the taking of Troy, where he had been one of the men in the wooden
horse. The only shade which refused to approach Ulysses was that of
Ajax, who still resented his having won the armor of Achilles. Besides
these shades, Ulysses beheld the judges of Hades and the famous
culprits of Tartarus. But, terrified by the "innumerable nation of the
dead" crowding around him, he finally fled in haste to his vessel, and
was soon wafted back to Circe's shore.

_Book XII._ There Ulysses buried his dead companion and, after
describing his visit to Hades, begged his hostess' permission to
depart. Circe consented, warning him to beware of the Sirens, of the
threatening rocks, of the monster Scylla and the whirlpool Charybdis
on either side of the Messenian Strait, and of the cattle of
Trinacria, giving him minute directions how to escape unharmed from
all these perils.

Morning having come, Ulysses took leave of Circe, and, on nearing the
reef of the Sirens, directed his men to bind him fast to the mast,
paying no heed to his gestures, after he had stopped their ears with
soft wax. In this way he heard, without perishing, the Sirens'
wonderful song, and it was only when it had died away in the distance
and the spell ceased that his men unbound him from the mast.

"Thus the sweet charmers warbled o'er the main;
My soul takes wing to meet the heavenly strain;
I give the sign, and struggle to be free:
Swift row my mates, and shoot along the sea;
New chains they add, and rapid urge the way,
Till, dying off, the distant sounds decay:
Then scudding swiftly from the dangerous ground,