Book XII

1Now when the ship had left the stream of the river Ocean

and come out into the swell of the wide-wayed sea

and the island of Aeaea — where the house of early-born¹

Dawn is, and her dancing-grounds, and the risings of the sun —

5we ran her in there onto the sands

and stepped out ourselves onto the surf-line of the sea,

and there we dropped asleep, and waited for shining Dawn.

When Dawn appeared, the early-born, with fingers of rose,

then I sent companions ahead to the house of Circe

10to bring the body of Elpenor, who had died.

We cut billets of wood, quickly, and where the headland ran out highest

we buried him, grieving, letting the big tears fall.

And when the dead man was burned, and the dead man's armor,

we heaped a mound, and dragged a pillar-stone onto it,

15and on the very top of the mound we fixed his well-shaped oar.²

So we saw to it all, each thing. And our coming up from Hades

was not lost on Circe: she readied herself and came

quickly, and her handmaids with her carried

bread and meat in plenty and fire-bright red wine.

20And she stood in our midst and spoke, shining among goddesses:

'Hard men — you who went down living into the house of Hades:

twice-dying, when other men die once.³

Come now: eat your food, and drink your wine,

here, all day long. And when dawn shows

25you shall sail; and I will point out your road, and make each thing

plain, so that no grinding evil design,

on sea or on land, can catch you and make you suffer.'

So she spoke, and our proud hearts consented.

So then all day long till the setting of the sun

30we sat feasting on meat past counting and sweet wine;

and when the sun went down and the dusk came on,

the men lay down to sleep beside the ship's stern-cables,

but she took me by the hand, apart from my dear companions,

and made me sit, and lay beside me, and asked me everything;

35and I told it all through to her, in its due order.

And then the lady Circe spoke to me in words:

'So all that has been brought to its end. Now hear⁴

what I will tell you — and a god himself will bring it back to your mind.

First you will come to the Sirens, who enchant

40all mankind — whoever comes upon them.

Whoever in ignorance draws near and hears the voice

of the Sirens — no wife, no little children

will ever stand beside that man to welcome him home;

no — the Sirens enchant him with their clear-toned song,

45sitting in a meadow; and around them is a great heap of the bones⁵

of rotting men, and the skins are shriveling on them.

Drive past them; and knead honey-sweet wax

and stop your companions' ears with it, so that none of the others

may hear. But you yourself — listen, if you will:⁶

50only let them bind you in the fast ship, hand and foot,

upright in the mast-step, with the rope-ends made fast to the mast itself,

so that you may hear the two Sirens' voice, and delight in it.

And if you beg your companions — if you order them to free you —

then let them bind you down with still more bonds.

55But when your companions have driven past them,

from there I will not spell it out for you to the end —

which of two roads will be yours. You yourself

must weigh it in your heart. But I will tell you both.

On the one side, overhanging rocks; and against them

60roars the great swell of dark-eyed Amphitrite.

The blessed gods call them the Wandering Rocks.

That way not even winged things pass — not even the shy doves⁷

that carry ambrosia to father Zeus:

the sheer rock always takes one even of those,

65and the Father sends in another to keep the number full.

That way no ship of men has ever yet escaped, whichever came,

but ships' planks and men's bodies together

are carried off by the waves of the sea and the squalls of deadly fire.

One seagoing ship alone has sailed past there —

70Argo, whom all minds know — sailing home from Aeetes;⁸

and even her the wave would have flung swiftly on the great rocks,

but Hera sent her through, because Jason was dear to her.

On the other side are two crags: one reaches the wide heaven

with its sharp peak, and a dark-blue cloud rings it,

75never drawing off — no clear sky ever holds

that summit, not in summer, not in harvest-time.

No mortal man could climb it, or set foot on the top,

not if he had twenty hands and twenty feet:

the rock is smooth — as if dressed smooth all around.

80And in the middle of the crag is a misty cave

turned toward the dark, toward Erebus — the very way you

will steer your hollow ship, shining Odysseus.

Not even a strong man's arrow, shot from a hollow ship,

could reach up into that vaulted cave.

85And in it lives Scylla — yelping horribly.

Her voice, truly, is no more than a newborn puppy's,⁹

but she herself is an evil monster: no one

could look at her and rejoice — not a god, if a god should meet her.

Twelve feet she has, all of them dangling;¹⁰

90six necks, immensely long, and on each one

a hideous head, and in each three rows of teeth,

thick-set and crowded, full of black death.

