A Guide to Mythology

by Helen A. Clarke

Odysseus then told the crew all that Circè, the amber-haired, had said to him. He warns them of the dangers to come, and how they may be escaped, first the Sirens, and the rocks where Scylla and Charybdis dwelt. They escaped these dangers, and approached the pleasant island of the Sun, where the oxen with broad, beautiful foreheads were grazing, and flocks of sheep, the fatlings of the god who makes the round of heaven. While yet at sea, Odysseus heard from his ship the lowing of the herds in the stables and the bleating of the flocks, and when he heard them he immediately thought of the words the blind seer, Tiresias of Thebes, had said to him, and those of Circè, by whom he had often been warned to shun the island of the god whose light is sweet to all. Then with a sorrowing heart he said to his companions, “My comrades, sufferers as you are, listen to me, and I shall disclose the oracles which lately Tiresias and Circè gave me. The goddess earnestly admonished me not to approach the island of the Sun, whose light is sweet to all, for there she said some great misfortune lay in wait for us. Now let us speed the ship and pass the isle.”

The hearts of the men were broken by this speech, and one of them, Eurylochus, bitterly replied, “How austere you are, Odysseus. You are exceedingly strong and no labor tires your limbs; they must be made of iron, since by your will you deny to us, overcome with toil and sleeplessness, the chance to tread the land again, and make a generous banquet in that island amid the waters. You would have us sail into the swiftly coming night, and stray far from the island, through the misty sea. By night the mighty winds spring up that make a wreck of ships; and how can one escape destruction, should a sudden hurricane rise from the south or the hard-blowing west, causing a ship to founder in the dark in spite of all the sovereign gods? Let us obey the dark-browed Night, and take our evening meal, remaining close beside our gallant bark, and go on board again when morning breaks, and enter the wide sea.” The others all approved, and Odysseus knew at once that some god was meditating evil against them, and he replied, “Eurylochus, you force me to your will since I am only one. Now all of you, bind yourselves to me firmly, by an oath, that if you here shall meet a herd of beeves or flock of sheep, you will not dare to slay a single ox or sheep, but feed contented on the stores that Circè gave.” The crew swore as Odysseus asked, and when the solemn oath was taken they brought the galley to land and moored it in a winding creek, beside a fountain of sweet water. They then stepped from the deck and made ready their evening meal. They ate and drank until their thirst and hunger were appeased, and then they thought of those whom Scylla had snatched from the galley’s deck and devoured, and wept until sleep stole softly over them amid their tears. Now came the third part of the night; the stars were sinking, when the cloud-compeller, Jove, sent forth a violent wind with eddying gusts, and covered both the earth and the sky with clouds, and darkness fell from heaven. When morning came, the rosy-fingered daughter of the Dawn, they drew the ship into a spacious bay. The home of the nymphs was there, and there they saw the smooth fair places where they danced. Then Odysseus called a council of his men and said to them, “My friends, in our good ship are food and drink; we must abstain from these beeves, lest we be made to suffer, for these herds and these fair flocks are sacred to a dreaded god, the Sun—the all-beholding and all-hearing Sun.” All were swayed full easily by what he said. Now for an entire month the gales blew from the south, and after that no wind save east and south. As long as they had the bread and wine Circè had given them, the men spared the beeves, moved by the love of life. But when the stores on board the galley were consumed, they roamed the island in their need, and sought for prey. They snared with baited hooks the fish and birds—whatever came to hand—till they were gaunt with famine.

Meanwhile, Odysseus withdrew apart within the isle to supplicate the gods, hoping one of them might reveal the way of his return. As he strayed into the land apart from all the rest, he found a sheltered nook where no wind came, and prayed with washed hands to all the gods who dwelt in heaven. At last he fell into a soft slumber. But Eurylochus, in the meantime, was beguiling the men with fatal counsels.

“Hear, my companions, sufferers as you are, the words that I shall speak. All modes of death are hateful to the wretched race of men; but this of hunger, thus to meet our fate, is the most fearful. Let us drive apart the best of all the oxen of the Sun, and sacrifice them to the immortal ones, who dwell in the broad heaven. And if we come to Ithaca, our country, we will there build to the Sun, whose path is o’er our heads, a sumptuous temple, and endow its shrine with many gifts and rare. But if it be his will, approved by all the other gods, to sink our bark in anger, for the sake of these high-horned oxen, I should choose sooner to gasp my life away amid the billows of the deep, than pine to death by famine in this melancholy isle.”

The crew approved of this, and now from the neighboring herd they drove the best of all the beeves; for near the dark-prowed ship the fair broad-fronted herd with crooked horns was feeding. The crew stood round the victims and, offering their petitions to the gods, held tender oak leaves in their hands, just plucked from a tall tree, for in the good ship’s hold there was left no more white barley. When they had prayed, and slain and dressed the beeves, they hewed away the thighs and covered them with double folds of skin, and laid raw slices over these. They had no wine to pour in sacrifice upon the burning flesh, so they poured water instead, and roasted all the entrails thus. When the thighs were thoroughly consumed, the entrails tasted, all the rest was carved into small portions, and transfixed with spits.

Just at this moment Odysseus awoke, and hurrying to the shore and his good ship, he perceived the savory steam from the burnt offering, and sorrowfully, then, he called upon the ever-living gods:—“O Father Jove, and all ye blessed gods, who live forever, ’twas a cruel sleep in which ye lulled me to my grievous harm. My comrades here have done a fearful wrong.”

Then Lampetia, of the trailing robes, flew in haste to the Sun, who journeys round the earth, to tell him that the men had slain his beeves.

In anger then he thus addressed the gods:

“O Father Jove, and all ye blessed gods who never die, avenge the wrong I bear upon the comrades of Laertes’ son, Odysseus, who have foully slain my beeves, in which I took delight whene’er I rose into the starry heaven, and when again I sank from heaven to earth. If they make not large amends for this great wrong, I shall go down to Hades, there to shine among the dead.”