Book XII

WHEN the galley had carried us free of the swift smooth stream of the Ocean,
And came to the broad-wayed sea, with the heave and the swing of its motion,
And the Isle of Aeaea, wherein is the palace of Dawn mist-born,
And the lawns where her dances begin, and the sun goeth forth each morn,
Thither at dusk came we, and we ran up the ship on the sand,
And out on the surf of the sea we stept, and went up to the land.
And wearily there we slept, and the dawn divine we abode
Till the Rosy-fingered leapt from her couch where the grey mists glowed.
My shipmates then did I send to the palace of Circe, to bear
Unto us the corpse of our friend Elpenor, the dead that lay there:
And, hewing us billets in haste, on a wave-washed foreland’s height
The dead on the pyre we placed, and our tears fell fast at the sight.
And as soon as the burning was done of the corpse and the dead man’s gear,
A barrow of earth and stone we uppile, and a pillar we rear,
And a well-poised oar thereupon did we set, that his craft might appear.
So his dues to the dead we gave; and we ’scaped not Circe’s ken,
As back from the gates of the grave I returned with my trusty men.
But she came in her beauteous array, and her maidens along with her came;
And the bread and the meat bare they, and the wine with its face of flame:
And she stood in the midst, and spake the beautiful Goddess immortal:
‘Desperate men, who could win back again from Hades’ portal!
Twice dead!—-since the rest of the dead pass once for all through his door.
But come now, eat of my bread, and drink of the wine that I pour
Here through the livelong day, and as soon as the dawn shall break
On the morrow, sail ye away, and the path of the track ye shall take
Will I point, that ye safely may cross strange water and unknown shore,
And suffer nor sorrow nor loss by evil misdealing more.’
So did she speak to the men, and her counsel was good in their eyes;
And so through the long day then, till the sun sank out of the skies,
Sat we, feasting upon sweet wine and on meats untold,
Even till the sun was gone, and the gloom gathered, fold upon fold.
And they went, and down on the sand by the black ship’s hawser they lay;
But the Goddess took me by the hand, and she led from my friends away,
And she laid herself down by my side, and she asked of me all that befell,
And, as everything chanced to betide, even all unto her did I tell.
Then the words of her counsel spake the dread queen Circe to me,
Telling the track I should take o’er the waste of the ways of the sea:
‘Thus far hast thou sped; but leaving the things of the past behind thee,
List unto what I shall say,—yea, a God himself shall remind thee;—
First shalt thou come to the Sirens, the maidens that aye sit flinging
Charms overall that approach, by the spell of their magical singing.
Whosoever unwittingly cometh, and heareth the Witch-maids’ voices,
Never returneth he homewards, never his wife rejoices
To look on his face any more, no children shall cluster around him,
But the clear-ringing chant of the Sirens for ever and ever hath bound him,
There as they sit in a meadow, with heaps of skeletons lying,
Bodies of dead men rotting, and skins all shrivelled in drying.
Speed away past; and with wax, made soft for the oversmearing,
Seal up the ears of thy men, making fast each gateway of hearing.
Yet thou mayest list to their lay, if thy spirit shall so have inclined thee;
But hand and foot thy men in the fleet-faring galley shall bind thee,
On the mast-step standing, and ropes from the mast all round thee clinging;
So with delight shalt thou list to the voice of the Sirens singing.
And if thou shalt bid them unbind thee, commanding or earnestly praying,
Then shall they bind thee the faster, new fetters upon thee laying.
Now as soon as thy shipmates have sped out of reach of the perilous strain,
Boots not to tell thee thereafter throughout which path out of twain
Shall be thine for the rest of thy seafaring: both will I tell thee, and so
Give counsel thyself to thine heart, and make choice of the way thou wilt go:
For by one shalt thou come unto rocks overarching, and there evermore
The surge of the dark Sea-queen doth mightily tumble and roar.
