Following the goddess' instructions, they sailed to the land of the
Cimmerians on the confines of the earth. There Odysseus dug a trench
into which he poured the blood of slain victims which he did not allow
the dead spirits to touch till Teiresias appeared. The seer told him
of the sorrows that awaited him and vaguely indicated that his death
should come upon him from the sea; he added that any spirit he allowed
to touch the blood would tell him truly all whereof he was as yet
ignorant, and that those ghosts he drove away would return to the
darkness.

First arose the spirit of his dead mother Anticleia who told him that
his wife and son were yet alive and his father was living away from
the town in wretchedness.

"For me, it was not the visitation of Apollo that took me, nor any
sickness whose corruption drove the life from my frame; rather it
was longing for thee and thy counsels and thy gentleness which
spoiled me of my spirit."

Thrice he tried to embrace her, and thrice the ghost eluded him, for
it was "as a dream that had fled away from the white frame of the
body". A procession of famous women followed, then came the wraith of
Agamemnon who told how he had been foully slain by his own wife, as
faithless as Penelope was prudent. Achilles next approached; when
Odysseus tried to console him for his early death by reminding him of
the honour he had when he was alive, he answered:

"Speak not comfortingly of death; I would rather be a clown and a
thrall on earth to another man than rule among the departed."