"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;

    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.”

    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

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    Suggested Citation

    Thomas Van Nortwick and Rob Hardy, Homer: Odyssey 5–12. Carlisle, Pennsylvania: Dickinson College Commentaries, 2024. ISBN: 978-1-947822-17-7 https://dcc.dickinson.edu/homer-odyssey/x-546-574