After the Nekuia, Circe warned of the Sirens, Scylla, Charybdis, and Helios' sacred cattle — Odysseus heard the deadly song lashed to the mast, lost six men to Scylla's jaws, and survived alone when his crew slaughtered the Sun's herds and Zeus shattered the ship.1
Circe's counsel
Returning from Hades, Odysseus buried Elpenor on Aeaea with his armour and oar-mound. Circe warned him of the perils ahead: the Sirens who enchant all who hear them; the twin cliffs where Scylla seizes men from the ship and Charybdis sucks the sea; and Thrinacia, where Helios pastured his immortal cattle and sheep — touch them, she said, and the company would perish.2
The Sirens' song
Odysseus stopped his comrades' ears with wax and had them lash him naked to the mast so he alone could hear the Sirens promise knowledge of all things — yet live to tell of it. They sang; he begged to be loosed; the crew bound him tighter until the ship was past the enchanted isle and the voices faded.3
Scylla and Charybdis
Between the whirlpool and the cliff Odysseus rowed nearer Scylla than to Charybdis, though Circe had forbidden fighting the monster — for she could not be slain. Scylla's six heads snatched six companions from the benches; Odysseus saw their arms reach upward as they were lifted to her cave, and could not save them.4
The cattle of the Sun
Contrary winds detained the ship on Thrinacia. Odysseus made his men swear not to touch Helios' herds; but while he slept, hunger and Eurylochus' counsel drove them to slaughter the sacred cattle. The Sun demanded vengeance of Zeus; when the ship put out, a thunderbolt shattered the timbers and every companion drowned.5
Alone to Ogygia
Odysseus clung to the keel and mast until Calypso's isle received him — the last survivor of twelve ships, fulfilling in part Polyphemus' curse. For seven years the bright goddess kept him in her caves, offering immortality if he would stay and forget rocky Ithaca.6
· EXEUNT ·
How the centuries saw it
Ulysses and the Sirens
John William Waterhouse, 1891
Waterhouse gives the singers their old vase-form back — great birds with women's faces settling on the rigging around the bound king, close enough to touch.
Ulysses and the Sirens
Herbert James Draper, 1909
The Edwardian nightmare version: the singers climb over the gunwale as sea-nymphs while Ulysses strains against the mast and the rowers' sealed ears hold the ship on course.
Odysseus Between Scylla and Charybdis
Henry Fuseli, 1794–1796
The strait as pure vertigo — the hero braced on a heaving deck between the whirlpool's mouth below and the six-fold shadow falling from above.
On screen
Ulysses
Mario Camerini
Camerini restages the mast and the song — Odysseus bound while the crew rows past the meadow of bones.
The Odyssey
Andrei Konchalovsky
The miniseries keeps Circe's warnings and the strait — Sirens, Scylla's six heads, and the cattle of the Sun.
In play
Odyssey
Book XII remains the Western template for deadly song, the whirlpool, and the choice between two monsters.
Siren
The bird-women of the strait endure as the emblem of beauty that kills those who listen unbound.
Scylla
Six mouths above Charybdis — the monster who takes six men whenever a ship threads the strait.