(Homer, 'Odyssey,' XXIV, 1-18)
Meanwhile Cyllenian Hermes called forth the spirits of the wooers. He held in his hands his wand,
a fair wand of gold, wherewith he lulls to sleep the eyes of whom he will, while others again he
wakens even out of slumber; with this he roused and led the spirits, and they followed gibbering.
And as in the innermost recess of a wondrous cave bats flit about gibbering, when one has fallen
from off the rock from the chain in which they cling to one another, so these went with him
gibbering, and Hermes, the Helper, led them down the dank ways. Past the streams of Oceanus they
went, past the rock Leucus, past the gates of the sun and the land of dreams, and quickly came to
the mead of the asphodel, where the spirits dwell, phantoms of men who have done with toils. Here
they found the spirit of Achilles, son of Peleus, and those of Patroclus, of peerless Antilochus, and
of Aias, who in comeliness and form was the goodliest of all the Danaans after the peerless son of
Peleus.
Translation by A. T. Murray in the Loeb Classical Library, vol. II (New York, 1919), P. 403
Books by Mircea Eliade:
- Mircea Eliade, Mac Linscott Ricketts “Journal IV, 1979-1985 (Journal)”
- Mircea Eliade “The Sacred and The Profane: The Nature of Religion”
- Mircea Eliade “Essential Sacred Writings From Around the World”
- Mircea Eliade, Jr., Fred H. Johnson “Journal II, 1957-1969 (Journal)”
- Mircea Eliade “The Forge and the Crucible: The Origins and Structure of Alchemy”
- Mircea Eliade, Willard R. Trask “History of Religious Ideas, Volume 2: From Gautama Buddha to the Triumph of Christianity (History of Religious Ideas)”
- Mircea Eliade, Willard R. Trask “The Myth of the Eternal Return: Or, Cosmos and History”
- Mircea Eliade, Diane Apostolos-Cappadona “Symbolism, the Sacred, and the Arts”
- Mircea Eliade “Autobiography, Volume 1: 1907-1937, Journey East, Journey West”
- Mircea Eliade, Willard R. Trask, Wendy Doniger “Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (Bollingen Series (General))”
- Mircea Eliade, Willard R. Trask “Rites and Symbols of Initiation: The Mysteries of Birth and Rebirth”
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