These be the cliffs that the Gods ever-blessed the Wanderers name,—
Yea, and the swift-winged birds of the air cannot win through the same,
No, not even the doves that to Zeus the ambrosia bring;
But ever the sheer rock snatcheth away one of these on the wing,
And so the All-father must send in another to make up the tale.
And thereby never yet hath a crew in a galley been suffered to sail,
But the planks of ships and the bodies of men are whirled with a crash
By the blasts of the fire that devours, and the waves that resistlessly dash.
Only one ship hath prevailed through the portal of terror to come,
Argo, of world-wide fame, as she sailed from the Colchians home;
Yea and of her had the rocks and the breakers at once made an end,
But ’twas Here that sped her therethrough, for a grace unto Jason her friend.
Guarding the gates of the sea at its other outgoing arise
Rocks, whereof one of the twain with its peak towers up to the skies,
Luridly curtained about with a cloud never passing away:
Never, in summer or winter, thereon is clear shining of day.
Never a mortal might climb up its face, nor adown it might fare:
Naught, though his hands and his feet were a score, would it profit him there.
Slippery-smooth is the face of the cliff, as ’twere polished, I wis;
And in mid-height, but with mist overdarkened, a cavern there is
Facing the west, to the shadow-land turned. By the cliff with good heed
Keep thou thy galley, Odysseus, unswervingly guiding its speed.
Though a man shoot at the cave from a ship with his uttermost might,
Wearied the arrow would drop ere it won to the measureless height.
There in the cave dwelleth Scylla: her voice is a hideous yelp;
Faint is the cry of the horrible thing as the whine of a whelp:
Ah, but her form! ’tis a monster: whoever should look upon her,
None should have joy of the meeting, not though of the Deathless he were.
Twelve are her feet all as serpents down-trailing, and six are the long
Necks with the terrible heads, and the teeth in the jaws of them throng
Rank upon rank; they are full of black death, they are crowded and strong.
Down to the waist in the cavern she hideth, and yet evermore
Scoureth the face of the crag, for the heads of her traverse it o’er,
Forth of the cavern far-reaching; and there they are angling for prey,
For dolphins and sea-dogs, and huger sea-monsters that pasture and play,
Thousands on thousands, mid moaning of waters that welter and shock.
Never hath sailor made boast that his galley hath run by the rock
Scatheless, but each of her heads cometh swooping adown on the ship:
Six of the crew in a moment are snatched unto death in their grip.
Lowlier lieth the rock that is over against her in place;—
Nigh to each other they are, that an arrow might traverse the space;—
O’er it a fig-tree, gigantic; its leaf-masses gloomily frown,
’Neath it resistless Charybdis the black water whelmeth adown:
Thrice in the day she doth belch it on high, and thrice whelmeth it under—
Ah, mayest thou not be there when the waters are yawning asunder!
Thee not the Earth-shaker’s self from the jaws of destruction could drag.
Nay, but in any wise swiftly speed onward thy ship by the crag
Where is the dwelling of Scylla; for better it is that thou miss
Six of thy mates, than that all in a moment go down the abyss.’ no
Answered I, ‘Prithee, O Goddess, declare this truly to me,—
Might I escape from the ruinous sweep of the whirl of the sea,
And when Scylla shall swoop on my men, by my sword might I cause her to flee? ‘
Instantly answered the Goddess—my heart sank down at the word,—
‘Desperate man!—what, again for the conflict thy courage is stirred!
What, when the Gods ever-living assail, wilt thou then not refrain?
Not of the deathlings is she, but a deathless, a ruinous bane,
Hideous to look upon, hard to encounter, resistless in fight;
Valour and prowess are impotent, nothing availeth but flight.
If by the side of the rock to put on thee thy harness thou stay,
Forth the insatiate Fiend will come darting again for her prey;
Each of the horrible heads from the galley its victim will tear:—
Nay, but in any wise speed thee along with thy might, and in prayer
Cry to Crataiis her dam, that hath borne her to mortals a bane;
Cry, if perchance she will stay her from swooping upon thee again.
