Book V

UP rose Dawn from her bed by proud Tithonus’ side,
On Immortals her light to shed, and on men on the earth-plain wide.
Then did the high Gods gather, and midst them in awful state
Sat Zeus, loud-thundering Father, whose might is resistlessly great.
And Pallas Athene rose, for her spirit was kindled to tell
The hero Odysseus’ woes, with a Goddess constrained to dwell:
“Zeus our Father, and ye the blessed Gods ever-living,
Why should a king any more be merciful, fault-forgiving,
Gracious, and swaying a sceptre in righteousness? Why not rather
Stern, and an evil oppressor?—for he that was kind as a father
And good to his folk, as though they were sons of his loins begotten,
Hath none to remember Odysseus now,—he is clean forgotten.
He lieth afar in an island, forlorn in his anguish and woe,
In the halls of Calypso the Nymph, and she will not let him go.
And he cannot escape from thence, nor return to his fatherland:
No galley with oars hath he, nor arms of a trusty band,
To speed him across the sea, on the long-ridging swell thereof.
And lo, they are seeking to take the life of the son of his love,
What time he comes home, who for news of his father sailed over the main
Unto Pylos, the sacred strand, unto Sparta, the hallowed plain.”’
Answered her Zeus, of whose hands the clouds together are swept:
“Daughter, what saying is this, through the fence of thy teeth that hath leapt?
For is it not all thy devising, how back to his palace-hall
Odysseus shall come, and requital on those ill-doers shall fall?
Then speed thou Telemachus back in thy wisdom,—for thou knowest best,—
That again he may come to the land of his fathers, and none may molest,
And the suitors return as they came in their ship from a bootless quest.”
And he spake unto Hermes his son, and the Guide-god hearkened with heed:
“Hermes,—for thou art our messenger ever in all our need,—
Speed to the fair-tressed Nymph, and our sure decree declare
That Odysseus the steadfast-hearted back to his home may fare,
Whom neither the Gods shall carry, nor galley of men shall bear.
But he on a raft strong-bound shall pass over a wearisome way,
Till he come unto Scheria’s fat-loamed land on the twentieth day,
Where dwell the Phaeacian folk, that are nigh to the Gods in line;
And these shall render him honour, as though he were even divine:
And they in a galley shall send him home to his own dear land,
With their gifts of brass and of gold, and raiment enow in his hand,
More than Odysseus from Troy-land ever had carried away,
Scatheless had he come thence with his own full share of the prey.
For thus is it fated that he shall behold his friends, and shall come
Back to the land of his fathers, back to his high-roofed home.”
So did he speak, and the Guide that slew Argus did nowise refuse:
But swift to his feet he tied his beautiful sandal-shoes,
Ambrosial, golden-gleaming, that bore him over the main,
Swift as the winds far-streaming, and o’er earth’s limitless plain.
And the Wand of the Spells hath he ta’en, that charms into slumber deep
Whomsoever he will, and again it breaketh the bands of sleep.
Bearing his wand of might the Slayer of Argus stooped
From the sky to Pieria’s height, then down on the ocean he swooped,
And over the sea-swell darted, as onward a sea-mew slips
Where the dread wave-bosoms are parted, and down the hollows it dips
Fishing, with wings agleam with the dew of the salt sea-spray:
So did the Guide-god seem, skimming wave after wave on his way.
But when to the isle came he, the far-away lonely strand,
From the face of the violet sea the God set foot on the land.
And he went till he came to a grot, a great wide cavern, and there
Found he the Goddess he sought, the Nymph of the beautiful hair.
On the hearth a great fire shone: through the island was wafted from thence
The scent of the fuel thereon, of the cedar and frankincense.
And, with sound of a sweet voice ringing, gold shuttle and shining thread
Ever the Nymph plied, singing in time to her fairy tread.
And around the grotto a wood shot up in abundant bloom,
Where alder and poplar stood, and the cypress of goodly perfume.
Fearlessly long-winged fowl there roosted the branches among,
The falcon, the round-eyed owl, and the crows with chattering tongue
That hunt for their prey where the bright sea-spray is around them flung.
And, all the grotto surrounding, the arms of a vine went straying,
With green leaf-masses abounding, and clusters heavily weighing.
