Book XI · Ῥαψωδία λ

So anyway, once we'd trekked back down to the ship and the open water,

first thing, no dawdling, we dragged her down into the holy sea,

got the mast stepped bolt upright and the sails rigged onto the black ship,

loaded the sheep on board, then climbed in ourselves, the whole squad,

gutted, dragging our feet, fully ugly-crying the entire way down.

a fair following wind came punching into the sail, a proper solid wingman,

courtesy of Circe with the gorgeous braids, that scary goddess who actually talks.

So we strapped every bit of the rigging down snug the length of the ship

and just posted up: the wind and the helmsman kept her locked on course.

Then the sun clocked out and every road went dim and shadowy:

and she rolled right up to the edge of deep-flowing Oceanus.

That's where the Cimmerian people are posted, their land and their city,

wrapped in fog and cloud for daysss, on lock: and the blazing sun

not when it clocks in climbing towards the starry sky,

not when it tips back down to earth from up top,

nah, just deadly night stretched over those poor doomed souls.

We pulled in and beached the ship right there, hauled the sheep out,

till we hit the exact spot Circe had put us onto.

Right there Perimedes and Eurylochus were holding the victims steady,

while me, I yanked the sharp blade out from beside my thigh

and dug the pit out, about a forearm each way, dead square,

honey-milk to kick it off, then the sweet wine to follow,

water for the third pour: then dusted white barley over the lot.

And I got down on my knees begging the flimsy faded heads of the dead,

swearing the second I touched Ithaca I'd do a barren cow, the best one,

and for Tiresias on his own a separate ram I'd send up in flames,

all black, the absolute standout of the whole flock we've got.

So once I'd finished begging that entire crowd of the dead, vows and pleas and all,

I grabbed the sheep and opened their throats clean over the pit

the souls of the dead and gone, straight up out of Erebus,

brides and unwed lads and old men who'd been absolutely through it,

soft young girls with the grief still fresh and raw in their chests,

and so many men gashed wide open by bronze-tipped spears,

crowds of them swarming round the pit, coming at me from every angle

with this unearthly screeching: and pale-green dread grabbed me by the throat.

So right then I was on my crew, hyping them up, dropping the order

to skin and torch the sheep already lying there, dropped by the cruel bronze,

to mighty Hades and dread Persephone, the both of them:

meanwhile me, I'm parked there, the sharp sword out from beside my thigh,

not letting a single flimsy faded head of the dead

get anywhere near the blood before I'd got the word from Tiresias.

because he hadn't been buried yet under the wide-pathed earth,

since we'd left his body back in Circe's hall, just lying there,

no tears, no grave, because another job kept pressing us hard.

The sight of him got me, I broke down, my chest aching with pity,

"Elpenor, how'd you pull up down here under the murky dark?

You beat me here on foot, and I came by black ship, no cap."

That's what I said, and he let out a groan and came back at me with this:

"Zeus-born son of Laertes, Odysseus, always cooking up something,

I'd crashed out up on Circe's roof and totally blanked

on the fact I should've gone back down the long ladder,

so I went straight off the edge: my neck

snapped clean at the spine, and my soul dipped down to Hades.

by your wife and your father, the man who raised you when you were tiny,

and by Telemachus, the only kid you left back in your halls:

because I know it for a fact, once you ship out of this house of Hades

you'll steer your good ship straight back to the island of Aeaea:

Don't sail off and ghost me, left behind with no tears and no grave,

turning your back, in case I bring some god's wrath down on you,

nah, burn me up proper with whatever gear is mine,

and heap me up a mound on the shore of the grey sea,

get all that sorted for me, and plant my oar up on the tomb,

the one I used to row with back when I was alive, among my crew."

That's what he said, and I came right back at him with this:

"All this, you poor soul, I'll see it through and get it done, no question."

me off to one side keeping the sword level over the blood,

and over the other side my boy's ghost yapping on and on.

Then up came the soul of my mother, dead and gone,

Anticleia, daughter of brave-hearted Autolycus,

The sight of her wrecked me, I broke down, my chest aching with pity:

but even so I wouldn't let her come near, much as it was tearing me up inside,

wouldn't let her near the blood before I'd got the word from Tiresias.

Then up came the soul of Theban Tiresias,

"Zeus-born son of Laertes, Odysseus, always cooking up something,

why again, you poor wretch, did you ditch the light of the sun

and pull up here to clock the dead and this joyless place?

But back off from the pit, pull that sharp blade aside,

So he said, and I backed off and slid the silver-studded sword

back home into its sheath. And once he'd drunk the dark blood down,

then and only then the flawless seer started speaking to me:

"You're out here hunting your honey-sweet comeback, golden boy Odysseus:

you'll slip past the earth-shaker, who's got a grudge tucked away in his chest,

fuming because you cancelled his beloved son's eye for good.

But even so, you lot could still make it back, taking your hits,

if you can keep a leash on your own appetite and your crew's,

at the island of Thrinacia, after dodging the violet sea,

and you find them grazing, the cattle and the fat sheep

of Helios, the one who clocks everything and hears everything.

If you leave those untouched and keep your head on the comeback,

but if you mess with them, then I'm calling it right now, ruin

for your ship and your crew. And even if you yourself slip out,

you'll get home late and broken, having lost every last one of your crew,

on somebody else's ship: and you'll find trouble parked at home,

courting your goddess of a wife and dropping bride-gifts.

But trust, you'll make those clowns pay for their violence once you're back:

and once you've finished off the suitors inside your halls,

whether by trickery or out in the open with sharp bronze,

until you pull up on the kind of people who've never known the sea,

men who don't even eat their food mixed with salt:

and they've got zero clue about ships with cheeks painted crimson,

or well-cut oars, the things that work as wings for the ships.

the moment some other traveller crossing your path

says you've got a winnowing-fan up on your shining shoulder,

that's the cue: plant your well-cut oar right there in the ground,

square up some lovely offerings to lord Poseidon,

then head back home and send up holy hecatombs

to the deathless gods who hold the wide sky,

all of them, in order, no skipping anyone. And death for you yourself, off the sea,

will roll up so gentle, just like that, the kind that takes you

will be living blessed and sorted. This is the no-cap truth I'm telling you."

So he said, and I came back at him with this:

"Tiresias, yeah, I reckon the gods themselves spun all that out.

But come on, tell me this and lay it out for me straight:

she's just sitting there dead silent near the blood and won't even

bring herself to look her own son in the face or say a word:

tell me, my king, how could she ever clock me, that it's actually me?"

That's what I said, and right away he came back with this:

whichever of the dead and gone you let come

near the blood, that one will speak you the straight truth:

but whoever you wave off goes drifting right back again."

Once that soul had said its piece, the soul of lord Tiresias

but me, I stayed planted right there, rock steady, until my mother

came up and drank the dark cloud-coloured blood: and straight off she knew me

and, breaking down over me, hit me with these winged words:

"My child, how did you get down here under the murky dark

Because in between there are huge rivers and terrifying currents,

Oceanus first off, and there's no way on earth you cross that one

on foot, not unless you've got a good solid ship under you.

Have you really only just now pulled up here, drifting on from Troy

Ithaca, still haven't laid eyes on your wife back in your halls?"

That's what she said, and I answered her, voice cracking:

"Mum, it was need that dragged me down here to Hades,

to get word from the soul of Theban Tiresias:

set foot on my own land, just been drifting, carrying all this misery,

ever since I first fell in behind glorious Agamemnon

heading to Ilion with its fine foals, to go fight the Trojans.

But come on, tell me this and lay it out for me straight:

Was it some drawn-out illness, or was it Artemis the archer

slipping up on you with her gentle arrows and taking you out?

And tell me about my father and the son I left behind,

whether my honours are still sitting safe with them, or has some

And tell me what my wedded wife is planning, where her head's really at,

whether she's staying put by our son and guarding it all solid,

or has she been married off already to whichever Achaean's the best?"

That's what I said, and straight off my lady mother answered:

inside your own halls: and the wretched nights

and the days waste away on her, crying and crying, no end to it.

