know naught of ships or the mariner's art. And there shalt meet thee
by the way a man who shall say that thou bearest a winnowing shovel[3]
on thy shoulder; and this shall be a sign unto thee, whereby thou
shalt know that thou hast reached the end of thy journey. Then plant
thy oar in the ground, and offer sacrifice to Poseidon. This shall be
the end of thy toils, and death shall come softly upon thee where thou
dwellest in a green old age among thy happy people."

[Footnote 1: The sun god.]

[Footnote 2: The very words of Polyphemus, p. 93.]

[Footnote 3: The oar.]

When he had thus spoken Teiresias vanished into the darkness; and one
by one the spirits came up to the trench, as Odysseus suffered them,
and having drunk of the blood obtained strength to speak and answer
his questions. First among them was the spirit of his mother,
Anticleia, daughter of Autolycus, who had been hovering near during
his conference with Teiresias. When she had drunk she said: "Whence
comest thou, my son? Art thou still wandering on thy long voyage from
Troy, or hast thou been in Ithaca, and seen thy wife?"

"Nay, mother," answered Odysseus, "I am wandering still, still
treading the path of woe, since the day when I followed Agamemnon to
Troy. But tell me now, and answer me truly, what was the manner of thy
death? Came it slowly, by long disease, or did Artemis lay thee low in
a moment with a painless arrow from her bow?[1] And tell me of my
father and my son whom I left in Ithaca; do they still hold my
possessions, or hath some other thrust them with violence from my