When I revealed to my companions where our path now lay, they were horrified, but, obeying my orders, they boarded the ship and we sailed to the distant north. The sorceress Kirk sent us a fair wind. He quickly drove our ship. Finally, we reached the waters of the gray Ocean and landed on the shore of the sad country of the Cimmerians, where the god Helios never shines for people. This country is forever covered with cold fog, and the darkness of night is forever shrouding it in a thick veil. There we pulled our ship ashore, took the sheep and black ram given to us by Pickaxe for sacrifice to the underground gods, and went to the place where Cocytus and Pyriflegethont flow into the Acheron near a high cliff. Arriving there, I dug a deep hole with a sword, made three libations over it with honey, wine and water, sprinkling everything with barley flour, and slaughtered the victim over the hole. The blood of the victims poured into the pit. The souls of the dead flocked in a great crowd to the pit and started a dispute about who should drink the sacrificial blood first. Here were the souls of brides, youths, elders and husbands killed in battles. Horror seized me and my companions. We burned the sacrifices and appealed to the gloomy god Hades and his wife, the goddess Persephone. I drew my sword and sat down next to the pit, so as not to allow the souls of the dead to reach it. The soul of young Elpenor approached first. Before us, his soul rushed to the gates of the kingdom of the souls of the dead. Elpenor begged me to bury his body so that his soul could find peace in the kingdom of Hades. I promised to fulfill his request. The soul of my mother Anticlea also flew to the pit. She was alive when I left Ithaca. No matter how painful it was for me, I didn’t let her near the pit either, since the soothsayer Tiresias was supposed to drink the blood first. Finally, the soul of Tiresias appeared. Having drunk blood, the disembodied soul turned to me and told me that the god Poseidon, the shaker of the earth, was angry with me because I had blinded his son, the Cyclops Polyphemus. But even against the will of Poseidon I will reach my homeland, as Tiresias predicted to me, unless my companions touch the bulls of Helios on the island of Trinacria. But if my companions kill the bulls, then they will all die; I alone will be saved and after great disasters I will return home. There I will take revenge on the suitors, but after that, taking the oar, I will have to wander until I meet a people who do not know navigation, who have never seen ships; I recognize these people by the fact that someone I meet will ask me why I am carrying a shovel on my shoulder. In this country I must make a sacrifice to Poseidon and only after that return home. At home I must make a rich sacrifice to all the gods; only then will I live peacefully in Ithaca until my death. This is what the prophetic Tiresias predicted to me and left. I've seen a lot of souls. The soul of my mother told me, having drunk blood, what was happening in her native Ithaca before her death, and reassured me, saying that my father Laertes, and Penelope, and young Telemachus were alive. I wanted to hug my dearly beloved mother, three times I stretched out my arms to her, but three times her light shadow slipped away. I saw the shadows of many heroes in the kingdom of Hades, but I am not able to list them all, the whole night would not be enough for that. It’s late now, it’s time to interrupt my story, it’s time for everyone to retire.
So said Odysseus. But all those gathered began to ask Odysseus to continue the story, and Queen Aretha and King Alcinous also asked him. Everyone was ready to listen to Odysseus until dawn. Odysseus began to continue his story.
“I saw the soul of King Agamemnon in the kingdom of Hades. He complained bitterly about his wife Clytemnestra and Aegisthus, who killed the king of Mycenae on the day of his return. The soul of Agamemnon advised me not to trust my wife Penelope upon returning to Ithaca. I also saw the souls of Achilles, Patroclus, Antilochus and Telamonides Ajax. I told Achilles about the great exploits of his son Neoptolemus, and he rejoiced, although he had previously bitterly complained about the joyless life in the kingdom of the dead and wished it was better to be the last farm laborer on earth than to be a king in the kingdom of the souls of the dead. I wanted to reconcile with the great Ajax - I seriously offended him when we argued over the armor of Achilles - but Ajax silently left without saying a word to me. I also saw the judge of the dead, King Minos. I saw the torment of Tantalus and Sisyphus. Finally, the soul of the greatest of the heroes, Hercules, approached me, he himself was on Olympus, in the host of immortal gods. I waited for the souls of other great heroes of bygone times to approach, but the souls raised such a terrible cry that I ran in fear to the ship. I was afraid that the goddess Persephone would send the terrible gorgon Medusa.
We quickly launched the ship onto the water of the gray Ocean and left the country of the Cimmerians. Soon we safely reached the island of Aea and, landing on the shore, we fell into a peaceful sleep.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru