Odysseus does actually tell his men about the warnings he received about the sacred cattle of the sun god, Helios, from Teiresias, the dead prophet he spoke with in the Underworld, and Circe, after they'd returned from the Underworld. After their brush with Scylla (where she killed six of his men), he addresses them and tells them that he was "charged [...] to shun the island of the Sun [...] for there lay [their] deadliest danger." He urges them to continue on, even though they are completely exhausted, and not stop at Thrinacia for the night. Eurylochus, one of Odysseus's crew, rudely says that just because Odysseus never seems to need rest doesn't mean that his men don't; he proposes that they be allowed to stop just for the night on Thrinacia so that they can rest and then that they leave first thing in the morning. Odysseus, however, fears some ill from the gods, and so he makes each of his men swear an oath that they will leave the cows and sheep alone and only eat the food they brought from Circe.
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