ce's island, who begged for proper funeral rites. By Circe's
order, Ulysses, after allowing the ghost of Tiresias to partake of the
victim's blood, learned from him that, although pursued by Neptune's
vengeance, he and his men would reach home safely, provided they
respected the cattle of the Sun on the island of Trinacria. The seer
added that all who attacked them would perish, and that, even if he
should escape death and return home, he would have to slay his wife's
insolent suitors before he could rest in peace.

After this had been accomplished, Ulysses was to resume his wanderings
until he came to a land where the oar he carried would be mistaken for
a winnowing fan. There he was to offer a propitiatory sacrifice to
Neptune, after which he would live to serene old age and die
peacefully among his own people. His conversation with Tiresias
finished, Ulysses interviewed his mother--of whose demise he had not
been aware--and conversed with the shades of sundry women noted for
having borne sons to gods or to famous heroes.

_Book XI._ This account had been heard with breathless interest by the
Phaeacians, whose king now implored Ulysses to go on. The hero then
described his interview with the ghost of Agamemnon,--slain by his
wife and her paramour on his return from Troy,--who predicted his safe
return home, and begged for tidings of his son Orestes, of whom
Ulysses knew nought. Ulysses next beheld Achilles, who, although ruler
of the dead, bitterly declared he would rather be the meanest laborer
on earth than monarch among shades!

"Talk not of ruling in this dolorous gloom,
Nor think vain words (he cried) can ease my doom.
Rather I'd choose laboriously to bear
A weight of woes and breathe the vital air,
A slave to some poor hind that toils for bread,
Than reign the sceptered monarch of the dead."

To comfort him, Ulysses described how bravely his son had fought at
the taking of Troy, where he had been one of the men in the wooden
horse. The only shade which refused to approach Ulysses was that of
Ajax, who still resented his having won the armor of Achilles. Besides
these shades, Ulysses beheld the judges of Hades and the famous
culprits of Tartarus. But, terrified by the "innumerable nation of the
dead" crowding around him, he finally fled in haste to his vessel, and
was soon wafted back to Circe's shore.

_Book XII._ There Ulysses buried his dead companion and, after
describing his visit to Hades