Odyssey 10.522 · Book 10, lines 522–525
The vow for a safe return
Read the full text in our reader
ἐλθὼν εἰς Ἰθάκην στεῖραν βοῦν, ἥ τις ἀρίστη, ῥέξειν ἐν μεγάροισι πυρήν τʼ ἐμπλησέμεν ἐσθλῶν, Τειρεσίῃ δʼ ἀπάνευθεν ὄιν ἱερευσέμεν οἴῳ παμμέλανʼ, ὃς μήλοισι μεταπρέπει ὑμετέροισιν.
coming back to Ithaca, you will sacrifice a barren cow, whichever is best, in your halls, and heap a pyre with treasures; and to Teiresias apart you will offer a ram to him alone, all-black, that stands out among your flocks.
Word by word
The setting
Part of the prayer to the dead: Circe tells Odysseus to promise offerings back on Ithaca, and a special black ram for the seer Teiresias.
A note on this passage
The prayer carries a pledge. Back on Ithaca, Odysseus will sacrifice his best barren cow and pile a pyre with treasures, and to Teiresias alone he vows a black ram, the finest of the flock.
The bargain is ordinary Greek piety — you ask the dead for help and promise payment later, at home. But ‘coming back to Ithaca’ is quietly loaded: the whole errand into death serves the homecoming, and the vow simply assumes he will live to keep it. Teiresias gets his own singular victim, marked out from the rest — the honored dead is paid apart.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Odyssey 10.522 in the full reader
Always open passages in the reader
From the Great Library
You are reading a page of the Odyssey — the whole book is free in our interlinear reader.
The Great Library Project presses the classics in their original languages, glossed word by word — free to read, always. Browse the whole library.
Also on our shelves:
Odyssey 10.522 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/odyssey/10.522/