The Adventures of Ulysses the Wanderer

by Guy Thorne; Homer

Every detail was manifest—the mast, the cordage, the sleeping sailors below, the watching group by the shrouds, and, right away astern, the startled helmsmen motionless as statues of bronze.

Then with a long grinding noise the ship seemed suddenly lifted up in the water, jerked forward, and then dropped again. She began to heel over a little out of the perpendicular, and then remained still, stranded upon an unknown and mysterious shore, where the waves were all asleep. Still the white mist circled round them.

“Comrades,” said Ulysses, “we are brought here by no chance of wind and waves. Some god has done this thing, but whether for weal or woe I cannot tell. Let us land upon the beach and lie down with our weapons within sound of the sea till dawn. At sunrise we shall know where the god has brought us.”

They landed at the order, and with the supreme indifference of the adventurer lay upon the shore and slept out the remainder of the night. But Ulysses had a prescience of harm, and was full of sinister forebodings. He did not sleep, but paced through the mist all night in a little beaten track among the boulders. He prayed long and earnestly to Athene.

When the first faint hintings of dawn brightened through the mist a little breeze arose, and before the sky was more than faintly flushed with day the night fog was blown away like thistledown.

As the sun climbed up the sky the companions found that they had been carried to a scene of singular beauty. They were on an island, a small, rich place at the mouth of a great bay. Rich level grass meadows, green as bright enamel and brilliant with flowers, sloped gently down to the violet sea. Behind was a thickly-wooded hill, at the foot of which was a sparkling spring surrounded by a tall grove of poplar trees.

In the leafy wood the wild goats leapt under the wild vine trees like Pan at play, as fearless of the intruders as if they had never seen men before. All the bright morning the sailors made the wood ring with happy laughter as they speared the goats for a feast. All trouble passed from their minds, and as the spears flashed swiftly through the green wood the shrill, jocund voices of the hunters made all the island musical. Ulysses plunged into a translucent pool at the foot of the spring, and the cool water flashed like diamonds over his strong brown arms, and he looked indeed as if he were some river-god and this his fairy home.

All day long they feasted and drank wine which they had brought in skins from Lotus Land. When night was falling, very still and gentle, they saw the blue smoke of fires over the bay, on the mainland, about a mile away, and the bleating of many sheep and the lowing of herds came to them over the wine-coloured sea.

Ever and again voices could be heard—strange resonant voices. “That must be the country of some strange gods,” the sailors said to each other. “Those are no mortal voices. We are come into some great peril.” Before they slept they sacrificed a goat on the seashore to Zeus, that he might guard them from any coming harm.

In the morning the king prepared for action. It was necessary to find upon what shores they had arrived, to get direction of Ithaca, and if treasure was to be won by force or guile, to take the opportunity which chance or the gods had sent.