A source-book of ancient history - The Search For Mecca

92 Myth and Religion
So spake I, and anon he answered me and said: "l will
tell thee an easy saying, and will put it in thy heart.
Whomsoever
of the dead that be departed thou shalt suffer to
draw nigh to the blood, he shall tell thee sooth; but if thou
shalt grudge any, that one shall go to his own place again."
Therewith the spirit of the prince Teiresias went back
within the house of Hades, when he had told all his oracles.
But I abode there steadfastly, till my mother drew nigh
and drank the dark blood; and at once she knew me, and
bewailing herself spake to me winged words:
"Dear child, how didst thou come beneath the darkness
and the shadow, thou that art a living man? Grievous
is the sight of these things to the living, for between
us and you are great rivers and dreadful streams; first,
Oceanus, which can no wise be crossed on foot, but only
if one have a well-wrought ship. Art thou but now come
hither with thy ship and thy company in thy long wanderings
from Troy? and hast thou not yet reached Ithaca,
nor seen thy wife in thy halls? "
Why Odys- Even so she spake, and I answered her, and said: "O
seus came to 111
.
,
the realm of my mother, necessity was on me to come down to the house
Hades.
^£ fj2,des to seek the spirit of Theban Teiresias. For not
yet have I drawn near to the Achaean shore, nor yet have
I set foot on mine own country, but have been wandering
evermore in afifliction, from the day that first I went with
goodly Agamemnon to Ilios of the fair steeds, to do battle
with the Trojans.
But come, declare me this and plainly
tell it all. What doom overcame thee of death that lays
men at their length? Was it a slow disease, or did Artemis
the archer slay thee with the visitation of her gentle shafts?
And tell me of my father and my son, that I left behind me;
doth my honor yet abide with them, or hath another already
taken it while they say that I shall come home no