Scylla attacking Odysseus and his men.
(Photo by John Flaxman)
Odysseus and his men arrive at the Under World where Hades and his wife Persephone stay. The ghost of Teiresias appears and tells Odysseus that his journey home will not be easy. He tells him he will suffer and that if his men are greedy there will be a shipwreck, the cyclopes' dad is mad that he blinded his son, he will receive and oar and he must bury it in the ground when he receives the sign, as an offering, if he does all this death will come for him but when he is old and gently it will take him.
Odysseus runs into the ghost of his mother and he tries to hug her several times but she escapes his arms. They cannot touch. The ghosts of men an women join to talk, they were all sent by Persephone. He met many wives, mothers, and daughters of heroes, so many he lost track. He meets the ghost of Agamemnon who tells him to withhold information from his wife and that he should not always speak his mind. He then runs into the spirit of Achilles and the ghost of Ajax.
Odysseus collected the information he needed from the land of the dead in order to get back to his home, Ithaca. He returns to Circe's island and she warns him of the Sirens, Scylla, and Charybdis. He took her advice and has his men tie him to the boat as they passed the Sirens and plugged their ears with wax. They successfully ignored the Sirens and untied him.
The men travelled on looking out for Scylla, the sea monster. They waited in fear for her to come at any moment for a while there was no sign of her. She then attacked out of nowhere taking down the strongest of Odysseus' men. She had multiple heads and they all devoured the men as they screamed.
Odysseus himself said "it was the post pitiable sight of all I saw exploring the pathways of the sea."
Bibliography. Homer. Homer's Odyssey. Web Source.
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