The Odyssey (Ch. 11-15)

In Odysseus's journey to Hades, he is forced to travel through death to continue his life in Ithaca. He must face many men and women all importantly related in some way to his life at some point. Circe's instructs him to sacrifice a ram in order to attract the dead spirits allowing him to talk to the dead. When first entering the underworld Odysseus’s is most shocked by his mother, Anticleia who Odysseus’s had left alive when he left for he Troy now dead and gone. Before he would speak to his mother’s ghost he demanded to speak with Tiresias himself, who after drinking the ram's blood began to speak. He told him a god will make his hope for a safe and smooth journey home difficult. He would suffer all the way home, but he would make it under one condition. When Odysseus and his crew make it to Thrinacia Island, they are not to touch the herds and fat flocks of Helios, if they are to harm them there journey home will be impossible and there ship destroyed along with all the crew. Next Odysseus speaks with his mother, finding out her fate ended because of her longing his safe return to Ithaca. Odysseus met with Tyro, Antiope who borne Zeus twin sons, Alcemena- Amphitryon's wife, Oedipus's mother Epicaste who married her own son, Chloris, Leda- Tyndareaus' wife, Iphamedeia- Aloeus' wife, Phadedra, and Procris and Clymene, Maera and Eriphyle who bribed with a golden necklace lured her hisband to his death. Odysseus pauses and begins to take it all in overwhelmed by all the information he has just heard, but his talks with the dead are not over. He is next visited by Alicinous, who then introduces him to other men who fought in the Trojan war. Though this is a journey into death, I believe this journey is strictly a journey into his future and how his journey back home will play out.