And nobody's got hold of your fine honours, no, in peace

Telemachus works the estates and sits down to the proper feasts,

because everyone has him round. But your father stays out there

in the country and never once comes down to the city: and there's no bed

for him, no bedstead, no cloaks, no glossy blankets,

nah, come winter he sleeps where the servants sleep in the house,

and once summer rolls in and the rich ripe harvest season,

all over the slope of his vineyard plot

he's got low beds thrown down out of fallen leaves.

That's where he lies grieving, the heartache swelling huge in his chest,

Because that's how I went down too, that's the fate that caught me:

it wasn't the sharp-eyed archer goddess in my halls

slipping up on me with her gentle arrows who took me,

nor did any of those illnesses come for me, the kind

nah, it was missing you, and your good sense, golden boy Odysseus,

and your gentle heart that robbed me of my honey-sweet life."

That's what she said, and me, mind made up, I went for it,

desperate to gather the soul of my mother, dead and gone, into my arms.

three times she slipped out of my hands like a shadow,

like a dream: and the ache in my heart only cut deeper and sharper,

and I found my voice and hit her with these winged words:

"Mum, why won't you hold still for me when I'm this desperate to hold you,

the two of us could get our fill of the cold, awful sobbing?

Or is this just some phantom that grand Persephone

sent up at me, to make me wail and groan even harder?"

That's what I said, and straight off my lady mother answered:

it's not Persephone, daughter of Zeus, running game on you,

no, this is just how it goes for mortals once one of them dies.

Because the sinews don't hold the flesh and the bones together anymore,

no, the strong raging force of the burning fire

and the soul flits off and flies away like a dream.

But hurry back towards the light, fast as you can: and keep all of this

in mind, so later down the line you can tell it to your wife."

So the two of us went back and forth like that, and then the women

every last one who'd been a wife or a daughter of the best of men.

They came crowding round the dark blood in a big swarm,

while I worked out how I'd get a word in with each of them.

And this looked like the smartest play to my mind, lowkey:

and wasn't about to let them all crowd in and drink the dark blood at once.

So they rolled up one at a time, queued in a line, and each one

spilled her own bloodline: and I quizzed every last one of them.

And the very first I clocked there was Tyro, born to a noble dad,

and claimed she was the wife of Cretheus, son of Aeolus:

this girl fell head over heels for a river, divine Enipeus,

by far the most gorgeous of all the rivers running across the earth,

and she was forever out there hanging round Enipeus's lovely streams.

and lay down with her at the mouth of the swirling river:

and a dark purple wave reared up and stood round them tall as a mountain,

curving right over, hiding the god and the mortal woman clean away.

He loosened her virgin girdle and poured sleep over her, just like that.

he took her by the hand and said his piece and named himself:

"Be glad of this love, woman: and as the year comes rolling round

you'll bring forth gorgeous children, because the beds of the deathless

ones are never a dud: it's on you to mind them and raise them up.

because I'm telling you straight up, I'm Poseidon, the one who shakes the ground."

Saying that, he dipped back down under the surging sea.

And she fell pregnant and bore Pelias and Neleus,

and the two of them grew into mighty servants of great Zeus,

rich in flocks for daysss, while the other one was over in sandy Pylos.

And the rest she bore to Cretheus, that queen among women,

Aeson and Pheres and Amythaon, the one who fights from a chariot.

Right after her I clocked Antiope, daughter of Asopus,

and she bore two kids, Amphion and Zethus,

the first ones ever to lay the foundations of seven-gated Thebes

and wall it right up, since for all their strength they just couldn't

live in spacious Thebes with no walls round it.

the one who gave birth to Heracles, that lion-hearted bold one,

after she got with great Zeus in his arms:

and Megara too, daughter of high-spirited Creon,

the one Amphitryon's son took, the man whose force never once wore out.

who pulled off something monstrous, totally clueless in her own head,

marrying her own son: and he, after merking his own father,

married her: and quick as that the gods made the whole thing known to everyone.

