Dcn. Harrison Garlick and Adam Minihan discuss Book Twelve of the Odyssey: The Cattle of the Sun.

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From our guide:

68. What happens in book twelve?

Odysseus and his men return the island of Circe and bury their comrade, Elpenor, who had spoken to Odysseus from the underworld (12.10). Circe tells Odyssey—and Odysseus alone—what trials await him on his journey (12.36). First, he and his men will sail by the Sirens and their irresistible song of temptation (12.44). Next, Odysseus will have to choose between sailing through the path of unavoidable “Clashing Rocks” (12.66) or sail through a strait with two monsters. On one side, there is the six-headed horror named Scylla that will pluck men off the ship (12.94) and on the other side the whirlpool monster named Charybdis that will swallow the entire ship (12.115). Lastly, they will come to the island of the where the sun god’s cattle graze (12.137) and must not under any circumstances harm the cattle (12.148). If they can do this, they will return home, but if not, then the best that could happen is Odysseus returns home alone “all shipmates lost… a broken man” (12.153).

Odysseus tells his men about the Sirens (12.172) and Charybdis (12.239) but not Scylla (12.242). After escaping the Sirens, his men are navigating past Charybdis when Scylla snatches six of Odysseus men off his ship (12.269). Odysseus and his men land on the island of the sun god’s cattle, and Odysseus has his men swear an oath they will not harm the animals (12.328). The men, however, become stranded on the island due to unfavorable wind and begin to starve (12.350). Odysseus’ men elect to eat the sacred cattle (12.386), and, as they finally leave the island, Zeus strikes the ship with a lightning bolt (12.447). All perish save Odysseus who, clinging to debris, is swept back to Charybdis and must hang onto a fig tree to avoid being swallowed (12.466). The book ends with Odysseus drifting until he lands on the island of Calypso (12.485).

69. Who are the Sirens?

The sirens are “female creatures who had the power of drawing men to destruction by their song.”[1] Though Homer does not describe them, they were generally “represented as half-woman and half-bird”—but “in time they came increasingly to be shown as beautiful women.”[2] Odysseus follows Circe’s advice (12.53) by stuffing beeswax in the ears of his men (12.189). It is notable that Circe intuits that Odysseus will want to experience the song of the Sirens (12.55). He follows her advice and has his men tie him to the mast in order that he may hear the Sirens but not jump overboard (12.194). The episode speaks to what Odysseus’ spirit (thumos) is willing to endure for the sake of knowledge. Note the Siren’s song itself sings of being able to grant Odysseus wisdom and make him a “wiser man” (12.200).

One may also question whether Odysseus enduring the song of the Sirens prepared him at all to decline Calypso’s offer of immortality or the marriage to Nausicaa. Moreover, the episode shows a level of trust between Odysseus and his men—a trust that is arguably fracturing after the Cyclops incident and one that will be largely broken following Scylla and Charybdis. Later myths have the Sirens drowning themselves due to Odysseus’ escape.[3] The Sirens will later come to represent music, including the...