Odyssey 10.561 · Book 10, lines 561–565
Another road — to Hades
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ἐρχομένοισι δὲ τοῖσιν ἐγὼ μετὰ μῦθον ἔειπον·
Odysseus — φάσθε νύ που οἶκόνδε φίλην ἐς πατρίδα γαῖαν ἔρχεσθʼ· ἄλλην δʼ ἧμιν ὁδὸν τεκμήρατο Κίρκη, εἰς Ἀίδαο δόμους καὶ ἐπαινῆς Περσεφονείης ψυχῇ χρησομένους Θηβαίου Τειρεσίαο.
And to them, as they came, I spoke a word: You think, I suppose, that you are going homeward to your dear native land; but Circe has marked out for us another road — to the house of Hades and dread Persephone, to consult the soul of Theban Teiresias.
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The setting
Now Odysseus tells the crew the truth he had held back: the course Circe set is not homeward but to the underworld, to question the ghost of the seer Teiresias.
A note on this passage
Here Odysseus finally says it plainly. You imagine we are sailing home, he tells them; in fact Circe has set us a different road, to the house of Hades and Persephone, to question the dead seer Teiresias. The naming is unflinching and complete.
The hard stroke is the contrast he draws himself: dear native land set directly against the house of Hades. He lets the men hold the image of home for the length of one clause before he replaces it with death's own address. That a living crew must sail to the land of the dead and come back is the strange hinge of the whole poem, and he delivers it as a flat piece of navigation.
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