But he, suffering on in lovely Thebes, eating the pain,

while she dipped down to the house of Hades, the strong gatekeeper,

hanging a steep noose from the high rafter,

gripped by her grief: and she left him heaps of pain behind,

all of it, every last torment a mother's furies bring to pass.

married for her beauty, after he handed over countless bride-gifts,

the youngest daughter of Amphion, son of Iasus,

the one who once ruled by sheer force in Orchomenus of the Minyans:

and she was queen of Pylos, and bore him gorgeous children,

And on top of them she bore strong Pero, a straight-up wonder to mortals,

the one every neighbour was out there courting: but Neleus wouldn't hand her

to anyone who couldn't drive off the curving wide-browed cattle

out of Phylace, the ones belonging to the might of Iphicles,

to drive them off: but a god's harsh fate hobbled him,

the painful chains and the rough country herdsmen.

But once the months and the days had all run their course,

as the year came rolling round again and the seasons clocked back in,

once he'd spelled out all the prophecies: and the will of Zeus was getting done.

And I clocked Leda too, the bedmate of Tyndareus,

the one who bore Tyndareus two stout-hearted sons,

Castor the horse-tamer and Polydeuces, lethal with his fists,

and even down under the ground, holding honour straight from Zeus,

they take turns living, one day on, one day off,

then dead: and they've been allotted honour just like the gods.

Right after her I clocked Iphimedeia, the bedmate of Aloeus,

and she bore two kids, but they didn't last long at all,

godlike Otus and far-famed Ephialtes,

the tallest the grain-giving soil ever raised up, fully size-maxxed,

and the best-looking with it, mogged only by famous Orion himself:

across, and as for height they shot up to a full nine fathoms.

And these two even threatened the immortals up on Olympus,

to bring the chaos of raging war right to their front door.

They were itching to pile Ossa on top of Olympus, and on top of Ossa

And they'd have absolutely pulled it off too, if they'd hit full grown:

but the son of Zeus, the one fair-haired Leto bore, finished them,

the both of them, before the down under their temples could

flower out and cover their jaws with a fresh-blooming beard.

daughter of Minos, that menace with the doom-cooking brain, the girl Theseus once

tried to whisk off out of Crete to the high ground of holy Athens,

and ngl dude got absolutely nothing out of it: Artemis bodied her first,

out on Dia ringed with water, after Dionysus dropped the word that sealed it.

the one who took fat gold to sell her own husband out, zero shame in the whole game.

But real talk, there's no way I'm running the full list or naming every single name,

all the wives and daughters of heroes I laid eyes on in that crowd:

the deathless night would burn all the way out first. And anyway, it's lowkey the hour

or just stay parked here: my send-off, that's on you lot and the gods, not me."

That's what he said, and the whole room went dead silent, not a single peep,

every one of them held under the spell of it through the shadowy halls.

Then Arete, arms pale as ivory, was the first to crack the quiet open:

the build of him, the height on him, the brains tucked away tidy inside?

And he's my guest, lowkey my responsibility, even if each of us shares in the honour.

So no rushing him out the door, and don't be shorting him on the gifts

when he's clearly in need of them: you've all got treasure for daysss

Then the old hero Echeneus slid his two cents in among them,

the man who'd been the eldest Phaeacian by a mile and then some:

"My guys, what our big-brain queen is dropping is not off the mark,

not off-base in the slightest: so vibe with it and back her up.

And then Alcinous came back at her and laid out his piece:

"Yeah, this word's gonna stand exactly like that, no cap,

long as I'm breathing and running the oar-loving Phaeacians:

let the guest tough it out, even with the comeback chewing at him,

laying out the whole gift haul. The send-off's on the men,

all of them, but mostly on me: the power round here, that's mine to hold."

And big-brain Odysseus, never once short of an answer, hit back with this:

"Alcinous, our king, the standout among all your people,

sorting my send-off, keeping the glittering gifts flowing the entire time,

yeah honestly I'd take that, it'd be the smarter play by miles,

rolling up to my own homeland with both hands stacked fuller,

and I'd be way more respected, way more loved by everyone,

And then Alcinous came back at him again and spoke up:

"Odysseus, looking at you, we're not sizing you up

as some grifter or a con artist, the kind the dark earth

breeds in bulk, scattered everywhere, those guys who cook up

nah, your words have a real shape to them, the mind underneath is solid,

and you laid the whole tale out like a proper bard who's fully locked in,

all the grim suffering of the Argives and your own piled on top of it.