Waist-deep she is sunk in the hollow of the cave,

but she holds her heads out of that terrible pit

95and fishes there, quivering with hunger around the crag,

for dolphins and dogfish, and whatever bigger beast

she can seize, of the thousands deep-moaning Amphitrite pastures.

Past her no sailors yet can boast

to have fled unharmed with their ship: with each head

100she carries off a man, snatched from the dark-blue-prowed vessel.

The other crag is lower — you will see it, Odysseus —

close by the first: a bowshot would carry across.

On it stands a great fig tree, dense in leaf,

and beneath it shining Charybdis gulps down the black water.¹¹

105Three times a day she spouts it forth, three times she gulps it down —

terribly. May you not chance to be there when she gulps:

no one could save you from that evil then — not the earth-shaker himself.

No: keep close to Scylla's crag, and quickly

drive the ship past. It is far better

110to mourn six companions from your ship than all together.'¹²

So she spoke, and I answered her and said:

'Come then, goddess — tell me this, and tell it true:

might I somehow slip out from under deadly Charybdis

and stand off the other, when she strikes at my companions?'

115So I spoke, and she answered at once, shining among goddesses:

'Hard man! So even now your heart is set on the works of war¹³

and struggle. Will you not yield even to the deathless gods?

She is not mortal — she is an immortal evil,

terrible, grim, savage, not to be fought.

120There is no defense. To flee her is the best courage.¹⁴

For if you linger by the rock to arm yourself,

I fear she will dart out a second time and catch you

with all six heads, and take six men again.

No — row past with all your force, and call on Crataiis,¹⁵

125the mother of Scylla, who bore her, a plague on mortals:

she will stop her then from darting out again.

And you will come to the island Thrinacia. There in plenty

graze the cattle of Helios, and his strong flocks:

seven herds of cattle, and as many fine flocks of sheep,¹⁶

130fifty in each. No young are born to them,

and they never die away. Goddesses are their shepherds,

nymphs of the lovely braids, Phaethusa and Lampetie,

whom shining Neaera bore to Helios Hyperion.

Their honored mother, when she had borne and reared them,

135settled them far away, on the island Thrinacia,

to keep their father's sheep and his crook-horned cattle.

If you leave these unharmed, and keep your mind on homecoming,¹⁷

then you may yet reach Ithaca, though you suffer evils;

but if you harm them, then I foretell destruction

140for ship and companions. And even if you yourself escape,

late you will come, and in evil case, all companions lost.'

So she spoke; and at once Dawn of the golden throne came on.

Then she went away up the island, shining among goddesses,

and I went to the ship and roused my companions

145to board in their turn and loose the stern-cables;

and they came aboard at once and took their places at the oarlocks,

and sitting in order they struck the gray salt water with their oars.

And for us, behind the dark-blue-prowed ship,

a following wind that filled the sail, a good companion,

150was sent by Circe of the lovely braids, dread goddess with a mortal's voice.

So when we had seen to the tackle through the ship,

we sat, and the wind and the steersman held her on course.

Then, grieving at heart, I spoke among my companions:

'Friends — it is not right that one man only, or two,¹⁸

155should know the decrees that Circe told me, shining among goddesses.

No: I will speak, so that knowing them we may die —

or swerve aside, and escape death and doom.

First she commands us to shun the marvelous Sirens —

their voice, and their flowering meadow.

160Me alone she bade listen to their song. But bind me

in a bond that bites, so that I stay fixed where I stand,

upright in the mast-step, with the rope-ends made fast to the mast itself.

And if I beg you — if I order you to free me —

then squeeze me down with still more bonds.'

165So I went through it all, telling my companions,

while the well-made ship ran swiftly on

toward the island of the two Sirens: a fair wind drove her.

Then all at once the wind fell still, and a calm

came, breathless: some power lulled the waves to sleep.¹⁹

170My companions rose and furled the sails

and stowed them in the hollow ship, and sitting to the oars

they whitened the water with the polished blades of fir.

And I with my sharp bronze cut a great round cake of wax

into little pieces, and kneaded them in my heavy hands;

175and quickly the wax grew warm, for my great strength pressed it,

and the beam of the lord Helios, Hyperion's son;²⁰

and one by one I stopped the ears of all my companions.

And they bound me in the ship, hand and foot together,

upright in the mast-step, and made the rope-ends fast to the mast itself;

180and sitting down they struck the gray salt water with their oars.