Next shalt thou come to Thrinacria’s isle, and therein on the mead
Many a herd of the Sun-god’s kine and his fair sheep feed:
Seven are the herds of his kine, and the flocks of his sheep are seven,
Fifty in each; and they die not, nor unto them increase is given.
Goddesses tend them for shepherds, the maids that Neaera bare
To the Sun, Phaethusa and Lampetie with her shining hair:
She bare them, and nursed, and sent forth from their home the Sun-god’s daughters,
To keep watch on his kine and his sheep far off amid lonely waters.
See that thou hurt them not, and take thought for thy home-returning;
So out of woes shall ye win to the land for the which ye are yearning.
But and if thou shalt do them a mischief, destruction and shipwreck await
Galley and shipmates alike; and if thou be not joined in their fate,
After years, after loss of thy men, shalt thou reach home, lonely and late.’
So did she speak, and anon rose Dawn on her golden throne;
And up through the island was gone the Goddess, and I was alone.
So down to the shore I hied, and my mates did I there command
To climb the black ship’s side, and to cast her loose from the strand.
So they entered up into the ship, and they sat them down to the stroke;
And the sea with the orderly dip of the blades into hoar foam broke.
And a brave wind sprang up behind, and I felt the dark prow lift
As the sail bellied out with the wind, and I knew it for Circe’s gift—
Dread Goddess of voice most sweet, and glorious braided hair:—
And when we had fastened the sheet and the rest of the tackling with care,
Sat we at ease, and the hand of the helmsman ordered the rest.
Then spake I unto my band with a burden of pain on my breast:
‘Friends, it pertaineth to all to attend to the words I shall say,
The oracles Circe gave ere she sped us forth on our way.
I will declare them to you, and choose ye, whether to die,
Or whether to take good heed of the snare, and the death to fly.
First of the weird ones, the Sirens, she bade us to take good heed,
And to flee from their magical song, and the flowers of the charmed mead.
She commanded me only to hear, but with galling ropes made fast:
Firm on the mast-step set me, and lash me unto the mast,
And if I shall bid you release me, commanding or earnestly praying,
Then shall ye bind me the faster, new fetters upon me laying.’
So did I tell them of all; and they heard, and approved the saying.
Kindly the fair wind blew, and the good ship scudded awhile:
Onward and onward she flew, till we came to the Sirens’ Isle.
On a sudden the breath of the air was no more on the face of the deep,
And the power of a God was there, soft-lulling the billows to sleep.
Then the sail in fold upon fold did we gather, and safely stowed
Down in the good ship’s hold, and my shipmates cheerily rowed;
And the churning of long sweeps made white foam on the roaring brine.
But a broad wax slab with my blade did I carve, and I shredded it fine;
And I kneaded to softness the same with a masterful pressure thereon;
And it melted fast, for the flame of the Sun-god mightily shone.
And my shipmates’ ears did I smear, full cunningly sealing them fast,
So that never a man might hear; and they bound me unto the mast;
Hands and feet they bound as I stood on the mast-step there;
And the ropes went round and round the mast, and were lashed with care.
And then to the stroke they bent, and the white foam flew from the oars;
And swiftly the black ship went, and we drew nigh unto the shores,
So nigh, that the shout of a man might be heard; and the Witch-maids spied,
And the spell of their singing began, clear-ringing across the tide:
‘Come, pride of Achaia, Odysseus, draw nigh us!
Come, list to our chant, rest the oar from its rowing:
Never yet was there any whose galley fled by us,
But, sweet as the drops from the honeycomb flowing,
Our voices enthralled him, and stayed his ongoing,
And he passed from that rapture more wise than aforetime:
For we know all the toil that in Troyland befell,
When the will of the Gods was wrought out in the war-time:
Yea, all that is done on the earth can we tell.’
