“_Take no concern, for pilot need you none._
“_Hoist but your mast and spread the sails of white, And sitting let the North wind’s breath aright Bear her: but when on shipboard you have crossed The Ocean-river, there will come in sight_
“_The tangled groves of Queen Persephone, A low shore set with the tall poplar tree And willow that untimely sheds her fruit; There run your ship abeach out of the sea,_
“_Beside the Ocean-stream’s deep-eddying flow, And to the mouldering house of Hades go Afoot._“[9]
She told him all that he must do there; how he must pass right through the crowding shadowy forms, and where two loud-thundering rivers meet he must dig a trench and pour out a drink-offering before the dead. But he must not let them partake of it, and must keep them at bay with drawn sword till the prophet Tiresias should appear and prophesy to him of his return.
_So spake she, and Dawn straightway rose and shone Gold-throned; and in my shirt and cloak anon I clad me, and the nymph herself a great White mantle, thin and beautiful, put on;_
_And round her loins a golden girdle fair She drew, and cast a kerchief on her hair; But I throughout the house to everyman Went with soft words, and bade my crew prepare._[9]
The crew set cheerily to work, but they did not know all yet; and when Odysseus told them of the dreadful voyage they had now to make at the bidding of the goddess, they were filled with despair. Perhaps Circe too was ruthful at heart; and one act of grace at least she did them. For when all was ready to launch the ship, they found that an unseen hand had placed beside it the animals that they would need for sacrifices in the World of the Dead:
_But when at last the margent of the sea And the swift ship we reached in misery, While from our eyes the heavy tear-drops ran, Circe, before us gone invisibly,_
_By the black ship a ram and a black ewe Had tethered, lightly passing by our crew. For mortal eyes a god against his will Hither and thither going may not view._[9]
Circe did not say farewell, because she knew that they would meet again. For the first spirit to greet Odysseus when he reached the dark Underworld was the restless ghost of Elpenor, one of his own crew. In the hurry of their departure, Elpenor had fallen from a gallery and had been killed. His untended body still lay in Circe’s house, and the poor ghost could not rest until it was buried. So when the dreadful journey to the dead was accomplished, Odysseus sailed back to Aeaea to perform the funeral rites.