This is a continuation of the journey of Odysseus back home after the battle of Troy. If you have missed the first part, here is a link (click here)
Aeaea (Circe's Island)
The wind blew Odysseus far away from home to an unknown land, all the food they had gathered had been lost to the sea and the crew was starving. Odysseus decided to send some of his men to explore the land for food. Hours went by and they never returned. After a while, Odysseus decided to send a search party to look for his men, suddenly a pig is seen running towards the crew, immediately the hungry men decided to pounce on the pig but another crew member runs shooting at the crew not to eat the pig.
He then narrated the story of how a witch had turned his mates into pigs after offering them food and wine.
Odysseus decided to go and investigate and instructed his men not to kill the pig. On his journey, Athena sent the messenger of the gods, Hermes, to help Odysseus in his quest.
"You must eat of this plant or you will fall under the witch's spell" - Hermes instructed Odysseus.
On arriving at the goddess castle, he was invited in and offered food and wine by Circe. To her astonishment, the spell didn't work. Odysseus then brought out his sword and threatened Circe, seeing that her power did not affect him, she surrendered. She took Odysseus to bed, fed him, and lifted the spell from his men. Circe then invites Odysseus and his men to a feast which the hungry crew agreed to.
They decided to rest here for a few days before embarking on their journey. Little did they know that a day in Circe's palace was a year in the outside world. Odysseus was furious to discover how much time had passed and he forced his crew out and they continued their journey. Before leaving Circe told Odysseus to head for the Land of the dead, there he would meet a man named Tiresias who would tell him how to get back home.
The Underworld (Land of the Dead)
Odysseus and his men embarked on the journey to the underworld. He took a goat as a sacrifice as instructed to seek a meeting with the dead. The crew follows him to the entrance but from there he had to go alone. He saw Tiresias who then instructs Odysseus on what he needed to do to get back home. On his way back he saw his mother's ghost, she had taken her life thinking her son had died in Troy since he didn't return. With so much pain in his heart, he left the underworld to return to his crew.
The Island of the Sirens
The journey back home would not be an easy one, he would have to pass the Island of the Sirens. You may have heard of the Sirens in a lot of sailor's poems. They sing beautiful tunes to attract sailors and then they eat them. To survive them, you would need to have a lot of self-control or just cover your ears with beeswax.
The crew was instructed to cover their ears with beeswax and Odysseus had to be tied to the mast of the ship (without beeswax) if he was to pass this Island. No matter how much he begged, his crew was not allowed his release him until they had passed this Island.
Scylla and Charybdis
After they had passed the Island of the Sirens, they also had to between two cliffs. On one side of the cliff lived the Scylla and on the other lived the Charybdis.
The Scylla is a mythical creature with 6 heads if you behead its head another would grow in its place and the Charybdis is another mythical creature that lived under the water. It would often come to the surface to swallow up ships. Odysseus divided to row his ship close to the cliff of the Scylla. He lost a couple of his men to this beast but it was a better option as compared to losing the whole ship in one swallow to the Charybdis.
The Island of Helios
They survived their encounter with the Sirens, the Scylla, and the Charybdis. Now they had gotten to the Island of Helios, the god of the sun. Tiresias had instructed Odysseus in the land of the dead not to kill any of the cattle on this Island since they belonged to the sun god, Helios. The punishment for harming any of the cattle would anger the god who would kill all the members of his crew. If they were able to survive this temptation, they would all return home safely.
They still had enough food which Circe had given them but soon a heavy storm came and trapped them on this Island which lasted for months. They soon ran out of food and were hungry again.
One day when Odysseus was away, the crew decided to help themselves to a cattle despite the warnings and this made Helios very angry. When the storm died down, the crew decided to board their ship back home but then came another storm which destroyed the ship killing all the crew members, all except Odysseus.
As the wave swept his almost lifeless body ashore, the thoughts of seeing his beautiful Penelope again and his son, Telemachus.
I don't know about you but I don't think anyone would have been able to last this long facing so many life-endangering adventures just to return home and now he's alone and has lost all his crew.
References
This article is based on Homers Poem on the journey of Odysseus
All images are sourced with the links attached to each image (you can visit the source by clicking on the image)
Having someone in mind to return to, cause be the reason Odysseus was still alive after encountering so many setbacks on the way.