Back from Death, Bound for Greater Peril (Homer’s The Odyssey, Book 12 – Part 1)

Book 12.

Odysseus, his passage by the Sirens and by Scylla and Charybdis.

The sacrilege committed by his men in the isle of Thrinacia.

The destruction of his ships and men.

How he swam on a plank nine days together, and came to Ogygia, where he stayed seven years with Calypso.

Now after the ship had left the stream of the river Oceanus, and was come to the wave of the wide sea, and the isle of Aeaean, where is the dwelling place of early Dawn and her dancing grounds, and the land of sunrising.

Upon our coming thither we beached the ship in the sand, and ourselves too stepped ashore on the sea beach.

There we fell sound asleep and awaited the bright Dawn.

So soon as early Dawn shone forth, the rosy-fingered, I sent forth my fellows to the house of Circe to fetch the body of the dead Elpenor.

And speedily we cut billets of wood, and sadly we buried him, where the furthest headland runs out into the sea, shedding big tears.

But when the dead man was burned, and the arms of the dead, we piled a barrow, dragged up thereon a pillar, and on the topmost mound we set the shape Elpenor.

Now all that task we finished, and our coming from out of Hades was not unknown to Circe.

But she arrayed herself and speedily drew nigh, and her handmaids with her bare flesh and bread in plenty and dark red wine.

And the fair goddess stood in the midst and spake in our ear, saying, "Men overbold, who have gone alive into the house of Hades, to know death twice, while all men else die once for all.

Nay, come, eat ye meat and drink wine here all day long.

And with the breaking of the day ye shall set sail, and myself I will show you the path and declare each thing, that ye may not suffer pain or hurt through any grievous ill contrivance by sea or on the land." Welcome to book 12.