And the sunlit water was gushing from four sweet springs out-flowing
Anigh at the first, till rushing the ripples ran, all ways going.
And meadows with parsley green, and with purple of violets dight,
Glowed with an emerald sheen. Were a God to chance on the sight,
There would he linger, I ween, with his whole soul drinking delight.
And there did he stand at gaze, and the Slayer of Argus wondered,
And his spirit was filled with amaze, as all the marvel he pondered.
And nigh to the cavern he drew; and even as Hermes came,
The Goddess Calypso knew the Guide-god’s visage and name.
For they that immortal are ne’er come to each other unknown,
Though one be dwelling afar from the rest, in a palace alone.
But Odysseus the noble of heart might not in the grotto be seen,
But he wept by the shore apart, as his wont had aforetime been,
Rending his heart with sighs and with tears and with yearning pain,
Wistfully gazing with eyes tear-dimmed on the barren main.
To a glorious glittering throne Calypso hath Hermes led,
And, bidding the God make known the cause of his coming, she said:
“Why hast thou come, O Hermes with wand of gold, to my shore,
O honoured and dear? ’Tis a way that thou seldom hast trodden before.
Utter thy purpose: my heart bids me do whatsoe’er may be done.
But first draw nigh to my board, and the guest-fare spread thereupon.” go
Then, that the God might eat, the Goddess a table spread
With ambrosia, heavenly meat, and with nectar rosy-red.
And Hermes took of her fare, and he quaffed of the nectar-bowl,
Even till the Argus-slayer with cheer had filled his soul.
Then in reply to the Nymph with the words of his mouth he spake:
“Thou hast asked of my coming: an answer of truth unto thee will I make.
As a God’s reply to a Goddess, sooth shall mine answer be.
Zeus hath commanded me, loth as I was, to come hither to thee,—
For who of himself across such limitless ocean-swell
Would speed to a land that hath no cities wherein men dwell,
Where never an altar smoked, where never a victim fell?
But when he that beareth the Aegis commands, among all the rest
May none make void his word, transgressing his high behest:—
He saith, thou hast by thee the man whose lot hath been harder than all
Of the heroes who battled for nine long years round Ilium’s wall,
Until in the tenth in ashes the city of Priam lay:
But against Athene they sinned amidst of their homeward way,
So she smote them by armies of winds and the long sea-rollers’ array:
There did the rest of his men sink down into deep sea-graves,
But he was hitherward swept by the stress of the winds and the waves.
Him must thou speedily suffer homeward again to hie;
For it is not his doom that here afar from his friends he should die,
But ’tis fated that he shall again behold his friends, and come
Back to the land of his fathers, back to his high-roofed home.”
Shuddered the Goddess with pain when the heavy behest she knew,
And she spake unto Hermes again, and her winged words answering flew:
“Hard-hearted and jealous Gods! none other are like you,” she cried,
“Who ever begrudge that a Goddess should couch by a mortal’s side,
Though she would openly wed him, for love subduing her pride!
It was so when the rosy-fingered Eos Orion chose;
Still were ye jealous of him, ye Gods in your careless repose,
Until Artemis undefiled from her golden throne had sped,
And slain by her painless shafts he lay in Ortygia dead.
It was so when Demeter bent to the rush of the storm of her passion,
And she and Iasion flushed with delight in the old sweet fashion
In the thrice-eared field. Not long! That eye was scowling above her;
And the fierce white flame of the lightning came, and dead was her lover.
It is so now again! Ye begrudge that a mortal should stay at my side,
Whom I saved when the sea washed him hither, forlorn, on a keel astride,
Alone; for Zeus with his gleaming bolt had riven asunder
His ship on the wine-dark sea, and the waters had whelmed it under.
There did the rest of his men sink down into deep sea-graves;
But he was hitherward swept by the stress of the winds and the waves.
I have given him life and my love: I have promised to give unto him
An immortal being, and days that old age never shall dim.
But since he that beareth the Aegis commands, and of all the rest
May none make void his word, transgressing his high behest,
Let him go—if ’tis Zeus that requireth me out of my heart to rend him—
Over the harvestless sea; but it is not I that will send him.
No galley with oars have I, no arms of a trusty crew
To speed him across the long-ridged swell of the waters blue:
Yet with all my heart will I give to him counsel, and will not hide
How he may pass to his country unharmed, whatsoever betide.”
