This is how Circe told Odysseus to go to hell:
“Yonder past the far Western shore,
sail your white-masted trireme,
until you reach a narrow strand
and the groves of Persephone,
full of tall black poplars,
willows with their self-wasted fruit
where young girls come to hang themselves,
and plump pomegranates.
Mulberry and mint, too, may be found there.
Beach your trireme
beside the white-foam washed shore of Okeanos
and pass on foot to the dank domains of Haides.
At the walls of the infernal city
Acheron’s streams are joined
by the fiery river,
the river of semen,
and black Kokytos where there is a large stone;
here leave offerings to gold-leafed Eukles,
the Hermes Below, that he may guide
your performance of the rites.
Then, Lord Odysseus, you must do as I enjoin you.”
So said the daughter of Perse,
and granddaughter of the Sun,
sister of baleful Aeëtes the stormweaver,
and of bull-loving Pasiphaë;
herbwise Circe,
of the braided hair.
“Go forward, and dig a trench a cubit long and a cubit broad;
go round this trench, pouring libations for all the dead,
first with milk and honey,
then with sweet wine,
then with water;
and sprinkle white barley-meal above.
Then with earnest prayers to the gibbering dead
you must promise that when you have come to Ithaka
you will sacrifice in your palace a calfless heifer,
the best you have,
and will load a pyre with precious things,
playthings for the no longer human.”
Circe met his eyes
and did not look away until she was sure
that Odysseus was taking her words to heart.
Everything depended on doing this right,
and he would not get another chance.
“Take a ram that is black all over,
and choicest among your flocks;
cut its throat and pour the blood in the ditch,
a final libation for the thirsty ones.
The shambling shades will approach you,
like a swarm of bees;
hold them back with your sword,
until first the Prophet has quaffed his fill
and is again clear-seeing,
a remembering hero.”
She stroked the bone charms at her throat,
and found strength to continue.
“Then, once you have conversed with him
and learned all you need to know to return safe to Ithaka,
offer prayers and make appeal to the noble nations of the dead.
Then you must sacrifice a ram and a black ewe;
bend the victims’ heads down towards Erebos,
but turn your own head away and look towards the waters of the river.
Let loose a shrieking wail.
At this, the souls of the dead and departed will come flocking.
With commanding voice you must call your comrades
to flay and burn the two sheep that now lie before them,
slaughtered by your own ruthless blade,
and over them pray to the Gods,
to resistless Haides
and dread Persephone,
and the Dionysos who is in the West.
Once all have feasted,
then may you depart.”
Scarcely had she ended her words
when Eos the Dawn Goddess appeared
in her flower cloth of gold
and her rosy-red arms
and shining skin, pale as bone
and Circe was no longer with him.