But when we were as far off as a man's shout carries,

running swiftly, the sea-quick ship did not slip past them

unseen as she leapt near — and they raised their clear-toned song:

'Come here, come, much-praised Odysseus, great glory of the Achaeans:²¹

185bring your ship in, so you may hear the voice of us two.

For no man yet has rowed past this place in his black ship

before hearing the honey-voiced song from our lips —

no: he has his delight of it, and goes his way knowing more.²²

For we know all that in wide Troy

190the Argives and the Trojans labored through by the gods' will;

and we know all that comes to pass on the nourishing earth.'

So they sang, sending out their beautiful voice; and my heart

longed to listen, and I ordered my companions to free me,

signaling with my brows; but they threw themselves forward and rowed.²³

195And at once Perimedes and Eurylochus rose

and bound me with more bonds, and squeezed them tighter.

But when they had driven past them, and we could no longer

hear the Sirens' voice, or their singing,

quickly my trusted companions took out the wax

200I had stopped their ears with, and loosed me from my bonds.

But when we had left the island behind, at once

I saw smoke, and a great wave, and heard a booming.

The men were terrified: the oars flew from their hands

and clattered, all of them, along the current; and the ship stopped

205dead, since their hands no longer drove the tapered blades.

And I went through the ship, heartening my companions

with gentle words, standing by each man in turn:

'Friends — we are not unschooled in evils, not we.

This evil that stands over us now is no greater than when the Cyclops²⁴

210penned us in his hollow cave by brute force —

and even from there, by my prowess and my counsel and my mind,

we escaped. Someday, I think, we will remember this one too.

Come then — all of us — do exactly as I say.

You, keep to your benches and strike the deep surf

215of the salt sea with your oar-blades, in hope Zeus somehow

may grant us to slip clear of this destruction;

and you, steersman, here is my order — lay it up

in your heart, since you handle the steering-oar of our hollow ship:

keep the ship outside that smoke and that surf,

220and hug the crag, for fear the ship, before you know it,

shears off toward the other side — and you pitch us into the evil.'

So I spoke, and they quickly heeded my words.

But Scylla I did not speak of — that hopeless horror —²⁵

for fear my companions, terrified, might drop

225the oars and pack themselves into the hold.

And then — Circe's hard command, that I should not

arm myself — I let it slip from my mind:²⁶

I put on my famous armor, took two long spears

in my hands, and went up to the half-deck at the bow,

230for it was from there I expected the first sight

of Scylla of the rock, bringing ruin on my companions.

And I could not glimpse her anywhere; my eyes grew weary

scanning every hand-span of the misty rock.

So we sailed up the narrows, wailing:

235on this side Scylla; on that, shining Charybdis

gulped down, terribly, the salt water of the sea.

When she vomited it up, like a cauldron over a great fire²⁷

she would seethe and boil in all her churning depth, and the spray

fell high on the very tops of both the crags;

240but when she gulped the salt sea down again,

all her churning depth showed open, and the rock around her

roared terribly, and at the bottom the earth showed,

dark-blue with sand. And the pale terror took them.

We looked to her, then, in our dread of destruction —²⁸

245and that was when Scylla snatched from the hollow ship

six of my companions, the best in hands and strength.

Turning to look at the fast ship, after my men,

I caught their feet and hands already above me,

swung high aloft; and they cried out and called to me

250by name — for the last time — in the anguish of their hearts.²⁹

As when a fisherman on a jutting rock, with his long rod,³⁰

casts down baits as a snare for the little fishes,

dropping into the sea the horn of a field-ox,

and each fish he catches he flings up gasping onto the land:

255so they were swung gasping up toward the rocks.

And there in her doorway she devoured them, shrieking as they were,

stretching their hands toward me in the terrible struggle.

That was the most pitiful thing my eyes ever looked on³¹

of all I suffered searching out the pathways of the sea.

260Now when we had escaped the rocks, and dread Charybdis

and Scylla, we came quickly then to the god's

blameless island: there were the beautiful broad-browed

cattle, and the many strong flocks, of Helios Hyperion.

And while I was still at sea, in the black ship,

265I heard the lowing of cattle being folded³²

and the bleating of sheep; and there fell upon my heart the word

of the blind seer, Theban Tiresias,

and of Circe of Aeaea, who charged me over and over

to shun the island of Helios, the delight of mortals.

270Then, grieving at heart, I spoke among my companions:

'Hear my words, companions, for all your suffering,

so I may tell you the prophecies of Tiresias

and of Circe of Aeaea, who charged me over and over

to shun the island of Helios, the delight of mortals:

275there, she said, is the most terrible evil waiting for us.

