Epitome

Apollodorus

Apollodorus. The Library. Frazer, James George, Sir, editor. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd. 1921

And he snatched up one of them and devoured him; but the rest fled, and he pursued them, shouting and calling together the rest of the Laestrygones. They came to the sea, and by throwing stones they broke the vessels and ate the men. Ulysses cut the cable of his ship and put to sea; but the rest of the ships perished with their crews.

With one ship he put in to the Aeaean isle. It was inhabited by Circe, a daughter of the Sun and of Perse, and a sister of Aeetes; skilled in all enchantments was she.[*](As to the adventures of Ulysses and his comrades with the enchantress Circe, see Hom. Od. 10.133-574; Hyginus, Fab. 125; Ov. Met. 14.246-440. The word (φάρμακα) here translated “enchantments” means primarily drugs; but in the early stages of medicine drugs were supposed to be endowed with magical potency, partly in virtue of the spells, that is, the form of words, with which the medical practitioner administered them to the patient. Hence druggist and enchanter were nearly synonymous terms. As Circe used her knowledge of drugs purely for magical purposes, without any regard to the medical side of the profession, it seems better to translate her φάρμακα by “enchantments” or “charms” rather than “drugs,” and to call her an enchantress instead of a druggist.) Having divided his comrades, Ulysses himself abode by the ship, in accordance with the lot, but Eurylochus with two and twenty comrades repaired to Circe.

At her call they all entered except Eurylochus; and to each she gave a tankard she had filled with cheese and honey and barley meal and wine, and mixed with an enchantment. And when they had drunk, she touched them with a wand and changed their shapes, and some she made wolves, and some swine, and some asses, and some lions.[*](In Hom. Od. 10.237ff.) the companions of Ulysses are turned into swine only; nothing is said about a transformation of them into wolves, lions, and asses, though round about the house of the enchantress they saw wolves and lions, which stood on their hind legs, wagged their tails, and fawned upon them, because they were men enchanted (Hom. Od. 10.210-219).)

But Eurylochus saw these things and

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reported them to Ulysses. And Ulysses went to Circe with moly,[*](As to moly, see Hom. Od. 10.302-306. Homer says that it was a plant dug up from the earth, with a black root and a white flower. According to Theophrastus, Hist. Plant. ix.15.7, moly resembled Allium nigrum, which was found in the valley of Pheneus and on Mount Cyllene in northern Arcadia; he says it had a round root, like an onion, and a leaf like a squill, and that it was used as an antidote to spells and enchantments. But probably the moly of Homer grew on no earthly hill or valley, but only in “fairyland forlorn.”) which he had received from Hermes, and throwing the moly among her enchantments, he drank and alone was not enchanted. Then drawing his sword, he would have killed her, but she appeased his wrath and restored his comrades. And when he had taken an oath of her that he should suffer no harm, Ulysses shared her bed, and a son, Telegonus, was born to him.[*](Telegonus is unknown to Homer, who mentions no offspring of Ulysses by the enchantress Circe. He is named as a son of Ulysses and Circe by Hesiod in a line which is suspected, however, of being spurious (Hes. Th. 1014). He was recognized by Hagias in his epic, The Returns, and by another Cyclic poet Eugammon of Cyrene; indeed Eugammon composed an epic called the Telegony on the adventures of Telegonus, but according to him Telegonus was a son of Ulysses by Calypso, not by Circe. See Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, pp. 56, 57ff.; Eustathius on Hom. Od. xvi.118, p. 1796. According to Hyginus, Fab. 125, Ulysses had two sons, Nausithous and Telegonus, by Circe. As to Telegonus, see also below, Apollod. E.7.36ff. )

Having tarried a year there, he sailed the ocean, and offered sacrifices to the souls,[*](The visit of Ulysses to the land of the dead is the theme of the eleventh book of the Odyssey. Compare Hyginus, Fab. 125. The visit was the subject of one of the two great pictures by Polygnotus at Delphi. See Paus. 10.28-31.) and by Circe's advice consulted the soothsayer Tiresias,[*](As to the consultation with Tiresias, see Hom. Od. 11.90-151.) and beheld the souls both of heroes and of heroines. He also looked on his mother Anticlia[*](As to the interview of Ulysses with his mother, see Hom. Od. 11.153-224.) and Elpenor, who had died of a fall in the house of Circe.[*](In the hot air of Circe's enchanted isle Elpenor had slept for coolness on the roof of the palace; then, suddenly wakened by the noise and bustle of his comrades making ready to depart, he started up and, forgetting to descend by the ladder, tumbled from the roof and broke his neck. In his hurry to be off, Ulysses had not stayed to bury his dead comrade; so the soul of Elpenor, unwept and unburied, was the first to meet his captain on the threshold of the spirit land. See Hom. Od. 10.552-560; Hom. Od. 11.51-83.)

