Odyssey: A Daily Odyssey through Homer’s The Odyssey
Aug 17, 2026 · 8 min · 6 segments
Not all wounds can be spoken away. Even among the dead, pride and grief keep their distance. In *The Odyssey*, Book 11, Odysseus watches Achilles depart in quiet joy, comforted at last by news of…
Landon SolanoHost
So I spake, and the spirit of the son of Aeacus, fleet of foot, passed with great strides along the mead of the asphodel, rejoicing in that I had told him of his son's renown.
But lo! other spirits of the dead that be departed stood sorrowing, and each one asked of those that were dear to them.
Would that I never prevailed and won such a prize! So goodly a head hath the earth closed over, for the sake of those arms, and even over Aias, who in beauty and feats of war was of a mold above all the other Danaans, next to the son of noble Peleus.
To him, then, I spake softly, saying: "Aias, son of noble Telamon, so art thou even in death to forget thy wrath against me, by reason of those arms accursed, which the gods set to be the bane of the Argives? What a tower of strength fell in thy fall! And we Achaeans cease not to sorrow for thee, even as for the life of Achilles, son of Peleus.
Nay, there is none other to blame but Zeus, who hath borne wondrous hate to the army of the Danaan spearsmen, and laid on thee thy doom.
Master thy wrath and thy proud spirit." So I spake, but he answered me not a word and passed to Erebus after the other spirits of the dead that be departed.
Even then, despite his anger, would he have spoken to me or I to him; but my heart within me was minded to see the spirits of those others that were departed.
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So I spake, and the spirit of the son of Aeacus, fleet of foot, passed with great strides along the mead of the asphodel, rejoicing in that I had told him of his son's renown.
But lo! other spirits of the dead that be departed stood sorrowing, and each one asked of those that were dear to them.
Would that I never prevailed and won such a prize! So goodly a head hath the earth closed over, for the sake of those arms, and even over Aias, who in beauty and feats of war was of a mold above all the other Danaans, next to the son of noble Peleus.
To him, then, I spake softly, saying: "Aias, son of noble Telamon, so art thou even in death to forget thy wrath against me, by reason of those arms accursed, which the gods set to be the bane of the Argives? What a tower of strength fell in thy fall! And we Achaeans cease not to sorrow for thee, even as for the life of Achilles, son of Peleus.
Nay, there is none other to blame but Zeus, who hath borne wondrous hate to the army of the Danaan spearsmen, and laid on thee thy doom.
Master thy wrath and thy proud spirit." So I spake, but he answered me not a word and passed to Erebus after the other spirits of the dead that be departed.
Even then, despite his anger, would he have spoken to me or I to him; but my heart within me was minded to see the spirits of those others that were departed.