The Guide-god, Slayer of Argus, answered her then, and said:
“Even so, as thou say’st, do thou send him: beware of the God, and dread
Ever to kindle his fierceness of anger against thine head.”
Thus when the God had replied, on the wings of the wind he departed.
And straightway the Goddess hied to Odysseus the mighty-hearted,
Because of the strait command of the Thunderer, King of the skies;
And the hero she found on the strand sitting lonely, and never his eyes
Were dry of the tears that streamed: his life’s tide ebbed in their flowing:
Of lost home ever he dreamed, and hateful the Nymph was growing
And still, in his heart’s despite, at eve to the grotto he crept,
And side by side through the night the loving and loveless slept.
But rending his heart with sighs and with tears and with yearning pain,
And wistfully gazing with eyes tear-dimmed on the harvestless main,
Alone on the shores of the sea or the cliffs he sat through the day.
But now to his side came she, and the Goddess began her say:
“Mourn no longer, O evil-starred, consuming thy heart:
Full fain will I let thee go, and behold, thou shalt straightway depart.
Come then, and hew long planks with the axe, and fashion for thee
A broad-beamed raft, and high thereupon shall the deck-planks be,
Safely to bear thee home on the face of the misty sea.
And fear not thou to famish thereon, for the task shall be mine
To store it with bread and with water and rosily-blushing wine.
I will clothe thee with raiment, and send a fair breeze following fast;
And so unharmed shalt thou come to the land of thy fathers at last,
If it please the Gods that dwell in the broad-arched heaven, for still
Stronger are they than I to devise and to work their will.”
So spake she, and shivered with dread Odysseus with woes long-tried;
And the winged words answering sped, and the man to the Goddess replied:
“Nay, it is something else than a journey thou plottest for me,
Who biddest me cross on a raft the mighty abyss of the sea,
Terrible, troublous: not unto stately ships is it given,
Swift-speeding, to pass it at will, borne blithe by the breezes of heaven.
Never a raft this body against thy pleasure shall bear,
Unless thou be willing, O Goddess, an oath of might to swear
That thou wilt not contrive nor imagine new mischief against me there.”
So spake he; the Goddess the while with her white hand softly caressed him,
And her lips broke into a smile as lightly she spake and addressed him:
“O but a knave keen-witted thou art, all hazards among,—
To think such a thought in thine heart, and to speak such a word with thy tongue!
Now therefore let Earth be witness of this, and heaven high-soaring,
And the sunless Styx that down to the underworld goes pouring,—
Mightiest oath for the Gods ever-blessed, an oath of fear,—
That I do not contrive nor imagine new mischief against thee here.
But the thought of mine heart, the intent of my mind, is even the same
As I for myself would devise if upon me a like need came.
For not, ah not as thou thinkest, is loyal Calypso’s mind,
Nor of steel is the heart in this bosom of mine, but pity-inclined.”
So when her words were ended, back with a hurried tread
She passed, and the hero attended, following whither she led.
So they came to the vaulted stone where the ribs of the mountain were cleft;
And the man sat down on the throne that Hermes so lately had left.
And the Nymph for the hero spread sweet wine and manifold meat,
But all was of earth, as the bread that mortals are wont to eat.
And she sat down face to face with Odysseus the godlike wight;
And by her did her handmaids place ambrosia and nectar bright.
And they their hands extended, of food and of drink to partake;
But as soon as the meal was ended, Calypso the Goddess spake:
“O Zeus’ seed, son of Laertes, Odysseus of many an art,
Is it so, that home to thine own dear land thou art fain to depart?
Art thou longing to leave me forthright?—is it so?—ay, go in peace.
But O if thou knewest what troubles, or ever thy wanderings cease,
Thou art doomed to fill up full-brimmed, on the way to thy native shore,
Here wouldst thou tarry with me, thou wouldst dwell in this home evermore;
Immortality then should be thine, for all thy yearning to gaze
On that wife of thine, for whom thou art pining through all thy days.
Surely that beauty of hers is not so peerlessly fair
That in grace and in stately height Calypso may not compare;
For if women outshone the Immortals, strange of a truth it were.”
