The Singing Rocks and the Cattle of the Sun

The ship left the stream of Ocean behind and came back out onto the open sea, sailing on until it reached the island of Aiaia¹, where Dawn has her home and her dancing grounds, and where the sun comes up. They ran the ship onto the sand and climbed out onto the shore, then lay down to sleep and waited for morning.

When dawn came, pink and bright, Odysseus sent some men to Circe’s house to bring back the body of Elpenor², who had died there. They cut logs and buried him on the highest point of the cape, crying, the tears running down their faces. When the body and his armor had burned to ash, they piled up a mound of earth, set a stone on top, and planted his well-made oar upright in the mound.

Circe knew they had come back from the land of the dead, and she came to them quickly, dressed and ready, her attendants carrying bread and plenty of meat and dark gleaming wine. She stood in the middle of them and spoke.

“You reckless men — you went down into the house of Death while still alive. Now you’ll die twice, when everyone else dies only once. Stay here today. Eat and drink. At first light tomorrow you sail, and I’ll show you the way and explain everything, so that no cruel trap on sea or land brings you to grief.”

They agreed. So all that day, until the sun went down, they sat and feasted on endless meat and sweet wine. When the sun set and darkness came, the men lay down to sleep by the ship’s stern cables. But Circe took Odysseus by the hand and led him away from his friends. She sat him down, lay beside him, and asked him about everything, and he told her the whole story in order.

Then she said, “All of that is finished now. Listen to what I tell you, and a god will help you remember it too.

“First you’ll come to the Sirens³. They bewitch every man who comes near them. Anyone who sails close without knowing, and hears their voices, never gets home again. His wife and little children never run to greet him. The Sirens charm him with their clear, sweet song, sitting in a meadow. And around them is a great heap of rotting men, bones with the skin shriveling off. Row past them. Soften beeswax and stop up your crew’s ears, so none of them can hear. But if you yourself want to listen, have them tie you in the ship, hand and foot, standing upright against the mast, with the ropes lashed tight to the mast itself. Then you can hear the Sirens sing and take pleasure in it. And if you beg the men to set you free, they must bind you tighter still.

“Once your crew has rowed you past the Sirens, I can’t tell you exactly which of two ways to take after that. You’ll have to decide for yourself. I’ll describe them both.

“On one side there are overhanging cliffs, with the huge waves of dark-eyed Amphitrite crashing against them. The blessed gods call these the Wandering Rocks⁴. No bird can fly past, not even the shy doves that carry ambrosia to Father Zeus. The bare rock always takes one of them, and Zeus has to send another to keep the count. No ship of men has ever passed there and lived. The waves and storms of deadly fire carry off the broken planks and the bodies of the dead together. Only one seagoing ship ever sailed by — the famous Argo, coming home from Aietes. And even she would have been smashed against the great rocks if Hera hadn’t guided her through, because she loved Jason.

“On the other way there are two cliffs. One has a sharp peak that reaches the broad sky, wrapped always in a dark cloud that never lifts. The top is never clear, not in summer, not in autumn. No man could climb it, not if he had twenty hands and twenty feet. The rock is smooth, sheer, as if it had been polished. Halfway up that cliff there is a misty cave, facing west toward the dark. That’s the way you’ll steer your ship, Odysseus. A strong young man couldn’t even shoot an arrow from the deck up into that cave.

“Inside it lives Scylla⁵, with her terrible howling. Her voice is no louder than a newborn puppy’s, but she herself is a monster of horror. No one would be glad to see her, not even a god who met her face to face. She has twelve feet, all dangling, and six long necks, and on each neck a hideous head, and in each head three rows of teeth, packed close and thick, full of black death. The lower half of her stays sunk in the hollow cave, but she thrusts her heads out over the edge of the cliff and fishes, searching the rock for dolphins and dogfish, or any larger sea-beast she can snatch from the thousands that Amphitrite breeds. No sailors have ever passed her in their ship and come away unhurt. With each head she snatches a man right out of the dark ship.

“The other cliff you’ll see is lower, Odysseus, close to the first one, you could shoot an arrow across. On it grows a great fig tree thick with leaves. And below it, mighty Charybdis⁶ sucks the dark water down. Three times a day she spews it up, and three times she gulps it down — a terror. Don’t be there when she swallows, because not even the earth-shaker Poseidon could save you. Keep close to Scylla’s cliff and drive the ship by fast, because it’s far better to lose six men than your whole crew.”

Odysseus answered her. “Tell me this truly, goddess. Is there any way I can escape Charybdis and still fight off Scylla when she comes at my men?”

