die or fend off death—we may run from our doom-day.
‘She told me first to avoid the songs of bewitching
Seirenes, to run on past their blossoming meadows.
She told me to listen alone. You crewmen will tie me
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hard and tight to make me stay in the same place.
I’ll stand by the mast-box; your lines will knot at the masthead.
Then if I plead and command you all to untie me,
lash me with still more lines harder to hold me.’
Beeswax
“So I made each point quite plain to my war-friends.
Our well-built vessel meanwhile was hurriedly nearing
Seirenes’ island, borne by a favoring sea-wind.
Then the wind died promptly. We moved in an airless
calm, some Power lulling all of the white-caps.
My men stood up to furl sail and they stowed it
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below in the hollow ship. They sat at the oar-locks:
planed and pinewood oars whitened the water.
I cut a large round of wax into smaller
chunks with a sword’s keen edge. It warmed with my kneading
and soon softened, thanks to the work of my strong hands
and rays from Helios the Sun-God, Lord Huperion.
I stopped the ears of all my war-friends in order.
Then they lashed me, hand and foot, in the fast ship.
I stood by the mast-box, their lines’ knots at the masthead.
They sat and strained at the oars, splashing the gray sea.
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Honeyed Music
“As far as a man’s voice can be heard when he cries out
we hurried along, but Seirenes certainly saw us
approaching fast in our ship. They rose into clear song:
♦ ‘Here, well-known Odysseus, lofty pride of Akhaians!
Stop your ship: hear the two of us singing.
No man’s ever passed our isle in a black ship
before he’s heard the honeyed song from our two mouths.
Instead they enjoyed it and left here knowing a great deal.
We know everything now about Troy and its wide plains,
Trojan and Argive suffering willed by the great Gods.
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We know what happens on Earth, nourishing all men.’
Running from Beautiful Song
“They raised that beautiful song and my spirit was longing
to hear much more. I told my men to untie me,
nodding my brows. But most men kept to their rowing.
Perimedes rose with Eurulokhos quickly
and lashed me with still more line, harder and tighter.
“After they rowed on past, when no one could hear them
any longer, Seirenes’ voices or singing,
my trusted war-friends briskly took out the beeswax
I’d used to plug their ears. They loosened my bindings.
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New Dread
“But not long after we left that island I spotted
spray and mounting waves, then listened to loud noise.
The oars flew down from the frightened hands of my war-friends,
stopped. With no hands working the tapering oar-blades,
I walked through the ship myself to hearten the whole crew,
approaching every man and telling him softly,
‘My friends: hardship is not unknown to us truly.
The harm nearby cannot be worse than the Kuklops,
holding us deep in a hollow cave with his brute strength.
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And yet we escaped, thanks to my boldness and thoughtful
planning. This too I think you’ll somehow remember.
Come on now, every man obey what I tell him.
Stay at your benches, pull your oar-blades and row hard,
strike at the deep salt sea! Zeus may be willing
to grant our escape somehow and help us avoid death.
You at the helm: thrust in your heart what I tell you
now in the hollow ship. As you manage the tiller
steer us away from that mist, those waves and the high spray.
Stay quite close to this cliff. Don’t be forgetful
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and drift off course, or you’ll drive us there to the worse fate.’
The Tightest Strait
“I spoke that way and everyone promptly obeyed me.
♦ I never told them of Skulla. That would be hopeless
pain and the crew should not be mastered by panic
and stop rowing, huddling below in the ship’s hold.
I also overlooked a painful order from Kirke,
telling me not to arm myself for the battle.
I donned my well-known armor and, taking my two long
spears in hand, I walked on deck to the vessel’s
bow. I’d wait for the first showing of Skulla,
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a monster of rocks who’d bring great pain to my war-friends.
I could not spot her, though. I tired from straining
my eyes everywhere, staring at haze-covered sea-cliff.
“Moaning lowly, we moved along in that tight strait,
Skulla on one side, God-sized Kharubdis on the other,
frightfully sucking down great gulps of the salt sea.
Every time she retched, like a cauldron on high flame,
the waters roiled and swirled, sea-spray would rise up
high then fall and spatter the summits of both crags.
Every time she sucked in more of the salt sea,
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everything whirled inside her, both of the high crags
loudly echoed and ground was bared at the bottom,
a dark blue sand. We all were seized by a pale green
fear as we watched that monster, dreading our own end.
The Other Monster Strikes
“Just then Skulla snatched six men from the hollow
ship—the strongest hands, the best of my war-friends.
Turning to look at the race-fast ship and those war-friends,
I saw their hands and feet rising above me
high in the air. Their voices came to me calling
my name for the last time, their hearts in anguish.
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The way a fisherman uses a long pole on a jutting
rock to cast his bait, a morsel of food for some lesser
he catches a writhing fish and throws it ashore there:
so were my writhing men raised to that cliff-side.
