The Adventures of Ulysses

LADY FRIENDS

100

Our beauty lies in song,

We sit on heaps of bone;

To jump in would be wrong;

You’d find out with a moan.

SIRENS

200

My attitude is sweet,

My feasts are so divine;

Be careful how you eat:

I’ll turn you into swine.

CIRCE

300

Manly and brave, handsome to boot

I loved the man who knew no fear

My stunning looks and meals were loot

I kept him near for seven years

CALYPSO

400

Suitors thronged my father’s castle,

Pleading for my graceful hand;

All these mooners were a hassle,

But I thought Ulysses grand

NAUSICAA

500

A nymph of the ocean am I,

Who spied a poor sailor adrift;

His watery death seemed well-nigh;

I lent him my veil for a lift

INO

EEEEs

100

I fell from the mast

With a bloodcurdling yell.

The men stood aghast:

I led them to hell.

ELPENOR

200

Those cattle looked so tasty,

I led the men in roasting beef;

Our judgment sure was hasty;

Zeus blasted us without relief

EURYLOCHUS

300

My job it was to raise the swing,

To keep them in the pink of health;

On bacon did the suitors dine,

Until Ulysses came in stealth.

EUMAEUS

400

Head suitor, known for having a smooth and lying tongue.

EURYMACHUS

500

I held my master at his birth

And watched the child become a man;

At Troy he proved his clever worth

By dreaming up the winning plan.

EURYCLEIA

GODS & MONSTERS

100

I ruled the kingdom of the ocean

And chased Ulysses ruthlessly;

I sipped Athena’s knockout potion

And nodded off: he sailed home free.

POSEIDON

200

An immortal who transforms Ulysses into an old beggar

ATHENA

300

I had one monstrous eye

Until nobody came;

He pierced it on the sly;

Now nothing looks the same. 

POLYPHEMUS

400

Once lovely – now a giant sack,

I swallow ocean like a drain;

I gulp down ships and slimy wrack

Thus comes the tides, the Greeks 

CHARYBDIS

500

I have six gruesome heads

And live under the sea.

I fill men with the dreads,

For they are food to me.

SCYLLA

HOME LIFE

100

My father left to fight a war,

And suitors flocked to court his wife;

Surviving plots became my chore;

Til daddy came to end the strife.

TELEMACHUS

200

Calypso’s home.

OGYGIA

300

I wove a shroud and then unwove,

Thus kept unwelcome guests at bay;

My husband never lost my love;

For his return I’d always pray.

PENELOPE

400

Upon seeing my master stand,

I let out a loud “woof”

and ran to lick his hand.

Alas my soul went “poof.”

ARGO

500

Working on my golden tan

On these fields, cattle did roam

Cows and steers with deep dark tans

This lonely island was their home

THRINACIA

RANDOs

100

A fat old demigod,

I keep the winds in jail

And stab the mountain’s sod

When gods want winds to wail

AEOLUS

200

I love to watch men dream,

I watch them hour by hour:

They soon run out of steam

When eating lotus flower.

MORPHEUS

300

A prophet warned about danger;

In his words I placed great stock:

“Beware the shipwrecked stranger.”

Alas, my ship was turned to rock.

ALCINOUS

400

Future telling is my skill,

The bloody trench I cannot see.

“The golden cattle – do not kill!”

I am the master sage of Thebes.

TEREISAS

500

A suitor of Ulysses’ wife,

I roistered with a thieving band;

A whistling arrow took my life,

Shot by a beggar’s steady hand.

ANTINOUS