The goddess answered at once. “You stubborn man — always thinking of fighting, always looking for a struggle. You won’t even back down from the gods. Scylla isn’t mortal. She’s an undying evil — savage, cruel, impossible to fight. There’s no defending against her. The strongest thing you can do is run. If you waste time arming yourself by her cliff, I’m afraid she’ll strike again with all her heads and snatch another six men. Drive past as hard as you can, and call out to Crataiis, Scylla’s mother, who bore her as a plague on men. She’ll keep Scylla from lunging at you a second time.

“Then you’ll reach the island of Thrinacia⁷. There the cattle of the Sun graze, and his fat sheep: seven herds of cattle and seven flocks of sheep, fifty in each. They have no young and they never die. Goddesses tend them, the lovely-haired nymphs Phaethousa and Lampetie, daughters of the Sun by Neaira. Their mother raised them and sent them far away to Thrinacia, to watch over their father’s flocks and his curved-horned cattle. If you leave these animals alone and keep your mind on getting home, you may still reach Ithaca, though you’ll suffer first. But if you harm them, then I promise you ruin, for your ship and your men. And even if you escape yourself, you’ll come home late and broken, having lost everyone.”

As she spoke, golden Dawn arrived. The goddess went off inland, and Odysseus went down to the ship and roused his men to climb aboard and loose the cables. They got in quickly, sat at the oars, and struck the gray sea. Behind the dark ship, Circe, that dread goddess with the beautiful hair, who could speak like a human, sent a good wind to fill the sail, a fair friend at their backs. They set the rigging and sat still, and the wind and the helmsman held the ship straight.

Then Odysseus spoke to his men, his heart heavy. “Friends, it isn’t right that only one or two of us should know what Circe foretold me. I’ll tell you all, so that whether we die or escape, we know what’s coming. First she warned us to keep away from the Sirens’ voices and their flowery meadow. She said I alone could listen, but you must tie me with a hard knot, standing upright against the mast, with the ropes lashed to the mast itself. And if I beg you to let me go, tie me tighter.”

He told them all of it. Meanwhile the well-built ship came fast to the Sirens’ island, driven by the steady wind. Then suddenly the wind died and a windless calm settled, and some god smoothed the waves flat. The men got up, furled the sail and stowed it, then sat to their oars and whitened the water with the polished blades.

Odysseus took a great round of wax, cut it small with his sharp bronze, and worked it in his strong hands. The wax softened quickly under his pressing and the heat of the Sun’s bright rays. One by one he stopped his men’s ears. Then they tied him in the ship, hand and foot, upright against the mast, the ropes fast to the mast itself, and they sat and rowed.

When they were as close as a shout would carry, racing along, the Sirens saw the swift ship coming near, and they raised their clear song.

“Come here, famous Odysseus, great glory of the Greeks. Stop your ship and listen to our voices. No one has ever rowed past here in his black ship without hearing the honey-sweet song from our lips, and he goes on his way pleased, and knowing more. We know everything that the Greeks and Trojans suffered at wide Troy by the will of the gods. We know all that happens anywhere on the fertile earth.”

Their lovely voices carried, and Odysseus longed to listen. He signaled with his eyebrows for the men to set him free — but they bent forward and rowed. Perimedes and Eurylochus stood up and bound him with more ropes, pulling them tighter. Only when they had rowed well past, so far that the Sirens’ voices and song could no longer be heard, did his loyal men take the wax from their ears and untie him.

But as soon as they left that island behind, Odysseus saw smoke and a great wave and heard a roar. The men were so terrified that the oars flew out of their hands. The blades splashed and dragged, and the ship stood still, with no one driving the long oars through the water.

Odysseus went down the ship, stopping beside each man with steady words. “Friends, we’re no strangers to trouble. This is no worse than when the Cyclops trapped us in his cave by brute force, and even then my courage and cunning got us out, and I think we’ll remember this someday too. Now do exactly as I say. You men, keep your seats and beat the deep surf with your oars. Maybe Zeus will let us slip past this ruin and live. And you, helmsman, listen, since you hold the ship’s steering: keep her clear of that smoke and that wave, and steer toward the cliff, or she’ll wander off without your noticing and throw us into disaster.”

They obeyed. He said nothing about Scylla — that hopeless horror — afraid that if his men knew, they’d stop rowing and huddle below in fear. And he forgot Circe’s hard warning, that he wasn’t to arm himself. He put on his famous armor, took two long spears in his hands, and went up to the deck at the bow, because that was where he expected to first see Scylla of the rock, who would bring his men so much grief. But he couldn’t spot her anywhere, and his eyes grew tired with searching the dim cliff all over.

