Epic poetry, Greek -- Translations into English; Homer -- Translations into English; Odysseus, King of Ithaca (Mythological character)
“So spake she, and our lordly souls consented thereto. Thus for that
time we sat the livelong day, until the going down of the sun, feasting
on abundant flesh and on sweet wine. Now when the sun sank and darkness
came on, my company laid them to rest by the hawsers of the ship. Then
she took me by the hand and led me apart from my dear company, and made
me to sit down and laid herself at my feet, and asked all my tale. And
I told her all in order duly. Then at the last the Lady Circe spake
unto me, saying:
“‘Even so, now all these things have an end; do thou then hearken even
as I tell thee, and the god himself shall bring it back to thy mind. To
the Sirens first shalt thou come, who bewitch all men, whosoever shall
come to them. Whoso draws nigh them unwittingly and hears the sound of
the Sirens’ voice, never doth he see wife or babes stand by him on his
return, nor have they joy at his coming; but the Sirens enchant him
with their clear song, sitting in the meadow, and all about is a great
heap of bones of men, corrupt in death, and round the bones the skin is
wasting. But do thou drive thy ship past, and knead honey-sweet wax,
and anoint therewith the ears of thy company, lest any of the rest hear
the song; but if thou myself art minded to hear, let them bind thee in
the swift ship hand and foot, upright in the mast-stead, and from the
mast let rope-ends be tied, that with delight thou mayest hear the
voice of the Sirens. And if thou shalt beseech thy company and bid them
to loose thee, then let them bind thee with yet more bonds. But when
thy friends have driven thy ship past these, I will not tell thee fully
which path shall thenceforth be thine, but do thou thyself consider it,
and I will speak to thee of either way. On the one side there are
beetling rocks, and against them the great wave roars of dark-eyed
Amphitrite. These, ye must know, are they the blessed gods call the
Rocks Wandering. By this way even winged things may never pass, nay,
not even the cowering doves that bear ambrosia to Father Zeus, but the
sheer rock evermore takes away one even of these, and the Father sends
in another to make up the tale. Thereby no ship of men ever escapes
that comes thither, but the planks of ships and the bodies of men
confusedly are tossed by the waves of the sea and the storms of ruinous
fire. One ship only of all that fare by sea hath passed that way, even
Argo, that is in all men’s minds, on her voyage from Aeetes. And even
her the wave would lightly have cast there upon the mighty rocks, but
Here sent her by for love of Jason.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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