Sweetly the voices rang, and my heart exceedingly yearned
To list to the lay that they sang; and mine eyes to my shipmates I turned,
And I signed to them, ‘Set me free!’ but they bent to the oars, and rowed;
And across the ship unto me Perimede and Eurylochus strode;
And they made my bonds more fast, and they straitened me only the more,
Until we had run clear past, and had left the enchanted shore.
When the voice of the Sirens died in the distance, and that weird lay
Failed over the sea-swell wide, then took my shipmates away
The fetters wherewith I was tied, and the wax from their ears took they.
But as soon as the island was lost from our sight, we beheld a smoke
And a surge of the sea high-tost, and a thunder of waters broke
On the panic-struck ears of my crew; then clattered the oars and clashed
From their paralysed hands as they flew, and adown the current they splashed.
With the sweep of the tapering blade broken off, and the oarsmen aghast,
There was the ship’s course stayed; but down through her length I passed,
And I stood by my shipmates; to each did I speak kind words of cheer,
Rousing their hearts with my speech to a hope overmastering fear:
‘Friends, we must yet know troubles; a little while yet endure!
Surely this new tribulation is not so passing cure
As the day when the one-eyed giant pent us within his cave;
Yet thence could my wit and my counsel avail our lives to save;
And I ween all this shall be but a memory some bright day.
Now therefore, my shipmates, as I shall command, let us all obey:
Keep ye your seats on the benches, and smite the wild surf of the sea,
If Zeus will vouchsafe that forth of destruction’s jaws we may flee.
Steersman, give heed,—thus I bid thee, thou lay up my words in thy soul,
Seeing thine is the hand on the helm that the course of the ship doth control:
Wide of this smoke of the spray and the seething billows’ shock
Keep thou with heed the galley, and head her still for the rock,
Lest she suddenly sheer off yonder or ever thereof thou be ware,
And thou into bale in a moment hurl us,—have thou a care! ‘
So did I speak, and they heard, and my hest they obeyed each one;
But of Scylla I spake not a word,—since help against her was there none,—
Lest my mates, by the sudden affright terror-palsied, should have no power
To row, and down out of sight should essay in the hold to cower.
And then, ah then, I forgot the Enchantress’s galling behest,
How she commanded me not to put armour about my breast:
But I did on my war-gear bright, and with two long spears in my hand,
On the deck-planks ready for fight by the prow of the ship did I stand;
For on that quarter I weened that mine enemy first would appear,
Scylla, the grim crag-fiend, bringing bane to my shipmates dear.
But she nowhere appeared to my sight, and I strained my aching gaze
At the cliff with its measureless height all mistily mantled in haze.
Up through the wild water-gorge did we sail, and we groaned with affright;
Here Scylla,—but yonder the surge where Charybdis, resistless in might,
Terribly sucked to her chasms unfathomed the brine of the main;
Upward with shudders and spasms mad-writhing she belched it again:
Seething abysses were roaring, as caldron o’er flames that is boiling,
Leapt o’er the rock-crests upsoaring the foam from the frantic turmoiling.
Down as she whelmeth the wave doth a cavernous chasm reveal
Gulfs where the water-whirls rave, deep calleth to deep, and there peal
Sea-thunders from cliff unto cliff, and the floor of the sea is in sight
Swart with its slime: terror-stiff were my men, and all wan with affright.
On the jaws of destruction foam-gnashing we gazed with a horror-struck stare:
—Suddenly Scylla down-flashing from out of the galley did tear
Six of my shipmates; she took even them which were mightiest of hand.
Even as I turned me to look, giving heed to the lives of my band,
All in a moment beheld I their feet and their hands up on high,
Swung up above; and they yelled unto me with a heart-wringing cry,
Calling in anguish on me by my name for the last time—the last!
Even as when on a sea-shelf a fisherman standeth, to cast
Baits to the fish for a snare, till the horn on the line therebelow
Shivering telleth that there is a victim that writhes to and fro:
Out of the sea to the shore as it quivers he whirleth it then;
So did they writhe as she bore them aloft through the air to her den.
