Land of the Dead

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Circe directed Odysseus to seek out the blind prophet Tiresias, who would tell him how to return home. She instructed him to sail to the edge of the world and then sacrifice a ram and a black ewe in honor of Hades and Persephone, the king and queen of the Underworld, to summon the dead prophet.

Odysseus sailed to the land of perpetual darkness and carried out Circe’s instructions. As Odysseus poured blood into the trench, the souls of the dead came swarming up from underground. Tiresias came forward. He foretold that the sailors would land on the island of Thrinacia. He said Odysseus would reach Ithaca but would find great trouble there.

Among the spirits that swarmed around him, Odysseus was shocked to see the pale ghost of his mother, Anticlea, because he did not know that she was dead. As soon as she drank the dark blood from the sacrifice she recognized her son. Anticlea told him she had died of grief at his long absence. Odysseus tried three times to embrace her, but his arms passed through her shadowy body.