Aeolus, the Laestrygonians, and Circe

Chapter summary

Odysseus continues to tell his voyage to the Phaeacians. After Polyphemus, the Cyclops, they reach the floating island of Aeolus, friend of the gods, surrounded by a wall of bronze without cracks, where the king lives in continuous feasting with his wife and twelve children, six daughters married to six sons. Aeolus hosts him for a month and asks about Troy, the ships of the Argives, and the return of the Achaeans, and Odysseus answers everything in order. When he asks to leave, Aeolus, whom Zeus made guardian of the winds, to calm them or stir them as he wishes, gives him a bull-hide skin with the paths of the winds tied inside, fastened in the ship with a silver thread so that no breath escapes. Only Zephyrus is left free, to carry them. They sail nine days and nine nights, and on the tenth they sight their native land, so close that the fires can be made out. Odysseus, who had handled the sheets alone to arrive as quickly as possible, without handing them to anyone, then falls asleep from exhaustion.

The companions speak among themselves: Odysseus is loved and honored in every city, he brings from Troy fine treasures, and now he has won a gift of friendship from Aeolus, while they, who made the same journey, return empty-handed. They want to see how much gold and silver is in the skin. The bad counsel wins: they untie the skin, the winds leap out all together, and the storm drives the ships, weeping, far from their homeland. Odysseus wakes and weighs whether to throw himself into the sea or to keep silent and remain among the living. He endures, covers his face, and stays on the ship, while the storm carries them back to the island of Aeolus.

On land, they take water and food, and Odysseus goes to the house of Aeolus with a herald and one companion. They sit on the threshold while the king eats with his family. Astonished, they ask what evil demon brought him back, if they had sent him away in condition to reach his homeland. Odysseus answers, distressed, that wicked companions and a cruel sleep harmed him, and asks for help with gentle words, because only they can give him the means. All are silent. The father drives him out: it is not lawful for him to welcome or send back one whom the gods hate, and Odysseus's return proves that the gods hate him. The men set out again, dejected, with their oars heavy through their own folly, and without hope of an escort.

Six days later, on the seventh, they reach the city of Lamus, Telepylus of the Laestrygonians. The harbor has a narrow entrance between two headlands, and inside it there are no waves. The other ships enter and tie up there, close together. Odysseus leaves his own ship outside, moored to the rock at the point, and climbs to a high place to look: he sees no work of men, only smoke. He sends two companions and a herald to learn who lives there. They meet, at a spring, a girl, daughter of King Antiphates, who shows them the house of her father. The king's wife is as big as a mountain, and they are terrified. She calls her husband from the assembly, and Antiphates seizes one of the companions and prepares him as a meal, while the other two flee to the ships. Antiphates raises the alarm, and the Laestrygonians come in countless numbers, more like giants than men, and hurl stones from the cliffs onto the ships, killing the men and smashing the vessels, and they spear the dead like fish. Odysseus, who had not entered the harbor, draws his sword, cuts the mooring lines of his ship, and orders the companions to row with force. Only his ship escapes; the others perish there. They sail on, relieved to escape death and grieving for those they lost.

They arrive at the island of Aeaea, where Circe lives, sister of Aeetes and daughter of the Sun, and a god leads them silently to harbor. They lie for two days and two nights, consumed by weariness and grief. On the third day, Odysseus takes spear and sword, climbs to a high point to look for signs of men, and sees smoke rising from Circe's palace, amid the woods. He wonders whether to investigate, and decides first to return to the ship, give the men food, and then send out scouts. Near the ship, a god takes pity on him, so alone, and puts before him a great stag coming down to the river to drink. Odysseus strikes it in the back with his spear, binds it with cords braided from withes, and carries it leaning on the spear, because the beast is too big to bear on one shoulder. He throws it down before the ship and cheers his companions with gentle words: they will not yet go down to the house of Hades before the appointed day, so let them eat. They obey, uncover their faces, and spend the day feasting.

The next morning, Odysseus calls the assembly. He says they do not know where the west or the east is, and that they must see whether any resource remains, though he thinks there is none: from the high place he saw that they are on a low island, surrounded by the sea, with smoke rising from the middle of the woods. The men collapse at the memory of Antiphates and the man-eating Cyclops, and weep without profit. Odysseus divides the companions into two groups, leading one himself and giving the other to Eurylochus, and they draw lots in a bronze helmet to see who will go. The lot falls on Eurylochus, who sets out with twenty-two companions, weeping, and leaves the others weeping behind.

The scouts find Circe's house, of polished stone, in a sheltered valley, surrounded by mountain wolves and lions that she had enchanted with drugs. The beasts do not attack them; they greet them by wagging their tails, as dogs greet their master returning from a feast, and the men are frightened. At the door they hear Circe singing and weaving. Polites, the dearest and most trusted of the companions, proposes calling her. Circe opens the doors and invites them, and all follow her without suspicion, except Eurylochus, who suspects a trap. She seats them in chairs, mixes cheese, barley meal, and honey into Pramnian wine, and adds baleful drugs, so that they forget their homeland. After they drink, she touches them with her wand and shuts them in pigpens: they have the head, voice, bristles, and body of pigs, but their minds remain firm as before. Circe throws them acorns to eat, as swine eat.

Eurylochus returns to the ship unable to speak, from so much grief, his eyes full of tears. When they all question him, he tells how they entered the valley, found the house, heard the woman sing, and how she called them and all followed her, except him, who suspected a trick; the others vanished, and he waited a long time. Odysseus takes up his sword and bow and orders Eurylochus to guide him. Eurylochus embraces his knees, weeping, and begs him not to lead him against his will: he knows Odysseus will not return and will not bring back any companion, and he proposes fleeing with those who remain, while it is still possible to escape the evil day. Odysseus answers that he should stay by the ship, eating and drinking; he himself will go, because a strong necessity compels him.

