The Odyssey Read online

  wind in existence, he used the clouds to blot out

  both land and sea: nightfall dropped down from heaven,

  the east, south, and fierce west winds now drove together,

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  while the skyborne north wind rolled a huge wave before it,

  and Odysseus' knees and heart gave way, and deeply

  shaken he now addressed his own great-hearted spirit:

  "Ah, wretch that I am, what's my ultimate fate to be?

  All that the goddess told me, I fear, is true--

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  she said that out on the deep, before I reached my homeland

  I'd get my fill of trouble, and now it's all happening!

  Look at the clouds with which Zeus is obscuring the wide

  heavens, the way he's roiled up the sea, how the blasts

  of all the winds drive at me! Now my sheer destruction's

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  for certain! Thrice and four times blessed those Danaans

  who perished in Troy's broad land, bringing aid to Atreus' sons:

  How I wish I too had died then, had met my fate that day

  when a mass of Trojans pelted me with their bronze-tipped spears,

  battling around the dead son of Peleus! Then

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  I'd have had proper burial, and from the Achaians renown:

  whereas now I'm doomed to suffer a most piteous death."

  As he spoke, a huge wave bore down on him from above,

  with fearful force, and spun his raft clean around:

  far from the raft he fell, the steering oar was torn

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  from his grasp, the mast cracked in two, hit squarely

  by a gale-force gust from the winds in wild confusion,

  so that sail and yardarm fell far off into the deep.

  Him the sea long kept submerged, nor was he able

  to come up at once from the great wave's onrush: the clothes

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  that bright Kalypso had given him weighed him down.

  He finally reached the surface, spat out the briny

  sea water that streamed off his head; yet not even so,

  for all his exhaustion, did he lose sight of his raft,

  but pursued it amid the waves, somehow caught hold of it,

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  and clambered aboard and clung there, evading death's end,

  while the great seas bore it onward, this way and that.

  As when in autumn the north wind blows thistledown

  over the plain, and the tufts cling close together,

  so hither and thither the winds now carried the raft

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  over the sea: now south wind would toss it to north

  to sweep onward, now east would yield it to west's pursuit.

  But Kadmos' daughter caught sight of him, neat-ankled Ino,

  white goddess, who once was a mortal, and so spoke,

  but now in the sea's depths had found honor from the gods.

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  She pitied Odysseus, so sea-tossed, so racked with troubles,

  made her way up like a shearwater from the depths, then perched

  on the strongly corded raft, and addressed him, saying:

  "Poor man, why, pray, does Poseidon the Earth-Shaker

  hate you so much8 that he afflicts you with all these troubles?

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  Yet despite his fury he shan't completely destroy you!

  Now: do as I tell you: you seem not lacking in common sense.

  Strip off those clothes, leave your raft for the winds to play with,

  and yourself use your arms as a swimmer, strive to make it

  to the Phaiakians' land, where your escape is destined!

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  And come, take this veil, bind it firmly about your body:

  It's immortal, so have no fear that you'll come to harm, or perish!

  But when your hands grasp the mainland, then untie it

  and fling it far out into the wine-dark deep,

  well away from the land, and yourself turn your back on it."

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  So saying, the goddess handed over the veil,

  and herself plunged back down into the surging deep

  like a shearwater: the dark wave hid her. Then noble

  much-enduring Odysseus reflected, and, deeply shaken,

  now addressed his own great-hearted spirit, saying:

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  "Alas, I fear some immortal is once more weaving a snare

  against me, and that's why she told me to leave the raft!

  I'll not obey her yet: with my own eyes I saw, far distant,

  that land where she said I'd find my destined safety.

  This is what I shall do, and to me it seems my best course:

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  So long as the timbers hold firm, their joints unbroken,

  I shall stay put, and endure the troubles that I'm facing;

  But when the waves have shattered the raft to pieces

  then I'll swim for it, since there's no better plan."

  While thus

  he pondered the matter in mind and heart, Poseidon,

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  the Earth-Shaker, now conjured up a gigantic wave--

  fearsome and grim, overarching--and launched it at him.

