Kimmeria - James S. Liao by Composer / arranger

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This is another composition in the compendium based on Homer’s Odyssey

Odysseus travels to Kimmeria, which has a portal to hell. He must go into hell to learn information about how he will get home.

Odysseus must meet with Tiresias who can give him the information he seeks. He is told to bring some animal blood to fill a small pit, which he digs. Once filled, dead spirits will rise to try to drink the blood to regain form and shape. But in order to prevent others trying to drink the blood first, he must stand guard with his sword over the pit. Only when the particular soul appears does he remove the sword to allow him to drink.

Tiresias tells Odysseus that he will get home (eventually), but also tells him that he will be traveling again, finally arriving in a landlocked country where the inhabitants have never seen the ocean. When Odysseus first appears there, he is carrying an oar on his shoulder. These people, not knowing anything about boats, think he is carrying some type of fan. Odysseus plants the oar in the ground, as a sign of his settling in the land, and he will die a peaceful death.

But in other post-Homeric stories, he will meet the son (Telegonus) he has sired with Circe. There is an altercation. Neither knows that they are father and son, and the son kills Odysseus. Hence my pun about “finding rest by your seed” juxtaposed next to “plant your final oar”.

Odysseus then is shocked to meet his mother, Anticlea, as having been away for so long from Ithaca, she has died without his knowledge.

When he and his crew set sail from away from Kimmeria, he reflects back on this surreal experience, and wonders if this episode was all a dream or not. Or if our mortal existence is really the dream instead.