The Odyssey Read online

  alder, black poplar, and fragrant cypress--in which

  spread-winged birds had fashioned their nesting places:

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  small horned owls, falcons, and those chattering seabirds,

  cormorants, that busy themselves far out in deep water.

  Encircling the hollow cavern there trailed a luxuriant

  garden vine, with plentiful ripe grape clusters

  and four springs in a row, all gushing forth clear water,

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  close to each other, yet facing in different directions,

  and beyond them soft meadows of blossoming violets

  and celery: whoever might come there--an immortal, even--

  would admire the sight, and rejoice in his heart, as now

  the guide, the slayer of Argos, stared in admiration. But when

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  in his heart he'd admired and marveled at everything, then

  he made his way straight into the spacious cave; nor did she,

  Kalypso, bright goddess, fail to know him when they met,

  for gods, being immortal, are not strangers to each other,

  even though one may dwell in a home that's far away.

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  But great-hearted Odysseus he did not find within there,

  for he, as usual, was seated out on the seashore, weeping,

  rending his heart with tears and groans and sadness,

  gazing out through his tears at the unharvested sea.

  Kalypso, bright among goddesses, now questioned Hermes,

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  after settling him down on a brightly gleaming chair:

  "Why, golden-staffed Hermes, honored and welcome, are you

  now visiting me? In the past you've seldom come here.

  Say what you want: my heart tells me to do it

  if do it I can, and it's something that can be done.

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  But come with me now, let me offer you entertainment."2

  So saying, the goddess placed before him a table on which

  she'd set out ambrosia, and mixed the red nectar for him.

  So he ate and drank, did the guide, the slayer of Argos;

  then, when he'd eaten and stayed his appetite with food,

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  in response to her question he addressed her as follows:

  "Why am I here, you ask me, as goddess to god: I'll give you

  a full and truthful account, since that is your desire.

  Zeus it was told me to come here: I didn't want to.

  Who would willingly traverse so much salt water,

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  an expanse past telling, with no city of mortals near it,

  men who honor the gods with lavish sacrifices?

  But no way can another god negate or circumvent

  what Zeus the aegis bearer has set his mind to!

  He says there's a man here with you, one more ill-starred

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  than all other warriors who round about Priam's city

  battled on for nine years; then in the tenth they sacked it

  and set off back home, but returning offended Athene,3

  who sent against them a foul storm and surging waves.

  Then all the rest of his noble companions perished,

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  but him the wind and waves bore off and carried hither,

  and him Zeus now bids you with all speed send on his way,

  since he's not fated to die here, far from his dear ones,

  but it's still his lot to see his friends and come home

  to his high-roofed house and his own dear native land."

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  So he spoke; and Kalypso, bright among goddesses, shivered,

  and responded to him with winged words, saying: "Hard-hearted

  are you gods indeed, and jealous beyond all others,

  who resent any goddesses sleeping with mortal men

  openly, if they choose one such as their bedfellow!

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  So it was when rose-fingered Dawn took up with Orion--

  you easy-living gods resented it, till at last

  in Ortygie chaste Artemis, she of the golden throne,

  with her painless arrows assailed and killed him;4 so it was

  when fine-tressed Demeter went with Iasion, gave in

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  to her passion, lay down and mingled with him

  in thrice-plowed fallow soil; not long was it before

  Zeus learned of it and with his bright bolt hit and slew him.

  So now too, gods, you resent my having a mortal companion.

  Him I saved when he was riding astride the keel,

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  alone, after Zeus with his bright bolt had struck

  and shattered his swift ship out on the wine-dark sea:

  Then all the rest of his noble companions perished,

  but him the wind and waves bore off and carried hither.

  To him I gave friendly welcome and comfort, telling him

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  I would make him immortal and ageless all his days. But since

  there's no way for another god to negate or circumvent

  what Zeus the aegis bearer has set his mind to,

  let him go, if that's what he has decided and so commands,

  across the unharvested sea! But no way shall I dispatch him,

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  for I have here no oared ships, nor the crews for them,

  to send him on his way across the broad back of the sea.

