Summary12

Odysseus and his shipmates arrive on the island of Aiaia, and they buried their friend, Elpenor. Kirke then has her handmaids make a feast for them. Kirke asks Odysseus about his journey and all that has happened to him. She then begins to guide him in his future journey. Lady Kirke warns Odysseus that while he is at sea he will encounter Seirenes who wishes to bewitch men. She also tells about the dangerous landmarks and about Skylla who is a monster that they will run into. Skylla has fangs and twelve tentacles and no ship has ever passed her without losses. The next monster that could cause Odysseus and his shipmates harm is Kharybdis. She lurks down at the bottom of the sea and three times a day she creates a whirlpool and sucks the water down and not even a god could save them. Odysseus, now worried, asks about how he can fight off Skylla and avoid Khaybdis. Kirke sees that Odysseus always has battle on his mind and dismisses his question by answering that he must just face them and invoke Blind Force. Once Odysseus passes them, he will arrive on the island of Thrinakia where he will find cattle, herds and sheep. Then Dawn came and Odysseos went to his men and they cast off. Odysseus tells the ship men that Kirke visited him and he told them her forecast. For when they come across Seirenes, they ship men are to tie him up to the mast so that he listens to the song and not untie him. When the time came, Odysseus put beeswax in their ears so that they would not hear the song, and he was tied to the mast. When he is untied he goes around comforting the men and coaxing them to carry on. Finally, they were attacked the monsters and six men went overboard and were eaten by Skylla. Odysseus calms himself by thinking about the cattle and the luxurious island that they are striving for. They make it past the sea creatures, but then they have to take cover in a cove they didn't want to row in the night. They promise not to touch the cattle from the land they are on, but then Odysseus realizes that the ship men are all eager to leave and are starving. After being on the Island of the God of Helios (lord of noon) for 20 days due to storms with only vegetation and some fish, Odysseus goes to pray to the gods for hope that the storms will end. While he goes to pray, the owner of the land, Eurylokhos, bribes the ship men to kill cattle in order to use it as sacrifices to the gods. In unison they all agree and so they chant and give the god the offerings. Zues had by then caste a spell of Odysseus so that he would sleep, but he wakes up to the smell of smoke. The Sun god got mad and made Zues promise that he would ruin the ship while it was on water. When Odysseus got back to the men they all had a feast of the meat and the storms stopped. Odysseus and his men then got back on the boat but as Zues promised, he struck the ship in half with a bolt of lighting. To keep from going over board like his men, Odysseus climbed the mast and saw that all his men had died. When he finally hits the water he is about to get sucked into the whirlpool made by Khaybdis but he grabs a fig tree and clings onto it for dear life. At the end of the chapter, Skylla doesn't see him, leaving Odysseus to swim to the Ogygia Isle, where Kalypso, a beautiful nymph, lives.