Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 18, 2025
And is not eternal life perhaps eternal consciousness, not only seeing God, but seeing that we see Him, seeing ourselves at the same time and ourselves as distinct from Him? He who sleeps lives, but he has no consciousness of himself; and would anyone wish for an eternal sleep? And can it be said that the others, apart from Teiresias, had really overcome death?
So I spake to my comrades, saying: 'Hear now the counsels of Teiresias and Circe. They charged me to sail by the island of the Sun; for they said that there the most dreadful evil would overtake us. Do ye then row the ship past.
And from the sea shall thine own death come, the gentlest death that may be, which shall end thee foredone with smooth old age, and the folk shall dwell happily around thee. This that I say is sooth." 'So spake he, and I answered him, saying: "Teiresias, all these threads, methinks, the gods themselves have spun. But come, declare me this and plainly tell me all.
The descent into hell, for some similar purpose, is common in the epics of other races, such as the Finns, and the South-Sea Islanders. From Teiresias Odysseus learned that, if he would bring his companions home, he must avoid injuring the sacred cattle of the Sun, which pastured in the Isle of Thrinacia.
I also particularly promised that Teiresias should have a black sheep to himself, the best in all my flocks.
And I sprinkled white meal thereon, and entreated with many prayers the strengthless heads of the dead, and promised that on my return to Ithaca I would offer in my halls a barren heifer, the best I had, and fill the pyre with treasure, and apart unto Teiresias alone sacrifice a black ram without spot, the fairest of my flock.
He told of Circe, too, and all her crafty guile; and how on a ship of many oars he came to the mouldering house of Hades, there to consult the spirit of Teiresias of Thebes, and looked on all his comrades, and on the mother who had borne him and cared for him when little; how he had heard the full-voiced Sirens' song; how he came to the Wandering Rocks, to dire Charybdis and to Scylla, past whom none goes unharmed; how then his crew slew the Sun's kine; how Zeus with a blazing bolt smote his swift ship, Zeus, thundering from on high, and his good comrades perished, utterly, all, while he escaped their evil doom; how he came to the island of Ogygia and to the nymph Calypso, who held him in her hollow grotto, wishing him to be her husband, cherishing him, and saying she would make him an immortal, young forever, but she never beguiled the heart within his breast; then how he came through many toils to the Phæacians, who honored him exceedingly, as if he were a god, and brought him on his way to his native land, giving him stores of bronze and gold and clothing.
It seemed a very aged man, with flowing white beard, and sightless eyes; and Odysseus knew by these signs that he was in the presence of Teiresias, the famous prophet of Thebes, who alone among departed spirits preserves his understanding, while the rest are flitting phantoms, with no sense at all.
When I saw them coming I told the men to be quick and flay the carcasses of the two dead sheep and make burnt offerings of them, and at the same time to repeat prayers to Hades and to Proserpine; but I sat where I was with my sword drawn and would not let the poor feckless ghosts come near the blood till Teiresias should have answered my questions.
If she has erred, she will confess it; if the King is wrong, she prays he may not suffer greater woes than her own. A reaction now occurs. Teiresias, the blind seer, seeks out Creon because of the failure of his sacrificial rites; the birds of the air are gorged with human blood, and fail to give the signs of augury. He bids Creon return to his right senses and quit his stubbornness.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking