The name Læstrygonia appears to belong to a city, not to a country. It is τηλέπυλος, and it is also Λάμου αἰπὺ πτολίεθρον. Homer avoids calling it either a land (γαίη) or an island (νῆσος). By the former term he sometimes designates large islands as well as portions of a continent. The epithet αἰπὺ points to a steep and rocky site: but his forbearing to fix it as continent or island seems to show, that he was himself in doubt upon the point. The trait of perpetual day, however, speaks most explicitly for the bona fides of the tradition on which the Poet proceeds, and for the latitude from whence it came: and it seems far from improbable that Iceland may have been the dimly perceived original of Læstrygonia; of which the site in the Odyssey is near the actual site of Denmark.
VI. The sixth stage is Ææa. This could only be reached by a long passage from Læstrygonia. The Poet has not ventured to define its extent or direction. But he leaves himself an ample margin by the declaration from the mouth of Ulysses, that he knew nothing on his arrival of the latitude or longitude (Od. x. 190-2): and he is content with planting it immovably near the point of sunrise, though with a great vagueness of conception (Od. x. 135-9; xii. 1-4).
There is indeed something near a verbal contradiction between the declaration of Ulysses in Od. x., that he, being then at Ææa, did not know where to look for sunrise or for sunset, and his narrative in xii. 3, 4, where he so directly associates the island with the land of sunrise. But he had remained there a full year in friendly company with Circe (x. 466-9), and he was instructed by her as to his movements, so that we may, I presume, fairly consider that during that time he learned what on his first arrival was strange to him.
The course from Læstrygonia to Ææa is primâ facie conjectural: but it is not really so, for Læstrygonia is fixed by the times and winds from Hypereia; and Ææa is practically determined by its local relations to Ocean-mouth, Thrinacie, and the Bosphorus.
The Euxine does not abound in islands, such as we might appropriate to Circe and the Sirens: for it is little likely that a rock like the Isle of Serpents, which on a recent occasion acquired a momentary notoriety, should have been noticed particularly in the navigation of the heroic age. It is much more likely, that Homer brought his islands for the Euxine from among the materials provided by his western traditions. We may however reasonably presume that Homer meant to place Ææa at the east end of the Euxine, not far perhaps from the Colchis of Æetes: and in that neighbourhood I shall venture to deposit three islands, vaguely corresponding with the Baleares, which may have been transplanted into this vicinity together with the other traditions of the western Ocean-mouth.
(1) From hence, under the directions of Circe, they sail for one day with a toward breeze, to the Ocean-mouth, hard by that abode of the Cimmerians, which is wrapt in perpetual mist and night (Od. xi. 1-19). Circe promised them the aid of Boreas, when Ulysses, alarmed at the unusual journey he was to make, asked who would guide him. I therefore infer that Boreas was to blow not before, but after, they had entered the Ocean-mouth, and was to carry them up the stream. Before reaching it, we may assume that, as usual on his way outwards, he was sailing with a wind from some southern quarter.
(2) In the Ocean-river, they haul their vessel high and dry, and proceed by land up the stream to the mouth of the Shades or under-world (Od. xi. 20-2).
(3) From the mouth of the Shades they return to their ship, and in it down (κατὰ) the Ocean stream, and to the Ææan island. They go first by rowing, and then by a favourable breeze, of which the direction is not mentioned (Od. xi. 638-40; xii. 1-3: also xxiii. 322-5.)
VII. Σειρήνων νῆσος. This island is reached with an ἴκμενος οὖρος; the quarter is not named, nor is the distance, but from the terms of the passages it would appear to have been very short. (Od. xii. 149-54, 165-7; also 39, and xxiii. 326.)