Odyssey: A Daily Odyssey through Homer’s The Odyssey
Jun 22, 2026 · 10 min · 9 segments
Power shifts, but danger does not vanish at once. Even victory demands caution, and trust must be secured before comfort can follow. In *The Odyssey*, Book 10, Odysseus refuses Circe’s invitation…
Landon SolanoHost
🎵 🎵 So spake she, but I answered her, saying, Nay, Circe, how canst thou bid me be gentle to thee, who hast turned my company into swine within thy halls, and holding me here with a guileful heart requirest me to pass within thy chamber and go up into thy bed, that so thou mayest make me a dastard and unmanned when thou hast me naked? Nay, never will I consent to go up into thy bed.

except thou wilt deign goddess to swear a mighty oath that thou wilt plan naught else of mischief to mine own hurt so i spake and she straightway swore the oath not to harm me as i bade her but when she had sworn and had done that oath then at last i went up into the beautiful bed of circe now all this while her handmaids busied themselves in the halls four maidens that are her serving-women in the house They are born of the wells and of the woods and of the holy rivers that flow forward into the salt sea.

And lo, another drew up silver tables to the chairs, and thereon set them golden baskets, and a third mixed sweet honey-hearted wine in a silver bowl, and set out cups of gold, and a fourth bare water, and kindled a great fire beneath the mighty cauldron.

So the water waxed warm, but when it boiled in the bright brazen vessel, She set me in a bath and bathed me with water from out a great cauldron, pouring it over head and shoulders.

When she had mixed it to a pleasant warmth, to my limbs she took away the consuming weariness.

now after when she had bathed me and anointed me well with olive oil and cast about me a fair mantle and doublet she led me into the halls and set me on a chair with studs of silver a goodly carven chair and beneath was a footstool for the feet and a handmaid bare water for the hands in a goodly golden ewer and poured it forth over a basin to wash withal and to my side she drew a polished table and a grave dame bare wheaten bread and set it by me and laid on the board many dainties giving freely of such things as she had by her and she bade me eat but my soul found no pleasure therein i sat with other thoughts and my heart had a boding of ill I've spoken to a few people who listen to the show, and listen, I'm not going to dismiss their experience, particularly in regard to the other show, The Countdown of Monte Cristo, saying how impressed they are with how I can get through the French and Italian names.
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🎵 🎵 So spake she, but I answered her, saying, Nay, Circe, how canst thou bid me be gentle to thee, who hast turned my company into swine within thy halls, and holding me here with a guileful heart requirest me to pass within thy chamber and go up into thy bed, that so thou mayest make me a dastard and unmanned when thou hast me naked? Nay, never will I consent to go up into thy bed.

except thou wilt deign goddess to swear a mighty oath that thou wilt plan naught else of mischief to mine own hurt so i spake and she straightway swore the oath not to harm me as i bade her but when she had sworn and had done that oath then at last i went up into the beautiful bed of circe now all this while her handmaids busied themselves in the halls four maidens that are her serving-women in the house They are born of the wells and of the woods and of the holy rivers that flow forward into the salt sea.

And lo, another drew up silver tables to the chairs, and thereon set them golden baskets, and a third mixed sweet honey-hearted wine in a silver bowl, and set out cups of gold, and a fourth bare water, and kindled a great fire beneath the mighty cauldron.

So the water waxed warm, but when it boiled in the bright brazen vessel, She set me in a bath and bathed me with water from out a great cauldron, pouring it over head and shoulders.

When she had mixed it to a pleasant warmth, to my limbs she took away the consuming weariness.

now after when she had bathed me and anointed me well with olive oil and cast about me a fair mantle and doublet she led me into the halls and set me on a chair with studs of silver a goodly carven chair and beneath was a footstool for the feet and a handmaid bare water for the hands in a goodly golden ewer and poured it forth over a basin to wash withal and to my side she drew a polished table and a grave dame bare wheaten bread and set it by me and laid on the board many dainties giving freely of such things as she had by her and she bade me eat but my soul found no pleasure therein i sat with other thoughts and my heart had a boding of ill I've spoken to a few people who listen to the show, and listen, I'm not going to dismiss their experience, particularly in regard to the other show, The Countdown of Monte Cristo, saying how impressed they are with how I can get through the French and Italian names.