"αὐτὰρ ἐγὼ διὰ δώματ᾽ ἰὼν ὤτρυνον ἑταίρους
μειλιχίοις ἐπέεσσι παρασταδὸν ἄνδρα ἕκαστον·
‘μηκέτι νῦν εὕδοντες ἀωτεῖτε γλυκὺν ὕπνον,
ἀλλ᾽ ἴομεν· δὴ γάρ μοι ἐπέφραδε πότνια Κίρκη.’
ὣς ἐφάμην, τοῖσιν δ᾽ ἐπεπείθετο θυμὸς ἀγήνωρ.550
οὐδὲ μὲν οὐδ᾽ ἔνθεν περ ἀπήμονας ἦγον ἑταίρους.
Ἐλπήνωρ δέ τις ἔσκε νεώτατος, οὔτε τι λίην
ἄλκιμος ἐν πολέμῳ οὔτε φρεσὶν ᾗσιν ἀρηρώς·
ὅς μοι ἄνευθ᾽ ἑτάρων ἱεροῖς ἐν δώμασι Κίρκης,
ψύχεος ἱμείρων, κατελέξατο οἰνοβαρείων.555
κινυμένων δ᾽ ἑτάρων ὅμαδον καὶ δοῦπον ἀκούσας
ἐξαπίνης ἀνόρουσε καὶ ἐκλάθετο φρεσὶν ᾗσιν
ἄψορρον καταβῆναι ἰὼν ἐς κλίμακα μακρήν,
ἀλλὰ καταντικρὺ τέγεος πέσεν· ἐκ δέ οἱ αὐχὴν
ἀστραγάλων ἐάγη, ψυχὴ δ᾽ Ἄϊδόσδε κατῆλθεν.560
ἐρχομένοισι δὲ τοῖσιν ἐγὼ μετὰ μῦθον ἔειπον·
‘φάσθε νύ που οἶκόνδε φίλην ἐς πατρίδα γαῖαν
ἔρχεσθ᾽· ἄλλην δ᾽ ἧμιν ὁδὸν τεκμήρατο Κίρκη,
εἰς Ἀίδαο δόμους καὶ ἐπαινῆς Περσεφονείης
ψυχῇ χρησομένους Θηβαίου Τειρεσίαο.’565
ὣς ἐφάμην, τοῖσιν δὲ κατεκλάσθη φίλον ἦτορ,
ἑζόμενοι δὲ κατ᾽ αὖθι γόων τίλλοντό τε χαίτας·
ἀλλ᾽ οὐ γάρ τις πρῆξις ἐγίγνετο μυρομένοισιν.
ἀλλ᾽ ὅτε δή ῥ᾽ ἐπὶ νῆα θοὴν καὶ θῖνα θαλάσσης
ᾔομεν ἀχνύμενοι θαλερὸν κατὰ δάκρυ χέοντες,570
τόφρα δ᾽ ἄρ᾽ οἰχομένη Κίρκη παρὰ νηὶ μελαίνῃ
ἀρνειὸν κατέδησεν ὄιν θῆλύν τε μέλαιναν,
ῥεῖα παρεξελθοῦσα· τίς ἂν θεὸν οὐκ ἐθέλοντα
ὀφθαλμοῖσιν ἴδοιτ᾽ ἢ ἔνθ᾽ ἢ ἔνθα κιόντα;
notes
Odysseus and all the men, except Elpenor, get ready to leave the island of Circe. Odysseus informs his men of their journey to Hades.
Odysseus wakes his crew as they have roused him the day before. The slumber they are all to shake off has lasted not just one night but a whole year, a magic vacation from the grim realities of the journey home. Now Circe has “shown him the way” (μοι ἐπέφραδε, 550) and they must be off. Ironically, their return to life, which echoes Odysseus’s escape from Calypso’s timeless island, must begin with a visit to the land of the dead.
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But first, we hear the story of the hapless Elpenor:
τις ἔσκε νεώτατος, οὔτε τι λίην
ἄλκιμος ἐν πολέμῳ οὔτε φρεσὶν ᾗσιν ἀρηρώς
who was the youngest sailor, not too
stout in battles nor sound in his wits.