  As when a gusting wind whisks up a heap of dried-out

  husks, and scatters some here, some there, just so

  the wave strewed the raft's long timbers; and now Odysseus

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  sat astride one beam, like someone riding a horse,

  stripped off the garments that bright Kalypso gave him,

  quickly tied round his body the veil, and flung himself

  headfirst into the sea, both arms outstretched, prepared

  to swim for his life. The mighty Earth-Shaker saw him,

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  and shook his head, and thus communed with his heart:

  "So, after all your troubles, go drifting over the deep

  until you meet with those men who are Zeus' nurslings!

  Yet even so I don't think you'll underrate your hardships."

  So saying, he whipped up his beautifully maned horses

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  and went on to Aigai, where he has his famed abode.

  But Zeus' daughter Athene had a different notion:

  the other winds she now stopped short in their tracks,

  made them all die down and be lulled to sleep, but the swift

  north wind she aroused, parting the waves before it,

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  to let Zeus' scion Odysseus get through to the oar-loving

  Phaiakians, after escaping death and death's harbingers.

  Two nights and two days now over the heaving swell

  he pressed on: many times his heart saw destruction ahead.

  But when fair-haired Dawn brought the third morning on,

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  then the wind dropped, and there followed a windless calm,

  and he sighted land close ahead of him, as he took

  a quick glance forward, lifted up by a swelling wave.

  As most welcome appear to his children renewed signs of life

  in a father who's laid on a sickbed, suffering agonies,

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  long wasting away, attacked by some hateful spirit,

  but then, oh joy, the gods free him from his illness--

  so welcome seemed to Odysseus the land and its forest,

  and he swam on, longing to set foot on solid earth.

  But when as close to land as a man's shout carries,

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  hearing the crash of the breakers against the reefs--

  for the huge wave thundered as it smashed into dry land,

  roaring terribly: all around was misted in salt sea spray,

  and there were no harbors to dock ships, no roadsteads either,

  nothing but jutting headlands, and reefs and rocks--

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  then the knees and heart of Odysseus gave way together,

  and deeply shaken he spoke to his own great-hearted spirit:

  "Oh no, now Zeus has granted me an unlooked-for

  glimpse of dry land, and I've plowed my way through this gulf,

  no way of escape can I see from the grey brine, for offshore

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  are sharp rocks, and all around them the waves surge up

  roaring, the cliff-face towers sheer above them; the seawater

  runs deep close in to land, so there's no way to stand firm

  on both feet and escape destruction: I fear as I'm coming ashore

  some huge wave may scoop me up and dash me against

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  a sharp rough rock, putting paid to all my efforts.

  But if I swim further along, to see if I maybe can find

  bays where the waves strike aslant, or safe harbors from the sea,

  I'm afraid that the storm winds may snatch me up once more,

  and bear me back, groaning heavily, over the fish-rich deep,

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  or a marine divinity may send some huge monster against me

  out of the sea, one of many that famed Amphitrite breeds--

  for I know how deeply the famed Earth-Shaker hates me."9

  While he brooded upon these matters in mind and spirit

  a great wave flung him forward against the rocky shoreline.

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  There would his bones have been crushed and his skin ripped off

  had not grey-eyed Athene, the goddess, put a thought in his mind:

  with both hands, plunging forward, he seized the rock,

  and clung to it, gasping, while the great wave rushed by.

  Thus this one he dodged, but its backwash caught and struck him

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  and carried him off, flung him far out to sea.

  Just as an octopus, when dragged up out of its lair,

  will have clusters of pebbles sticking fast to its suckers,

  so from his powerful hands against the rock were scraps

  of skin stripped off as the great wave went over him.

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  Beyond his fate, then, surely would wretched Odysseus

  have died, had not grey-eyed Athene sharpened his wits.

  Coming up out of the surge as it discharged on the shore

  he swam outside, eyeing the land, to see if he could find

  bays where the waves struck aslant, or safe harbors from the sea.

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  But when, as he swam, he came on the mouth of a flowing

  river, this struck him as the best possible place,

  being free of stones, and well sheltered from the wind.