And having come to Circe he was sent on his way by her, and put to sea, and sailed past the isle of the

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Sirens.[*](As to the return of Ulysses to the isle of Circe, and his sailing past the Sirens, see Hom. Od. 12.1-200; Hyginus, Fab. 125. Homer does not name the Sirens individually nor mention their parentage, but by using the dual in reference to them (Hom. Od. 12.52; Hom. Od. 12.167) he indicates that they were two in number. Sophocles, in his play Ulysses, called the Sirens daughters of Phorcus, and agreed with Homer in recognizing only two of them. See Plut. Quaest. Conviv. ix.14.6; The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, iii.66, frag. 861. Apollonius Rhodius says that the Muse Terpsichore bore the Sirens to Achelous (Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.895ff.). Hyginus names four of them, Teles, Raidne, Molpe, and Thelxiope (Hyginus, Fab. praefat. p. 30, ed. Bunte), and, in agreement with Apollodorus, says that they were the offspring of Achelous by the Muse Melpomene. Tzetzes calls them Parthenope, Leucosia, and Ligia, but adds that other people named them Pisinoe, Aglaope, and Thelxiepia, and that they were the children of Achelous and Terpsichore. With regard to the parts which they took in the bewitching concert, he agrees with Apollodorus. See Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 712. According to a Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon.iv.892, their names were Thelxiope, or Thelxione, Molpe, and Aglaophonus. As to their names and parents see also Eustathius on Hom. Od. 12. p. 1709, Scholiast on Hom. Od. xii.39, who mention the view that the father of the Sirens was Achelous, and that their mother was either the Muse Terpsichore, or Sterope, daughter of Porthaon.) Now the Sirens were Pisinoe, Aglaope, and Thelxiepia, daughters of Achelous and Melpomene, one of the Muses. One of them played the lyre, another sang, and another played the flute, and by these means they were fain to persuade passing mariners to linger;

and from the thighs they had the forms of birds.[*](Similarly Apollonius Rhodius (Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.898ff.) describes the Sirens as partly virgins and partly birds. Aelian tells us (Ael., Nat. Anim. xvii.23) that poets and painters represented them as winged maidens with the feet of birds. Ovid says that the Sirens had the feet and feathers of birds, but the faces of virgins; and he asks why these daughters of Achelous, as he calls them, had this hybrid form. Perhaps, he thinks, it was because they had been playing with Persephone when gloomy Dis carried her off, and they had begged the gods to grant them wings, that they might search for their lost playmate over seas as well as land. See Ov. Met. 5.552-562. In like manner Hyginus describes the Sirens as women above and fowls below, but he says that their wings and feathers were a punishment inflicted on them by Demeter for not rescuing Persephone from the clutches of Pluto. See Hyginus, Fab. 125, 141. Another story was that they were maidens whom Aphrodite turned into birds because they chose to remain unmarried. See Eustathius on Hom. Od. 12.47, p. 1709. It is said that they once vied with the Muses in singing, and that the Muses, being victorious, plucked off the Siren's feathers and made crowns out of them for themselves (Paus. 9.34.3). In ancient art, as in literature, the Sirens are commonly represented as women above and birds below. See Miss J. E. Harrison, Myths of the Odyssey (London, 1882), pp. 146ff. Homer says nothing as to the semi-bird shape of the Sirens, thus leaving us to infer that they were purely human.) Sailing by them, Ulysses wished to hear their song, so by Circe's advice he stopped the ears of his comrades with wax, and ordered that he should himself be bound to the mast. And being persuaded by the Sirens to linger, he begged to be released, but they bound him the more, and so he

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sailed past. Now it was predicted of the Sirens that they should themselves die when a ship should pass them; so die they did.[*](This is not mentioned by Homer, but is affirmed by Hyginus, Fab. 125, 141). Others said that the Sirens cast themselves into the sea and were drowned from sheer vexation at the escape of Ulysses. See Scholiast on Hom. Od.xii.39; Eustathius on Hom. Od. 12.167, p. 1709; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 712; compare Strab. 6.1.1.)