Odyssey 10.552–53
In other words, the antithesis of Odysseus. In death, he assumes the role of the sacrificial victim, the price for the journey to move forward. He may also be a kind of surrogate for Odysseus, leading the way to the Underworld. For now, he becomes an unburied corpse like Patroclus and Hector in the Iliad, the latter two embodying something of Achilles, the hero who has survived. But here the differences between the Achilles and Odysseus and the poems they inhabit come to the surface. The unburied remains of his friend and his enemy hang like a heavy weight around Achilles’s neck. Each holds a piece of his essential self and until they receive the γέρας θανάντων, “gift of honor for the dead” (Il. 16.457), their souls cannot find rest and neither can his. Elpenor, though a kind of negative image of Odysseus, holds no part of him and will fade away after the Greeks bury him in Book 12 (8–15). Odysseus too carries a heavy burden, but one that demands that he put himself first before all others. On his survival depends the rightful order of things in Ithaka, by which the lives of all those who depend on him and love him are encompassed. To save his world, he must keep his distance, even from his family, as we will see at the end of the poem. To fulfill his mission he must finally be alone.
Odysseus gives the crew the bad news about their detour to the Underworld, and they collapse in dismay. While they sit weeping hopelessly on the shore, Circe passes by unseen to deliver a ram and a sheep, prompting these final words from the poet:
τίς ἂν θεὸν οὐκ ἐθέλοντα
ὀφθαλμοῖσιν ἴδοιτ᾽ ἢ ἔνθ᾽ ἢ ἔνθα κιόντα;
For whose eyes can see a god passing
one way or another, if she does not wish it?
Odyssey 10.573–74
A fitting coda to the adventures with Circe, still magical and mysterious. So we come to the end of an arc in the thematic structure of the poem, which begins with Odysseus on Calypso’s island. A succession of encounters with powerful female figures, Calypso, Nausicaa, and Circe—along with Polyphemus, whose cave and feminine qualities give him honorary membership in the group—helps to define the character of Odysseus. That creative process is powered by two competing forces in the story. On the one hand, the fear of suffocating enclosure and stasis that these figures embody in one way or another runs through this part of the poem, the oblivion that would erase Odysseus’s heroic masculine identity. Athena works to counterbalance this threat, loyal and dedicated to the preservation of right (patriarchal) order. But running underneath many of these encounters with female figures is the seductive current of unrestrained feminine sensuality, always a threat to masculine order in the perspective of the poem.
This tension fades in the land of the dead—not because female forces are not prominent there, but because their hold on men is denatured—and with a few exceptions lies quiescent during the first part of Odysseus’s return to Ithaka. But when Penelope emerges as a powerful force in Books 17–23, she carries the fragrance of all these earlier female figures as she wavers before the prospect of the suitors. The tension between the two paradigms animates her character, as we wait to see where she will settle. Will she be a treacherous bad wife like Helen and Clytemnestra or a noble queen like Arete? Once she welcomes Odysseus back as her husband, this energy fades away, a diminuendo that shadows the rest of the poem, but the allure of these dangerous creatures persists in our imagination.
Further Reading
Heubeck, A. and A. Hoekstra, eds. 1989. A Commentary on Homer’s Odyssey, vol. II, Books IX–XVI, 73–74. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Segal, C. 1968. “Circean Temptations: Homer, Virgil, Ovid.” Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 99, 419–442.
547 παρασταδὸν: “standing beside.”
549 ἴομεν: short vowel hortatory subj. > εἶμι.
549 ἐπέφραδε: “has instructed,” 3rd sing. pf. > φράζω.
551 οὐδὲ μὲν οὐδ(έ): treat as a single negative (Monro 357; Smyth 2761).
551 ἔνθεν περ: “even from there.”
551 ἀπήμονας: pred. adj.
552 ἔσκε: “there was …,” iterative impf. > εἰμί (Smyth 495).
553 ᾗσιν: possessive adj., see LSJ ἑός.
553 ἀρηρώς: “well-fitted,” "well-fortified," "well-endowed," masc. nom. sing. pf. ptc. > ἀραρίσκω.
554 μοι: ethical dat. (Smyth 1486).
554 ἄνευθε: “apart from,” with genitive.
555 ἱμείρων: "longing for" (+ gen.), masc. sing. pres. act. ptc. > ἱμείρω. Elpenor goes up to the roof to sleep where it’s cooler.
555 κατελέξατο: “he lay down,” > καταλέχομαι (LSJ) / καταλέγω1 (Cunliffe).
556 κινυμένων: gen. pl. pres. act. ptc.
557 ἀνόρουσε: unaugmented aor.
557 ἐκλάθετο: “forgot,” aor. mid. > ἐκλανθάνω.
558 ἄψορρον καταβῆναι: "to go back(wards) down."
559 καταντικρὺ: “straight down from,” + gen.
559 πέσεν: "fell," unaugmented aor. > πίπτω.
