Odysseus in the Underworld

Also called: Nekyia, Tiresias

A legend handed down over the centuries.

A Greek myth told in Book 11 of the Odyssey. Following Circe’s instructions, Odysseus sails to the entrance of the underworld at the edge of the world, hears from the shade of the seer Tiresias how he will get home, and meets the shades of his mother and of Achilles.

This Greek myth is told in Book 11 of Homer’s Odyssey, the Nekyia. Odysseus beached his ship at the edge of the world where the river Ocean flows, in the sunless land of the Cimmerians, dug a pit and poured in the blood of sheep. Among the shades that thronged to drink it, the seer Tiresias warned that Poseidon’s anger would make his homecoming hard, and that if the cattle of the Sun on the island of Thrinacia were harmed he would lose all his men.

Three times Odysseus tried to embrace the shade of his mother Anticleia, who had died of longing after he left, and three times she slipped away like a shadow. The shade of Achilles, hero of Troy, told him he would rather be a hired labourer among the living than king over all the dead. The ancient Romans placed the entrance to the underworld at Lake Avernus, west of Naples.