living man, go down to the awful dwellings of the dead? But Circe told
him the strange things that he must do, and she gave him a black ram and
a black ewe, and next day Ulysses called his men together. All followed
him to the ship, except one, Elpenor. He had been sleeping, for the sake
of the cool air, on the flat roof of the house, and, when suddenly
wakened, he missed his foothold on the tall ladder, and fell to the
ground and broke his neck. They left him unburned and unburied, and,
weeping, they followed Ulysses, as follow they must, to see the homes of
the ghosts and the house of Hades. Very sorrowfully they all went on
board, taking with them the black ram and the black ewe, and they set
the sails, and the wind bore them at its will.
Now in mid-day they sailed out of the sunlight into darkness, for they
had come to the land of the Cimmerian men, which the sun never sees, but
all is dark cloud and mist. There they ran the ship ashore, and took out
the two black sheep, and walked along the dark banks of the river
Oceanus to a place of which Circe had told Ulysses. There the two rivers
of the dead meet, where a rock divides the two dark roaring streams.
There they dug a trench and poured out mead, and wine, and water, and
prayed to the ghosts, and then they cut the throat of the black ewe, and
the grey ghosts gathered to smell the blood. Pale spectres came, spirits
of brides who died long ago, and youths unwed, and old unhappy men; and
many phantoms were there of men who fell in battle, with shadowy spears
in their hands, and battered armour. Then Ulysses sacrificed the black
ram to the ghost of the prophet Tiresias, and sat down with his sword in
his hand, that no spirit before Tiresias might taste the blood in the
trench.
First the spirit of Elpenor came, and begged Ulysses to burn his body,
for till his body was burned he was not allowed to mingle with the other
souls of dead men. So Ulysses promised to burn and bury him when he went
back to Circe's island. Then came the shadow of the mother of Ulysses,
who had died when he was at Troy, but, for all his grief, he would not
allow the shadow to come near the blood till Tiresias had tasted it. At
length came the spirit of the blind prophet, and he prayed Ulysses to
sheathe his sword and let him drink the blood of the black sheep.
When he had tasted it he said that the Sea God was angry because of the
blinding of his son, the Cyclops, and would make his voyaging vain. But
if the men of Ulysses were wise, and did not slay and eat the sacred
cattle of the Sun God, in the isle called Thrinacia, they might all win
home. If they were unwise, and if Ulysses did come home, lonely and late
he would arrive, on the ship of strangers, and he would find proud men
wasting his goods and seeking to wed his wife, Penelope. Even if Ulysses
alone could kill these men his troubles would not be ended. He must
wander over the land, as he had wandered over the waters, carrying an
oar on his shoulder, till he came to men who had never heard of the sea
or of boats. When one of these men, not knowing what an oar was, came
and told him that he carried a fan for winnowing corn, then Ulysses must
fix the oar in the ground, and offer a sacrifice to the Sea God, and go
home, where he would at last live in peace. Ulysses said, 'So be it!'
and asked how he could have speech with the ghosts. Tiresias told him
how this might be done, and then his mother told him how she died of
sorrow for him, and Ulysses tried to embrace and kiss her, but his arms
only clasped the empty air.
Then came up the beautiful spirits of many dead, unhappy ladies of old
times, and then came the souls of Agamemnon, and of Achilles, and of
Aias. Achilles was glad when he heard how bravely his young son had
fought at Troy, but he said it was better to be the servant of a poor
farmer on earth than to rule over all the ghosts of the dead in the
still grey land where the sun never shone, and no flowers grew but the
mournful asphodel. Many other spirits of Greeks slain at Troy came and
asked for news about their friends, but Aias stood apart and silent,
still in anger because the arms of Achilles had been given to Ulysses.
In vain Ulysses told him that the Greeks had mourned as much for him as
for Achilles; he passed silently away into the House of Hades. At last
the legions of the innumerable dead, all that have died since the world
began, flocked, and filled the air with their low wailing cries, and
fear fell on Ulysses, and he went back along that sad last shore of the
world's end to his ship, and sailed again out of the darkness into the
sunlight, and to the isle of Circe. There they burned the body of
Elpenor, and piled a mound over it, and on the mound set the oar of the
dead man, and so went to the palace of Circe.
