The Odyssey Summary:Book 12
Book XII, concludes Odysseus’ narration of the events leading up to his captivity on Kalypso’s island. The book begins with Odysseus and his men sailing from the underworld toward Aiaia. Odysseus keeps his promise to Kirke, and gives Elepenor a burial ceremony. Kirke in turn feeds Odysseus and his men and warns him about the Sirens and Kharybids and Skylla.
Again Odysseus sets sail with his men and attempts to pass the Sirens, whose sweet singing lures sailors to their doom. Odysseus stops up the ears of his crew with wax, and he alone listens while tied to the mast, unable to steer toward shipwreck, fortunately.
Next they encountered Kharybdis, who swallows the sea in a whirlpool, then spits it up again. “When she vomited, all the sea is like a cauldron seething over intense fire.” Avoiding this catastrophe Odysseus and his men skirt the cliff where Skylla exacts her toll. Each of her six serpent-like heads grabbed a sailor in its jaws and wolfed him down.
After circumventing these disasters, Odysseus warns his men that Teiresias and Kirke both told him to stay away from the island of the Sun. However, they do not listen; they disregard all warnings and slaughter Helios’ cattle. Afterward, when they are back at sea, Zeus destroys Odysseus’ ship with a thunderbolt, at Helios’ pleading. Odysseus alone survives and washes up on the island of Kalypso, where he has been held for the last seven years.