Unto her did Odysseus the subtle of wit make ready reply:
“Ah, be not angry with me for this, great Goddess, for I
Know all full well: were prudent Penelope matched with thee,
Dim were her beauty by thine, and but frail were her form to see;
For a mortal she is, but from death and from eld evermore thou art free.
But, in spite of all, do I long, and through all my days I yearn
To win to my home once more, and to look on my day of return.
But if on the wine-dark sea any God shall wreck me again,
I will bear it, who have in my bosom a spirit inured to pain:
For many a grief and many a toil have I borne before
Mid the surge of the sea and the battle,—and this shall be but one more.”
As he ended, sank in the wave the sun and arose the night;
And they passed through the vaulted cave to a nook secluded from sight;
And the night sped fast as the soft hours passed amid love’s delight.
When the Child of the Mist awoke, when the Rosy-fingered shone,
Arrayed in his mantle and cloak from the cave is the hero gone.
In a silvery-shining vest full-flowing, of delicate thread,
The Goddess her body dressed, and her dainty girdlestead
A golden girdle pressed, and a veil streamed down from her head.
And now ’twas Calypso’s will to send the hero away.
She gave him a broad brown bill, full meet for his hand to sway,
Brazen, with keen heads twain, and a helve well fitted thereto,
Of the olive with tawny grain, that a craftsman with pride would view.
And an adze well-polished she gave, and she led to the isle’s far side,
Where, hard by the deep sea-wave, the tall trees stood in their pride;
The alder, the poplar, and, high uplifting its crown, the pine,
Long time sapless and dry,—they would lightly ride over the brine.
And when she had shown him the spot where the tall trees swayed in the blast,
Back to her lonely grot Calypso the Goddess passed.
But he fell to his toil by the shore, and swiftly the work sped on,
Until he had felled a score in all, and he lopped each one;
And the trunks did he smooth and trim by adze and measuring-line.
And augers were brought unto him by Calypso the Goddess divine;
And he bored the timbers through, and each unto other did fit them,
And with clamps together he drew, and the pegs he hammered to knit them.
And even as wide as a man in the shipwright’s mystery skilled
A broad-beamed hull will plan, when a freight-ship he meaneth to build,
So was the width of the raft that he fashioned for steady sailing;
And he put up the decks of the craft, to the close-thronged ribs fast nailing;
And he finished the hull at last with the long strakes running around;
And he set up therein the mast, and the yard athwart it he bound:
And he fashioned a helm, to turn the craft’s head whither he listed;
And he fenced her from stem to stern with hurdles of osier twisted,
For a shield from the dash of the brine; and the ballast he piled below:
And Calypso the Goddess divine brought mantles of ample flow
To make into sails for his craft, and cunningly these wrought he:
And at last, when halliards and braces and sheets were lashed in their places,
With levers he forced the raft down into the mighty sea.
So the work sped day after day, till the fourth brought all to an end;
On the fifth the Goddess away from the island the hero would send.
And after the bath she arrayed him in garments of perfume divine;
And skins on the raft she laid; the one was of dark-flushed wine,
And the other an ample skin of water, and victual enow
In a wallet, for meats within it abundant and good did she stow.
And she sent him a kindly wind that blew softly over the seas,
And the hero with gladsome mind spread forth his sail to the breeze.
And he steered her deftly and well, for he handled the tiller with skill;
And treacherous sleep ne’er fell on the eyes that were watchful still,
For he kept the Pleiads in front, and the Herdman, who slowly doth gain
His rest, and the Bear,—they are wont to call it moreover the Wain:
Ever turning at bay, doth it glare on Orion’s falchion-gleam,
And alone it hath no share in the baths of the Ocean-stream:—
For Calypso the Goddess divine had bidden him still to keep
Over his left that sign as he fared on the face of the deep.
So seven days and ten o’er the waste of the waters he steered:
On the eighteenth day to his ken far shadowy hills appeared:
Phaeacian land were they, where the coast lay nearest to him:
Like a shield outspread they lay in the offing mistily dim.
But now the Earth-shaker espied him, on Solyme’s hills as he turned,
When from Aethiop land he hied him: the hero afar he discerned,
As he sailed on the face of the sea, and his wrath flamed out like fire;
And unto his soul spake he, and he shook his head for ire;
“Ha! is it so, that, when I was afar in the Aethiop land,
Changing decrees they have mocked me when I was not there to withstand?
