'He told me, speaking truth, "Before setting sail for your own land," he said, "you must return to the river Ægyptus that flows out of Africa, and offer sacrifice there to the gods."'

'When he said this my spirit was broken with grief. A long and a grievous way would I have to sail to make that sacrifice, turning back from my own land. Yet the will of the gods would have to be done. Again I was moved to question the Ancient One of the Sea, and to ask him for tidings of the men who were my companions in the wars of Troy.

'Ah, son of Odysseus, more broken than ever was my spirit with grief when he told me of their fates. Then I heard how my brother, great Agamemnon, reached his own land and was glad in his heart. But his wife had hatred for him, and in his own hall she and Ægisthus had him slain. I sat and wept on the sands, but still I questioned the Ancient One of the Sea. And he told me of strong Aias and how he was killed by the falling rock after he had boasted that Poseidon, the god of the Sea, could afflict him no more. And of your father, the renowned Odysseus, the Ancient One had a tale to tell.

'Then, and even now it may be, Odysseus was on an island away from all mankind. "There he abides in the hall of the nymph Calypso," the Ancient One of the Sea told me. "I saw him shed great tears because he could not go from that place. But he has no ship and no companions and the nymph Calypso holds him there. And always he longs to return to his own country, to the land of Ithaka." And after he had spoken to me of Odysseus, he went from us and plunged into the sea.

'Thereafter I went back to the river Ægyptus and moored my ships and made pious sacrifice to the gods. A fair wind came to us and we set out for our own coun