Ulysses told Circe all his adventures, and then she warned him of
dangers yet to come, and showed him how he might escape them. He
listened, and remembered all that she spoke, and these two said good-bye
for ever. Circe wandered away alone into the woods, and Ulysses and his
men set sail and crossed the unknown seas. Presently the wind fell, and
the sea was calm, and they saw a beautiful island from which came the
sound of sweet singing. Ulysses knew who the singers were, for Circe
had told him that they were the Sirens, a kind of beautiful Mermaids,
deadly to men. Among the flowers they sit and sing, but the flowers hide
the bones of men who have listened and landed on the island, and died of
that strange music, which carries the soul away.
Ulysses now took a great cake of bees' wax and cut it up into small
pieces, which he bade his men soften and place in their ears, that they
might not hear that singing. But, as he desired to hear it and yet live,
he bade the sailors bind him tightly to the mast with ropes, and they
must not unbind him, however much he might implore them to set him free.
When all this was done the men sat down on the benches, all orderly, and
smote the grey sea with their oars, and the ship rushed along through
the clear still water, and came opposite the island.
Then the sweet singing of the Sirens was borne over the sea,
'Hither, come hither, renowned Ulysses,
Great glory of the Achaean name.
Here stay thy ship, that thou mayest listen to our song.
Never has any man driven his ship past our island
Till he has heard our voices, sweet as the honeycomb;
Gladly he has heard, and wiser has he gone on his way.
Hither, come hither, for we know all things,
All that the Greeks wrought and endured in Troyland,
All that shall hereafter be upon the fruitful earth.'
Thus they sang, offering Ulysses all knowledge and wisdom, which they
knew that he loved more than anything in the world. To other men, no
doubt, they would have offered other pleasures. Ulysses desired to
listen, and he nodded to his men to loosen his bonds. But Perimedes
and Eurylochus arose, and laid on him yet stronger bonds, and the ship
was driven past that island, till the song of the Sirens faded away, and
then the men set Ulysses free and took the wax out of their ears.
III
THE WHIRLPOOL, THE SEA MONSTER, AND THE CATTLE OF THE SUN
They had not sailed far when they heard the sea roaring, and saw a great
wave, over which hung a thick shining cloud of spray. They had drifted
to a place where the sea narrowed between two high black rocks: under
the rock on the left was a boiling whirlpool in which no ship could
live; the opposite rock showed nothing dangerous, but Ulysses had been
warned by Circe that here too lay great peril. We may ask, Why did
Ulysses pass through the narrows between these two rocks? why did he not
steer on the outer side of one or the other? The reason seems to have
been that, on the outer side of these cliffs, were the tall reefs which
men called the Rocks Wandering. Between them the sea water leaped in
high columns of white foam, and the rocks themselves rushed together,
grinding and clashing, while fire flew out of the crevices and crests as
from a volcano.
Circe had told Ulysses about the Rocks Wandering, which do not even
allow flocks of doves to pass through them; even one of the doves is
always caught and crushed, and no ship of men escapes that tries to pass
that way, and the bodies of the sailors and the planks of the ships are
confusedly tossed by the waves of the sea and the storms of ruinous
fire. Of all ships that ever sailed the sea only 'Argo,' the ship of
Jason, has escaped the Rocks Wandering, as you may read in the story of
the Fleece of Gold. For these reasons Ulysses was forced to steer
between the rock of the whirlpool and the rock which seemed harmless. In
the narrows between these two cliffs the sea ran like a rushing river,
and the men, in fear, ceased to hold the oars, and down the stream the
oars plashed in confusion. But Ulysses, whom Circe had told of this new
danger, bade them grasp the oars again and row hard. He told the man at
the helm to steer under the great rocky cliff, on the right, and to keep
clear of the whirlpool and the cloud of spray on the left. Well he knew
the danger of the rock on the left, for within it was a deep cave, where
a monster named Scylla lived, yelping with a shrill voice out of her six
hideous heads. Each head hung down from a long, thin, scaly neck, and in
each mouth were three rows of greedy teeth, and twelve long feelers,
with claws at the ends of them, dropped down, ready to catch at men.
There in her cave Scylla sits, fishing with her feelers for dolphins and
other great fish, and for men, if any men sail by that way. Against this
deadly thing none may fight, for she cannot be slain with the spear.[A]
[A. There is a picture of this monster attacking a man in a boat. The
picture was painted centuries before the time of Ulysses.]