But come on, tell me this and lay it out for me straight:

who shipped to Troy beside you and met their fate over there?

This night's so long it doesn't even end, and it's nowhere near

the hour to crash in the hall: just keep dropping me these wild deeds.

I could hold out right through to holy dawn, hand on heart,

And big-brain Odysseus, three moves ahead as always, came back with this:

"Alcinous, our king, the standout among all your people,

there's a time for plenty of talk, and there's a time for sleep too:

but if you're still itching for it, then yeah, I'm not gonna

the sorrows of my crew, the ones who got finished off later on,

the ones who slipped clear of the Trojans' wailing battle-noise

only to perish on the comeback, the whole thing over one wicked woman.

So once she'd scattered the women's spirits this way and that,

along came the spirit of Agamemnon, Atreus's son,

fully in his feels: and gathered round him were all the others, everyone

who went down alongside him in Aegisthus's house and met their fate.

He clocked me the instant his eyes landed on me, no delay:

reaching his hands out towards me, desperate to grab hold:

but nah, there wasn't any solid strength left in him, no firm grip,

nothing like the energy he used to carry in those once-supple limbs.

I broke down crying the second I saw him, my whole chest aching for him,

"Atreus's son, most honoured, Agamemnon, king of men,

which fate took you down, the kind that lays absolutely everyone out cold?

Did Poseidon catch you in your ships, whipping up

some pitiless blast of cruel winds, the sort nobody'd wish on you?

while you were rustling their cattle and gorgeous flocks of sheep,

or scrapping it out for a city and the women inside it?"

That's what I said, and he came right back at me with this:

"Son of Laertes, god-born, Odysseus, always cooking something up,

whipping up some pitiless blast of cruel winds,

and no hostile men finished me off out on dry land:

it was Aegisthus who set my death and my whole doom in motion,

merked me with my cursed wife after he lured me home,

That's how I died, the saddest death going: and round me my crew

were getting slaughtered nonstop, like white-tusked pigs

butchered in the house of some rich man with serious clout,

for a wedding or a feast-share or some lavish blowout banquet.

picked off one by one and in the brutal crush of the fighting:

but this one, this you'd have grieved the hardest of all to clock,

the way we lay sprawled round the wine-bowl and the loaded tables

in the hall, the whole floor steaming hot and reeking with our blood.

Cassandra, the one cunning-minded Clytemnestra slaughtered

right over the top of me: and me, lifting my hands off the ground,

I was dropping, dying, clawing round the sword: but that dog-eyed woman

turned her back and walked, couldn't even bring herself, with me bound for Hades,

So there's nothing fouler, nothing more shameless walking this earth than a woman

who'd load a deed like that into her head and run with it:

the kind of vile, unspeakable plot she actually cooked up herself,

rigging straight-up murder for her own wedded man. And me, I genuinely reckoned

but she, plotting that depth of evil, poured shame

all over herself and over every woman born down the line after her,

even the decent ones, even the ones who do everything right."

That's what he said, and I came back at him with this:

the line of Atreus from the very jump, all through the schemes of women.

Loads of us got cooked over Helen, that's one whole thing,

and for you Clytemnestra was rigging a trap while you were far off."

That's what I said, and he came right back at me with this:

don't lay the whole plan out for her, not even the stuff you know cold:

say one piece of it, sure, but keep the other piece on the low.

Still, Odysseus, no murder's coming for you off a woman:

she's way too clued-up, the mind on her knows every right move,

For real, we left her behind a brand-new bride, fresh,

heading off to the war: and there was a baby at her breast,

a tiny one, who's probably sitting now in the count of grown men,

lucky kid: because his dear father's gonna come home and clock him,

But my wife, she wouldn't even let me fill my own eyes

with the sight of my son: she merked me first, me, her own husband.