559–60 ἐκ ... / ... ἐάγη: "was broken," aor. pass. in tmesis > ἄγνυμι, the ἐκ intensifying the verb.
560 ἀστραγάλων: “from his vertebrae,” genitive of separation.
560 Ἄϊδόσδε: “to Hades.” -δε is an enclitic that attaches to a noun (hence the two accents on the word).
561 μετὰ … ἔειπον: “I spoke among” (+ dat.), tmesis > μετεῖπον.
562 φάσθε νύ που ... ἔρχεσθ(αι): “you thought now, I suppose, that you are going ...” (LSJ φημί I.b). Indirect discourse with accusative and infinitive (accusative omitted because the subject of the infinitive is the same as the subject of the main verb).
562 φάσθε: Epic 2nd pl. impf. or aor. mid. (unaugmented). Attic would use the active, ἔφατε (Smyth 783).
563 τεκμήρατο: “appointed,” “decreed,” 3rd sing. aor. mid./dep. > τεκμαίρομαι.
565 χρησομένους: “to consult with” (+ dat.), fut. ptc. expressing purpose. For χράομαι = “to consult with an oracle or seer,” see LSJ χράω (B) III. Lines 564–65 = 10.491–92.
566 Odysseus has the same reaction in line 496.
567 κατ(ά): “down,” adverbial, quasi-tmesis with ἑζόμενοι.
567 γόων: unaugmented 3rd pl. impf. > γοάω.
568 ἀλλ(ά) … γάρ: “but in fact,” “but the truth is” (Smyth 2818).
568 πρῆξις: “result.” Τheir weeping got them nowhere.
568 μυρομένοισιν: “for those weeping,” substantive, dative of interest. This line is repeated from 10.202.
570 ᾔομεν: 1st pl. impf. > εἶμι.
571 τόφρα: “at the same time,” “meanwhile.”
573 παρεξελθοῦσα: fem. nom. sing. aor. ptc. > παρεξέρχομαι, agreeing with Κίρκη. Supply the object ἡμᾶς.
573–74 τίς ἂν ... / ... ἴδοιτ(ο): “who could see…?” Potential optative.
574 ἢ ἔνθ(α) ἢ ἔνθα: “either here or there.”
vocabulary
ἀτάρ (or αὐτάρ): but, yet
δῶμα –ατος τό: house (often in plural)
ὀτρύνω ὀτρυνῶ ὤτρυνα ––– ––– –––: to urge on
ἑταῖρος –ου ὁ: comrade, companion
μειλίχιος [–α] –ον: gentle, mild, soothing
παρασταδόν: at one's side
μηκέτι: no more, no longer
εὕδω εὑδήσω εὕδησα: sleep, lie down to sleep
ἀωτέω – – – – –: to sleep
γλυκύς γλυκεῖα γλυκύ: sweet, pleasant
ὕπνος –ου ὁ: sleep
πότνια –ας ἡ: mistress, queen
Κίρκη –ης ἡ: Circe, the enchantress, daughter of Helius, sister of Aeētes, dwelling in the isle of Aeaea
ἐπιπείθομαι ἐπιπείσομαι ἐπεπιθόμην – ἐπιπέπεισμαι ἐπεπείσθην: to be persuaded (to) 550
ἀγήνωρ –ορος: manly, courageous, heroic
ἔνθεν: from here, from there
ἀπήμων –ον gen. –ονος: unharmed, unhurt; doing no harm; favorable
ἑταῖρος –ου ὁ: comrade, companion
Ἐλπήνωρ –ορος ὁ: Elpēnor, a companion of Odysseus
λίαν: a great deal, extremely; excessively, too much
ἄλκιμος –η –ον: warlike, strong, stout
φρήν φρενός ἡ: diaphragm; heart, mind, wits
ἑός ἑή ἑόν: his, her, own
ἀραρίσκω/ἄρω ἄρσω ἦρσα ἄραρα/ἄρηρα ἀρήρεμαι ἤρθην: fit on or together, join, fit with
ἄνευθε: apart, far off; without (+ gen.)
ἑταῖρος –ου ὁ: comrade, companion
δῶμα –ατος τό: house (often in plural)
Κίρκη –ης ἡ: Circe, the enchantress, daughter of Helius, sister of Aeētes, dwelling in the isle of Aeaea
ψῦχος –ους τό: cold 555
ἱμείρω ––– ––– ––– ––– –––: to long for, yearn after, desire (+ gen.)
