Odysseus travels to the islands of Aeolus, the god of winds, who gives Odysseus a bag containing all of the bad winds so that his journey will send him directly to Ithaca. When Odysseus is in sight of his homeland, he decides to take a nap. The crew becomes jealous thinking that Odysseus is hiding great treasures from them and opens the bag, which causes the ship to return to Aeolus, who will not help them again. Next they reach the land of the Laestrygonians, who are cannibals, and only Odysseus’s ship and crew escape alive.
His boat leads him to Circe, a goddess who lures the men in with food and wine then turns them into pigs. Odysseus eventually rescues them and forces Circe to turn them back into humans with the help of the messenger god, Hermes, who brings a magical herb. He stays with Circe for another year before continuing on his journey. Circe tells Odysseus to go to the land of the dead next so that he can speak to the prophet about whether he foresees him ever making it home.
Odysseus makes sacrifices before he enters the land of the dead. He finds the prophet, who tells him he will still reach home. Then Odysseus’s dead mother comes to him to answer questions about his family. She says that she died of grief waiting for Odysseus to return.
Odysseus returned to Circe who told Odysseus what he would encounter next. It happened exactly as Circe said it would. First, he passed the Sirens, women who lure men to death with music. Odysseus was told to plug his men’s ears with wax so that they cannot hear the music, but he listened though because he tied himself to the ship to make sure he didn’t go with them. Next they came toScylla and Charybdis. Charybdis was a large whirlpool that would suck in the men’s ship with no chance for escape, so Circe told Odysseus he must travel beneath Scylla, which was right next to Charybdis dangling from the cliffs. Scylla was a large snake with many heads, which reached down and ate the men off the ship as it went past. They rowed as quickly as they could, but still many of them were eaten. They stayed on new land awhile until one day Eurylochus convinced the hungry people to eat the cows of Helios, which Odysseus had been specifically told not to do. Zeus got revenge on them, and the only one to survive was Odysseus. And that is the end of the 12 books.
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