And one more thing I'll tell you, so file it deep in your head:

bring your ship in to your beloved homeland on the low,

But come on, tell me this and lay it out for me straight:

have you caught any word of my boy still being alive out there,

maybe over in Orchomenus, or down in sandy Pylos,

or maybe posted up with Menelaus in wide Sparta:

That's what he said, and I came back at him with this:

"Son of Atreus, why you grilling me on this? I genuinely have no clue

if he's alive or dead: and yapping empty air into the wind is a bad look."

So the two of us stood there, trading these miserable words back and forth,

and along came the spirit of Achilles, son of Peleus,

plus Patroclus, and flawless Antilochus right beside him,

and Ajax, who was the best in build and stature going,

top of all the rest of the Danaans after the flawless son of Peleus.

and fully in his feels he hit me with these winged words:

"Son of Laertes, god-born, Odysseus, always cooking something up,

you reckless one, what bigger stunt are you scheming up in that head now?

How'd you have the actual nerve to pull up to Hades, where the dead

That's what he said, and I came back at him with this:

"Achilles, son of Peleus, by far the mightiest of the Achaeans,

I came for what Tiresias owed me, hoping he'd drop me some plan

for how I'd ever claw my way back to rugged Ithaca:

on my own land, nah, I've just got nonstop misery on lock. But you, Achilles,

no man's ever been blessed like you, not before you, not ever after:

back when you were breathing we honoured you level with the gods,

us Argives, and now you run the entire show among the dead

That's what I said, and he came right back at me with this:

"Don't try to glaze me about death, Odysseus, save it.

I'd rather be up top, breaking my back as some other man's hired hand,

some landless nobody who barely scrapes a living together,

But come on, give me the word on my golden boy,

whether he followed the war to be a frontline champ or not.

And tell me about flawless Peleus, anything you've caught wind of,

whether he still holds his honour among the swarm of Myrmidons,

because old age has got him locked down by the hands and the feet.

Because if only I had his back out under the sunlight,

the exact build I was rocking back in the wide land of Troy,

when I cut down the best of their fighters, holding the line for the Argives,

I'd make my fury and my untouchable hands a thing they'd flat-out dread,

every last one of them strong-arming him and shutting him out of his honour."

That's what he said, and I came back at him with this:

"Honestly, about flawless Peleus I haven't caught a single thing,

I'll lay the full truth out for you, exactly like you're asking:

I'm the one who brought him myself, on the hollow balanced ship,

out of Scyros to link up with the well-greaved Achaeans.

For real, whenever we'd plan our moves round the city of Troy,

godlike Nestor and me, we two were the only ones edging him out.

And whenever we Achaeans went to war on the Trojan plain,

he never hung back in the crowd of men or buried himself in the pack,

he'd race way out front, yielding his fury to absolutely nobody,

There's no way I'm listing them all or naming every single one,

all the fighters he dropped while holding the line for the Argives,

but take the way he bodied the son of Telephus with bronze,

the hero Eurypylus: and loads of his comrades round him,

He was the best-looking man I clocked down there, after godlike Memnon.

And when we climbed down into the horse that Epeius built,

the best of the Argives, and the whole job got dumped on me,

to crack the tight ambush open or seal it shut tight,

were wiping away tears, every one of them shaking in the limbs:

but that one, I never once caught him with my own eyes

go pale in his gorgeous face, never saw him swipe

a single tear off his cheek: nah, he kept on begging me

and his heavy bronze spear, itching to wreck the Trojans.

But once we'd sacked Priam's steep city right to the ground,

he boarded his ship with his fair share and a fine prize on top,

not a scratch on him, never once hit by sharp bronze

all the time in war: it's pure chaos when Ares goes off the rails."

That's what I said, and the spirit of swift-footed Achilles, Aeacus's grandson,

went striding off, taking those long strides across the asphodel meadow,

buzzing, all because I'd told him his son mogged the lot of them.

stood there in their grief, and each one asked about its own sorrows.

But the spirit of Ajax, son of Telamon, that one alone

hung back off to the side, still salty he got mogged for that win,

the one I'd beaten him on, the judgement they ran by the ships

and the sons of the Trojans judged it, and Pallas Athena too.