Yea, and Odysseus is close by this to Phaeacia’s shore:
There is his weird that he win to his goal, and be harassed no more,—
Nay, but he yet shall be drunk with my wrath ere his troubles be o’er.”
Then he gathered the clouds, and the face of the darkening sea was troubled
By the dash of his three-forked mace, and the wrath of the winds he redoubled,
As he swept them from every quarter, and masses of cloud on-driven
Overshrouded the land and the water, and night rushed down from the heaven.
And the East-wind and South rushed forth, and the West-wind bitter and fell,
And the blast from the skies of the north came rolling a vast sea-swell.
Then, with knees unstrung by his fear, as his failing heart ’gan quake,
Odysseus, heavy of cheer, to his mighty spirit spake:
“Ah me! wretched am I! what is this that at last shall befall?
So ran the Goddess’s words,—true, sorely I fear, were they all:
For she told me of perils of waters that, ere I should win to mine home,
I should pass through, and woes in full measure,—and lo, the fulfilment is come!
With cloud upon cloud hath Zeus the broad-arched heaven overcast,
And the sea hath he lashed into fury, and racing comes blast after blast,
For the winds are all up, and destruction o’ertaketh me surely and fast.
Thrice happy, and four times, the Danaans who long ago left their life
In broad Troyland, as they rallied round Atreus’ sons in the strife!
Ah to have died myself, and a glorious fate to have won
In the day when, defying a host of the Trojans, I guarded alone—
While the hiss of their spears shrilled sharp in mine ears—dead Peleus’ son!
Then funeral rites had been mine, the Achaeans had published my fame:
But now must I wretchedly perish with neither a tomb nor a name.”
As he spake it, a toppling wave on the raft with a fierce bound sprung,
And it burst thereover, and drave it through welter of whirlpools swung.
And afar from the deck is he tossed, and his hold on the rudder is lost
In the charge of the terrible host of the blasts that the whirlwinds confound.
Snapt through the midst is the mast, and the yard and the main-sail are cast
Streaming afar on the blast, till they splash in the surge and are drowned.
Long time was he whelmed down deep, for the monstrous waves still mocked
His toil mid the swing and the sweep of the sea as it weltered and shocked:
And the raiment heavily bare that was given by the Nymph divine.
But at last he rose to the air, and he spat the bitter brine
From his mouth, with his eyes nigh blind with the water that streamed from his hair:
Yet still did he bear in mind his raft, amid pain and despair;
And through dash of the surge and the spray he struck out, and he grasped thereat;
And from death’s clutch shrinking away he crouched, in the midst as he sat,
While the waves in their terrible play were tossing it this way and that.
And as thistle-down heads in the fall o’er the bare fields hither and thither
Are tossed by the gusty squall as in clusters they cling together,
So the wild winds caught it and drave it by maddening hollow and crest;
And now ’twas the South-wind that hurled it away by the North to be whirled,
And now ’twas the East that gave it a prey to the passionate West.
But Ino Leucothee the distress of the hero hath seen,—
The daughter of Cadmus she, who of old had a mortal been;
But now mid the sea had she part in the worship of Gods ever-blest;—
And she marked him with pitiful heart in bewilderment roaming distrest.
Swift as a sea-mew’s flight from abysses unfathomed she sprang;
On the raft did she softly alight, and her voice through the mad din rang:
“Woe-worn, why is the wrath of the Shaker of Earth upon thee
So terribly stern, that his hand this manifold evil hath done thee?
Nay, but he shall not destroy thee, though never so furious he be.
Come then, do as I bid thee,—for wisdom, I ween, is with thee,—
Put off thy garments, forsake thou thy raft to be driven by the blast;
Swim, striking out with thine hands, till thy wanderings shall end at the last
In the Phaeacian land, where thy weird is to win to thy rest.
Lo, take this immortal veil, and bind it beneath thy breast.
So shalt thou get no hurt, fear not, and thou shalt not be drowned.
But as soon as by toil of thine hands thou hast set thy feet on the ground,
Unwind it again from thy body, and cast it afar from thee
Forth to the waves from the land, and look not behind thee to see.”
So spake the Goddess, and gave the veil from her tresses bright;
And into the tossing wave she flashed in a moment from sight
Swift as the white sea-mew, and the black swell over her rolled.