Then in her gates her teeth tare them: in screams they yielded their breath,
Stretched to me hands of despair from that hideous wrestle with death.
Oh, it was pitiful!—never mine eyes such a horror to me
Showed, mid all anguish that ever I suffered in tracking the sea.
And when we were clear of the roar of Charybdis, and Scylla’s lair,
Soon we sighted the shore of the isle of a God most fair.
There did the cattle browse of the Sun that treads heaven’s steep,
Grand broad-fronted cows, and the flocks of his goodly sheep.
And over the tossing foam there came, in the ship as I lay,
A lowing of kine driven home to be housed at the close of the day,
And a bleating of sheep I heard; then suddenly woke in my breast
Blind Teiresias’ word, and Aeaean Circe’s behest,
Who had straitly bidden me shun,—yea, charging me once and again,—
The isle of the God of the Sun, the giver of joy unto men.
Then, heart-sick with boding fear, my speech to my men I addressed:
‘Shipmates, lend ye an ear, albeit by troubles oppressed,
To the words of the Theban seer, and Aeaean Circe’s behest;
For they straitly have bidden us shun,—yea, charging me once and again,—
The isle of the God of the Sun, the giver of joy unto men:
For there they foretold that ill, a terrible ill, should befall.
So speed we the black ship still, nor approach to the island at all.’
But their heart was nigh to break as the warning unwelcome they heard;
And out Eurylochus spake, a bitter indignant word:
‘Beshrew thee, Odysseus, thou stubborn of soul and tireless of frame,
Iron-limbed, iron-hearted!—what, dost thou deem that our strength is the same?
Nay, but with toil are we spent and forwearied with sleeplessness;
And thou lettest us not set foot on the sea-girt island, to dress
Any savoury supper, but bidst that we wander all dismally
From the island away through the rushing night on the misty sea.
Yea, ship-destroying blasts from the womb of the darkness come;
How should one ’scape from sheer destruction, who tempteth his doom,
If perchance on the face of the sea a hurricane suddenly rose
With the wrath of the South-wind or West, the stormiest wind that blows,—
Winds that can shatter a ship in the very Gods’ despite?
Nay, hearken we rather now to the high behest of the Night.
We will stay by the side of the galley, and only our supper prepare;
With the dawn will we board her again and forth on the sea will we fare.’
So he spake, and the rest of the crew there murmured approval still;
And then in my heart I knew that a God was plotting us ill;
Yet my winged words answering flew, a little to curb their will:
‘I am but one, ye are many; lo, ye have the mastery.
Howbeit, come, all of you, swear a mighty oath unto me:
Swear, if on kine-drove or goodly flock of sheep we shall light,
None of you all in infatuate bale-bringing folly will smite
Either sheep or ox, but will peacefully all refrain you, and eat
Naught save the fare that immortal Circe gave for our meat.’
So did I speak, and each one of them lightly obeyed, nothing loth.
And, so soon as the swearing was done, and they all had made end of the oath,
In a sheltered cove did we bring to anchor the well-wrought keel;
And there by a sweet fresh spring we made ready the evening meal.
But when they had eaten, and done with the craving for food, there arose
The remembrance of them that were gone; and they wept as they thought of those
That out of the ship had been torn and by Scylla devoured; and they wept
Till, in slumber forgetting to mourn, with the tears on their faces they slept.
Two parts of the night were gone, and the stars to their rest were going,
When the Herder of clouds brought on us a wild wind mightily blowing;
And it waxed till a hurricane roared, and the masses of cloud on-driven
O’er the land and the sea were poured, and night rushed down from the heaven.
When low o’er the weltering wave glanced Dawn, rose-fingered and fair,
We thrust far into a cave the galley, and moored her there.
There was the Nymphs’ dance-floor, and the seats where they wont to rest.
And I gathered my men once more, and the last sad warning addressed:
‘Friends, in the ship there is wine, there is meat in abundance for all:
Abstain we then from the kine, lest a terrible evil befall;
For the kine and the sheep are these of a God, and an awful one,
Of the Sun: all things he sees, and he hears whatsoever is done.’
