The captain gave the best speech of his life before a majority of the crew died today… a nice eulogy before being plucked of the ship by Scylla. Scylla is a giant sea monster but I’m getting ahead of myself again. Odysseus tells us that we have to navigate between Scylla and Charybdis if we wanted to make it out alive. So were all like, “Pssht of course we want to make it out alive”, I mean no one wants to die. So we’re sailing and then all of a sudden something grabs six of the best men of the crew and devours them…whole. That thing was Scylla. We were quite helpless so Odysseus ordered us to row after and after to escape Scylla and Charybdis (Charybdis is a whirlpool if you didn’t know.) I’m not really for all this sacrificing Odysseus is up to. He knew we had to sacrifice 6 of our men if some of us wanted to live but I guess 6 dying are better than none living.
Yesterday was filled with terror and horror! So we were going to go past singing maidens also known as sirens but we were instructed to fill our ears with beeswax or were going to be tempted to just right out the ship! Everyone except the captain filled their ears with beeswax. Then he commanded us to tie him up to the mast of the ship so that he wouldn’t be led to “destruction”
It was funny seeing the captain struggling against the ropes so we decided to tie him up even tighter. Eventually the captain stops struggling so the song must have been over! We took out our beeswax plugs. The captain looked terrible after that but there was something proud playing in the corners of his eyes like he just achieved something special.
Today, Odysseus and his crew are going to the underworld. Today must be my lucky day, another day to live!! Odysseus seems to think that I’m not man enough to experience the underworld! Okay he didn’t say that but he was thinking it. I mean why else would you leave blacksmith and a cook on board? That’s fine with me. I get to catch up on my reading and soap operas! The underworld sounds like a pretty depressing place and I just do not have time for that…
These last few days have been Hades! There was sheep and Cyclopes’ and wine. I’m getting ahead of myself aren’t I? We had been sailing for a few days but we had run out of food and water so those last few days felt more like hell (Sorry Hades). Eventually we stopped at an island in search of fresh water and food. Many of the crew on the ship were worried that we were too close the Cyclopes’ island. We searched the island and came upon a cave filled with gold, food and lambs. The crew and I helped ourselves to lamb and cheese but captain insisted that we didn’t help ourselves. I guess we should have listened…
The cave sealed behind us just after Odysseus finished his speech. I looked up to the most unattractive, unappealing, unpleasant, vile, ghastly sight ever! A Cyclops is a man with one huge eye in the middle of its forehead, taller than the trees and its teeth is as crooked as a plate of spaghetti. Either way, the Cyclops named Polyphemus sensed someone in his cave as he insisted on asking who was in his cave as if someone was going to answer. Unfortunately, someone did. Odysseus was smart and fast talking and convinced the Cyclops that they our ship had been broken and we needed its hospitality. I guess the Cyclops though eating some of our crew mates was hospitality. Odysseus convinced the Cyclops to drink wine and soon it was fast asleep.
Enough with the boring details, time to tell you about our great escape! To make a great escape short, while Polyphemus was sleeping from the wine, the crew, the captain, and I carved a point on a log and burned the tip of it in fire and jammed it into the Cyclops’ eye. In the morning Polyphemus opens the door or rock to the cave. Odysseus instructs us to hide under the bellies of the sheep. And finally we make our great escape back to the ship! Well it would have been a great escape if Odysseus didn’t make fun of the blinded Cyclops and then give him his real name and home address… I guess monkeys really do live on Ithaca…
Today we docked on a different island and I guess you can say this one was considerable better than the rest. I guess the captain (I still haven’t bothered to learn his name) was still thinking about the last time we landed on an island because he sent three men to scout out the island first. It seemed like ages before they returned. When the men did return they returned with a flower!
This wasn’t any ordinary flower though! This flower, the Lotus, made you forget home and took away any ambitions to reach your home. Odysseus (I learned his name!!!) made me tie the men to the mast and made me watch them. It seemed though the men wanted nothing more other than to go back to the island and forget their homes. They screamed about it every five minutes. I wished we would have just left them back on the island.
So today we landed on the Island of Cicones and let me tell you I love water more than land after today. So after sailing for a couple days we landed on the island I had aforementioned. Everything seemed cool, at first I thought this was Ithaca by the way the crew made themselves comfortable. Boy was I wrong! There were people living on the island already but it wasn’t Ithacans. The crew and the captain killed every man who tried to fight back and enslaved the women there. They acted like a pack of rabid dogs!
The day got worse and worse! After killing most of sheep and livestock, the main armies of Cicones were closing in on us fast! Some came on horseback and others came on foot! The captain and the crew did the best to stand their ground and fight back against the warriors but they would be defeated if they didn’t retreat soon. The captain led us back to the ship in a hurry. We barely made it back safely and alive.