Bloom In Hades
Epic Tradition in Joyce’s Ulysses
Odysseus has been trapped on Circe’s island, his men turned into pigs by her magic. With the help of the god, Hermes, the wily Greek outwits the witch-goddess, who returns his men to their human forms. After living in luxury as Circe’s lover, he learns from her that he must visit Hades and consult the seer, Tiresias, before he can return to Ithaca. One of Odysseus’s lesser crew members, Elpenor, had spent the night in a heavy drinking bout. The word suddenly came at dawn that the ship was to sail to the end of the world, the gates of Hades. The young sailor, still in a stupor, falls from Circe’s roof top, where he had been sleeping it off. The fall is fatal, and Elpenor dies, breaking his neck. There is no time; Odysseus and his crew rush off, leaving his body behind, unburied.
Upon reaching Hades, Elpenor’s is one of the spirits who Odysseus encounters. He begs the Greek adventurer to return to Circe’s island, Aeaea, and give him a proper burial, so his spirit can enter the underworld.
“A man of no fortune, and with a name to come.”
So Elpenor speaks of himself from beyond the grave to his captain, Odysseus, in Ezra Pound’s translation of the Nekuia passage of Homer’s Odyssey,¹ one of the most ancient writings in the western literary tradition.
