The Odyssey Book Xi Summary

A band of rowdy suitors believing odysseus to be dead has overrun his palace courting his faithful though weakening wife penelope and going through his stock of food with permission from zeus the goddess athena odysseus greatest immortal ally appears in disguise and.

The odyssey book xi summary. Odysseus and his remaining men leave kirke and sail toward the. Once when she was taking a walk by his side as usual neptune disguised as her lover lay with her at the mouth of the river and a huge blue wave arched itself like a mountain over them to hide both woman and god whereon he loosed her virgin girdle and laid her in a deep slumber. They dug a trench offered libations and sacrificed a ewe and a ram.

Odysseus promises him a proper sailor s burial back on circe s island. The land of the dead is near the homes of the cimmerians who live shrouded in mist and cloud 11 17 never seeing the sun. Odysseus and his crew sail to the region of the men of winter and per circe s instructions make a ritual sacrifice for tiresias.

Within ten days they are in sight of ithaca but odysseus s shipmates who think that aeolus has secretly. Chapter summary for homer s the odyssey book 11 summary. Odysseus sailed forth to the river ocean which encircles the earth and offered the proper sacrifice on the shore.

The spirits clustered round the blood. The achaeans sail from the land of the cyclopes to the home of aeolus ruler of the winds. In book 11 of homer s the odyssey odysseus continues to share the story of his difficult journey with alkinoos and the phaiakians.

Ten years after the fall of troy the victorious greek hero odysseus has still not returned to his native ithaca. First elpenor spoke requesting cremation and burial. Aeolus presents odysseus with a bag containing all of the winds and he stirs up a westerly wind to guide odysseus and his crew home.

The men returned to aeaea performed all the proper funeral rites for elpenor and buried his body. While waiting for tiresias odysseus cuts down the other phantoms that emerge including elpenor who had fallen from circe s roof. When he and his men reached the entrance to the world of the dead they did exactly as circe said.