No — drive the black ship on, wide of the island.'

So I spoke, and their own hearts broke within them.

And at once Eurylochus answered me — with a hateful word:

'You are a hard one, Odysseus. Your strength is beyond us; your limbs³³

280never tire. Truly you are made of iron through and through —

you who will not let your companions, worn down with labor

and sleeplessness, set foot on land, where on this

sea-ringed island we might at last make ready a savory supper;

no — just as we are, through the fast-falling night, you order us

285to wander, driven off the island, over the misted sea.

Out of the nights are born the hard winds,³⁴

the wreckers of ships. How would a man escape sheer destruction

if somehow, suddenly, a squall of wind should come,

South Wind or hard-blowing West, which more than any others

290smash ships to pieces — in despite of the gods our lords?

No: for now let us yield to black night

and make our supper ready, staying by the fast ship;

at dawn we will board, and stand out onto the wide sea.'

So spoke Eurylochus, and the other companions approved.

295And then I knew it: some power was plotting evils —

and lifting my voice I spoke winged words to him:

'Eurylochus, you force my hand: I am one man alone.³⁵

But come — every one of you swear me a strong oath:

if we find some herd of cattle or great flock

300of sheep, let no man in his evil recklessness³⁶

kill one cow, one sheep. No: sit quiet

and eat the food immortal Circe gave.'

So I spoke, and they swore at once, as I demanded.

And when they had sworn, and made an end of the oath,

305we moored the well-made ship in the hollow harbor

close by a spring of sweet water, and the companions went

ashore, and skillfully made their supper ready.

But when they had put away desire for food and drink,

they fell to weeping, remembering their dear companions

310whom Scylla had snatched from the hollow ship and eaten;

and as they wept, a deep sleep came upon them.

But in the night's third watch, when the stars had crossed their height,

Zeus who gathers the clouds roused a raging wind against us

in a howling squall, and covered land and sea alike

315with cloud; and night rose up out of heaven.

When Dawn appeared, the early-born, with fingers of rose,

we dragged the ship up and made her fast in a hollow cave

where the nymphs had their fine dancing-floors and seats;

and then I called them all together, and said:

320'Friends — there is food and drink in the fast ship:

let us keep our hands off these cattle, or we shall suffer for it.

These are the cattle and the strong flocks of a terrible god —

Helios, who sees all things and hears all things.'³⁷

So I spoke, and their proud hearts consented.

325Then for a whole month the South Wind blew without let, and no other

wind rose after that, except the East and the South.

As long as the men had bread and red wine,

they kept their hands from the cattle: they wanted to live.

But when all the ship's provisions were spent,

330and need drove them roaming after game —

fish, birds, whatever came to their dear hands —

with bent hooks, while hunger wore their bellies down,³⁸

then I went away up the island, to pray

to the gods, in hope one might show me a road home.

335And when, crossing the island, I had left my companions behind,

I washed my hands where there was shelter from the wind

and prayed to all the gods who hold Olympus —

and they poured sweet sleep upon my eyelids.³⁹

And Eurylochus began his evil counsel to the companions:

340'Hear my words, companions, for all your suffering.

All deaths are hateful to wretched mortals —

but to die of hunger, and meet doom that way, is the most pitiful.⁴⁰

Come then: let us drive off the best of the cattle of Helios

and sacrifice them to the immortals who hold wide heaven.

345And if we come to Ithaca, our fathers' land,

we will build at once a rich temple to Helios Hyperion

and set up in it fine offerings, many of them.

But if, in anger over his straight-horned cattle, he wills

to destroy our ship, and the other gods go with him —

350I would rather gulp once at the wave and lose my life⁴¹

than be starved slowly to death on a desert island.'

So spoke Eurylochus, and the other companions approved.

And at once they drove off the best of the cattle of Helios,

from close by — for not far from the dark-blue-prowed ship

355the beautiful broad-browed crook-horned cattle were grazing —

and they stood around them and prayed to the gods,

plucking the tender leaves of a high-crowned oak:⁴²

for they had no white barley aboard the well-benched ship.

And when they had prayed, and cut the throats, and flayed,

360they carved out the thigh-pieces and wrapped them deep in fat,

folding it double, and laid raw flesh upon them;

and they had no wine to pour over the blazing offerings,

so they made libation with water, and roasted all the entrails.

And when the thighs were burned through, and they had tasted the innards,

365they carved up the rest and threaded it on spits.

Then it was that the deep sleep fled from my eyelids,

and I went down to the fast ship and the shore of the sea.

