proceeding westward, came to another isle, belonging to Circe, the witch
goddess, daughter to Helios. The comrades of Ulysses, whom he had sent
to explore, did not return, and he was himself landing in search of them,
when Mercury appeared to him, and warned him that, if he tasted of the
bowl she would offer him, he would, like his friends, be changed by her
into a hog, unless he fortified himself with the plant named moly--a
white-flowered, starry sort of garlic, which Mercury gave him. Ulysses
then made his way through a wood to the hall where Circe sat, waited on
by four nymphs. She received him courteously, offered him her cup, and
so soon as he had drunk of it she struck him with her wand, and bade him
go grunt with his fellows; but as, thanks to the moly, he stood unchanged
before her, he drew his sword and made her swear to do him no hurt, and
to restore his companions to their proper form. They then made friends,
and he stayed with her a whole year. She told him that he was fated not
to return home till he had first visited the borders of the world of
Pluto, and consulted Tiresias, the blind prophet. She told him what to
do, and he went on beyond the Mediterranean into the outer ocean, to the
land of gloom, where Helios, the sun, does not shine. Here Ulysses dug a
pit, into which he poured water, wine, and the blood of a great black
ram, and there flocked up to him crowds of shades, eager to drink of it,
and to converse with him. All his own friends were there--Achilles,
Ajax, and, to his surprise, Agamemnon--all very melancholy, and mourning
for the realms of day. His mother, who had died of grief for his
absence, came and blessed him; and Tiresias warned him of Neptune's
anger, and of his other dangers, ere he should return to Ithaca. Terror
at the ghastly troop overcame him at last, and he fled and embarked
again, saw Circe once more, and found himself in the sea by which the
Argo had returned. The Sirens' Isle was near, and, to prevent the perils
of their song, Ulysses stopped the ears of all his crew with wax, and
though he left his own open, bade them lash him to the mast, and not heed
all his cries and struggles to be loosed. Thus he was the only person
who ever heard the Sirens' song and lived. Scylla and Charybdis came
next, and, being warned by Pallas, he thought it better to lose six than
all, and so went nearest to the monster, whose six mouths at once fell on
six of the crew, and tore the