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"‘When you get home you will
take your revenge on these suitors; and after you have killed them by
force [biê] or fraud in your own house, you must
take a well-made oar and carry it on and on, till you come to a
country where the people have never heard of the sea and do not even
mix salt with their food, nor do they know anything about ships, and
oars that are as the wings of a ship. I will give you this certain
token [sêma] which cannot escape your notice. A
wayfarer will meet you and will say it must be a winnowing shovel
that you have got upon your shoulder; on this you must fix the oar in
the ground and sacrifice a ram, a bull, and a boar to Poseidon. Then
go home and offer hecatombs to the gods in heaven one after the
other. As for yourself, death shall come to you from the sea, and
your life shall ebb away very gently when you are full of years and
peace of mind, and your people shall be prosperous
[olbios]. All that I have said will come
true.’
"‘This,’ I answered,
‘must be as it may please heaven, but tell me and tell me true,
I see my poor mother's ghost [psukhê] close
by us; she is sitting by the blood without saying a word, and though
I am her own son she does not remember me and speak to me; tell me,
Sir, how I can make her know me.’
"‘That,’ said he,
‘I can soon do. Any ghost that you let taste of the blood will
talk with you like a reasonable being, but if you do not let them
have any blood they will go away again.’
"On this the ghost
[psukhê] of Teiresias went back to the house of
Hades, for his prophecies had now been spoken, but I sat still where
I was until my mother came up and tasted the blood. Then she knew me
at once and spoke fondly to me, saying, ‘My son, how did you
come down to this abode of darkness while you are still alive? It is
a hard thing for the living to see these places, for between us and
them there are great and terrible waters, and there is Okeanos, which
no man can cross on foot, but he must have a good ship to take him.
Are you all this time trying to find your way home from Troy, and
have you never yet got back to Ithaca nor seen your wife in your own
house?’
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