The Lotos-Eaters Death Quotes

Now the sailors dream of living in the past, visiting with people in their memories who are long dead. That brings them to this beautiful, vivid image of the grave, where all that was happy and lively and bright is reduced to a mound of grass and a dust-filled urn. The idea is spooky and sad, but we think it also seems a little bit comforting and natural as well. That combination of sad and soothing runs all through this poem—it's one of things we love about it.

This line hits one of the big themes of the poem. For the Lotos-eating sailors, any kind of trouble or work or confusion or pain is worse than death. It would be better, they figure, to be dead than to have to do anything except lie around and dream. It sounds a little nuts to us, but then again we've never eaten Lotos.