EP 69 — Odysseus Takes the Long Way Home

The hero of the Odyssey and the Trojan War has to navigate treacherous waters and deities on his 10-year journey home. We join Odysseus for part of it. Meet Circe, the Sirens, and the sea monsters that slow his passage. If the trip had been ranked on a travel website, it would have gotten a negative rating.

Transcript

PODCAST #69 — Odysseus Takes the Long Way Home

Welcome to episode 69 of GARNER'S GREEK Mythology. We have listeners in more than 190 countries... So, welcome to everyone, wherever you are.

I'm your host, mythologist PATRICK GARNER … 

This episode begins on the island of Aeaea, on the dark fringes of the Mediterranean. It is home to the beautiful and infamous goddess, Circe. 

To the Greeks, Circe is simply a daughter of Helios, the sun god. But we moderns call her a witch because of her powers and use of magical herbs. 

There on Aeaea, she entrapped wayward sailors. 

In today’s podcast, the Greek warrior Odysseus and his ship end up on her shore, trying to get home after ten long years fighting the Trojan war.

Anyone familiar with Homer’s Odyssey knows his travel nightmare. In fact, after the war’s end, he wanders from misadventure to misadventure for ten more years on a trip that should have taken a month.

Chalk it up to malevolent divine intervention. Early in his return, he blinds a Cyclops, one of Poseidon’s sons. 

From that moment forward, Poseidon seeks revenge, becoming Odysseus’s persistent antagonist. A sailor, of course, could have no worse enemy than the mighty sea god.

Further aggravating the situation, Odysseus’s hungry men, upon landing in Thrinacia, eat the sacred cattle of Helios, the sun god. Now, a second god is infuriated with him.

Helios then persuades Zeus to destroy Odysseus’s ship with a thunderbolt, further slowing him down.

As we’ll see in this segment of the Odyssey story, Odysseus sails away from Circe’s island and encounters terrifying new obstacles that he must overcome to get home to his wife, Penelope, in Ithaca. 

Each obstacle is so daunting that they have become ⁠classic examples of the courage and fortitude required to overcome the impossible.

Odysseus’s first encounter is with winged, singing women known as the Sirens.

These beings with their lovely voices invariably drive men mad. All die who hear them, their bones bleaching on the beaches of the land where the Sirens live.

But before we hear this tale …

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Our tale begins at the end of the famous Trojan War. The Greeks have spent ten long years battling the Trojans.

As we know from previous episodes, Helen, a Spartan princess, has either been kidnapped or fled from her marriage. Regardless, she ends up in Troy.

The Greeks persuade themselves that she was kidnapped by Paris, a Trojan prince, and spirited away. 

In reprisal, the Greeks attack Troy, and what seems an endless war ensues when the Olympic gods take sides. 

Finally, after a decade, the Greeks prevail, and the surviving warriors scatter and begin their journey home.

Unfortunately, Odysseus—who is one of the Greek heroes—cannot navigate home along the same route by which he arrived. 

He is foiled by some of the gods who haven’t yet gotten their fill of divine intervention in human affairs and have an axe to grind.

Odysseus is desperate to return to his wife, Penelope. But his overweening confidence causes him to anger the gods and they force his ship off course. 

Year after year goes by, and setback after setback occurs as he tries to find his way home. 

In this episode, we pick up the story after Odysseus has blinded the Cyclops, enraging Poseidon, and escapes. He and his men land on the island of Aeaea, where the sorceress Circe lives.

During their first encounter with her, she turns Odysseus’s men into swine. And she attempts to turn Odysseus into her eternal lover.

After almost a year, he turns her away. They come to terms, each respecting the other. She returns his men to human form and gives Odysseus critical information for his journey.

First, Circe sends them to the Underworld, assuring them that they cannot continue without stopping at this dreaded place to pay their respects to many of their fallen comrades.

Upon their return to Aeaea, Circe throws them a banquet to showcase their courage and celebrate their success in surviving the Underworld.

She asks Odysseus to recount his adventures to her — and recognizing that he is still obsessed with rejoining his wife — she acknowledges that he must continue on.

But before he does, Circe tells him about the trials he’s to face, as she knows all too well that any obstacle could turn into calamity.

She warns Odysseus that he will have to steer through the dual dangers of Scylla and Charybdis, sea monsters that thrive on eating passing sailors. He must also avoid the giant whirlpool that lies between them.

And before encountering Scylla and Charybdis, he’ll have to pass the island of the Sirens. She stresses that the Sirens are as dangerous as Scylla and Charybdis.

Homer describes the Sirens as “those creatures who spellbind any man alive.”