But he, in a strait betwixt two, was bethinking him how he should do;
And heavy of cheer he spake of his fear to his heart high-souled:
“Ah me! what if one of the Gods should be weaving again for me
A web of deceit, in bidding me leap from the raft to the sea!—
Nay, but I will not obey, since far away to mine eyes
Seemed the land that I saw erewhile, where she saith my deliverance lies.
Nay, but in any wise this will I do, for best it seems:
So long as the raft part not, firm-knit by the joints of the beams,
Still amid pain will I arm me with patience, and here will abide.
But as soon as the surge shall have shattered my raft with planks flung wide,
I will swim as I may, since I see naught else that may better betide.”
Even as Odysseus pondered with thoughts in confusion whirled,
Suddenly rushing there thundered a wave by the Earth-shaker hurled;
And it towered ever higher o’erarching, and dire was the crest that it bore,
And it bowed, and it crashed, and a cataract dashed on his head with a roar.
As a wind on a chaff-heap sweeping tosses and flings it abroad,
And the awns through the wild air leaping hither and thither are strawed,
So the planks of the raft wide-flung were scattered; but he, bestriding
One of the long beams, clung, as a man on a wild horse riding.
And he stripped from his body the vest that the Goddess Calypso gave,
And he wound beneath his breast the veil of the Nymph of the wave.
And he dived overhead in the sea, and he spread out his hands as to swim,
Striking out with a manful stroke; and the Earth-shaker looked upon him,
And shaking his head he spoke, and his laugh was bitter and grim:
“Thus now encompassed with trouble go wander afar on the main,
Till a respite from woes in the land of the favoured of heaven thou gain:
Even so thou wilt not think lightly, I ween, of thy measure of pain.”
He spake, and he turned him, and lashed his coursers with mane fair-flowing,
And away unto Aegae he dashed, to his glorious temple going.
But not so was the mind of the daughter of Zeus in her hero’s need:
For she barred the winds’ ways on the water, she bridled their furious speed;
And she sent her commandment forth, and she hushed them and lulled them to sleep;
And she called up a wind from the north, and it levelled the waves of the deep,
Till Odysseus, from fate’s net free, and unscathed of black death’s stroke,
Amidst the Phaeacians should be, the guest of the oar-loving folk.
Two nights did he drift on the main, two days of horror and fear,
And his heart again and again beheld death hovering near.
But when, with the third, o’er the east the tresses of morning flushed,
The wind’s feet utterly ceased from their race, and its breathing was hushed;
And, looking out keenly before him, Odysseus beheld the land,
As a mountain wave upbore him, and, lo, it was nigh at hand.
O sweet as the first faint ray of a father’s returning life
To his children, when day after day he hath wrestled in mortal strife
With the last grim foe, and in pain hath he long been constrained to languish—
But the Gods have given him again a sweet, sweet respite from anguish—
So to Odysseus sweet seemed the land and the wood-crowned height,
And to tread thereupon with his feet he swam with his uttermost might.
But when so near drew he that a shout could be heard from the shore,
He heard the boom of the sea as it burst on the reefs with a roar;
For the vast sea-swell came tumbling down with a thunder-shock,
And it crashed with a hollow rumbling, with spray-rain veiling the rock.
No haven for ships was near, no road from the breakers sheltered,
But great cliffs towering sheer, and reefs where the mad surge weltered.
And his knees were loosened for fear, and his very heart ’gan quake,
As Odysseus, heavy of cheer, to his mighty spirit spake:
“Ah me, though Zeus hath vouchsafed me the sight of the land at last
Beyond all hope, and the deep is by terrible toil overpast,
Nowhere a landing-place from the hoary sea doth appear;
For the sharp rocks stretch in a fringe outside, and ever I hear
The roar of the surge as it shocks them: the smooth rock runs up sheer;
And right to the base of the cliffs the water is fathoms deep,
Here is there no escape, no hold for my feet on the steep.
What if a great wave snatch me essaying to land, and drive
Full on a jagged rock?—all vain were it then to strive!
But and if I shall still swim, coasting along, if I haply may reach
A haven between low spits, with a slantwise-shelving beach,
I fear lest a tempest again may snatch me away, and sweep
Heavily groaning for anguish afar on the fish-fraught deep.
