When evening came, he claimed from Circe the fulfilment of her promise to send them safely back.... He would be sad at leaving her, he said, since the time had passed so pleasantly in her sunny island; but now his men are beginning to complain and he himself (though that he did not tell her) had suddenly grown weary and remorseful. It all seemed very simple: and he had not much misgiving. Circe had only to speak the word, that they might have safe convoy, and return to Ithaca. Surely the gods must have laughed in irony at the man who thought to part from Circe so lightly, knowing as they did the whole cost of that parting for him. Circe was not to be cast off and forgotten, as a mere incident of Odysseus’s adventures. Her reply was proud, and of ominous import. Since they wished to go, she would not detain them; but let Odysseus summon all his courage:
“Not against your will
You and your fellows longer shall abide
Within my house; but you must first fulfil
“Another journey yet, the house to see
Of Hades and renowned Persephone.“[[9]]
The awful words fell horribly on Odysseus’s ear. So they might not then simply hoist sail and away, gaily bound for Ithaca? Instead, there was yet to make the bitterest voyage that even Odysseus had made—a dark and awesome journey to the nether world, there to see and hold converse with the dead prophet, Tiresias.
So spake she; but my heart was rent in me,
And sitting on the bed I bitterly
Wept, and no longer did my soul desire