Page:The Odyssey of Homer, with the Hymns, Epigrams, and Battle of the Frogs and Mice (Buckley 1853).djvu/183

13—56. turns back again from heaven to earth; but pernicious night is spread over hapless mortals. Having come there, we drew up our ship; and we took out the sheep; and we ourselves went again to the stream of the ocean, until we came to the place which Circe mentioned. There Perimedes and Eurylochus made sacred offerings; but I, drawing my sharp sword from my thigh, dug a trench, the width of a cubit each way; and around it we poured libations to all the dead, first with mixed honey, then with sweet wine, again a third time with water; and I sprinkled white meal over it. And I much besought the unsubstantial heads of the dead, [promising, that] when I came to Ithaca, I would offer up in my palace a barren heifer, whichever is the best, and would fill a pyre with excellent things; and that I would sacrifice separately to Tiresias alone a sheep all black, which excels amongst our sheep.

"But when I had besought them, the nations of the dead, with vows and prayers, then taking the sheep, I cut off their heads into the trench, and the black blood flowed: and the souls of the perished dead were assembled forth from Erebus, [betrothed girls and youths, and much-enduring old men, and tender virgins, having a newly-grieved mind, and many Mars-renowned men wounded with brass-tipped spears, possessing gore-smeared arms, who, in great numbers, were wandering about the trench on different sides with a divine clamour: and pale fear seized upon me.] Then at length exhorting my companions, I commanded them, having skinned the sheep which lay there, slain with the cruel brass, to burn them, and to invoke the gods, both Pluto and dread Proserpine. But I, having drawn my sharp sword from my thigh, sat down, nor did I suffer the powerless heads of the dead to draw nigh the blood, before I inquired of Tiresias. And first the soul of my companion Elpenor came; for he was not yet buried beneath the wide-wayed earth; for we left his body in the palace of Circe unwept for and unburied, since another toil [then] urged us. Beholding him, I wept, and pitied him in my mind, and addressing him, spoke winged words: 'O Elpenor, how