jutting rock throws
bait into the water to deceive the poor little fishes, and spears them
with the ox′s horn with which his spear is shod, throwing them gasping
on to the land as he catches them one by one- even so did Scylla land these
panting creatures on her rock and munch them up at the mouth of her den,
while they screamed and stretched out their hands to me in their mortal
agony. This was the most sickening sight that I saw throughout all my
voyages.
"When we had passed the [Wandering] rocks, with Scylla and terrible
Charybdis, we reached the noble island of the sun-god, where were the goodly
cattle and sheep belonging to the sun Hyperion. While still at sea in my
ship I could bear the cattle lowing as they came home to the yards, and
the sheep bleating. Then I remembered what the blind Theban prophet Teiresias
had told me, and how carefully Aeaean Circe had warned me to shun the island
of the blessed sun-god. So being much troubled I said to the men, ′My men,
I know you are hard pressed, but listen while I tell you the prophecy that
Teiresias made me, and how carefully Aeaean Circe warned me to shun the
island of the blessed sun-god, for it was here, she said, that our worst
danger would lie. Head the ship, therefore, away from the
island.′
"The men were in despair at this, and Eurylochus at once gave me
an insolent answer. ′Ulysses,′ said he, ′you are cruel; you are very strong
yourself and never get worn out; you seem to be made of iron, and now,
though your men are exhausted with toil and want of sleep, you will not
let them land and cook themselves a good supper upon this island, but bid
them put out to sea and go faring fruitlessly on through the watches of
the flying night. It is by night that the winds blow hardest and do so
much damage; how can we escape should one of those sudden squalls spring
up from South West or West, which so often wreck a vessel when our lords
the gods are unpropitious? Now, therefore, let us obey the of night and
prepare our supper here hard by the ship; to-morrow morning we will go
on board again and put out to sea.′
"Thus spoke Eurylochus, and the men approved his words. I saw that
heaven meant us a mischief and said, ′You force me to yield, for you are
many against one, but at any rate each one of you must take his solemn
oath that if he meet with a herd of cattle or a large flock of sheep, he
will not be so mad as to kill a single head of either, but will be satisfied
with the food that Circe has given us.′
"They all swore as I bade them, and when they had completed their
oath we made the ship fast in a harbour that was near a stream of fresh
water, and the men went ashore and cooked their suppers. As soon as they
had had enough to eat and drink, they began talking about their poor comrades
whom Scylla had snatched up and eaten; this set them weeping and they went
on crying till they fell off into a sound sleep.
"In the third watch of the night when the stars had shifted their
places, Jove raised a great gale of wind that flew a hurricane so that
land and sea were covered with thick clouds, and night sprang forth out
of the heavens. When the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared,
we brought the ship to land and drew her into a cave wherein the sea-nymphs
hold their courts and dances, and I called the men together in
council.
"′My friends,′ said I, ′we have meat and drink in the ship, let
us mind, therefore, and not touch the cattle, or we shall suffer for it;
for these cattle and sheep belong to the mighty sun, who sees and gives
ear to everything. And again they promised that they would
obey.
"For a whole month the wind blew steadily from the South, and there
was no other wind, but only South and East. As long as corn and wine held
out the men did not touch the cattle when they were hungry; when, however,
they had eaten all there was in the ship, they were forced to go further
afield, with hook and line, catching birds, and taking whatever they could
lay their hands on; for they were starving. One day, therefore, I went
up inland that I might pray heaven to show me some means of getting away.
When I had gone far enough to be clear of all my men, and had found a place
that was well sheltered from the wind, I washed my hands and prayed to
all the gods in Olympus till by and by they sent me off into a sweet
sleep.
"Meanwhile Eurylochus had been giving evil counsel to the men,
′Listen to me,′ said he, ′my poor comrades. All deaths are bad enough but
there is none so bad as famine. Why should not we drive in the best of
these cows and offer them in sacrifice to the immortal Rods? If we ever
get back to Ithaca, we can build a fine temple to the sun-god and enrich
it with every kind of ornament; if, however, he is determined to sink our
ship out of revenge for these homed cattle, and the other gods are of the
same mind, I for one would rather drink salt water once for all and have
done with it, than be starved to death by inches in such a desert island
as this is.′
"Thus spoke Eurylochus, and the men approved his words. Now the
cattle, so fair and goodly, were feeding not far from the ship; the men,
therefore drove in the best of them, and they all stood round them saying
their prayers, and using young oak-shoots instead of barley-meal, for there
was no barley left. When they had done praying they killed the cows and
dressed their carcasses; they cut out the thigh bones, wrapped them round
in two layers of fat, and set some pieces of raw meat on top of them. They
had no wine with which to make drink-offerings over the sacrifice while
it was cooking, so they kept pouring on a little water from time to time
while the inward meats were being grilled; then, when the thigh bones were
burned and they had tasted the inward meats, they cut the rest up small
and put the pieces upon the spits.