So they sailed up the narrow strait, groaning, Scylla on one side, mighty Charybdis on the other, dreadfully sucking down the salt sea. When she spewed it back up, the whole pool churned and boiled like a cauldron over a roaring fire, and the spray flew high and fell on the tops of both cliffs. But when she gulped the salt water down, the whole pool showed churning inside, the rock bellowed terribly around her, and far below the seabed lay bare and dark with sand. Green fear gripped the men.

They were all staring at Charybdis, certain they would die — and in that moment Scylla snatched six men out of the hollow ship, the six strongest hands aboard. Odysseus turned and looked at the swift ship and his crew and saw the hands and feet of his men already lifted high above him as Scylla swung them up. They screamed his name, calling out to him one last time. Like a fisherman on a jutting rock who casts down bait with a long rod to trick the little fish, lowering the horn-tipped line into the sea, then flicks each thrashing catch up onto the shore: that was how Scylla swung them, thrashing, up the cliff. And there at the mouth of her cave she ate them, screaming, their hands stretched out toward him in their terrible struggle. It was the most pitiful thing Odysseus saw in all his wanderings on the sea.

When they had passed the cliffs and dread Charybdis and Scylla, they came at once to the Sun-god’s beautiful island, where the fine broad-faced cattle were, and the many fat sheep of Hyperion the Sun. While still at sea in the black ship, Odysseus heard the lowing of the penned cattle and the bleating of the sheep. And the words of the blind Theban prophet Teiresias⁸ came back to him, and Circe’s words too. Both had warned him hard to keep away from the island of the Sun, who brings joy to men.

He spoke to his men, his heart heavy. “Listen to me, friends, though you’re worn out. I’ll tell you the warning Teiresias gave me, and Circe’s, who told me again and again to avoid the island of the Sun. She said our worst danger of all lay here. Row the black ship on past this island.”

Their hearts broke at that. Eurylochus answered him bitterly. “You’re hard, Odysseus. You’ve got more strength than the rest of us, and your body never tires. You must be made of iron: you won’t even let your worn-out, sleepless men set foot on land, where we could cook a good supper on this sea-washed island. No, you want us to wander all night, blown off course in the misty sea. It’s at night that the cruel winds rise, the wreckers of ships. How would anyone escape sudden death if a storm jumped on us out of the south or the howling west, the winds that smash ships apart against the gods’ will? Let’s give in to the dark night now. Let’s make supper here by the swift ship, and at dawn we’ll go aboard and put out to the open sea.”

Eurylochus finished, and the other men agreed. Odysseus saw then that some god was plotting harm. He answered, “Eurylochus, you force my hand — I’m one against many. All right. But every one of you swear me a solemn oath: if we find a herd of cattle or a great flock of sheep, no one will commit the madness of killing a single cow or sheep. Just eat the food Circe gave us, and be content.”

They swore it as he asked. When they had finished the oath, they brought the ship into a sheltered harbor near a stream of fresh water, and the men climbed out and made their supper skillfully. When they had eaten and drunk all they wanted, they remembered their dead friends, the ones Scylla had snatched and eaten, and they cried until sweet sleep came over them.

In the last third of the night, when the stars had wheeled over, Zeus the cloud-gatherer raised a screaming wind in a tremendous storm and hid land and sea together in cloud. Night burst down from the sky. When rosy-fingered Dawn appeared, they hauled the ship into a hollow cave (a place of the nymphs’ lovely dancing-grounds and seats) and Odysseus called the men together.

“Friends, we have food and drink in the ship. Keep your hands off these cattle, or we’ll suffer for it. They belong to a dreadful god, the Sun, who sees everything and hears everything.”

They agreed. But for a whole month the south wind blew without stopping, and no other wind came except the south and the east. As long as the men had bread and red wine, they kept off the cattle, because they wanted to live. But when all the ship’s stores ran out, they had to roam and hunt, fish and birds, whatever came to hand, with bent hooks, while hunger gnawed their bellies.

Then Odysseus went up into the island to pray to the gods, hoping one of them might show him a way home. When he had walked far enough to be clear of the men, he washed his hands in a place sheltered from the wind and prayed to all the gods of Olympus. And they poured sweet sleep over his eyes.

Down by the ship, Eurylochus opened his evil plan to the others. “Listen to me, friends, though you’re suffering. Every kind of death is hateful to us poor mortals, but the most pitiful death of all is to starve. Come on, let’s round up the best of the Sun’s cattle and sacrifice them to the gods who hold the wide sky. If we ever reach Ithaca, our homeland, we’ll build the Sun a rich temple straight away and fill it with fine treasures. And if he’s angry about his straight-horned cattle and wants to wreck our ship, and the other gods go along with him — well, I’d rather die once, gulping a wave, than waste away slowly on this empty island.”

