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(From Odyssey, Book XII) Translated by W. C. Bryant
SHE spake; the Morning on her golden throne | |
| Looked forth; the glorious goddess went her way | |
| Into the isle, I to my ship, and bade | |
| The men embark and cast the hawsers loose. | |
| And straight they went on board, and duly manned | 5 |
| The benches, smiting as they sat with oars | |
| The hoary waters. Circè, amber-haired, | |
| The mighty goddess of the musical voice, | |
| Sent a fair wind behind our dark-prowed ship | |
| That gayly bore us company, and filled | 10 |
| The sails. When we had fairly ordered all | |
| On board our galley, we sat down, and left | |
| The favoring wind and helm to bear us on, | |
| And thus in sadness I bespake the crew:— | |
| “My friends! it were not well that one or two | 15 |
| Alone should know the oracles I heard | |
| From Circè, great among the goddesses; | |
| And now will I disclose them, that ye all, | |
| Whether we are to die or to escape | |
| The doom of death, may be forewarned. And first | 20 |
| Against the wicked Sirens and their song | |
| And flowery bank she warns us. I alone | |
| May hear their voice, but ye must bind me first | |
| With bands too strong to break, that I may stand | |
| Upright against the mast; and let the cords | 25 |
| Be fastened round it. If I then entreat | |
| And bid you loose me, make the bands more strong.” | |
| Thus to my crew I spake, and told them all | |
| That they should know, while our good ship drew near | |
| The island of the Sirens, prosperous gales | 30 |
| Wafting it gently onward. Then the breeze | |
| Sank to a breathless calm; some deity | |
| Had hushed the winds to slumber. Straightway rose | |
| The men and furled the sails and laid them down | |
| Within the ship, and sat and made the sea | 35 |
| White with the beating of their polished blades, | |
| Made of the fir-tree. Then I took a mass | |
| Of wax and cut it into many parts, | |
| And kneaded each with a strong hand. It grew | |
| Warm with the pressure, and the beams of him | 40 |
| Who journeys round the earth, the monarch Sun. | |
| With this I filled the ears of all my men | |
| From first to last. They bound me, in their turn, | |
| Upright against the mast-tree, hand and foot, | |
| And tied the cords around it. Then again | 45 |
| They sat and threshed with oars the hoary deep. | |
| And when, in running rapidly, we came | |
| So near the Sirens as to hear a voice | |
| From where they sat, our galley flew not by | |
| Unseen by them, and sweetly thus they sang:— | 50 |
| “O world-renowned Ulysses! thou who art | |
| The glory of the Achaians, turn thy bark | |
| Landward, that thou mayst listen to our lay. | |
| No man has passed us in his galley yet, | |
| Ere he has heard our warbled melodies. | 55 |
| He goes delighted hence a wiser man; | |
| For all that in the spacious realm of Troy | |
| The Greeks and Trojans by the will of Heaven | |
| Endured we know, and all that comes to pass | |
| In all the nations of the fruitful earth.” | 60 |
| ’T was thus they sang, and sweet the strain. I longed | |
| To listen, and with nods I gave the sign | |
| To set me free; they only plied their oars | |
| The faster. Then upsprang Eurylochus | |
| And Perimedes, and with added chords | 65 |
| Bound me, and drew the others still more tight. | |
| And when we now had passed the spot, and heard | |
| No more the melody the Sirens sang, | |
| My comrades hastened from their ears to take | |
| The wax, and loosed the cords and set me free. | 70 |
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