Journey to the Land of the Dead — The Odyssey

Ulysses sailed to the edge of the world, where the land of the Cimmerians lies in endless mist. Circe had told him how to reach the dead. He dug a trench, poured offerings of honey, milk, wine, and water, and sacrificed two sheep so the ghosts could drink blood and speak. Ghosts crowded around the trench screaming. Ulysses kept his sword drawn and would not let them near until the prophet Teiresias came.

The first shade was Elpenor, the crewman who had fallen drunk from Circe's roof. He begged Ulysses to return and bury him properly with his oar on the grave. Then Teiresias drank the blood and told Ulysses his fate. He could still reach Ithaca, but he must not harm the cattle of the Sun on the island of Thrinacia. If he did, his men would die and his ship would be lost. He would find violent suitors eating up his house, but he would kill them in the end. Teiresias also described a strange final duty: carry an oar inland until people who never saw the sea mistake it for a winnowing shovel.

Ulysses's mother Anticlea came next and told him Penelope still waited faithfully, Telemachus was growing up under pressure, and his father Laertes grieved in rags on the farm. She had died not from illness but from longing for him. Three times he tried to hold her and three times she slipped through his arms like a dream. After her came the ghosts of famous women and heroes. King Agamemnon, murdered by his wife and her lover, warned Ulysses never to trust a woman fully with every secret. Achilles said he would rather be a poor hired hand alive on earth than ruler of all the dead.

Ajax still would not speak to Ulysses because of their old quarrel over Achilles's armor. Ulysses also saw Minos judging the dead, Orion hunting in the meadows, and the eternal punishments of Tantalus, Sisyphus, and others. When thousands more shades pressed in and he feared the Gorgon's head, he ran back to his ship and ordered his men to row away from that terrible shore.