But as I came near the curved ship,

the sweet smell of the fat's smoke drifted all around me,

370and I groaned aloud, and cried out to the deathless gods:

'Father Zeus, and you other blessed gods who are forever —

it was for my ruin, then, that you laid me down in that pitiless sleep,

while my companions, waiting, devised this monstrous thing.'

Swiftly the word came to Helios Hyperion:

375long-robed Lampetie brought it — that we had killed his cattle.

And at once, with anger in his heart, he spoke among the immortals:

'Father Zeus, and you other blessed gods who are forever:

make them pay — the companions of Odysseus, Laertes' son —

who in their insolence have killed my cattle: the cattle

380I took my joy in, every day I climbed toward the starry heaven

and every day I turned from heaven back toward earth.

If they do not pay me a fitting price for the cattle,

I will go down into Hades and shine among the dead.'⁴³

Then Zeus who gathers the clouds answered him:

385'Helios — you shine on among the immortals, surely,

and among mortal men across the grain-giving plowland;

and as for those men: their fast ship I will soon strike

with the white lightning, and shatter it to splinters in the middle of the wine-dark sea.'

— This I heard afterward from fair-haired Calypso;⁴⁴

390and she said she heard it herself from Hermes the guide. —

Now when I had come down to the ship and the sea,

I went up and down and rebuked them, man by man; but no remedy

could we find anywhere: the cattle were dead already.

And soon the gods began to show forth portents among the men:

395the hides crawled; the meat on the spits was lowing,⁴⁵

the roasted and the raw; and there rose a sound as of cattle crying.

Six days after that my trusted companions

feasted on the cattle of Helios they had driven off, the best of them;⁴⁶

but when Zeus the son of Cronos set the seventh day upon us,

400then at last the wind fell from its raging squall,

and we boarded at once and stood out onto the wide sea,

stepping the mast and hauling up the white sails.

But when we had left the island behind, and no other

land showed anywhere — only sky and sea —

405then the son of Cronos set a dark-blue cloud

over the hollow ship, and the deep went black beneath it.

And she ran on not much longer: for all at once came the shrieking

West Wind, raging in a great squall,

and the storm-blast snapped both forestays of the mast:

410the mast toppled backward, and all its tackle spilled

down into the bilge; and in the stern of the ship the mast

struck the steersman's head, and crushed the bones of the skull

all together; and like a diver he dropped⁴⁷

from the half-deck, and his proud life left his bones.

415And Zeus thundered in the same instant, and hurled his bolt into the ship,

and she shivered stem to stern, struck by the bolt of Zeus,

and filled with the reek of sulfur; and the men fell from the ship.

Like sea-crows around the black hull

they were carried off on the waves; and the god took away their homecoming.⁴⁸

420But I kept moving through the ship, until the surge

tore the sides loose from the keel, and the wave carried her stripped bare,

and snapped the mast off at the keel. But over the mast

the backstay had been flung — a thing made of ox-hide;

with it I lashed the two together, keel and mast,⁴⁹

425and settling myself on them, I was carried before the deadly winds.

Then indeed the West Wind fell from its raging squall,

but the South came fast in its place, bringing anguish to my heart:

that I should measure back my way to deadly Charybdis.

All night I was carried; and with the rising sun

430I came to Scylla's crag, and to dread Charybdis.

She was gulping down the salt water of the sea —

but I, swinging up high toward the tall fig tree,

caught it and clung there like a bat. And there was no way⁵⁰

to plant my feet firm anywhere, no way to climb it:

435the roots were far below, and the branches out of reach,

long and great boughs that shadowed Charybdis.

I clung there without slackening, until she should vomit back

the mast and keel again. And to my longing, late,

they came: at the hour when a man rises from the assembly for supper —⁵¹

440the judge of many quarrels among contending young men —

at that hour the timbers reappeared out of Charybdis.

I let go, feet and hands, from above,

and dropped with a crash into the water beyond the long timbers,

and settling on them, I rowed hard with my hands.

445And Scylla — the father of men and gods did not let her⁵²

see me again: I would not have slipped clear of sheer destruction.

From there I was carried nine days; and on the tenth, in the black night,

the gods brought me near the island Ogygia, where Calypso

lives, she of the lovely braids, the dread goddess with a mortal's voice,

450and she loved me and cared for me. But why tell that tale over?⁵³

Only yesterday I told it in this house — to you

and to your strong wife. And it is hateful to me

to tell a tale over again that has been told out plainly."