God, I wish to this day I'd never won on a prize like that:

because for its sake the earth swallowed up a head like his,

Ajax, who in build and in deeds mogged every last one

I spoke to him soft, trying to smooth it over with honeyed words:

"Ajax, son of flawless Telamon, so you really weren't gonna,

not even dead, let go of your grudge against me over that cursed

armour? The gods made that armour a curse on the Argives:

grieve over you, gone, exactly the way we grieve over the head

of Achilles, son of Peleus, forever and always: nobody else

is to blame, only Zeus, who loathed the Danaan spear-army

something fierce, and pinned this whole fate right onto you.

hear what I'm telling you: tame that fury and that proud chest of yours."

That's what I said, but he gave me nothing back, dead silence, just turned and walked off

to join the other spirits of the dead and burned-out down in Erebus.

Even then, fuming as he was, he might've spoken, or me to him:

on clocking the spirits of the rest of the dead down there.

And there, for real, I clocked Minos, the radiant son of Zeus,

gripping a golden sceptre, laying down rulings for the dead,

sat there holding court: and they kept bringing the king their cases,

And after him I made out Orion, that absolute unit of a giant,

rounding up wild beasts in a herd across the asphodel meadow,

the very ones he'd cut down himself up in the lonely mountains,

gripping a club of solid bronze in his fists, the kind that never breaks.

sprawled flat out on the ground. He stretched across nine whole acres,

and two vultures sat perched one on each side of him, shredding his liver,

plunging right in past the membrane: and he couldn't fend them off, helpless.

Because he'd put his hands on Leto, the proud consort of Zeus,

And I clocked Tantalus too, locked in brutal, grinding agony,

standing in a pool: and the water kept lapping right up at his chin.

He was parched, gasping for it, but couldn't get a single sip down:

every single time the old man stooped down, dying to swallow,

the dark earth would show through, some god drying the whole thing up.

And the tall leafy trees kept pouring their fruit down right over his head,

pears and pomegranates and apple trees loaded with bright fruit,

sweet figs too and olives in full lush glow-up bloom:

the wind would just yeet the whole lot off towards the shadowy clouds.

And I clocked Sisyphus too, locked in heavy, never-ending agony,

heaving this absolute monster of a boulder with both arms.

For real, bracing himself with his hands and his feet,

he was about to heave it over the crest, the weight would spin it back,

and then the shameless thing went rolling all the way down to the plain again.

So he'd strain and shove it back up, the sweat just

pouring off his limbs, the dust rising up off his head in clouds.

or his phantom anyway: the man himself's up among the deathless gods,

vibing at their feasts, with lovely-ankled Hebe for a wife,

daughter of great Zeus and gold-sandalled Hera.

And all around him there was a din of the dead, like birds,

gripping his bare bow with an arrow already nocked to the string,

glaring something terrible, forever looking one breath from letting fly.

And across his chest there was a baldric, terrifying to even look at,

a golden strap, with wild deeds worked right into the craft of it,

and clashes and battles and killings and slaughters of men.

May whoever built that into his craft never build

another single thing again, the one who put that strap together.

And he clocked me the instant his eyes landed on me,

"Son of Laertes, god-born, Odysseus, always cooking something up,

ah, you poor thing, so you too are dragging round some grim fate,

the exact grim kind I used to haul about under the sunlight.

I was the son of Zeus, son of Kronos, and yet I copped

way, way beneath me, and he kept piling brutal labours on me.

One time he even shipped me down here to fetch the hound: figured

there was no labour out there harder than that one for me to pull off.

But I hauled it up and walked it clean out of Hades:

With that he turned and headed back into the house of Hades,

but me, I stayed posted up right there, planted, in case some other

of the heroes pulled up, the ones who died way before.

And I'd have clocked still older men, the ones I genuinely wanted to,

but before that the countless tribes of the dead came swarming up

with an unearthly roar: and that sickly green dread grabbed hold of me,

spooked that proud Persephone might send me up

the Gorgon's head, that head of the dread monster, straight out of Hades.

to climb aboard themselves and cast off the stern-lines, no waiting:

and they got on quick and dropped down onto the rowing benches.

And the wave of the current carried the ship down the river of Ocean,

first under the oar-stroke, then after that a fine following wind kicked in.