  Still, I'll be glad to advise him, I'll hold back nothing,

  to help him get back unharmed to his own country."

  Then the guide, the slayer of Argos, responded to her, saying:

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  "So dispatch him now, and beware of the wrath of Zeus,

  lest he nurse resentment and rage against you later."

  So saying, the mighty slayer of Argos now departed,

  and she, the queenly nymph, went to great-hearted

  Odysseus, after hearing the message Zeus had sent her.

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  Him she found on the seashore, sitting; nor were his eyes

  ever wiped dry of tears; sweet life was draining from him

  as he yearned to be home, since the nymph no longer pleased him.

  Nights indeed he would sleep beside her perforce

  in the hollow caverns, the reluctant by the eager,

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  but all day he'd stay seated there on the stony beach,

  rending his heart with tears and sighs and sorrows,

  and wept as he gazed out over the unharvested deep. Now she,

  bright among goddesses, stood close and addressed him, saying:

  "Illfated man, I beg you, weep here no longer, don't let

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  your life go to waste: I'm now ready to send you on your way!

  Come, hew long timbers with the bronze, and shape them

  into a broad-beamed raft, fasten deck planks upon its

  topside, to carry you over the misty deep; and I

  will stow in it bread and water and bright red wine,

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  heart-strengthening stuff, to fend off hunger from you;

  and I'll clothe you well, and send you a good tailwind,

  to let you get back unharmed to your own country--

  that's if the gods wish it, they who hold the broad heavens,

  and are stronger than I am both to plan and accomplish."

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  So she spoke, and noble much-enduring Odysseus shivered,

  and then responded to her with winged words, saying:

  "You're planning some other thing, goddess, not my dispatch!

  On a raft you're bidding me cross the sea's great gulf,

  a fearful and perilous venture! Not even the best vessels,

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  trim and swift, always make it, even when given a tailwind

  by Zeus! I'll not board any raft without yo
ur declared goodwill,

  unless you, goddess, agree to swear a mighty oath that this

  isn't some bad new trick that you're devising against me."

  So he spoke; but Kalypso bright among goddesses, smiled,

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  and stroked him with her hand, and addressed him, saying:

  "What a rogue you are, and by no means feeble-minded,

  that it occurred to you to address me in those terms!

  Very well: let earth bear witness, and the wide heaven above,

  and the cascade of Styx, the greatest and most dread

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  of all oaths observed and taken among the blessed gods,

  that this is no bad new trick that I'm plotting against you;

  no, my plans and considerations are such as I'd devise

  for my own personal use, should such a need come on me.

  My intentions are good, and the heart within my breast

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  is not made of iron, but compassionate."

  With those words

  Kalypso, bright among goddesses, went on ahead,

  at a brisk pace, and he followed in the goddess' footsteps.

  They came to the hollow cavern, goddess and man together,

  and there he settled himself on the same chair from which

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  Hermes had risen, while the nymph set all kinds of food

  before him to eat and drink, such stuff as mortals feed on,

  and she herself sat down facing godlike Odysseus,

  and her handmaids brought out for her ambrosia and nectar.

  So they reached out their hands to the good things ready for them.

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  But when they had satisfied their desire for food and drink,

  Kalypso, bright among goddesses, was the first to speak:

  "Son of Laertes, scion of Zeus, most resourceful Odysseus,

  are you really so set on making your way back home

  to your own land at once? Yet I wish you well regardless!

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  If you only knew in your heart the full measure of trouble

  it's your fate to incur before you reach your homeland,

  you'd rather stay here with me, and keep this house,

  and be immortal, despite your longing to see

  your wife, whom you pine for always, day in, day out!

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  I may indeed rightly claim not to be her inferior

  in either figure or stature, since no way is it seemly

  for mortal women to rival a goddess in form or beauty."

  Resourceful Odysseus then responded to her, saying:

  "Don't resent this, my lady goddess: I myself know well

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  that prudent Penelope is in every way less striking

  in appearance than you, whether for stature or beauty,

  since she's a mortal woman, whereas you're immortal, ageless!