And after that he came to two ways. On the one side were the Wandering Rocks,[*](As to Ulysses and the Wandering Rocks, see Hom. Od. 12.52-72; Hom. Od. 12.201-221. The poet mentions (Hom. Od. 12.70-72) the former passage of the Argo between the Wandering or Clashing Rocks, as to which see above Apollod. 1.9.22, with the note. It has been suggested that in the story of the Wandering Rocks we have a confused reminiscence of some sailor's story of floating icebergs. See Merry, on Homer, Od. xii.61.) and on the other side two huge cliffs, and in one of them was Scylla,[*](As to the passage of Ulysses between Scylla and Charybdis, see Hom. Od. 12.73-126; Hom. Od. 12.222-259; Hyginus, Fab. 125, 199.) a daughter of Crataeis and Trienus or Phorcus,[*](Homer mentions Crataeis as the mother of Scylla, but says nothing as to her father (Hom. Od. 12.124ff.). According to Stesichorus, the mother of Scylla was Lamia. See Scholiast on Hom. Od. 12.124; Eustathius on Hom. Od. xii.85, p. 1714. Apollonius Rhodius represents Scylla as a daughter of Phorcus by the night-wandering hag Hecate (Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.828ff.), and this parentage has the support of Acusilaus, except that he named her father Phorcys instead of Phorcus (Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.828; compare Eustathius on Hom. Od. xii.85, p. 1714). Hyginus calls her a daughter of Typhon and Echidna (Hyginus, Fab. 125, 151, and praefat. p. 31, ed. Bunte). A Scholiast on Plat. Rep. 9, 588c, who may have copied the present passage of Apollodorus, calls Scylla a daughter of Crataeis and Tyrrhenus or Phorcus, adding that she had the face and breasts of a woman, but from the flanks six heads of dogs and twelve feet. Some said that the father of Scylla was Triton (Eustathius on Hom. Od. xii.85, p. 1714); and perhaps the name Triton should be read instead of Trienus in the present passage of Apollodorus. See the Critical Note.) with the face and breast of a woman, but from the flanks she had six heads and twelve feet of dogs.

And in the other cliff was Charybdis, who thrice a day drew up the water and spouted it again. By the advice of Circe he shunned the passage by the Wandering Rocks, and in sailing past the cliff of Scylla he stood fully armed on the poop. But Scylla appeared, snatched

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six of his comrades, and gobbled them up.

And thence he came to Thrinacia, an island of the Sun, where kine were grazing, and being windbound, he tarried there.[*](As to the adventures of Ulysses in Thrinacia, the island of the Sun, see Hom. Od. 12.127-141; Hom. Od. 12.260-402.) But when his comrades slaughtered some of the kine and banqueted on them, for lack of food, the Sun reported it to Zeus, and when Ulysses put out to sea, Zeus struck him with a thunderbolt.[*](See Hom. Od. 12.403-425.)

And when the ship broke up, Ulysses clung to the mast and drifted to Charybdis. And when Charybdis sucked down the mast, he clutched an overhanging wild fig-tree and waited, and when he saw the mast shot up again, he cast himself on it, and was carried across to the island of Ogygia.[*](See Hom. Od. 12.426-450, compare Hom. Od. 5.128-135.)

There Calypso, daughter of Atlas, received him, and bedding with him bore a son Latinus. He stayed with her five years, and then made a raft and sailed away.[*](As to the stay of Ulysses with Calypso in the island of Ogygia, and his departure in a boat of his own building, see Hom. Od. 5.13-281; Hom. Od. 7.243-266; Hyginus, Fab. 125. According to Hom. Od. 7.259, Ulysses stayed seven years with Calypso, not five years, as Apollodorus says. Hyginus limits the stay to one year. Homer does not mention that Calypso bore a son to Ulysses. In the Theogony of Hesiod (Hes. Th. 1111ff.) it is said that Circe (not Calypso), bore two sons, Agrius and Latinus, to Ulysses; the verses, however, are probably not by Hesiod but have been interpolated by a later poet of the Roman era in order to provide the Latins with a distinguished Greek ancestry. The verses are quoted by the Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. iii.200. Compare Joannes Lydus, De mensibus i.13, p. 7, ed. Bekker. Eustathius says (Eustathius on Hom. Od. xvi.118, p. 1796) that, according to Hesiod, Ulysses had two sons, Agrius and Latinus, by Circe, and two sons, Nausithous and Nausinous, by Calypso.) But on the high sea the raft was broken in pieces by the wrath of Poseidon, and Ulysses was washed up naked on the shore of the Phaeacians.[*](See Hom. Od. 5.282-493; Hyginus, Fab. 125.)