Thus with stretched sail, we went over sea till day's end   Sun to his slumber, shadows o'er all the ocean   Came we then to the bounds of deepest water   Covered with close-webbed mist, unpierced ever   With glitter of sun-rays   Nor with stars stretched, nor looking back from heaven   Swartest night stretched over wreteched men there   The ocean flowing backward, came we then to the place   Aforesaid by Circe   Here did they rites, Perimedes and Eurylochus   And drawing sword from my hip   I dug the ell-square pitkin;   Poured we libations unto each the dead   First mead and then sweet wine, water mixed with white flour   Then prayed I many a prayer to the sickly death's-heads;   As set in Ithaca, sterile bulls of the best   For sacrifice, heaping the pyre with goods   A sheep to Tiresias only, black and a bell-sheep   Dark blood flowed in the fosse   Souls out of Erebus, cadaverous dead, of brides   Of youths and of the old who had borne much;   Souls stained with recent tears, girls tender   Men many, mauled with bronze lance heads   Battle spoil, bearing yet dreory arms   These many crowded about me; with shouting   Pallor upon me, cried to my men for more beasts;   Slaughtered the herds, sheep slain of bronze;   Poured ointment, cried to the gods   To Pluto the strong, and praised Proserpine;   Unsheathed the narrow sword   I sat to keep off the impetuous impotent dead   Till I should hear Tiresias   But first Elpenor came, our friend Elpenor   Unburied, cast on the wide earth   Limbs that we left in the house of Circe   Unwept, unwrapped in the sepulchre, since toils urged other   Pitiful spirit