We brought our ship to port without a sound as a god eased her into a harbor safe and snug, and for two days and two nights we lay by there, eating our hearts out, bent with pain and bone-tired. When Dawn with her lovely locks brought on the third day, at last I took my spear and my sharp sword again, rushed up from the ship to find a lookout point, hoping to glimpse some sign of human labor, catch some human voices … climbed I scaled a commanding crag and, scanning hard, I could just make out some smoke from Circe's halls, drifting up from the broad terrain through brush and woods. thinking it over Mulling it over , I thought I'd scout the ground- that fire aglow in the smoke, I saw it, true, but soon enough this seemed the better plan: I'd go back to shore and the swift ship first, feed the men, then send them out for scouting. I was well on my way down, nearing our ship when a god took pity on me, wandering all alone; he sent me a big stag with high branching antlers, right across my path -the sun's heat forced him down from his forest range to drink at a river's banks- just bounding out of the timber when I hit him square in the backbone, halfway down the spine and my bronze spear went punching clean through - he dropped in the dust, groaning, gasping out his breath. Treading on him, I wrenched my bronze spear from the wound, left it there on the ground, and snapping off some twigs and creepers, twisted a rope about a fathom long, A fathom is six feet long. I braided it tight, hand over hand, then lashed the four hocks of that magnificent beast. Loaded round my neck I lugged him toward the ship, trudging, propped on my spear - no way to sling him over a shoulder, steadying him with one free arm - the kill was so immense! I flung him down by the hull and roused the men, going up to them all with a word to lift their spirits: 'Listen to me, my comrades, brothers in hardship- we won't go down to the House of Death, not yet, not till our day arrives. Up with you, look,

there's still some meat and drink in our good ship. Put our minds on food -why die of hunger here?' My hardy urging brought them round at once. Heads came up from cloaks and there by the barren sea they gazed at the stag, their eyes wide - my noble trophy. But once they'd looked their fill and warmed their hearts, they washed their hands and prepared a splendid meal. Now all day long till the sun went down we sat and feasted on sides of meat and seasoned wine. Then when the sun had set and night came on we lay down and slept at the water's shelving edge. When young Dawn with her rose-red fingers shone once more I called a muster quickly, informing all the crew, 'Listen to me, my comrades, brothers in hardship, we can't tell east from west, the dawn from the dusk, nor where the sun that lights our lives goes under earth nor where it rises. We must think of a plan at once, some cunning stroke. I doubt there's one still left. I scaled a commanding crag and from that height surveyed an entire island ringed like a crown by endless wastes of sea. But the land itself lies low, and I did see smoke drifting up from its heart through thick brush and woods.' My message broke their spirit as they recalled the gruesome work of the Laestrygonian king Antiphates and the hearty cannibal Cyclops thirsting for our blood. They burst into cries, wailing, streaming live tears that gained us nothing - what good can come of grief? And so, numbering off my band of men-at-arms into two platoons, I assigned them each a leader: I took one and lord Eurylochus the other. drew straws We quickly shook lots in a bronze helmet - the lot of brave Eurylochus leapt out first. So he moved off with his two and twenty comrades, weeping, leaving us behind in tears as well … Deep in the wooded glens they came on Circe's palace built of dressed stone on a cleared rise of land. Mountain wolves and lions were roaming round the grounds - she'd bewitched them herself, she gave them magic drugs. But they wouldn't attack my men; they just came pawing