All this Ulysses knew, for Circe had warned him. But he also knew that
on the other side of the strait, where the sea spray for ever flew high
above the rock, was a whirlpool, called Charybdis, which would swallow
up his ship if it came within the current, while Scylla could only catch
some of his men. For this reason he bade the helmsman to steer close to
the rock of Scylla, and he did not tell the sailors that she lurked
there with her body hidden in her deep cave. He himself put on his
armour, and took two spears, and went and stood in the raised half deck
at the front of the ship, thinking that, at least, he would have a
stroke at Scylla. Then they rowed down the swift sea stream, while the
wave of the whirlpool now rose up, till the spray hid the top of the
rock, and now fell, and bubbled with black sand. They were watching the
whirlpool, when out from the hole in the cliff sprang the six heads of
Scylla, and up into the air went six of Ulysses' men, each calling to
him, as they were swept within her hole in the rock, where she devoured
them. 'This was the most pitiful thing,' Ulysses said, 'that my eyes
have seen, of all my sorrows in searching out the paths of the sea.'
The ship swept through the roaring narrows between the rock of Scylla
and the whirlpool of Charybdis, into the open sea, and the men, weary
and heavy of heart, bent over their oars, and longed for rest.
Now a place of rest seemed near at hand, for in front of the ship lay a
beautiful island, and the men could hear the bleating of sheep and the
lowing of cows as they were being herded into their stalls. But Ulysses
remembered that, in the Land of the Dead, the ghost of the blind prophet
had warned him of one thing. If his men killed and ate the cattle of the
Sun, in the sacred island of Thrinacia, they would all perish. So
Ulysses told his crew of this prophecy, and bade them row past the
island. Eurylochus was angry and said that the men were tired, and could
row no further, but must land, and take supper, and sleep comfortably on
shore. On hearing Eurylochus, the whole crew shouted and said that they
would go no further that night, and Ulysses had no power to compel them.
He could only make them swear not to touch the cattle of the Sun God,
which they promised readily enough, and so went ashore, took supper, and
slept.
[Illustration: THE ADVENTURE WITH SCYLLA.]
In the night a great storm arose: the clouds and driving mist blinded
the face of the sea and sky, and for a whole month the wild south wind
hurled the waves on the coast, and no ship of these times could venture
out in the tempest. Meanwhile the crew ate up all the stores in the
ship, and finished the wine, so that they were driven to catch sea birds
and fishes, of which they took but few, the sea being so rough upon the
rocks. Ulysses went up into the island alone, to pray to the Gods, and
when he had prayed he found a sheltered place, and there he fell asleep.
Eurylochus took the occasion, while Ulysses was away, to bid the crew
seize and slay the sacred cattle of the Sun God, which no man might
touch, and this they did, so that, when Ulysses wakened, and came near
the ship, he smelled the roast meat, and knew what had been done. He
rebuked the men, but, as the cattle were dead, they kept eating them for
six days; and then the storm ceased, the wind fell, the sun shone, and
they set the sails, and away they went. But this evil deed was punished,
for when they were out of sight of land, a great thunder cloud
overshadowed them, the wind broke the mast, which crushed the head of
the helmsman, the lightning struck the ship in the centre; she reeled,
the men fell overboard, and the heads of the crew floated a moment, like
cormorants, above the waves.
But Ulysses had kept hold of a rope, and, when the vessel righted, he
walked the deck till a wave stripped off all the tackling, and loosened
the sides from the keel. Ulysses had only time to lash the broken mast
with a rope to the keel, and sit on this raft with his feet in the
water, while the South Wind rose again furiously, and drove the raft
back till it came under the rock where was the whirlpool of Charybdis.
Here Ulysses would have been drowned, but he caught at the root of a fig
tree that grew on the rock, and there he hung, clinging with his toes to
the crumbling stones till the whirlpool boiled up again, and up came the
timbers. Down on the timbers Ulysses dropped, and so sat rowing with his
hands, and the wind drifted him at last to a shelving beach of an
island.
Here dwelt a kind of fairy, called Calypso, who found Ulysses nearly
dead on the beach, and was kind to him, and kept him in her cave, where
he lived for seven long years, always desiring to leave the beautiful
fairy and return to Ithaca and his wife Penelope. But no ship of men
ever came near that isle, which is the central place of all the seas,
and he had no ship, and no men to sail and row. Calypso was very kind,
and very beautiful, being the daughter of the wizard Atlas, who holds
the two pillars that keep earth and sea asunder. But Ulysses was longing
to see if it were but the smoke going up from the houses of rocky
Ithaca, and he had a desire to die.
