Having tarried a year there, he sailed the ocean, and offered sacrifices to
 the souls, The visit of
 Ulysses to the land of the dead is the theme of the eleventh book of the
 Odyssey . Compare Hyginus, Fab. 125 . The
 visit was the subject of one of the two great pictures by Polygnotus at
 Delphi . See Paus. 10.28-31 . and by Circe's advice
 consulted the soothsayer Tiresias, As to the consultation with Tiresias, see Hom. Od. 11.90-151 . and beheld the
 souls both of heroes and of heroines. He also looked on his mother
 Anticlia As to the
 interview of Ulysses with his mother, see Hom.
 Od. 11.153-224 . and Elpenor, who had died of a fall in
 the house of Circe. In the
 hot air of Circe's enchanted isle Elpenor had slept for coolness on the
 roof of the palace; then, suddenly wakened by the noise and bustle of
 his comrades making ready to depart, he started up and, forgetting to
 descend by the ladder, tumbled from the roof and broke his neck. In his
 hurry to be off, Ulysses had not stayed to bury his dead comrade; so the
 soul of Elpenor, unwept and unburied, was the first to meet his captain
 on the threshold of the spirit land. See Hom.
 Od. 10.552-560 ; Hom. Od.
 11.51-83 . 
 And having come to Circe he was sent on his way by
 her, and put to sea, and sailed past the isle of the Sirens. As to the
 return of Ulysses to the isle of Circe, and his sailing past the Sirens,
 see Hom. Od. 12.1-200 ; Hyginus,
 Fab. 125 . Homer does not name the Sirens individually nor
 mention their parentage, but by using the dual in reference to them
 ( Hom. Od. 12.52 ; Hom. Od. 12.167 ) he indicates that they
 were two in number. Sophocles, in his play Ulysses ,
 called the Sirens daughters of Phorcus, and agreed with Homer in
 recognizing only two of them. See Plut. Quaest. Conviv.
 ix.14.6 ; The Fragments of Sophocles , ed. A. C. Pearson,
 iii.66, frag. 861 . Apollonius Rhodius says that the Muse
 Terpsichore bore the Sirens to Achelous ( Ap. Rhod., Argon.
 iv.895ff. ). Hyginus names four of them, Teles, Raidne, Molpe,
 and Thelxiope ( Hyginus, Fab. praefat. p. 30, ed. Bunte ),
 and, in agreement with Apollodorus, says that they were the offspring of
 Achelous by the Muse Melpomene. Tzetzes calls them Parthenope, Leucosia,
 and Ligia, but adds that other people named them Pisinoe, Aglaope, and
 Thelxiepia, and that they were the children of Achelous and Terpsichore.
 With regard to the parts which they took in the bewitching concert, he
 agrees with Apollodorus. See Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron
 712 . According to a Scholiast on Ap. Rhod.,
 Argon.iv.892 , their names were Thelxiope, or Thelxione,
 Molpe, and Aglaophonus. As to their names and parents see also
 Eustathius on Hom. Od. 12. p. 1709 , Scholiast on
 Hom. Od. xii.39 , who mention the view that the father of the
 Sirens was Achelous, and that their mother was either the Muse
 Terpsichore, or Sterope, daughter of Porthaon. Now the Sirens
 were Pisinoe, Aglaope, and Thelxiepia, daughters of Achelous and Melpomene,
 one of the Muses. One of them played the lyre, another sang, and another
 played the flute, and by these means they were fain to persuade passing
 mariners to linger;