So I spake, and my gallant crew gave ear with hearts consenting:
But the South-wind stormily blew for a whole month, never relenting:
It was ever the winds from the East and the South, and these alone.
But so long as my men could feast upon corn and wine of their own,
Desire was o’ermastered by dread, and they still from the kine abstained;
But after the wine and the bread were spent, we were even constrained,
Since the hunger within us was sore, to hunt for the scant game there,
Roaming the whole isle o’er, the birds and the fishes to snare.
Then a lonely pathway I trod, and went up through the island to pray,
If haply some pitying God out of trouble would show me a way.
So across the island I went, having left my shipmates behind,
To a place where a high ridge lent a covert from that fierce wind.
And I washed mine hands, and there did I cry to the Dwellers in Heaven;
And for all reply to my prayer sweet sleep unto me was given,
While Eurylochus unto his fellows an evil counsel addressed:
‘Hearken to me, my mates, albeit by trouble oppressed:
Hateful is every shape of death unto wretched mortals;
But by famine most piteous is it to pass through the shadowy portals.
Lo there the kine of the Sun;—the best of them all having driven,
We will offer them up to the Gods that dwell in the broad-arched heaven.
But if unto Ithaca ever we come, to our fathers’ land,
Straightway upreared by our hands a goodly temple shall stand
To the Sun, and therein will we lay for him offerings many and fair.
But and if in his wrath for his tall-horned kine he refuse to spare
Us and our galley, and none of the rest of the Gods will save,
Better, I say, in a moment to perish, agape to the wave,
Than slowly to pine and starve, with a desolate isle for a grave.’
So did he speak, and the rest commended the impious word.
And straightway they drove the best of the kine of the Sun-god’s herd
From anigh; for a little way from the galley they wont to browse;—
Stately and fair were they, the broad-browed, wreath-horned cows;—
Then stood they around the beeves, and they prayed to the Gods on high,
And they stripped the tender leaves of a tall-tressed oak thereby,
Because white barley was none to be found in the well-benched ship.
And after the prayer is done, they slay, and the skins they strip,
And the bones of the thighs cut out, and, doubly folding it over,
With the fat they wrap them about, and with pieces of flesh they cover.
And drawing them water they came, forasmuch as wine they had none,
And they poured on the altar-flame, and they roasted the entrails thereon:
And after the sacrifice and the tasting of entrails due,
The rest into pieces they slice, and they run the long spits through.
And then from mine eyelids the band of slumber was snatched away,
And I hied me to go to the strand, to the place where the swift ship lay:
But anigh to the spot as I drew where the fair ship lay on the coast,
Suddenly round me blew the savoury reek of the roast;
And I shrieked with a bitter cry, and to all the Immortals I cried:
‘O Zeus, Allfather on high! blessed Gods that for ever abide!
A pitiless sleep did ye bring, into ruin that lulled me away;
And behold, this monstrous thing hath been done by my mates this day! ‘
Flashing swift from the earth as the fire of the lightning flew up to the Sun
Lampetie, telling her sire of the sacrilege-slaughter done.
And in fierceness of wrath cried he for the trespass beyond forgiving:
‘O Zeus Allfather, and ye the rest of the Gods everliving!
Vengeance for me on the men of Odysseus that lawlessly slay
Kine that were ever my joy both in treading the star-studded way,
Yea, and when turning from heaven, on earth-folk my splendour to shed:—
If I may not be avenged for my kine on their swords that have bled,
Down will I go unto Hades, and lighten the land of the dead.’
Answered him Zeus Allfather, who driveth the clouds at his will:
‘Sun-god, shine thou rather upon the Immortals still,
And on mortals the wide heaven under, on corn-giving earth that be;
But thy vengeance shall come with my thunder, the lightning shall answer for thee:
It shall shiver their galley asunder amidst of the wine-dark sea.’
