DAY 7 (Book v).
The seventh day finds us again in Olympus. Athene again urges the release of Odysseus; and Hermes is sent to bid Calypso let the hero go. Zeus prophecies that after twenty days sailing, Odysseus will reach Scheria, and the hospitable Phaeacians, a people akin to the Gods, who will convey him to Ithaca. Hermes accomplishes the message to Calypso.
DAYS 8-12-32 (Book v).
These days are occupied by Odysseus in making and launching a raft; on the twelfth day from the beginning of the action he leaves Calypso’s isle. He sails for eighteen days, and on the eighteenth day of his voyage (the twenty-ninth from the beginning of the action), he sees Scheria. Poseidon raises a storm against him, and it is not till the thirty-second day from that in which Athene visited Telemachus, that he lands in Scheria, the country of the Phaeacians. Here he is again in fairy land. A rough, but perfectly recognisable form of the Phaeacian myth, is found in an Indian collection of märchen (already referred to) of the twelfth century A.D. Here the Phaeacians are the Vidyâdhâris, and their old enemies the Cyclôpes, are the Rakshashas, a sort of giants. The Indian Odysseus, who seeks the city of gold, passes by the home of an Indian Aeolus, Satyavrata. His later adventures are confused, and the Greek version retains only the more graceful fancies of the märchen.
DAY 33 (Book vi).
Odysseus meets Nausicaa, daughter of Alcinous, the Phaeacian King, and by her aid, and that of Athene, is favourably received at the palace, and tells how he came from Calypso’s island. His name is still unknown to his hosts.
DAY 34 (Books vii, viii, ix, x, xi, xii).
The Phaeacians and Odysseus display their skill in sports. Nausicaa bids Odysseus farewell. Odysseus recounts to Alcinous, and Arete, the Queen, those adventures in the two years between the fall of Troy and his captivity in the island of Calypso, which we have already described (pp. xiii-xvii).
DAY 35 (Book xiii).
Odysseus is conveyed to Ithaca, in the evening, on one of the magical barques of the Phaeacians.