Odyssey The Land Of The Dead Summary

"The Odyssey" The Land of the Dead

Oddyseus started to seak to the spirits of the promising to sacrifice his best cow before she had her calve. Then he promised to sacrifice a black lamb whick was the finest in his heard. After promising to sacrifice the animals he did it. The spirits started to gather at the edge of Erebus, the place where the dead reside. The spirits included those of the young and the old; male and female. There were also many warriors who were still in possesion of their armor and weaponry. The spirits started to try to escape from the pit of Erebus. Oddyseus told his men to skin the animal that they had killed and make them into offering for Hades and Persephone, the god and godess of the dead who reside in the underworld. He sat waiting with his sword out to defend himself from the from the spirits until he noticed te presence of Tieresias, a blind prophet from Thebes, who came forward and spoke to Oddyseus.
Tieresias asked him why he was in the land of the dead and to put down his sword.
Then the prophet said that he wanted to taste the blood of the sacrifice he had made. Oddyseus stepped aside and sheathed his sword and the prophet bent down to drink. Tiereseus then tells him that anguish and hardship lie ahead and that poseidon is the one that will cause it because Oddyseus blinded his son Polyphemos the cyclops. He then says that Oddyseus will pass through a narrow straight that will take him home, and that Oddyseus will reach Thrinakia, the land of Helio's grazing cattle, where the sun god sees and hears everything. He says to avoid the cattle of the sun god and to stick with trying to get home, but if you butcher the cattle there will be destruction of ship and crew and only you will survive. Tiereseus then says that he will reach home on an unfamiliar ship only to find that men are in you home eating your food and trying to marry your wife. He then says that Oddyseus will kill these men either by stealth or open
combat. He then tells Oddyseus that he will travel by land and sea to a landlocked place. The spot will be plain to you he says and the people will ask what kind of wheat sowing device you have. He tell Oddyseus that he will then jam the device, his oar, into the ground. Oddyseus is then told to make a sacrific to poseidon in the form of a ram, bull, buck boar. He tells Oddyseus to then go home and kill 100 pure cattle in the name of poseidon and all the gods. The final thing that Oddyseus is toldis that he will receive an easy death at sea will come to him when he is old, and then the prophet says that all that he has just said will be true as his journey home takes place.