Already in the sacred valley, near the house, Hermes meets him in the form of a youth with the first down on his lip, takes his hand, and asks where he is going alone, not knowing the place: his companions are in pigsties, like pigs, and he will not return if he tries to free them. Hermes wants to save him from harm, and gives him an herb, the mōly, which will protect him from the spell. He explains what Circe will do, a mixture of drink and drug, and what he must do: when she touches him with her wand, he should draw his sword and rush at her as if to kill her; frightened, she will invite him to her bed, and he must not refuse, so that she will free his companions and welcome him, but first he must demand from her the great oath of the gods that she will plot no other harm, so that she does not make him, unarmed, base and unmanned. Hermes pulls the plant from the earth and shows him its nature: black root, flower white as milk, hard for mortal men to pull up, though the gods can do all things. Then he goes up to Olympus.

Odysseus goes to Circe's house with his heart pounding, calls at the door, and she receives him. She seats him on a throne studded with silver nails, with a stool beneath his feet, and prepares for him, in a golden cup, the mixture with the drug. He drinks and is not bewitched. Circe touches him with the wand and orders him into the pigpen, and he draws his sword and rushes at her. Circe cries out, embraces his knees, and asks who he is, astonished that no one has ever resisted the drug. She concludes that he is Odysseus, whom Hermes always told her would come from Troy, orders him to put away the sword, and proposes that they go up to the bed so that they may trust each other. Odysseus asks how she can be gentle with one who turned his companions into swine and now wants him in her bed to make him base and disarmed. He will go up only if she swears the great oath not to prepare any other harm for him. She swears, and he goes up to the bed.

Four maidservants, born of sacred springs, groves, and rivers, prepare the hall: rugs over the chairs, silver tables, wine mixed in the mixing bowl, water heated for the bath. Odysseus is bathed, anointed, dressed in a cloak and tunic, and seated at table, but he does not eat: he is absorbed, his mind on evils. Circe asks whether he suspects some trick again, since she has sworn. Odysseus answers that no just man would take food and drink before freeing his companions and seeing them with his own eyes, and that if she wants him to eat, she must release them. Circe goes out with her wand and opens the pigpen, from which come the men in the form of nine-year-old pigs. She passes another drug over each one, the bristles fall away, and they become men again, younger, more handsome, and taller than before. They recognize Odysseus and take his hands, weeping for longing, the palace rings, and the goddess herself is moved with pity. She tells Odysseus to go to the ship, haul it onto land, store the goods and weapons in caves, and return with the other companions.

Odysseus returns to the beach and finds the men of the ship weeping. They run around him like heifers around the cows returning from pasture, and they feel as if they had reached Ithaca itself. They ask him to tell of the death of the others. Odysseus orders them to haul the ship, store the goods, and accompany him to see their friends in plenty in Circe's house. All obey, except Eurylochus, who tries to hold back the companions: where are they going, seeking disaster? Circe will turn them into swine, wolves, or lions, to guard her house by force, as the Cyclops did when the companions entered the cave with the bold Odysseus, and through his folly those men died. Odysseus feels the urge to cut off Eurylochus's head with his sword, even though he is a close kinsman, but the companions restrain him with gentle words and propose that Eurylochus stay on guard at the ship. Eurylochus, however, follows them, fearing Odysseus's rebuke.

In the house, Circe bathes and clothes the other men, and they are feasting. When they see one another, they break into tears. Circe tells them to stop: she knows what they suffered at sea and on land, and asks them to eat and drink until they recover the spirit they had when they left Ithaca, because now they are dry and joyless, always remembering the wandering. They agree and stay a whole year, eating and drinking. When the year is complete, the companions call Odysseus aside and say it is time to remember the homeland, if it is fated that he be saved. At night, in Circe's bed, Odysseus embraces her knees and asks her to keep her promise to send him home, because the companions wear him down with lamentations when she is away.

Circe replies that they will not stay against their will, but that first they must make another voyage, to the house of Hades and dread Persephone, to consult the soul of the blind seer Tiresias, the Theban, to whom Persephone gave the power to keep his mind after death, while the other souls flit about like shadows. Odysseus falls weeping on the bed, not wanting to live or to see the sun. Then he asks who will guide them, since no one has reached Hades by ship. Circe says he need not worry: he has only to raise the mast and spread the sail, and the breath of Boreas will carry them. After crossing the Ocean and reaching the grove of Persephone, he must beach the ship and go to the house of Hades, where the Pyriphlegethon and the Cocytus flow into the Acheron, beside a rock. There he will dig a trench of a cubit, pour libations of honeyed mixture, wine, water, and white barley meal, promise the souls to sacrifice in Ithaca a barren cow and to Tiresias a black ram, and cut the throat of a black ram and a black ewe, turned toward Erebus. When the souls crowd round, he must burn the animals with his companions and pray to Hades and Persephone, and, sword in hand, allow no dead man to come near the blood before he has spoken with Tiresias, who will tell him the way and the return.

At dawn Circe dresses Odysseus, and he goes through the house waking the companions. But not even from there does he leave without loss. Elpenor, the youngest, not very strong in war nor firm in judgment, had gone up to sleep on the roof, seeking the coolness, heavy with wine. Hearing the noise of the companions, he rises suddenly, forgets to go down by the long ladder, falls from the roof, breaks his neck, and his soul goes down to Hades. Odysseus tells those gathered that they think they are going home, but Circe has marked out another path for them, to the house of Hades and Persephone, to consult Tiresias. They collapse weeping, tearing their hair, to no avail. When they go to the ship, weeping, Circe has already passed them and tied to the ship a ram and a black ewe. No one sees a god who does not wish to be seen.