The Odyssey Book Xii Summary

Odysseus and his crew sail back to circe s island where they make a funeral pyre for elpenor.

The odyssey book xii summary. 1 401 words published. When odysseus had buried elpenor circe revealed his course to him advising how he might avoid each danger. Book 12 odysseus returns to aeaea where he buries elpenor and spends one last night with circe.

Circe gives them a feast and at night warns odysseus of the dangers his ship will face tomorrow. Thousands of ghosts appeared when the blood started flowing. There is a great heap of dead men s bones lying all around with the flesh still rotting off them.

If any one unwarily draws in too close and hears the singing of the sirens his wife and children will never welcome him home again for they sit in a green field and warble him to death with the sweetness of their song. As he sets sail odysseus passes circe s counsel on to his men. First the greeks must get past the sirens whose irresistible songs lure sailors into their island s coastal reefs.

Odysseus bid the crew to cover their ears while he himself was tied to the mast so that he might listen yet not be seduced. Odysseus resumes his narrative. True to his word odysseus returns to aeaea for elpenor s funeral rites.

When he and his men reached the entrance to the world of the dead they did exactly as circe said. Greek mythology odyssey scylla pages. Book 12 the cattle of the sun.

Odysseus and his men returned to aeaea from the land of the dead. They dug a trench offered libations and sacrificed a ewe and a ram. The men returned to aeaea performed all the proper funeral rites for elpenor and buried his body.