Odyssey: A Daily Odyssey through Homer’s The Odyssey
Aug 18, 2026 · 14 min · 5 segments
The underworld reveals not only the dead, but the consequences that never end. Power, pride, and defiance are weighed here without mercy. In *The Odyssey*, Book 11, Odysseus beholds the great…
Landon SolanoHost
After him I marked the mighty Orion driving the wild beasts together over the mead of asphodel, the very beasts that himself had slain on the lonely hills, with a strong mace all of bronze in his hands, that is ever unbroken.
And I saw Tityus, son of renowned Earth, lying on a leveled ground, and he covered nine roods as he lay, and vultures twain beset him, one on either side, and gnawed at his liver, piercing even to the caul.
Moreover I beheld Tantalus in grievous torment, standing in a mere, and the water came nigh unto his chin.
And he stood straining as one athirst, but he might not attain to the water to drink of it.
For often as that old man stooped down in his eagerness to drink, so often the water was swallowed up and it vanished away, and the black earth still showed at his feet, for some god parched it evermore.
And tall trees flowering shed their fruit overhead, pears and pomegranates and apple trees with bright fruit, and sweet figs and olives in their bloom.
Whereat, when that old man reached out his hands to clutch them, the wind would toss them to the shadowy clouds.
Yea, and I beheld Sisyphus in strong torment, grasping a monstrous stone with both his hands.
He was pressing thereat with his hands and feet, and trying to roll the stone upward toward the brow of the hill.
But oft as he was to hurl it over the top, the weight would drive him back, so once again to the plain rolled the stone, a shameless thing.
And he once more kept heaving and straining, and the sweat the while was pouring down his limbs, and the dust rose upwards from his head.
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After him I marked the mighty Orion driving the wild beasts together over the mead of asphodel, the very beasts that himself had slain on the lonely hills, with a strong mace all of bronze in his hands, that is ever unbroken.
And I saw Tityus, son of renowned Earth, lying on a leveled ground, and he covered nine roods as he lay, and vultures twain beset him, one on either side, and gnawed at his liver, piercing even to the caul.
Moreover I beheld Tantalus in grievous torment, standing in a mere, and the water came nigh unto his chin.
And he stood straining as one athirst, but he might not attain to the water to drink of it.
For often as that old man stooped down in his eagerness to drink, so often the water was swallowed up and it vanished away, and the black earth still showed at his feet, for some god parched it evermore.
And tall trees flowering shed their fruit overhead, pears and pomegranates and apple trees with bright fruit, and sweet figs and olives in their bloom.
Whereat, when that old man reached out his hands to clutch them, the wind would toss them to the shadowy clouds.
Yea, and I beheld Sisyphus in strong torment, grasping a monstrous stone with both his hands.
He was pressing thereat with his hands and feet, and trying to roll the stone upward toward the brow of the hill.
But oft as he was to hurl it over the top, the weight would drive him back, so once again to the plain rolled the stone, a shameless thing.
And he once more kept heaving and straining, and the sweat the while was pouring down his limbs, and the dust rose upwards from his head.