To Calypso the beautiful-haired did Hermes the Guide-god tell
The story, and she declared unto me whatsoever befell.
But when I came down to the beach, to the place where the galley abode,
In mine anger I turned upon each after other, and bitterly chode.
But remedy found we none, since the cattle already were dead;
And the Gods began thereupon to display to them portents dread.
The hides of the dead kine stirred, slow-writhing along and crawling;
And a lowing of oxen was heard, for the flesh on the spits was calling.
Six days, day after day, was the horror repeated, for still
The best of the kine drave they, and they slaughtered them, gorging at will.
But so soon as the seventh day’s light by Zeus to the earth was given,
Suddenly calmed was the might of the winds in the hurricane driven:
And into the galley we passed, and we thrust forth on to the wave,
And we hoisted up the mast, and the sail to the wind we gave.
But as soon as the offing was gained, and under the dim sea-line
Sunk was the isle, and remained naught else but the sky and the brine,
Then did Cronion bring a lurid cloud overhead,
And a gloom from its shadowing wing was over the waters spread.
Short time on her perilous path flew onward the galley, for swift
The West-wind, howling in wrath, came bringing the white spume-drift, mast;
Snapped by the blast of the wind were the two forestays of the
And the tall spar tumbled behind, and the tackle thereof was cast
Into the galley’s well; and the mast, as it sternwards crashed,
On the head of the steersman fell, and the bones of his skull were smashed
All to a mass, and he, as a diver that springs from a height,
Dropt from the deck to the sea, and the soul from his bones took flight.
And with rolling and crashing of thunder the lightning of Zeus was hurled,
And the ship’s whole length thereunder shivered, and round she whirled
Filled with a sulphurous steam, and my men from her decks were flung:
Like the white sea-mews did they seem as they hither and thither were swung
Round the ship mid the foam and the swell, till the faces, a moment tost,
Sank, weighted with vengeance, to hell; and the hope of their home was lost.
But I paced up and down the deck, till a sea burst over, and tore
The sides from the keel, and the wreck dismantled the wild surge bore.
Snapt at the keel was the mast, and the twain swam side by side;
But the backstay upon them was cast,—it was wrought of the tough ox-hide:—
So I lashed the long spars fast together, and crouching on these
I was borne by the passionate blast through the welter of hungry seas.
But the West-wind after a space no longer maddened the sea,
And the South-wind blew in its place, ’twas a terrible wind unto me;
For backward it swept me, back, through a night of confusion and fear,
Till I had remeasured my track, and Charybdis again was near.
And, just as the waters glowed to the east with a crimson flame,
Unto Scylla’s rocky abode and to awful Charybdis I came:
Even then was she yawning asunder, but, lifted a moment on high,
Or ever the raft plunged under, I clutched at the wild fig by;
And like to a bat I clung, and I groped with my feet around,
’Twixt heaven and earth as I hung, but foothold was none to be found;
For the roots were far away, and the branches floated and swayed,
Far-drooping and huge were they, and Charybdis was dark with their shade.
Yet I clung with a desperate strain, till the gulf rebelching threw
The mast and the keel up again,—right welcome they came into view.
It was even the hour when away to his supper the deemster hies,
Who hath sat through the weary day mid the market’s wrangling cries,
When through hiss of the swirl and through spray of the whirl did the beams uprise.
Then my limbs to the fall I gave, releasing my hold at the last;
And I heavily plunged in the wave, just clearing the keel and the mast.
So I climbed them, and paddling drave with mine hands till Charybdis was past.
But the Father of Gods and men did not suffer that Scylla should see;
For if she had looked forth then, swift doom had it been for me.
Nine days was I borne on the sea; on the tenth, as the twilight fell,.
The Gods of their grace brought me to the island wherein doth dwell
A Goddess majestic and fair, Calypso the beautiful-tressed,
Who loved me and cherished me there,—but why should I speak of the rest;
For I told thee thereof yestreen, and to tell it over again
Unto thee and thy stately queen were but irksome labour in vain.”