"Darkness of Erebus"

In the 20th Book of Homer's Odyssey, a minor character, Theoclymenus, exclaims to Penelope's drunken suitors:

"Ah, unfortunate men, what horror is this that has happened?

Shrouded in night are faces and heads. To the knees it descendeth.

See, too, crowded with ghosts is the porch, and crowded the court,

Hurrying down the darkness of Erebus.

Out of the Heaven

Withered and gone is the sun, and a poisonous mist is arising."

If such a state of affairs came to pass today we should say, "Ah, an eclipse." British astronomers have, according to despatches last week, determined that the only total solar eclipse visible from Ithaca, home of Ulysses, during the first quarter of the 12th Century B. C., occurred at 11:41 a.m. local mean time, April 16, 1177 B. C. From this deduction the Trojan War was dated 1197 to 1187 B. C.; Ulysses' wanderings, 1187 to 1177.