Book 10 · Book Guide
Odysseus’s tale continues. Aeolus, the keeper of the winds, gives him a bag holding all the stormy winds and a gentle breeze to carry the fleet home. But just as Ithaca comes into sight, his greedy crew open the bag while he sleeps, thinking it holds treasure, and the released winds blow them all the way back. Aeolus refuses to help a man so clearly cursed by the gods.
Next the cannibal giants called Laestrygonians smash eleven of his twelve ships. With his single remaining ship, Odysseus reaches the island of the witch-goddess Circe, who turns a scouting party into pigs. Protected by a magic herb from Hermes, Odysseus resists her spell, forces her to free his men, and they live well on her island for a full year. When the crew at last urges him onward, Circe tells him he must first make a terrible journey to the Land of the Dead to consult the prophet Teiresias.
Aeolus is the keeper of the winds, living behind bronze walls on a floating island. His gift is royal: every contrary wind tied up in a leather bag, leaving only the fair west wind to carry the fleet home. Nine days later Ithaca is in sight — men can see the fires on shore — when the crew, sure the bag holds gold their captain won’t share, open it while he sleeps. The storm blows them all the way back. When they beg Aeolus a second time, he refuses flatly: a man this unlucky must be hated by the gods, and helping him is bad business. Hospitality had limits, and visible divine anger was one of them.
The deadliest episode of the whole voyage is over in a page. A beautiful narrow harbor, cliffs all around; eleven ships tie up inside, and only Odysseus — wary by instinct — moors his own ship outside the entrance. The locals turn out to be giants who spear men like fish. Eleven ships and their crews are destroyed in minutes; only the flagship escapes. From here on, the fleet story is a one-ship story, and the losses have stopped being anyone’s fault but the sea’s arithmetic: this is what the ten years cost.
Circe is a goddess-witch, daughter of the Sun, living in a stone house in deep woods with tame wolves and lions at the door — victims, we realize, of earlier visits. Her weapons are drugged wine and a wand; her hospitality is the poem’s most sinister parody of a welcome: dinner first, pig-sty after. What saves Odysseus is moly, a magic herb handed to him by Hermes. Once her magic fails and he draws his sword, the rules flip completely: she swears the great oath of the gods to do no more harm and becomes the best ally of the voyage — host for a year, then guide for the road ahead. In the old stories, that’s often how divine allies are made: not by asking nicely, but by surviving the test.
The transformation is comedy with teeth. Circe’s drug, the poem says, makes men forget their homeland — the lotus danger again, made visible. The bodies turn to swine while the minds stay human and cry inside: comfortable, fed, penned, and no longer going anywhere. It’s the voyage’s warning drawn as a cartoon. Fittingly, it takes a crewman’s plea to break the spell of the year of feasting that follows — even un-pigged, the men nearly forget Ithaca at Circe’s table.
The fleet reaches the floating island of Aeolus, keeper of the winds, who hosts them a month. As a parting gift he traps all the stormy winds in an ox-hide bag tied shut, and sends a gentle west wind to carry them home.
For nine days they sail toward Ithaca, and on the tenth they can see the home fires. Then Odysseus, who has steered the whole way, falls asleep. His crew, jealous and certain the bag holds gold, open it. The winds burst out, and a storm drives them all the way back to Aeolus.
Odysseus returns and begs Aeolus to help again. But Aeolus drives him away, saying he cannot aid a man the gods so plainly hate. The fleet rows on, exhausted and without wind.
After six days they reach the harbor of the Laestrygonians. Scouts find that the people are giants, and their king eats one of the men. The giants swarm the cliffs and hurl boulders down on the ships packed in the harbor, spearing the men like fish. Only Odysseus’s ship, moored outside, cuts free and escapes; all eleven others are destroyed.
Heartsick, the survivors reach the island of Aeaea, home of the goddess Circe. After two days of grief, Odysseus climbs a lookout, sees smoke rising from her halls, and kills a great stag to feed his frightened, weary men.
Odysseus splits the crew in two; Eurylochus leads a party to Circe’s house, ringed by strangely tame wolves and lions. Circe welcomes the men in, feeds them drugged food, and strikes them with her wand, turning them into pigs penned in her sties, though their minds stay human.
Only Eurylochus, who hung back suspecting a trap, escapes. He runs back to the ship and, choked with grief, tells Odysseus that the whole party has vanished into the witch’s house.
Odysseus arms himself and sets out alone to rescue them. On the way Hermes meets him, gives him the protective herb moly, and tells him exactly what to do: when her drug fails and she strikes him, draw his sword and threaten her, then make her swear an oath of no harm before going to her bed.
Circe gives Odysseus the drugged cup, but the moly protects him. When she strikes him and tells him to join the pigs, he draws his sword and rushes at her. Amazed, she realizes he must be Odysseus, as Hermes once foretold, and swears the oath of no harm.
Bathed and fed, Odysseus still will not eat until his men are freed. Circe drives the pigs from the sty and rubs each with an ointment; the bristles fall away and they become men again, younger and finer than before. They cry with joy.
Odysseus fetches the rest of the crew. Eurylochus alone objects, comparing Circe to the Cyclops, and Odysseus nearly kills him. Reunited, the men feast in Circe’s halls for a full year, until they finally remind Odysseus it is time to think of home.
Odysseus asks Circe to keep her promise to send him home. She tells him he must first sail to the house of Hades to consult the ghost of the blind prophet Teiresias, and gives detailed instructions for the offerings to summon the dead. As they prepare to leave, the young crewman Elpenor falls drunk from her roof and dies, and the grieving men set out for the Land of the Dead.
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