Odyssey XI - Nekuia
When Circe told him he would have to talk with the dead to learn information vital to his safe return to his homeland, Odysseus protested that no mortal could visit the Underworld. Circe told him not to worry, the winds would guide his ship.
"Son of Laertes, sprung from Zeus, Odysseus of many devices, [505] let there be in thy mind no concern for a pilot to guide thy ship, but set up thy mast, and spread the white sail, and sit thee down; and the breath of the North Wind will bear her onward."
X.504-505
When he arrived at Oceanus, the body of water encircling the earth and the seas, he would find the groves of Persephone and the house of Hades, i.e., the Underworld, although it is not actually described as being underground, but rather the place where the light of Helios never shines. Circe warned him to make the appropriate animal sacrifices, pour out votive offerings of milk, honey, wine, and water, and fend off the shades of the other dead until Tiresias appeared.
Most of this Odysseus did, although before questioning Tiresias, he talked with his companion Elpenor who had fallen, drunk, to his death. Odysseus promised Elpenor a proper funeral. While they talked, other shades appeared, but Odysseus ignored them until Tiresias arrived.
Odysseus provided the seer with some of the sacrificial blood Circe had told him would permit the dead to speak; then he listened. Tiresias explained Poseidon's anger as the result of Odysseus' blinding Poseidon's son (the Cyclops, Polyphemus, who had found and eaten six members of Odysseus' crew while they were taking shelter in his cave). He warned Odysseus that if he and his men avoided the herds of Helios on Thrinacia, they would reach Ithaca safely; otherwise (if they landed on the island his starving men would eat the cattle and be punished by the god) Odysseus, alone and after many years of delay, would reach home where he would find Penelope oppressed by suitors. Tiresias also foretold a peaceful death at a later date, at sea.
Among the shades Odysseus had seen earlier had been his mother, Anticlea. Odysseus gave the sacrificial blood to her next. She told him that his wife, Penelope, was still waiting for him with their son Telemachus, but that she, his mother, had died from the ache she felt because Odysseus had been away so long. Odysseus longed to hold his mother, but, as Anticlea explained, since the bodies of the dead were burned to ash, the shades of the dead are just insubstantial shadows. She urged her son to talk with the other women so he would be able to give news to Penelope whenever he reached Ithaca.
Odysseus briefly talked to a dozen women, mostly good or beautiful ones, mothers of heroes, or beloved of the gods
- TYRO, mother of Pelias and Neleus
- ANTIOPE, mother of Amphion and the founder of Thebes, Zethos
- Hercules' mother, ALCMENE
- Oedipus' mother, here, EPICASTE
- CHLORIS, mother of Nestor, Chromios, Periclymenos, and Pero
- LEDA, mother of Castor and Polydeuces (Pollux)
- IPHIMEDEIA, mother of Otos and Ephialtes
- PHAEDRA
- PROKRIS
- ARIADNE and
- CLYMENE
- and a different type of woman, ERIPHYLE, who had betrayed her husband.
Odysseus passed through the women quickly. In the outer frame, in which he was recounting his adventures, he wanted to stop speaking so he and his crew could get some sleep, but his host, Alcinous, the king to whom he was telling the his adventures, urged him to go on even if it took all night. Since Odysseus wanted help from Alcinous for his return voyage, he settled down to a more detailed report on his conversations with the warriors beside whom he had fought so long.
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