"By this time my deep sleep had left me, and I turned back to the
ship and to the sea shore. As I drew near I began to smell hot roast meat,
so I groaned out a prayer to the immortal gods. ′Father Jove,′ I exclaimed,
′and all you other gods who live in everlasting bliss, you have done me
a cruel mischief by the sleep into which you have sent me; see what fine
work these men of mine have been making in my absence.′
"Meanwhile Lampetie went straight off to the sun and told him we
had been killing his cows, whereon he flew into a great rage, and said
to the immortals, ′Father Jove, and all you other gods who live in everlasting
bliss, I must have vengeance on the crew of Ulysses′ ship: they have had
the insolence to kill my cows, which were the one thing I loved to look
upon, whether I was going up heaven or down again. If they do not square
accounts with me about my cows, I will go down to Hades and shine there
among the dead.′
"′Sun,′ said Jove, ′go on shining upon us gods and upon mankind
over the fruitful earth. I will shiver their ship into little pieces with
a bolt of white lightning as soon as they get out to
sea.′
"I was told all this by Calypso, who said she had heard it from
the mouth of Mercury.
"As soon as I got down to my ship and to the sea shore I rebuked
each one of the men separately, but we could see no way out of it, for
the cows were dead already. And indeed the gods began at once to show signs
and wonders among us, for the hides of the cattle crawled about, and the
joints upon the spits began to low like cows, and the meat, whether cooked
or raw, kept on making a noise just as cows do.
"For six days my men kept driving in the best cows and feasting
upon them, but when Jove the son of Saturn had added a seventh day, the
fury of the gale abated; we therefore went on board, raised our masts,
spread sail, and put out to sea. As soon as we were well away from the
island, and could see nothing but sky and sea, the son of Saturn raised
a black cloud over our ship, and the sea grew dark beneath it. We not get
on much further, for in another moment we were caught by a terrific squall
from the West that snapped the forestays of the mast so that it fell aft,
while all the ship′s gear tumbled about at the bottom of the vessel. The
mast fell upon the head of the helmsman in the ship′s stern, so that the
bones of his head were crushed to pieces, and he fell overboard as though
he were diving, with no more life left in him.
"Then Jove let fly with his thunderbolts, and the ship went round
and round, and was filled with fire and brimstone as the lightning struck
it. The men all fell into the sea; they were carried about in the water
round the ship, looking like so many sea-gulls, but the god presently deprived
them of all chance of getting home again.
"I stuck to the ship till the sea knocked her sides from her keel
(which drifted about by itself) and struck the mast out of her in the direction
of the keel; but there was a backstay of stout ox-thong still hanging about
it, and with this I lashed the mast and keel together, and getting astride
of them was carried wherever the winds chose to take
me.
"[The gale from the West had now spent its force, and the wind
got into the South again, which frightened me lest I should be taken back
to the terrible whirlpool of Charybdis. This indeed was what actually happened,
for I was borne along by the waves all night, and by sunrise had reacfied
the rock of Scylla, and the whirlpool. She was then sucking down the salt
sea water, but I was carried aloft toward the fig tree, which I caught
hold of and clung on to like a bat. I could not plant my feet anywhere
so as to stand securely, for the roots were a long way off and the boughs
that overshadowed the whole pool were too high, too vast, and too far apart
for me to reach them; so I hung patiently on, waiting till the pool should
discharge my mast and raft again- and a very long while it seemed. A juryman
is not more glad to get home to supper, after having been long detained
in court by troublesome cases, than I was to see my raft beginning to work
its way out of the whirlpool again. At last I let go with my hands and
feet, and fell heavily into the sea, bard by my raft on to which I then
got, and began to row with my hands. As for Scylla, the father of gods
and men would not let her get further sight of me- otherwise I should have
certainly been lost.]
"Hence I was carried along for nine days till on the tenth night
the gods stranded me on the Ogygian island, where dwells the great and
powerful goddess Calypso. She took me in and was kind to me, but I need
say no more about this, for I told you and your noble wife all about it
yesterday, and I hate saying the same thing over and over
again."
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