Odyssey: A Daily Odyssey through Homer’s The Odyssey
Aug 5, 2026 · 10 min · 5 segments
Prophecy gives way to something more piercing than fate. Among the dead, recognition comes at a terrible price. In *The Odyssey*, Book 11, Odysseus asks Teiresias how his mother’s spirit might…
Landon SolanoHost
So spake he, and I answered him, saying, Tiresias, all these threads, methinks, the gods themselves have spun.
Lo, she sits in silence near the blood, nor deigns to look her son in the face nor speak to him.
Tell me, prince, how may she know me again that I am he? So spake I, and anon he answered me and said, I will answer thee an easy saying, and I will put it in thy heart.
Whomsoever of the dead that departed thou shalt suffer to draw nigh to the blood, he shall tell thee sooth.
Therewith the spirit of the prince Tiresias went back within the house of Hades when he had told all his oracles.
But I abode there steadfastly till my mother drew nigh and drank the dark blood, and at once she knew me, and bewailing herself spake to me winged words.
Dear child, how didst thou come beneath the darkness and the shadow? Thou that are a living man, grievous is the sight of these things to the living, for between us and you are great rivers and dreadful streams.
First Oceanus, which can nowise be crossed on foot, but only if one have a well-wrought ship.
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So spake he, and I answered him, saying, Tiresias, all these threads, methinks, the gods themselves have spun.
Lo, she sits in silence near the blood, nor deigns to look her son in the face nor speak to him.
Tell me, prince, how may she know me again that I am he? So spake I, and anon he answered me and said, I will answer thee an easy saying, and I will put it in thy heart.
Whomsoever of the dead that departed thou shalt suffer to draw nigh to the blood, he shall tell thee sooth.
Therewith the spirit of the prince Tiresias went back within the house of Hades when he had told all his oracles.
But I abode there steadfastly till my mother drew nigh and drank the dark blood, and at once she knew me, and bewailing herself spake to me winged words.
Dear child, how didst thou come beneath the darkness and the shadow? Thou that are a living man, grievous is the sight of these things to the living, for between us and you are great rivers and dreadful streams.
First Oceanus, which can nowise be crossed on foot, but only if one have a well-wrought ship.