καταλέγω καταλέξω κατέλεξα κατείλοχα κατείλεγμαι κατελέχθην: to recount, tell at length and in order; (mid.) καταλέχομαι to lie down
οἰνοβαρής –ές or οἰνοβαρείων -ονος: drunk
κίνυμαι – – – – –: to go, move
ἑταῖρος –ου ὁ: comrade, companion
ὅμαδος –ου ὁ: a noise, din
δοῦπος –ου ὁ: any dead, heavy sound, a thud
ἐξαπίνας: suddenly
ἀνορούω ἀνορούσω ἀνώρουσα: to start up, leap up
ἐκλανθάνω ἐκλήσω ἐξέλαθον ἐκλέληθα ἐκλέλησμαι: to escape notice utterly; (mid.) to completely forget
φρήν φρενός ἡ: diaphragm; heart, mind, wits
ἑός ἑή ἑόν: his, her, own
ἄψορρος –ον: backward; (adv.) in response
καταβαίνω καταβήσομαι κατέβην καταβέβηκα ––– –––: step down, go down
κλῖμαξ –ακος ἡ: ladder, staircase
καταντικρύ: straight down (+ gen.)
τέγος –ους τό: a roof
ἕ: him, her, it; himself, herself, itself
αὐχήν –ένος ὁ: the neck, throat
ἀστράγᾰλος –ου ὁ: one of the neck-vertebrae 560
ἀγνύω/ἄγνυμι ἄξω ἔαξα ἔαγα: to break, smash
Ἀΐδης –ου ὁ: Hades
κατέρχομαι κατελεύσομαι/κάτειμι κατῆλθον κατελήλυθα ––– –––: to go down, descend; to go towards the shore
μῦθος –ου ὁ: spoken thing, speech, plan, story
οἰκόνδε: home, homeward, into the house, to the women's apartment
γαίη –ης ἡ: land, region, district
τεκμαίρομαι τεκμαροῦμαι ἐτεκμηράμην: to ordain, settle upon; to foretell
Κίρκη –ης ἡ: Circe, the enchantress, daughter of Helius, sister of Aeētes, dwelling in the isle of Aeaea
ᾍδης –ου ὁ: Hades
δόμος –ου ὁ: house, home
ἐπαινός -ή -όν: dread, terrifying, awesome (epithet of Persephone)
Περσεφόνη –ης ἡ: Persephone, Proserpine
χράω χρήσω ἔκρησα κέχρηκα ––– –––: to fall upon, attack, assail; deliver an oracle, (mid.) consult an oracle 565
Θηβαῖος –η/–α –ον: Theban
Τειρεσίας –ου ὁ: Tiresias, a seer of Thebes
κατακλάω κατακλάσω κατέκλασα – κατακέκλασμαι κατεκλάσθην: to break, shatter; (pass.) to be broken (figuratively of the heart or spirit)
ἦτορ τό: the heart
ἕζομαι – – – – –: to sit down
αὖθι: (right) there, at once
γοάω γοήσω ἐγόησα/γόον ––– ––– ἐγοήθην: to wail, groan, weep
τίλλω τιλῶ ἔτιλα ––– τέτιλμαι ἐτίλθην: to pluck
χαίτη –ης ἡ: long, flowing hair
μύρομαι– – – – –: to burst into tears, shed tears, lament
ἄρα: now, then, next, thus
θοός –ή –όν: swift
θίς θινός ὁ: shore, beach
ἄχομαι and ἄχνυμαι: to afflict, sadden, trouble, grieve 570
θαλερός –ά –όν: blooming, fresh
δάκρυον –ου τό: a tear
χέω χέω ἔχεα or ἔχευα κέχυκα κέχυμαι ἐχύθην: to pour, shed
τόφρα: at that very moment, so long; tόφρα … ὄφρα, as long as … until
ἄρα: now, then, next, thus
οἴχομαι οἰχήσομαι ––– ––– ––– –––: to go, come move; to be gone, to have gone
μέλας μέλαινα μέλαν: black, dark, obscure
ἀρνειός –οῦ ὁ: ram, wether (3-year old ram)
καταδέω καταδεήσω κατεδέησα καταδεδέηκα καταδεδέημαι κατεδεήθην: to tie, secure
ὄϊς ὄϊος ὁ/ἡ: sheep
θῆλυς θήλεια θῆλυ: female, feminine, soft
μέλας μέλαινα μέλαν: black, dark, obscure
ῥεῖα: easily, lightly
παρεξέρχομαι παρελεύσομαι/πάρειμι παρῆλθον παρελήλυθα ––– –––: to go out beside, slip past
κίω – – – – –: go, go away