She ate them all right there, they screamed at the cave-mouth
stretching their hands to me, caught in that horrible struggle.
In my own eyes that was the most pitiful ending
of all, the worst I endured while searching the seaways.
A Dangerous Island
“After we left those cliffs of daunting Kharubdis
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and Skulla both, in time we came to the Sun-God’s
peerless island, his cattle, broad-browed and handsome,
and plenty of fattened sheep of the God, Huperion.
While still at sea on my black ship I could hear them,
cows mooing along as they moved into stock-pens
and lambs bleating. Words of the prophet Teiresies,
the blind Theban, came and fell on my mind now,
Kirke too on Aiaie telling me often to stay clear,
avoid that island of Helios, a God who gladdens his people.
“So I spoke with a sad heart to my war-friends.
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‘Listen, you men. Although you’ve suffered a great deal
now I must tell you the words of the prophet Teiresies.
Kirke enjoined me too on Aiaie to stay c
lear,
avoid the island of Helios, a God who gladdens his people.
They told me our worst harm was there on that island.
Drive us instead right by the place in our black ship.’
A Dangerous Night
“I spoke that way but the spirits inside them were broken.
Eurulokhos answered shortly with words that I hated:
‘Cruel Odysseus, far too strong, never a tired-out
body! Surely you’re made entirely of iron.
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You won’t allow your men, drowsy and worn down,
to walk on land right there, a sea-circled island
where we could build a meal once more to delight us.
You tell us to drift as we are through fast-falling darkness,
be driven through fog-bound seas away from the island.
But night gives birth to the harshest winds and can ruin
a ship. How could a man escape from his steep doom
if chancy gusts or a sea-storm suddenly came on,
Southwind, the wrong-minded Westwind—those that most often
dismember ships—whatever the will of the strong Gods.
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Instead we should yield right now to the black night.
Let’s get settled ashore by the race-fast ship for our dinner.
We’ll board her again at dawn and sail on the broad sea.’
The Gravest Oath
“Eurulokhos spoke that way and the rest were agreeing.
Then I surely knew some Power was planning to harm us.
I spoke to them all, my words with a feathery swiftness,
‘Eurulokhos, clearly you’ve checked me: I am alone here.
Come on though, all of you now swear me a strong oath.
By chance if we find a herd of cattle or great flocks
of sheep, no one will turn recklessly evil
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and kill those bulls or rams. I say that we rest here,
taking the food that deathless Kirke provided.’
“I spoke that way and they promptly swore as I asked them.
After the oath, with solemn swearing behind us,
we moored our well-built ship in the round of that harbor
close to a fresh-water spring. Then disembarking,
my skillful crewmen began to make us a dinner.
Bad Signs on the Island
“Soon as the craving for food and drink was behind them
they all began to mourn, remembering dear friends
Skulla had snatched from the hollow vessel and gulped down.
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They cried until the balm of sleep overcame them.
“Still in the night’s last third when starlight was waning,
stormcloud-gathering Zeus raised up a high wind
against us. The storm was astounding, land and water
alike were blurred, the night roused from the heavens.
“When newborn Dawn came on with her rose-fingered daylight,
we hauled our ship to a hollow cave and secured her.
Nymphs had chairs and beautiful places to dance there.
I gathered the men once more and carefully told them,
‘Friends, with plenty of food and drink in the fast ship,
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let’s keep away from the herds or maybe we’ll suffer.
Dreaded Helios owns the cattle and strong sheep.
The Sun-God watches and hears everything clearly.’
I spoke that way, their hearts were proud but they nodded.
Running Out of Food
“Then the Southwind blew—and it blew for a whole month.
No other wind came on but Eastwind and Southwind.
Yet as long as my men had food and our red wine
they kept away from the cattle, desiring their own lives.
But after all our food was gone in the fast ship,
they had to wander the island often to find prey,
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fish or fowl, whatever came to their hands first.
They used bent hooks, their bellies hurting from hunger.
“I went up island myself to pray to the Powers,
hoping a God might show me a way to get on here.
After I walked through the island far from my war-friends,
I washed my hands in a cove sheltered from sea-wind
and prayed to all the Gods holding Olumpos.
♦ They only sprinkled a honeyed sleep on my eyelids.
The Worst Death
“Eurulokhos meanwhile badly counseled my war-friends.
‘Listen, you men, for all the pain you have suffered:
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every death is hateful to men who are wretched
but starving’s the sorriest way to go to your own doom.
Come on then: round up the best bulls of the Sun-God
to slaughter for deathless Powers ruling broadly in heaven.
Someday if we get to Ithakan land of our Fathers,
we’ll promptly raise a wealthy shrine to the God Huperion
and set down plenty of beautiful treasure for Helios.