Odyssey: Phaeacian Tales, Part 2

CC 303 Intro to Classical Mythology - Fall 2009
Department of Classics, University of Texas at Austin, Prof. Lawrence Kim

Circe, Tiresias, Elpenor, Sirens, Scylla and Charybdis, Oxen of the Sun

1. Phaeacian Tales: Book 10
1. Circe, the Sorceress
   • Men turned to pigs
   • Odysseus and Moly, the magic herb
   • Odysseus and Circe get together
   • They all stay for a year
2. The Trip to the Underworld
   • The ghost of Elpenor
   • Tiresias' prophecy
   • Odysseus and the Oar
   • Death from the Sea
   • Agamemnon: Don't trust women
   • Achilles: Asks about Neoptolemus
   • Ajax: still bitter, walks away
   • The sufferers: Tityus, Tantalus, Sisyphus
2. Phaeacian Tales: Books 11-12
   1. Back to Circe: Her advice to overcome the next obstacles
   2. The Sirens
   3. The Wandering Rocks
   4. Scylla and Charybdis
   5. The Oxen of the Sun (Helios)
      • All men are killed; only Odysseus survives
      • Hangs on to fig tree above Charybdis 
   6. He ends up on Ogygia, Calypso's island
      • He stays for seven years

1. *Circe and Her Lovers in a Landscape. Dosso Dossi, c. 1530. National Gallery, Washington DC.
2. Circe gives Odysseus a drugged potion. Black-figure skyphos from Thebes, 5th or 4th c. BCE.
3. Circe Offering the Cup to Ulysses. J.W. Waterhouse, 1891. Oldham Art Gallery, Oldham, England.
4. Odysseus and Tiresias in the Underworld. South Italian Red-figure bowl, late 5th c. BCE. Bibliothéque Nationale, Paris.
5. Odysseus and the Sirens. Red-figure krater, 3rd c. BCE. Staatliche Museum, Berlin.
6. Ulysses and the Sirens. Herbert Draper, 1909. Hull City Museums and Art Galleries, Hull, England.
7. Odysseus and the Sirens. Painting on an Athenian jar, late 6th-early 5th c. BCE. British Museum, London.
8. Crab and Scylla. Greek silver tetradrachm from Agrigento/Akragas, 413-406 BCE. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
9. The Oxen of the Sun. Tibaldi.