Slaughter of the Sun's Cattle

The Slaughter of the Sun's Cattle is the decisive act of impiety that destroys Odysseus's entire crew and condemns him to years of solitary wandering. It is the catastrophic fulfillment of the prophecies of both Teiresias and Circe, who had warned Odysseus that if his men harmed the sacred herds of Helios on the Thrinacian island, they would be destroyed and he would return home late and in bad plight, having lost all his men. The event transforms a homeward voyage into a prolonged ordeal and marks the point of no return for Odysseus's companions, whose own folly—the same folly that the poem's opening lines attribute to the men who "perished through their own sheer folly in eating the cattle of the Sun-god Hyperion"—finally catches up with them.

Causes and Background

The Thrinacian island, where the sun-god Helios kept seven herds of cattle and seven flocks of sheep, each with fifty head, was the one place Odysseus had been most urgently warned to avoid. The blind prophet Teiresias, whom Odysseus consulted in the house of Hades, had foretold that if the men left the flocks unharmed they might yet reach Ithaca after much hardship, but if they harmed them, destruction of both ship and crew was certain. Circe repeated the same warning in even starker terms: she foretold the destruction of the ship and comrades, and said that even if Odysseus himself escaped, he would return late, in bad plight, after losing all his men. Odysseus, therefore, when the ship drew near the island, urged his men to sail past it, but they were exhausted and demoralized. Eurylochus, who had already shown himself insubordinate during the Circe episode, gave an insolent answer, accusing Odysseus of being made of iron and of refusing to let his weary men land and cook a proper supper. The men approved Eurylochus's words, and Odysseus, seeing that heaven meant them mischief, yielded on condition that each man swear a solemn oath not to kill a single head of the cattle or sheep, but to be satisfied with the food Circe had given them. They all swore, and they made the ship fast in a harbour near a stream of fresh water.

What Happens

For a full month the wind blew steadily from the South, and there was no other wind. As long as the corn and wine from the ship held out, the men did not touch the cattle, but when those provisions were exhausted, they were forced to go further afield, catching birds and fish, and taking whatever they could lay their hands on, for they were starving. One day Odysseus went up inland to pray to the gods for a means of escape, and the gods sent him into a deep sleep. In his absence, Eurylochus gave evil counsel to the men, arguing that all deaths were bad but none so bad as famine, and that they should drive in the best of the cows and offer them in sacrifice to the immortal gods; if the sun-god was determined to sink their ship out of revenge, he for one would rather drink salt water once and for all than be starved to death by inches. The men approved his words. They drove in the best of the cattle, which were feeding not far from the ship, and stood round them saying their prayers, using young oak-shoots instead of barley-meal, for there was no barley left. They killed the cows, dressed the carcasses, cut out the thigh bones, wrapped them in fat, and set pieces of raw meat on top of them. Having no wine for drink-offerings, they poured on a little water from time to time while the inward meats were being grilled. When the thigh bones were burned and they had tasted the inward meats, they cut the rest up small and put the pieces on the spits. Odysseus, waking from his deep sleep, smelled the hot roast meat as he returned to the ship and the sea shore, and groaned out a prayer to the immortal gods, realizing what his men had done. Meanwhile Lampetie, one of the nymphs who tended the cattle, went straight off to the sun and told him that Odysseus's men had been killing his cows. Helios flew into a great rage and threatened to go down to Hades and shine there among the dead if the men did not square accounts with him. Jove promised to shiver their ship into little pieces with a bolt of white lightning as soon as they got out to sea. The gods immediately began to show signs and wonders among the men: the hides of the cattle crawled about, the joints upon the spits began to low like cows, and the meat, whether cooked or raw, kept on making a noise just as cows do.

Consequences and Aftermath

For six days the men kept driving in the best cows and feasting upon them, but on the seventh day the fury of the gale abated, and they went on board, raised their masts, spread sail, and put out to sea. As soon as they were well away from the island and could see nothing but sky and sea, Jove raised a black cloud over the ship, and the sea grew dark beneath it. A terrific squall from the West snapped the forestays of the mast, which fell aft, crushing the head of the helmsman so that he fell overboard like a diver with no more life left in him. Then Jove let fly with his thunderbolts, and the ship went round and round, filled with fire and brimstone as the lightning struck it. All the men fell into the sea and were carried about in the water like so many sea-gulls, but the god presently deprived them of all chance of getting home again. Odysseus alone survived, lashing the mast and keel together with a backstay of stout ox-thong and riding astride them wherever the winds chose to take him. He was carried for nine days, and on the tenth night the gods stranded him on the Ogygian island, where the great and powerful goddess Calypso took him in and kept him for seven years. The slaughter of the Sun's cattle thus directly causes the total loss of Odysseus's crew, the destruction of his last ship, and his long captivity with Calypso, from which he will only be released by the direct intervention of the gods. It is the final and most catastrophic consequence of the men's disobedience, fulfilling the prophecy that opened the poem: the men perished through their own sheer folly in eating the cattle of the Sun-god Hyperion.