Greek artists often depicted the Sirens as creatures with the bodies of birds and the heads of beautiful women. 

They lived on an island of flowers. But the flowers, however lovely, were a mere decoy.

Their passion was seducing passing sailors with their enchanting voices. It was said that no man could resist their songs.

Homer wrote that all who heard them lost their minds and were left to die where they fell.

Circe’s full warning to Odysseus, as translated by Robert Fagles, is as follows:

First, you will raise the island of the Sirens, those creatures who spellbind any man alive, whoever comes their way. 

Whoever draws too close, off-guard, and catches the Sirens’ voices in the air—

no sailing home for him, no wife rising to meet him, no happy children beaming up at their father’s face.

The high, thrilling song of the Sirens will transfix him, lolling there in their meadow, round them heaps of corpses

rotting away, rags of skin shriveling on their bones… 

Race straight past that coast! Soften some beeswax and stop your shipmates’ ears so none of the crew can hear. 

But if you are bent on hearing, have them tie you hand and foot in the swift ship, erect at the mast-block, lashed by ropes to the mast

so you can hear the Sirens’ song to your heart’s content. But if you plead, commanding your men to set you free,

then they must lash you faster, rope on rope.

...

Odysseus, after memorizing Circe’s advice, warns his shipmates about what they face. Once they have launched their craft, he gathers them near the stern and says, according to Fagles:

Friends, it’s wrong for only one or two to know the revelations that lovely Circe made to me alone.

I’ll tell you all, so that we can die with our eyes open wide now or escape our fate and certain death together.

First, she warns, we must steer clear of the Sirens, their enchanting song, their meadow starred with flowers.

I alone was to hear their voices, so she said, but you must bind me with tight chafing ropes so I cannot move a muscle, bound to the spot,

erect at the mast-block, lashed by ropes to the mast. And if I plead, commanding you to set me free, then lash me faster, rope on pressing rope ...

Odysseus relates that Circe demands that he first put beeswax in his crew’s ears and then have himself tied to the mast.

His crew nods in fear, amazed that the goddess has shared this information. Perhaps they will live to tell their families.

But what, Odysseus wonders, is it about the Sirens that makes them so irresistible to all who hear them? He cannot help himself. He must know…

With Circe’s warnings ringing in his ears, Odysseus and his men raise sail and set off into the sea.

They know that, even before arriving at the Strait of Messina with the sea monsters and the whirlpool, they must first pass the island of the Sirens.

That is the only way home. And so they proceed.

...

The ship made good headway, but suddenly, the wind dies down and the men must row — or as Odysseus tells it, 

All glazed to a dead calm…a mysterious power hushed over the heaving sails. The oarsmen leapt to their feet, struck the sail,

stowed it deep in the hold and sat on the oarlocks, thrashing with polished oars, frothing the water white.

...

An ominous force descends on them. Every sailor feels it. Could this be what Circe had predicted?

As they draw closer to the island, Odysseus prepares the beeswax to put in his crew members’ ears, taking out a “sharp sword” to slice “an ample wheel of beeswax down into pieces”. 

Homer recounts how Odysseus kneads the balls of wax under the hot sun and then gives them to his men, writing,

I sliced the beeswax into pieces, kneaded them in my two strong hands, and the wax grew soft,

worked by my strength and Helios’ burning rays, the sun at high noon, and I stopped the ears of my comrades one by one.

...

His work done, his men spring up to tie Odysseus to the mast, and not a moment too soon. Odysseus, his ears unplugged, awaits the first notes of the hallucinogenic songs.

They finally make contact with the Sirens, and Homer records Odysseus’s account of the meeting as follows:

We were just offshore as far as a man’s shout can carry, scudding close, when the Sirens sensed that a ship

was racing past and burst into their high, thrilling song: “Come closer, famous Odysseus—Achaea’s pride and glory—

Moor your ship on our coast so you can hear our song! Never has any sailor passed our shores in his black craft

until he has heard the honeyed voices pouring from our lips, and once he hears to his heart’s content, sails on, a wiser man.

We know all the pains that the Greeks and Trojans once endured on the spreading plain of Troy when the gods willed it so—

All that comes to pass on the fertile earth, we know it all!” 

So they sent their ravishing voices out across the air, and the heart inside me throbbed to listen longer…

…

Hearing their sweet songs — hearing them sing, “Come closer, famous Odysseus” — he is desperate to steer his ship onto the beaches of the island. But his men keep him tied to the mast. 

They ignore his commands to turn the ship toward the songs. Deaf to the deadly music, his men row on as fast as possible. 