Eurylochus finished, and the others agreed. They drove off the best of the Sun’s cattle from nearby. The lovely curved-horned, broad-faced cows grazed not far from the dark ship. They stood around them and prayed, plucking the soft leaves of a tall oak, since they had no white barley left aboard. They prayed, then cut the cows’ throats and skinned them, sliced out the thigh-bones, wrapped them in fat in a double layer, and laid raw meat on top. They had no wine to pour over the burning offerings, so they poured water and roasted all the innards. When the thigh-bones had burned and they’d tasted the inner meat, they cut up the rest and threaded it on spits.

Just then the sweet sleep left Odysseus’s eyes, and he went back down to the swift ship on the shore. As he came near the curved ship, the warm smell of roasting meat drifted around him. He cried out to the gods. “Father Zeus, and all you other blessed gods who live forever: you laid me into ruin with that pitiless sleep. My men have done a terrible thing while I was gone.”

Quick as that, Lampetie in her long robe went to the Sun with the news that they had killed his cattle. Furious, he spoke to the immortals. “Father Zeus, and all you other blessed gods who live forever: punish the men of Odysseus, Laertes’ son. They’ve killed my cattle in their arrogance, the cattle I loved to look on whenever I climbed the starry sky and whenever I turned back down to earth. If they don’t pay me a fitting price for them, I’ll go down to Hades and shine among the dead.”

Zeus the cloud-gatherer answered. “Sun, keep shining among the gods and among mortal men on the fertile earth. As for these men, soon I’ll strike their ship with a blazing thunderbolt and smash it to splinters in the middle of the wine-dark sea.”

Odysseus learned all this from Calypso, who said she had heard it from Hermes the messenger.

When he came down to the ship by the sea, he scolded the men one by one. But there was no fixing it now. The cattle were already dead. And the gods at once began to show signs of horror. The hides crawled. The meat on the spits bellowed, both the roasted and the raw, and the sound was the lowing of cattle.

For six days his loyal men feasted on the best of the Sun’s cattle. But when Zeus brought on the seventh day, the wind finally stopped raging in its storm. They climbed aboard at once and put out into the open sea, setting up the mast and hauling the white sails.

When they had left the island behind and no other land showed, only sky and sea, Zeus set a dark cloud over the hollow ship, and the sea grew black beneath it. The ship didn’t run long. A screaming west wind came roaring in a great storm. The blast snapped both ropes that held the mast, and the mast fell backward, and all the rigging crashed down into the hold. The mast struck the helmsman’s head at the stern and shattered all the bones of his skull at once. He dropped from the deck like a diver, and his proud spirit left his bones. Then Zeus thundered and hurled his bolt at the ship. The whole ship shuddered, struck by the lightning of Zeus, and filled with the stink of sulfur, and the men were thrown from her. They bobbed in the waves around the black ship like seabirds, and the god took their homecoming away.

Odysseus kept moving through the ship until the surge tore the planks from the keel and carried the bare keel along on the water. The blast had broken the mast off against the keel, but a rope of ox-hide leather still hung from it. With this he lashed the keel and mast together and sat on them, carried along by the deadly winds.

Then the west wind stopped raging in its storm, and a south wind came up fast, bringing grief, because it would carry him back to dreadful Charybdis. He drifted all night, and at sunrise he came to Scylla’s cliff and to terrible Charybdis. She was sucking down the salt sea water. He sprang up toward the tall fig tree and clung to it like a bat, but he couldn’t plant his feet anywhere or climb. The roots were far below and the branches hung far above, long and huge, shadowing Charybdis. He held on grimly, waiting for her to spit the mast and keel back up. He longed for them, and at last they came — late, at the hour when a man rises from the assembly for his supper, after judging the many quarrels of arguing young men. At that hour the timbers came up out of Charybdis. He let go his hands and feet and dropped, splashing down beside the long timbers, and climbed onto them and rowed with his hands. And the father of gods and men did not let Scylla see him — or he would never have escaped his steep destruction.

From there he drifted nine days, and on the tenth night the gods brought him to the island of Ogygia⁹, where Calypso lives — the dread goddess with the beautiful hair, who could speak like a human, and who took him in and cared for him.

“But why should I tell you all this again? I told it yesterday in this house, to you and to your good wife. I hate going back over a story already plainly told.”