Or perchance a God will send some ravening monster on me
From the sea-caves,—they pasture by thousands amidst of the sounding sea,—
For I know that the Earth-shaker’s wrath is upon me relentlessly.”
Thus as the hero thought, while sorely his heart misgave him,
A huge wave suddenly caught and full on the reef it drave him:
Then had his skin been flayed, and his bones had been broken there,
But Pallas Athene made the heart in him strong to bear.
Forward he darted, and clung to the rock with both hands fast,
And gasping and groaning he hung till the rush of the billow was past.
And so that peril was o’er, but the back-sweep smote him again,
And recoiling resistlessly bore him afar on the open main.
And even as when from its cleft a poulp many-footed ye pluck,
Many a pebble is left on the cups of its snake-arms stuck,
So, as the wave-rush ripped his hands from their desperate hold,
The skin from his palms was stripped, and the sea high over him rolled.
And there, before his hour, had Odysseus wretchedly perished,
But Pallas Athene’s power gave wisdom to him that she cherished:
He battled his way out free of the surf running shorewards high,
And in line with the coast swam he, if he anywhere might espy
Some low slant-shelving beach lying back in a sheltered cove.
And at last it befell him to reach, through the wave as he wearily strove,
The mouth of a river fair, and he hailed his deliverance at last:
No barrier of rock was there, but a covert above from the blast.
And he spake to the God in prayer, as his broad stream swept out fast:—
“Hearken, O King, whatsoever thy name, for a suppliant to thee,
With many a prayer, from the deep and the threats of Poseidon I flee.
Even the Gods immortal respect the suppliant cry
Of a man that comes wandering to them: lo, such an one even am I.
Out of manifold troubles I cry unto thee, at thy knees do I bow:
Have compassion upon me, O King, and respect thy suppliant now.”
Straightway the River-god stayed his flowing; the waves no more
Tossed, but in calm were laid: and he brought him safe to shore
At the stream’s outfall. But spent was his strength by the fight with the sea,
And his strong knees trembled and bent, and his arms drooped helplessly;
And his body was swoln all o’er, and the brine came gushing away—
From nostrils and mouth did it pour—and voiceless and breathless he lay
Utterly void of strength, in weariness swooning for pain.
When his spirit came back at length, and he breathed a little again,
The veil that was round his breast he unwound: no power had he
To return as she bade to the giver her gift, but nervelessly
He dropt it into the river that murmured on to the sea.
Over ripple and swirl did it shine, till the sea-swell met it; and then
A white hand flashed from the brine, and the Nymph hath her own again.
Then he turned from the river away, and sank down on a soft rush-bed,
And he kissed the ground as he lay; but heavy of heart he said:
“Ah me, what shall befall me? to what shall I come at the last?
If in the river-hollow the comfortless night shall be passed,
I fear me the bitter frost and the chill dawn-dew full soon
Shall make an end of the life that is gasping back from its swoon:
Cold is the blast that with morning blows from the river, I ween.
And if I should climb the slope, and pass under a wood’s thick screen,
’Neath bushes to sleep, if the deadly exhaustion should pass away,
And the cramping cold, and sweet sleep lulled me the while I lay,
I fear me, the beasts of the field would find me, a helpless prey.”
So as he pondered, he chose the thing that seemed to him good;
And he slowly and wearily rose, and he spied by the river a wood
In a place with a clear wide view; and he found two olives there,
From roots intermingled they grew; one wild, one fruitful-fair.
No winds blowing mistily-wet through that thick covert could pierce,
Nor the dash of the shower, nor yet the sun, were he never so fierce,
So densely the boughs overhead intertwined; and Odysseus crept
Underneath, and the leaves for a bed to a broad high heap he swept;
For wealth of leaves had been shed, enough two men to screen,
Yea, three should it hide, in the winter-tide, were it never so keen.
And the woe-worn hero smiled for joy at the sight thereof:
And he lay in the midst, and he piled him a warm thick covering above.
And, as one in a lonely place that dwelleth, a neighbourless wight,
Will thrust a billet ablaze under ashes, to keep it alight,
Saving a live fire-seed, that he go not far away
To rekindle the same at his need,—so covered with leaves he lay.
Then, his ache of sore travail to end, did Pallas Athene pour
Sweet sleep on the eyes of her friend, with forgetfulness flooding him o’er.