Odyssey: A Daily Odyssey through Homer’s The Odyssey
Sep 1, 2026 · 10 min · 7 segments
Desire overcomes resolve — and obedience alone saves them. In *The Odyssey*, Book 12, the Sirens’ song reaches its height, and Odysseus, bound to the mast, begs his men to set him free. They do…
Landon SolanoHost
Music Music So they spake, uttering a sweet voice, and my heart was fain to listen, and I bade my company unbind me, nodding at them with a frown.
Then straight up rose Pyramides and Eurylochus, and bound me with more cords and straightened me yet the more.
Now when we had driven past them, nor heard we any longer the sound of the sirens or their song, forthwith my dear company took away the wax wherewith I had anointed their ears, and loosened me from my bonds.
But so soon as we left that isle, thereafter presently I saw smoke and a great wave, and heard the sea roaring.
Then for very fear the oars flew from their hands, and down the stream they all splashed, and the ship was holding there, for my company no longer plied with their hands the tapering oars.
But I paced the ship and cheered on my men, as I stood by each one and spake smooth words.
Friends, for as much as in sorrow we are not all unlearned, truly this is no greater woe that is upon us than when the Cyclops penned us by main might in his hallow cave.
Yet even thence we made escape by my manfulness, even by my counsel and my wit, and some day I think that this adventure too we shall remember.
Do ye smite the deep surf of the sea with your oars, as ye sit on the benches, if peradventure Zeus may grant us to escape from and shun this death.
And as for thee, helmsman, thus I charge thee, and ponder it in thine heart, seeing that thou wieldest the helm of the hollow ship.
Keep the ship well away from the smoke and from the wave and hug the rocks, lest the ship, ere thou art aware, start from her course to the other side, and so thou hurl us into ruin.
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Music Music So they spake, uttering a sweet voice, and my heart was fain to listen, and I bade my company unbind me, nodding at them with a frown.
Then straight up rose Pyramides and Eurylochus, and bound me with more cords and straightened me yet the more.
Now when we had driven past them, nor heard we any longer the sound of the sirens or their song, forthwith my dear company took away the wax wherewith I had anointed their ears, and loosened me from my bonds.
But so soon as we left that isle, thereafter presently I saw smoke and a great wave, and heard the sea roaring.
Then for very fear the oars flew from their hands, and down the stream they all splashed, and the ship was holding there, for my company no longer plied with their hands the tapering oars.
But I paced the ship and cheered on my men, as I stood by each one and spake smooth words.
Friends, for as much as in sorrow we are not all unlearned, truly this is no greater woe that is upon us than when the Cyclops penned us by main might in his hallow cave.
Yet even thence we made escape by my manfulness, even by my counsel and my wit, and some day I think that this adventure too we shall remember.
Do ye smite the deep surf of the sea with your oars, as ye sit on the benches, if peradventure Zeus may grant us to escape from and shun this death.
And as for thee, helmsman, thus I charge thee, and ponder it in thine heart, seeing that thou wieldest the helm of the hollow ship.
Keep the ship well away from the smoke and from the wave and hug the rocks, lest the ship, ere thou art aware, start from her course to the other side, and so thou hurl us into ruin.
