On Circe’s advice
Odysseus visited Hades yesterday to see the great prophet, Teiresias. He was told to go
there before attempting his long, difficult journey home.
When he and his crew arrived he told them to stay in the boat. He took
the ram and black ewe that Circe had given him. He walked into the gloomy underworld.
There were big black vines hanging down. Odysseus took a lantern to light the way because
it was too dark to see anything. When he looked around he saw a ghosts floating about.
When he got to the altar he placed the two animals on it and sacrificed
them. Just then wise, old Teiresias walked down the path towards Odysseus and told him how
to get back to Ithaca. He warned him not to eat the sun god’s cattle on
Hyperion’s island.
Teiresias disappeared and Odysseus’s mother, Anticleia, arrived.
She said that she had died of sorrow thinking her son was dead. Odysseus was very unhappy
that he had partly caused his mother’s death.
