Characters
- Circe — hostess of the house whose roof he used
- Elpenor — youngest crewman; falls drunk from the roof; unburied shade; later interred
- Telemachus — leaves him in haste; swears burial; fulfills the rites
- Tyrrhenian pirates — burn the body and plant the oar
Places
- Circe’s land — scene of the fall
- Gates of Hades — where the unburied shade first greets Odysseus
- Shore of Aeaea — mound and oar after the return
Themes
Narrative
Young Elpenor, not deep-witted and not strong, had slept apart on Circe’s roof for coolness after heavy wine. When the crew rose to leave for Hades at Circe’s instruction, he started up suddenly, forgot the ladder, fell headlong from the roof, and broke his neck; his soul went to Hades. Odysseus and the others, intent on the voyage, left him unwept and unburied.
In the Nekyia Elpenor’s shade is the first to approach—before even Odysseus’s mother—because he is unburied. He begs for remembrance: burn him with his armor, heap a mound on the shore of the gray sea, and plant on it the oar he rowed with his comrades. Odysseus promises. After returning from Hades to Aeaea, the crew give Elpenor rites at dawn: corpse burned with armor, mound raised, oar set upon the barrow. The Elpenor sequence is Homeric *aidos* toward the dead in miniature—accident, shade’s legal claim, and fulfilled funeral—framing the greater Nekyia.