The Underworld

The land beyond the River Ocean, where the dead live. There is no city, no palace, no architecture in the normal sense. There is mud. Black bare broken trees along a bank. A single raven on a low branch. Beyond, the terrain is not fixed: hills rise and valleys emerge and fade through gaps in the fog. Tityus is spread on his rock having his liver eaten. Sisyphus pushes his stone. Tantalus cannot reach the water at his lips. The dead crowd toward whatever blood is offered, hungry, blackened-eyed, wailing in a sound no mortal should hear. They cannot speak until they drink. They cannot embrace; arms close on nothing. The cold seeps up through your boots from below. [SPOILER: Odysseus comes here on Circe’s instructions, to consult Tiresias. He digs the offering pit himself, sacrifices the black ram and the white ewe, holds the dead back with his sword while the prophet drinks first. He meets his mother and learns she died waiting for him. He meets Agamemnon and is warned to come home in disguise. He meets Achilles and is told that no glory is worth this place. He meets Ajax, who turns his back and walks into the dark. He sees the Gorgons coming, hears the queen of the dead’s cry, and runs. He never goes back. The underworld changes him more than any monster does. Everything that follows, the discipline, the disguise, the patience in his own hall, has been earned in this mud.]