The Odyssey eBook




Book X

Aeolus, the LAESTRYGONES, Circe.

“Thence we went on to the Aeolian island where lives Aeolus son of Hippotas, dear to the immortal gods.  It is an island that floats (as it were) upon the sea, {83} iron bound with a wall that girds it.  Now, Aeolus has six daughters and six lusty sons, so he made the sons marry the daughters, and they all live with their dear father and mother, feasting and enjoying every conceivable kind of luxury.  All day long the atmosphere of the house is loaded with the savour of roasting meats till it groans again, yard and all; but by night they sleep on their well made bedsteads, each with his own wife between the blankets.  These were the people among whom we had now come.

“Aeolus entertained me for a whole month asking me questions all the time about Troy, the Argive fleet, and the return of the Achaeans.  I told him exactly how everything had happened, and when I said I must go, and asked him to further me on my way, he made no sort of difficulty, but set about doing so at once.  Moreover, he flayed me a prime ox-hide to hold the ways of the roaring winds, which he shut up in the hide as in a sack—­for Jove had made him captain over the winds, and he could stir or still each one of them according to his own pleasure.  He put the sack in the ship and bound the mouth so tightly with a silver thread that not even a breath of a side-wind could blow from any quarter.  The West wind which was fair for us did he alone let blow as it chose; but it all came to nothing, for we were lost through our own folly.

Project Gutenberg
The Odyssey from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
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