  He recognized the live current, and made a silent prayer:

  "Hear me, lord, whoever you are, and to me most welcome:

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  from the deep I come to you, fleeing Poseidon's threats--

  Sacrosanct, even to the immortal gods, is that man

  who comes as a wanderer, as I come now to your

  current, and to your knees, after many hardships:

  So pity me, lord: your suppliant I hereby declare myself."

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  Thus he spoke; at once the god stopped flowing, checked the waves,

  created a calm before him, brought him safe and sound

  to the river's mouth. Both knees now lost their strength

  and his strong hands too: the salt deep had crushed his spirit,

  all his flesh was swollen, seawater oozed in streams

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  out through his mouth and nostrils. Breathless, speechless

  he lay, barely stirring: dire exhaustion had overcome him.

  When he got his breath back, and the heart revived in his breast,

  he then unwound the goddess' veil from his body

  and dropped it into the seaward-flowing river. A great

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  wave now carried it back downstream, and Ino quickly

  gathered it into her hands. Odysseus turned from the river,

  collapsed in the reeds, and kissed the grain-giving earth.

  Deeply shaken he spoke to his own great-hearted spirit:

  "Ah, what must I suffer? What's my ultimate fate to be?

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  If I keep watch here by the river all the irksome night

  I'm afraid the hard frost and the chilly dew between them,

  because of my weakness, may quell my gasping spirit--

  and the breeze off the river blows cold before the dawn.

  But if I climb the slope to the shadowy forest

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  and lie down among the dense thickets, then even if cold

  and exhaustion don't touch me, and I enjoy sweet sleep,

  I fear I may end as the spoil and prey of wild beasts."

  As he reflected, it struck him this last was the best course.

  He set off into the maquis and found what he wanted near

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  the water, beside a clearing. He crept in under two bushes,

  evergreen thorn and wild olive, that grew from the same spot.

  Through these the damp winds' violence could never blow,

  nor the rays of the bright sun penetrate, nor storms

  of rain pierce their defenses, so densely they grew,

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  interlaced the one with the other. In under these

  Odysseus crept, and with his hands briskly swept

  a wide bed of leaves together. Dried fallen leaves were there

  in abundance, enough to give shelter to two or three men

  in the winter season, however severe the weather.

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  Seeing this, much-enduring noble Odysseus rejoiced:

  he lay down in the middle, heaped fallen leaves over him.

  As a man hides a smoldering log under dark embers

  far out in the countryside, a man who has no neighbors,

  to save a seed of fire, and not need to rekindle it,

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  so Odysseus piled leaves over himself, and Athene

  shed sleep on his eyes, to free him as soon as might be

  from toilsome exhaustion, wrap his eyelids in darkness.

  Book 6

  So Odysseus slept on there, godlike and much-enduring,

  worn out by exhaustion and hardship; and meanwhile Athene

  went off to the district and city of the Phaiakians, who

  at one time made their home in spacious Hypereia,

  and were neighbors to the Kyklopes, rough arrogant men,

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  who kept raiding them, and were more powerful. Godlike

  Nausithoos then uprooted them, led them to Scheria,

  remote from bread-eating mortals, settled them there.

  He ran a wall round the city, constructed houses,

  made shrines for the gods, shared out the arable acres.

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  But by now he'd succumbed to his fate, gone down to Hades,

  and Alkinoos was the ruler, who had wisdom from the gods.

  To his dwelling now went the goddess, grey-eyed Athene,

  with her plan for great-hearted Odysseus' return home.

  She entered the ornate bedroom in which there slept a girl

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  most like the immortals in form and appearance: Nausikaa,

  daughter of great-hearted Alkinoos, with close by her

  two handmaids, made beautiful by the Graces, one on each

  side of the doorposts; and the bright doors were shut.

  Like a breath of wind she now swept in to the girl's bedside,

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  and stood above her head, and addressed her, assuming

  the form of the daughter of Dymas, famous for his ships--

  a girl Nausikaa's age, and very dear to her heart.

  In her likeness grey-eyed Athene spoke to her, saying:

  "Nausikaa, how could your mo
ther have so careless a child?

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  Your bright smart clothes are all lying about uncared-for,

  yet your marriage is near, when you'll need fine clothes for yourself,

  and garments, too, to provide for those who'll escort you.