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PinkMonkey.com Digital Library - PinkMonkey.com - The Odyssey by Homer
BOOK XI

THEN, when we had got down to the sea shore we drew our ship into the water and
got her mast and sails into her; we also put the sheep on board and took our places,
weeping and in great distress of mind. Circe, that great and cunning goddess, sent us a
fair wind that blew dead aft and stayed steadily with us keeping our sails all the time
well filled; so we did whatever wanted doing to the ship’s gear and let her go as the
wind and helmsman headed her. All day long her sails were full as she held her course
over the sea, but when the sun went down and darkness was over all the earth, we got
into the deep waters of the river Oceanus, where lie the land and city of the
Cimmerians who live enshrouded in mist and darkness which the rays of the sun never
pierce neither at his rising nor as he goes down again out of the heavens, but the poor
wretches live in one long melancholy night. When we got there we beached the ship,
took the sheep out of her, and went along by the waters of Oceanus till we came to the
place of which Circe had told us.

“Here Perimedes and Eurylochus held the victims, while I drew my sword and dug the
trench a cubit each way. I made a drink-offering to all the dead, first with honey and
milk, then with wine, and thirdly with water, and I sprinkled white barley meal over
the whole, praying earnestly to the poor feckless ghosts, and promising them that when
I got back to Ithaca I would sacrifice a barren heifer for them, the best I had, and would
load the pyre with good things. I also particularly promised that Teiresias should have
a black sheep to himself, the best in all my flocks. When I had prayed sufficiently to the
dead, I cut the throats of the two sheep and let the blood run into the trench, whereon
the ghosts came trooping up from Erebus-brides, young bachelors, old men worn out
with toil, maids who had been crossed in love, and brave men who had been killed in
battle, with their armour still smirched with blood; they came from every quarter and
flitted round the trench with a strange kind of screaming sound that made me turn pale
with fear. When I saw them coming I told the men to be quick and flay the carcasses of
the two dead sheep and make burnt offerings of them, and at the same time to repeat
prayers to Hades and to Proserpine; but I sat where I was with my sword drawn and
would not let the poor feckless ghosts come near the blood till Teiresias should have
answered my questions.

“The first ghost ‘that came was that of my comrade Elpenor, for he had not yet been
laid beneath the earth. We had left his body unwaked and unburied in Circe’s house,
for we had had too much else to do. I was very sorry for him, and cried when I saw
him: ‘Elpenor,’ said I, ‘how did you come down here into this gloom and darkness?
You have here on foot quicker than I have with my ship.’ “’Sir,’ he answered with a
groan, ‘it was all bad luck, and my own unspeakable drunkenness. I was lying asleep
on the top of Circe’s house, and never thought of coming down again by the great
staircase but fell right off the roof and broke my neck, so my soul down to the house of
Hades. And now I beseech you by all those whom you have left behind you, though
they are not here, by your wife, by the father who brought you up when you were a
child, and by Telemachus who is the one hope of your house, do what I shall now ask
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PinkMonkey.com Digital Library - PinkMonkey.com - The Odyssey by Homer



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