![[The Odyssey]](odtit.gif)
Lessons from the Land of the Dead
Not a very useful trip on the whole - but you hardly qualify as a true hero without an Underworld visit (Orpheus, Theseus, Heracles all had one). You did find out (from Anticleia, your mum) how things are at home in Ithaca (bad : mum's dead, dad's gone peculiar, wife's being pestered by suitors who hope you're dead, son's bullied all the time by these suitors). Teiresias tells you not to eat the cattle of Hyperion, the Sun God, and what'll happen to you in the end (you will get home, but late, alone, in a foreign ship, to find trouble waiting. Then you will have to travel again until you make peace with Poseidon, and eventually die quietly at home). All well and good, but what about more pressing problems?You also meet old friends (Agamemnon, murdered by his wife, tells you not to trust women; Achilles says he'd rather be the slave of a landless peasant and be alive; Ajax won't even speak to you) - and see how the great sinners are being punished (Sisyphus's trouble over rock and roll, Tityos's liver problem). But basically, it is a DEPRESSING place, and as the gibbering souls begin to crowd round you, you rush back to your ship and return to Aeaea.
You bury poor old Elpenor, and Circe gives you important information about your future (much more use than Teiresias). One last night of love, and you are off.