The Story of the Odyssey

by Alfred John Church; Homer

Seventeen days he sailed; and on the eighteenth day appeared the shadowy hills of the island of the Phaeacians. [Footnote: Phae-a'- ci-ans.] But now Poseidon, coming back from feasting with the Ethiopians, spied him as he sailed, and it angered him to the heart. He shook his head, and spake to himself, saying: "Verily, the gods must have changed their purpose concerning Ulysses while I was absent among the Ethiopians; and now he is nigh to the island of the Phaeacians, and if he reach it, he will escape from his woes. Yet even now I will send him far enough on a way of trouble."

Thereupon he gathered the clouds, and troubled the waters of the deep, holding his trident in his hand. And he raised a storm of all the winds that blow, and covered the land and the sea with clouds.

Sore troubled was Ulysses, and said to himself: "It was truth that Calypso spake when she said that I should suffer many troubles returning to my home. Would that I had died that day when many a spear was cast by the men of Troy over the dead Achilles. Then would the Greeks have buried me; but now shall I perish miserably."

And as he spake a great wave struck the raft and tossed him far away, so that he dropped the rudder from his hand. Nor for a long time could he rise, so deep was he sunk, and so heavy was the goodly clothing which Calypso had given him. Yet at the last he rose, and spat the salt water out of his mouth, and sprang at the raft, and caught it, and sat thereon, and was borne hither and thither by the waves. But Ino [Footnote: I'-no.] saw him and pitied him—a woman she had been, and was now a goddess of the sea,—and rose from the deep like to a sea-gull upon the wing, and sat upon the raft, and spake, saying:—

"Luckless mortal, why doth Poseidon hate thee so? He shall not slay thee, though he fain would do it. Put off these garments, and swim to the land of Phaeacia, putting this veil under thy breast. And when thou art come to the land, loose it from thee, and cast it into the sea."

Then the goddess gave him the veil, and dived again into the deep as a sea-gull diveth, and the waves closed over her. Then Ulysses pondered the matter, saying to himself: "Woe is me! can it be that another of the gods is contriving a snare for me, bidding me leave my raft? Verily, I will not yet obey her counsel, for the land, when I saw it, seemed a long way off. I am resolved what to do; so long as the raft will hold together, so long will I abide on it; but when the waves shall break it asunder, then will I swim, for nothing better may be done."

But while he thought thus within himself, Poseidon sent another great wave against the raft. As a stormy wind scattereth a heap of husks, so did the wave scatter the timbers of the raft. But Ulysses sat astride on a beam, as a man sitteth astride of a horse; and he stripped off from him the goodly garments which Calypso had given him, and put the veil under his breast, and so leapt into the sea, stretching out his hands to swim.

And Poseidon, when he saw him, shook his head, and said: "Even so go wandering over the deep, till thou come to the land. Thou wilt not say that thou hast not had trouble enough."

But Athene, binding up the other winds, roused the swift north wind, that so Ulysses might escape from death.

So for two days and two nights he swam. But on the third day there was a calm, and he saw the land from the top of a great wave, for the waves were yet high, close at hand. But when he came near he heard the waves breaking along the shore, for there was no harbour there, but only cliffs and rugged rocks.