|21 σχέτλιοι, οἳ ζώοντες ὑπήλθετε δῶμ’ Ἀΐδαο, |22 δισθανέες, ὅτε τ’ ἄλλοι ἅπαξ θνῄσκουσ’ ἄνθρωποι.
|21 Wretched men! You went down to the House of Hādēs while you were still alive. |22 You are dis-thanees [= you experience death twice], whereas other mortals die only once.
Circe understands the mystical experience that Odysseus and his companions have undergone by entering Hādēs in the Far West and then returning from there in the Far East, just as the sun mystically travels from west to east during the night. That is why Circe, after Odysseus and his men arrive back on her island, addresses the whole group as dis-thanees, that is, ‘those who experience death twice’. (What follows is epitomized from H24H 11§61.) So, Odysseus together with his companions had died metaphorically when he went to Hādēs in Odyssey 11 and then he had returned to light and life in Odyssey 12. But Odysseus will die for real in a future that is beyond the limits of the story told in the Odyssey as we have it: just as the seer Teiresias had predicted it when he gave to Odysseus a sēma or ‘sign’ at O.11.126, Odysseus will die after he experiences another coincidence of opposites—while carrying the oar that becomes a winnowing shovel.