IV
HOW TELEMACHUS WENT TO SEEK HIS FATHER
When Ulysses had lived nearly seven years in the island of Calypso, his
son Telemachus, whom he had left in Ithaca as a little child, went forth
to seek for his father. In Ithaca he and his mother, Penelope, had long
been very unhappy. As Ulysses did not come home after the war, and as
nothing was heard about him from the day when the Greeks sailed from
Troy, it was supposed that he must be dead. But Telemachus was still but
a boy of twelve years old, and the father of Ulysses, Laertes, was very
old, and had gone to a farm in the country, where he did nothing but
take care of his garden. There was thus no King in Ithaca, and the boys,
who had been about ten years old when Ulysses went to Troy, were now
grown up, and, as their fathers had gone to the war, they did just as
they pleased. Twelve of them wanted to marry Penelope, and they, with
about a hundred others as wild as themselves, from the neighbouring
islands, by way of paying court to Penelope ate and drank all day at her
house. They killed the cattle, sheep, and swine; they drank the wine,
and amused themselves with Penelope's maidens, of whom she had many.
Nobody could stop them; they would never go away, they said, till
Penelope chose one of them to be her husband, and King of the island,
though Telemachus was the rightful prince.
Penelope at last promised that she would choose one of them when she had
finished a great shroud of linen, to be the death shroud of old Laertes
when he died. All day she wove it, but at night, when her wooers had
gone (for they did not sleep in her house), she unwove it again. But one
of her maidens told this to the wooers, so she had to finish the shroud,
and now they pressed her more than ever to make her choice. But she kept
hoping that Ulysses was still alive, and would return, though, if he
did, how was he to turn so many strong young men out of his house?
The Goddess of Wisdom, Athene, had always favoured Ulysses, and now she
spoke up among the Gods, where they sat, as men say, in their holy
heaven. Not by winds is it shaken, nor wet with rain, nor does the snow
come thither, but clear air is spread about it cloudless, and the white
light floats over it. Athene told how good, wise, and brave Ulysses was,
and how he was kept in the isle of Calypso, while men ruined his wealth
and wooed his wife. She said that she would herself go to Ithaca, and
make Telemachus appeal to all the people of the country, showing how
evilly he was treated, and then sail abroad to seek news of his father.
So Athene spoke, and flashed down from Olympus to Ithaca, where she took
the shape of a mortal man, Mentes, a chief of the Taphians. In front of
the doors she found the proud wooers playing at draughts and other games
while supper was being made ready. When Telemachus, who was standing
apart, saw the stranger, he went to him, and led him into the house, and
treated him kindly, while the wooers ate and drank, and laughed noisily.
Then Telemachus told Athene (or, as he supposed, the stranger), how
evilly he was used, while his father's white bones might be wasting on
an unknown shore or rolling in the billows of the salt sea. Athene said,
or Mentes said, that he himself was an old friend of Ulysses, and had
touched at Ithaca on his way to Cyprus to buy copper. 'But Ulysses,' he
said, 'is not dead; he will certainly come home, and that speedily. You
are so like him, you must be his son.' Telemachus replied that he was,
and Mentes was full of anger, seeing how the wooers insulted him, and
told him first to complain to an assembly of all the people, and then to
take a ship, and go seeking news of Ulysses.
Then Athene departed, and next day Telemachus called an assembly, and
spoke to the people, but though they were sorry for him they could not
help him. One old man, however, a prophet, said that Ulysses would
certainly come home, but the wooers only threatened and insulted him. In
the evening Athene came again, in the appearance of Mentor, not the
same man as Mentes, but an Ithacan, and a friend of Ulysses. She
encouraged Telemachus to take a ship, with twenty oarsmen, and he told
the wooers that he was going to see Menelaus and Nestor, and ask tidings
of his father. They only mocked him, but he made all things ready for
his voyage without telling his mother. It was old Eurycleia, who had
been his nurse and his father's nurse, that brought him wine and food
for his journey; and at night, when the sea wind wakens in summer, he
and Mentor went on board, and all night they sailed, and at noon next
day they reached Pylos on the sea sands, the city of Nestor the Old.
Nestor received them gladly, and so did his sons, Pisistratus and
Thrasymedes, who fought at Troy, and next day, when Mentor had gone,
Pisistratus and Telemachus drove together, up hill and down dale, a two
days' journey, to Lacedaemon, lying beneath Mount Taygetus on the bank
of the clear river Eurotas.
Not one of the Greeks had seen Ulysses since the day when they all
sailed from Troy, yet Menelaus, in a strange way, was able to tell
Telemachus that his father still lived, and was with Calypso on a lonely
island, the centre of all the seas. We shall see how Menelaus knew this.
