When Trust Breaks and Magic Transforms — The Odyssey

After the Cyclops they come to Aeolus, who lives on a floating island behind an iron wall. He keeps them a month, asking about Troy, then flays an ox-hide and bags every storm wind inside it. He ties the mouth with silver thread so tight that no side-wind can leak, and lets only the west wind blow. For nine days Odysseus will not trust the steering to anyone else. On the tenth they are so close to Ithaca they can see men tending fires. Exhausted, he falls asleep. The crew decide the bag is gold he is hiding from them. They open it. The winds burst out and drive the fleet back to Aeolus. Odysseus sits on the threshold as a suppliant. Aeolus says heaven hates him and will not help a second time.

They row on with no wind to the harbour of the Laestrygonians, a cliff-lined basin with a narrow mouth. Odysseus keeps his own ship outside. The others moor inside. Scouts meet a girl at the fountain Artacia. She leads them to her mother, a giantess, who calls her husband Antiphates. He eats one man on the spot. Thousands of giants rain rocks from the cliffs, spear the crews like fish, and smash every ship in the harbour. Odysseus cuts his cable and rows to open water. One ship is left.

The survivors reach Circe's island. After two days of rest Odysseus sends Eurylochus with twenty-two men. Wolves and lions sit around her house like dogs. Circe sings at her loom, invites them in, drugs the wine, and turns them into pigs that still have human minds. Eurylochus stays outside. He is so shaken he cannot speak until they force the story out of him. Odysseus goes alone. Hermes meets him, gives him the herb moly, white flower and black root, and tells him exactly how to force her oath. The potion does not hold. He draws his sword. She swears, restores the men, and asks them to stay until they are strong again. Eurylochus tries to hold the rest back, remembering the cave. Odysseus rebukes him, and even he comes inland.

They stay a full year eating and drinking until the crew remind him of home. Circe agrees they may leave, but not yet. First he must go to the house of Hades and ask the blind prophet Teiresias the way. She tells him to offer a ram and a black ewe, dig a trench, and sit with his sword over the blood until Teiresias drinks. That night Elpenor, drunk on the roof, hears them stirring, forgets the stairs, and breaks his neck. In the morning Odysseus gathers the men and tells them the next voyage is not home. It is the land of the dead.