Page:The Odyssey of Homer, with the Hymns, Epigrams, and Battle of the Frogs and Mice (Buckley 1853).djvu/180

144 to consult the soul of Theban Tiresias, a blind prophet, whose mind is firm; to him even when dead Proserpine has given understanding, alone to be prudent; but the rest flit about as shades.'

"Thus she spoke; but my dear heart was broken; and I sat down on the bed and wept, nor did my mind wish to live any longer and behold the light of the sun. But when I was satiated with weeping and rolling about, then answering her with words I addressed her:

O Circe, who will conduct me on this voyage? no one has yet come to Pluto's in a black ship.'

"Thus I spoke; but she, the divine one of goddesses, immediately answered me: 'O noble son of Laertes, much-contriving Ulysses, let not the desire of a guide for thy ship be at all a care to thee: but having erected the mast, and spread out the white sails, sit down: and let the blast of the north wind carry it. But when thou shalt have passed through the ocean in thy ship, where is the easy-dug shore, and the groves of Proserpine, and tall poplars, and fruit-destroying willows, there draw up thy ship in the deep-eddying ocean, and do thou thyself go to the spacious house of Pluto. Here indeed both Pyriphlegethon and Cocytus, which is a stream from the water of Styx, flow into Acheron, and there is a rock, and the meeting of two loud-sounding rivers. There then, O hero, approaching near as I command thee, dig a trench, the width of a cubit each way: and pour around it libations to all the dead, first with mixed honey, then with sweet wine, again the third time with water: and sprinkle white meal