Homer, Odyssey

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[1] Meanwhile Cyllenian Hermes called forth the spirits of the wooers. He held in his hands his wand, a fair wand of gold, wherewith he lulls to sleep the eyes of whom he will, while others again he wakens even out of slumber; [5] with this he roused and led the spirits, and they followed gibbering. And as in the innermost recess of a wondrous cave bats flit about gibbering, when one has fallen from off the rock from the chain in which they cling to one another, so these went with him gibbering, and [10] Hermes, the Helper, led them down the dank ways. Past the streams of Oceanus they went, past the rock Leucas, past the gates of the sun and the land of dreams, and quickly came to the mead of asphodel, where the spirits dwell, phantoms of men who have done with toils. [15] Here they found the spirit of Achilles, son of Peleus, and those of Patroclus, of peerless Antilochus, and of Aias, who in comeliness and form was the goodliest of all the Danaans after the peerless son of Peleus. So these were thronging about Achilles, and near to them [20] drew the spirit of Agamemnon, son of Atreus, sorrowing; and round about him others were gathered, the spirits of all those who were slain with him in the house of Aegisthus, and met their fate. And the spirit of the son of Peleus was first to address him, saying: “Son of Atreus, we deemed that thou [25] above all other heroes wast all thy days dear to Zeus, who hurls the thunderbolt, because thou wast lord over many mighty men in the land of the Trojans, where we Achaeans suffered woes. But verily on thee too was deadly doom to come all too early, the doom that not one avoids of those who are born. [30] Ah, would that in the pride of that honor of which thou wast master thou hadst met death and fate in the land of the Trojans. Then would the whole host of the Achaeans have made thee a tomb, and for thy son too wouldst thou have won great glory in days to come; but now, as it seems, it has been decreed that thou shouldst be cut off by a most piteous death.”

Further comments from W. Walter Merry, James Riddell, D. B. Monro, Commentary on the Odyssey (1886):
book 24 (general note)

Cross references from Raphael Kühner, Friedrich Blass, Ausführliche Grammatik der Griechischen Sprache (ed. Ildar Ibraguimov):
75 [Bemerkungen über die Quantität in der Dichtersprache.]

Cross references from Thomas W. Allen, E. E. Sikes, Commentary on the Homeric Hymns:
* [HYMN TO HERMES]

Cross references from W. Walter Merry, James Riddell, D. B. Monro, Commentary on the Odyssey (1886):
1, 122 [Book 1 (a)]
11, 543 [Book 11 (l)]

Cross references from Basil L. Gildersleeve, Pindar: The Olympian and Pythian Odes:
* [Epode 4]: Hermês de psuchas Kullênios exekaleito

This text is based on the following book(s):
Homer. The Odyssey with an English Translation by A.T. Murray, PH.D. in two volumes. Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1919.
OCLC: 22584673
ISBN: 0674995619, 0674995627

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