"‘When you shall have thus
besought the ghosts with your prayers, offer them a ram and a black
ewe, bending their heads towards Erebus; but yourself turn away from
them as though you would make towards the river. On this, many dead
men's ghosts [psukhai] will come to you, and you
must tell your men to skin the two sheep that you have just killed,
and offer them as a burnt sacrifice with prayers to Hades and to
Persephone. Then draw your sword and sit there, so as to prevent any
other poor ghost from coming near the spilt blood before Teiresias
shall have answered your questions. The seer [mantis]
will presently come to you, and will tell you about your voyage -
what stages you are to make, and how you are to sail the sea so as to
reach your home [nostos].’
"It was day-break by the time she
had done speaking, so she dressed me in my shirt and cloak. As for
herself she threw a beautiful light gossamer fabric over her
shoulders, fastening it with a golden girdle round her waist, and she
covered her head with a mantle. Then I went about among the men
everywhere all over the house, and spoke kindly to each of them man
by man: ‘You must not lie sleeping here any longer,’ said I
to them, ‘we must be going, for Circe has told me all about
it.’ And this they did as I bade them.
"Even so, however, I did not get
them away without misadventure. We had with us a certain youth named
Elpenor, not very remarkable for sense or courage, who had got drunk
and was lying on the house-top away from the rest of the men, to
sleep off his liquor in the cool. When he heard the noise of the men
bustling about, he jumped up on a sudden and forgot all about coming
down by the main staircase, so he tumbled right off the roof and
broke his neck, and his soul [psukhê] went down
to the house of Hades.
"When I had got the men together
I said to them, ‘You think you are about to start home again,
but Circe has explained to me that instead of this, we have got to go
to the house of Hades and Persephone to consult the ghost of the
Theban seer Teiresias.’
Homer. The Odyssey. Rendered into English prose for the use of those who cannot read the original. Samuel Butler. Based on public domain edition, revised by Timothy Power and Gregory Nagy. A. C. Fifield, London. 1900 (?).
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