When Telemachus and Pisistratus came, he was giving a feast, and called
them to his table. It would not have been courteous to ask them who they
were till they had been bathed and clothed in fresh raiment, and had
eaten and drunk. After dinner, Menelaus saw how much Telemachus admired
his house, and the flashing of light from the walls, which were covered
with bronze panels, and from the cups of gold, and the amber and ivory
and silver. Such things Telemachus had never seen in Ithaca. Noticing
his surprise, Menelaus said that he had brought many rich things from
Troy, after eight years wandering to Cyprus, and Phoenicia, and Egypt,
and even to Libya, on the north coast of Africa. Yet he said that,
though he was rich and fortunate, he was unhappy when he remembered the
brave men who had died for his sake at Troy. But above all he was
miserable for the loss of the best of them all, Ulysses, who was so long
unheard of, and none knew whether, at that hour, he was alive or dead.
At these words Telemachus hid his face in his purple mantle and shed
tears, so that Menelaus guessed who he was, but he said nothing.
Then came into the hall, from her own fragrant chamber, Helen of the
fair hands, as beautiful as ever she had been, her bower maidens
carrying her golden distaff, with which she span, and a silver basket to
hold her wool, for the white hands of Helen were never idle.
Helen knew Telemachus by his likeness to his father, Ulysses, and when
she said this to Menelaus, Pisistratus overheard her, and told how
Telemachus had come to them seeking for news of his father. Menelaus was
much moved in his heart, and Helen no less, when they saw the son of
Ulysses, who had been the most trusty of all their friends. They could
not help shedding tears, for Pisistratus remembered his dear brother
Antilochus, whom Memnon slew in battle at Troy, Memnon the son of the
bright Dawn. But Helen wished to comfort them, and she brought a drug of
magical virtue, which Polydamna, the wife of Thon, King of Egypt had
given to her. This drug lulls all pain and anger, and brings
forgetfulness of every sorrow, and Helen poured it from a golden vial
into the mixing bowl of gold, and they drank the wine and were
comforted.
Then Helen told Telemachus what great deeds Ulysses did at Troy, and
how he crept into the town disguised as a beggar, and came to her house,
when he stole the Luck of Troy. Menelaus told how Ulysses kept him and
the other princes quiet in the horse of tree, when Deiphobus made Helen
call to them all in the very voices of their own wives, and to
Telemachus it was great joy to hear of his father's courage and wisdom.
Next day Telemachus showed to Menelaus how hardly he and his mother were
treated by the proud wooers, and Menelaus prayed that Ulysses might come
back to Ithaca, and slay the wooers every one. 'But as to what you ask
me,' he said, 'I will tell you all that I have heard about your father.
In my wanderings after I sailed from Troy the storm winds kept me for
three weeks in the island called Pharos, a day's voyage from the mouth
of the river "Aegyptus"' (which is the old name of the Nile). 'We were
almost starving, for our food was done, and my crew went round the
shores, fishing with hook and line. Now in that isle lives a goddess,
the daughter of Proteus, the Old Man of the Sea. She advised me that if
I could but catch her father when he came out of the sea to sleep on the
shore he would tell me everything that I needed to know. At noonday he
was used to come out, with all his flock of seals round him, and to
sleep among them on the sands. If I could seize him, she said, he would
turn into all manner of shapes in my hands: beasts, and serpents, and
burning fire; but at last he would appear in his own shape, and answer
all my questions.
'So the goddess spoke, and she dug hiding places in the sands for me and
three of my men, and covered us with the skins of seals. At noonday the
Old Man came out with his seals, and counted them, beginning with us,
and then he lay down and fell asleep. Then we leaped up and rushed at
him and gripped him fast. He turned into the shapes of a lion, and of a
leopard, of a snake, and a huge boar; then he was running water, and
next he was a tall, blossoming tree. But we held him firmly, and at last
he took his own shape, and told me that I should never have a fair wind
till I had sailed back into the river Aegyptus and sacrificed there to
the gods in heaven. Then I asked him for news about my brother,
Agamemnon, and he told me how my brother was slain in his own hall, and
how Aias was drowned in the sea. Lastly, he told me about Ulysses: how
he was kept on a lonely island by the fairy Calypso, and was unhappy,
and had no ship and no crew to escape and win home.'
This was all that Menelaus could tell Telemachus, who stayed with
Menelaus for a month. All that time the wooers lay in wait for him, with
a ship, in a narrow strait which they thought he must sail through on
his way back to Ithaca. In that strait they meant to catch him and kill
him.
V
HOW ULYSSES ESCAPED FROM THE ISLAND OF CALYPSO