Only Odysseus hears the Sirens and their seductive voice. Only Odysseus is tempted. He alone is filled with the excruciating wisdom of their songs.

...

Interestingly, Homer doesn’t make any reference to the physical appearance of the Sirens — but his silence is likely intentional.

Were they old crones or lovely girls? For centuries, Greek potters depicted them as winged young girls, hovering in small flocks over passing ships.

Homer seemed to believe it didn’t matter. For him, their “honeyed” and “ravishing voices” were more than enough to seduce a man, thus rendering their physical attractiveness irrelevant.

After all, their appeal had less to do with physical temptation and more with the life of the mind. 

The Greeks believed that the Sirens promised forbidden knowledge and secret wisdom to anyone who heard their song.

Odysseus’s encounter with the Sirens, in fact, harkens back to the story of Genesis, echoing the temptation of Eve in the Garden of Eden.

The snake, an early version of the Sirens, offers the fruit of knowledge. Although God warned Adam and Eve, Eve allowed the snake to sweet-talk her into tasting the apple.

Promises of wisdom and knowledge are common temptations in the cultural battles between good and evil.

In Odysseus’s case, the Sirens whispered, “Listen to our song and you will leave a far wiser man.” It was an ancient temptation and one that few could resist. 

Odysseus lived to recount the experience only because of Circe’s kindness. If she hadn’t warned him, his encounter with the Sirens would have ended poorly, his bones, like those of so many other adventurers, bleaching on the shore or in a meadow.

But let’s go on. How does Odysseus describe what happens after he first hears their voices? Desperate to hear every word, he says,

I signaled the crew with frowns to set me free. They flung themselves at the oars and rowed on harder, several crew members springing up at once to bind me with rope on chafing rope.

But once we’d left the Sirens fading in our wake, once we could hear their song no more, nor hear their urgent call — 

my steadfast crew was quick to remove the wax I’d used to seal their ears and loosed the bonds that lashed me.

...

And so, Odysseus and his men managed to escape the Sirens. But there was more.

You’ll remember that Circe also warned Odysseus that he would lose many of his men to the sea monsters Scylla and Charybdis and have to circumnavigate the deadly whirlpool.

The sea monsters lived on opposite shores of the narrow Strait of Messina. As ships passed by, they would reach out to grab unprotected sailors.

Any ship that tried to swerve away discovered that between the two lay the whirlpool. If the monsters did not catch them, the maelstrom would.

The combination of these hazards was believed to pose an inescapable threat to passing sailors, however well prepared.

Odysseus continues his tale, saying,

We’d scarcely put the Sirens’ island astern when suddenly I saw smoke and heavy breakers, heard their booming thunder.

The men were terrified—oar blades flew from their grip, clattering down to splash in the vessel’s wash.

So I shouted. The men snapped to each command. I feared they would panic, desert their oars and huddle down and stow themselves away …

Now in fear, we rowed up on those straits, Scylla to starboard and the dreaded Charybdis off to port,

the horrible whirlpool gulping the sea-surge down, down, all her churning depths seething and heaving spray ...

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Indeed, as they sailed into this cauldron, the monsters attacked the ship and began snatching men left and right. 

One moment, men were rowing, and the next, they were in the mouth of one of the monsters.

In a matter of seconds, Odysseus lost his strongest, toughest men. He was forced to watch as the men were bolted down raw, their arms flailing in a mortal struggle.

Yet somehow the ship sailed on, skirting the whirlpool, and allowing the few remaining men to escape. They had but a brief respite.

The starving Odysseus and what was left of his crew managed to sail to Thrinacia, a land populated by sacred cattle. 

Unfortunately, the cattle belonged to the sun god Helios, who did not take kindly to his herd being turned into barbecue. 

Only Odysseus escaped with his life. He built a raft, reached land, and finally returned home.

Circe had made his final journey possible. Had it not been for her, Odysseus would have never returned to his beloved Penelope.

Thousands of years later, Circe is described as a witch, but the description is disparaging. After all, in her great love, she was willing to help him leave, even if it meant losing him forever.

Her parting words to him were,

Come, take some food and drink some wine. Rest here the livelong day, and then tomorrow, at daybreak, you must sail.

But I will set you a course and chart each seamark, so neither on sea nor land will some new trap ensnare you in trouble, or make you suffer more.

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AT THE END OF THESE EPISODES, I ALWAYS SAY, JOIN ME ... FOR ANOTHER EPISODE OF GARNER'S GREEK MYTHOLOGY. 

By the way, my publisher, Aegis Press, has released a new children’s book by D.K. Garner. This one is entitled “The Whoosh! Book, Six Magical Bedtime Stories.”

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