With clouds: night swept across the firmament:
... a monstrous wave abaft
Came towering up, and crashed into the raft:
And the raft reeled, and off it far he fell,
And from his hand shot out the rudder-shaft.[[12]]
It would take long to tell all that Odysseus suffered from that awful storm. Only the lion-heart that he was could have endured the terrible strain of it. The raft was lost, and for two days and nights the fury of the storm lashed him unceasingly. He was buffeted out of his course, and when at last a calm fell and he saw land ahead, he had only just enough strength left to strike out for it, with a great prayer in his heart for deliverance from the wrath of Poseidon.
It is this exciting incident, told with tremendous vigour, which is the prelude to the story of Nausicaa. For on the very night when the waves flung Odysseus ashore on her father’s island, she had a strange dream. A goddess stood by her bedside, in the likeness of a girl friend; and with hints of a happy marriage, bade her rise and go down to the washing pools.
The grey-eyed Goddess, inly counselling
Odysseus mighty-hearted home to bring;
To the richly-carven chamber went