commander for lost; who when they came, and saw him again alive, circled with their fellows, no expression can tell what joy they felt; they even cried out with rapture, and to have seen their frantic expressions of mirth, a man might have supposed that they were just in sight of their country earth, the cliffs of rocky Ithaca.  Only Eurylochus would hardly be persuaded to enter that palace of wonders, for he remembered with a kind of horror how his companions had vanished from his sight.

Then great Circe spake, and gave order, that there should be no more sadness among them, nor remembering of past sufferings.  For as yet they fared like men that are exiles from their country, and if a gleam of mirth shot among them, it was suddenly quenched with the thought of their helpless and homeless condition.  Her kind persuasions wrought upon Ulysses and the rest, that they spent twelve months in all manner of delight with her in her palace.  For Circe was a powerful magician, and could command the moon from her sphere, or unroot the solid oak from its place to make it dance for their diversion, and by the help of her illusions she could vary the taste of pleasures, and contrive delights, recreations, and jolly pastimes, to “fetch the day about from sun to sun, and rock the tedious year as in a delightful dream.”

At length Ulysses awoke from the trance of the faculties into which her charms had thrown him, and the thought of home returned with tenfold vigour to goad and sting him; that home where he had left his virtuous wife Penelope, and his young son Telemachus.  One day when Circe had been lavish of her caresses, and was in her kindest humour, he moved to her subtilly, and as it were afar off, the question of his home-return; to which she answered firmly, “O Ulysses, it is not in my power to detain one whom the gods have destined to further trials.  But leaving me, before you pursue your journey home, you must visit the house of Ades, or Death, to consult the shade of Tiresias the Theban prophet; to whom alone, of all the dead, Proserpine, queen of hell, has committed the secret of future events:  it is he that must inform you whether you shall ever see again your wife and country.”  “O Circe,” he cried; “that is impossible:  who shall steer my course to Pluto’s kingdom?  Never ship had strength to make that voyage.”  “Seek no guide,” she replied; “but raise you your mast, and hoist your white sails, and sit in your ship in peace:  the north wind shall waft you through the seas, till you shall cross the expanse of the ocean, and come to where grow the poplar groves, and willows pale, of Proserpine:  where Pyriphlegethon and Cocytus and Acheron mingle their waves.  Cocytus is an arm of Styx, the forgetful river.  Here dig a pit, and make it a cubit broad and a cubit long, and pour in milk, and honey, and wine, and the blood of a ram, and the blood of a black ewe, and turn away thy face while thou pourest in, and the dead shall come flocking to taste the milk and the blood:  but suffer none to approach thy offering till thou hast enquired of Tiresias all which thou wishest to know.”