  Yet even so what I want and yearn for all my days

  Is to make it back home, to see the day of my returning!

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  Though some god may wreck me again on the wine-dark deep,

  I will endure: the heart in my breast can bear much trouble!

  Before now I've suffered much, have labored greatly

  amid waves and in warfare: to all that let this be added."

  So he spoke: the sun went down, and darkness came on.

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  They repaired to the inmost recess of the hollow cavern

  and made love with pleasure, clasping each other close.

  When Dawn appeared, early risen and rosy-fingered,

  Odysseus promptly put on a tunic and cloak, while she,

  the nymph, also dressed herself in a long white robe,

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  fine-textured and beautiful, with an exquisite golden sash

  about her waist, and placed a veil on her head. She then

  began to plan the dispatch of great-hearted Odysseus. First

  she brought him a large axe, well fitted to his grasp,

  of bronze, sharp, double-bladed, with its splendid

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  handle of olive wood firmly attached. She also

  gave him a finely made adze. Then she led the way

  to the far end of the island, where there stood tall trees--

  alder and poplar, and fir that reached sky-high,

  dried out and seasoned, that would ride for him buoyantly.

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  But when she had shown him where the tall trees grew,

  Kalypso, bright among goddesses, went back home, while he

  set himself to fell timber. The work progressed apace:

  twenty trees he felled, and trimmed them with the bronze,

  then skillfully smoothed them, made them true to the line.

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  Now Kalypso, bright among goddesses, brought him augers:

  he bored through all the timbers, fitted them to each other,

  forced home and matched the joints, made them secure

  with tree nails. Just as wide as the curve of the hull

  that a skillful shipwright marks off for a broad-beamed freighter

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  was the width that Odysseus gave his raft. He fitted

  deck beams in, matched them firm to the close-set ribs,

  working away, and finished with lengthy gunwales.

  Next he set up a mast and attached a yardarm to it,

  and fashioned a steering oar with which to set his course.

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  Then he fenced the raft overall with osier wattles,

  against the waves, and added a bed of brushwood dunnage.

  Kalypso meanwhile, bright among goddesses, brought him

  cloth to fashion a sail from: this too he did with skill,

  and added tackle--braces and sheets and halyards--

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  and used levers to shift the raft down to the bright salt deep.

  It was now the fourth day, and all his work was finished.

  On the fifth, bright Kalypso saw him off from the island

  when she'd bathed him and dressed him in fresh-scented garments.

  On the raft the goddess put one skin of dark wine,

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  and another, a large one, of water, along with provisions

  in a leather bag--cooked meat in plenty to boost his strength--

  and raised a good following wind, warm and propitious.

  Happily then to the breeze did noble Odysseus spread

  his sail as he sat at the steering oar and skillfully

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  marked off his course;5 nor did sleep fall upon his eyelids

  as he steadily watched the Pleiades and late-setting Bootes

  and the Bear, which men also know as the Wagon, that circles

  in the place where it is, and keeps one eye on Orion,

  and alone never dips below the baths of Ocean.6

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  Kalypso, bright among goddesses, had instructed him

  to keep this star on his left hand as he traversed the deep.

  For seventeen days he sailed on over the sea, and on

  the eighteenth there showed up the shadowy mountains

  of the Phaiakians' land, where it came closest to him,

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  resembling a shield laid out on the misty sea.

  But the mighty Earth-Shaker, coming back from the Aithiopians,

  saw him far off,7 from the Solymoi's mountains, visible

  sailing over the deep, and waxed wrathful at the sight,

  and shook his head, and thus communed with himself:

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  "Damn it, the gods have certainly changed their minds

  as regards Odysseus while I was away with the Aithiopians!

  Now he's near the Phaiakians' land, where it's his destiny

  to escape the great crisis of suffering that's come on him.

  Even so, I think I'll yet giv
e him his fill of trouble!"

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  So saying he gathered the clouds, and roiled up the deep,

  wielding his trident; he urged on to gale force every last