II

At early dawn, when the eastern wave was just silvered by the dim

light, Calypso roused Odysseus, and equipped him for the task of the

day. First she gave him a weighty two-edged axe, well balanced on its

haft of olive-wood, and an adze, freshly ground; then she showed him

where the tall trees grew, and bade him fall to work with the axe.

Twenty great trees fell beneath his sturdy strokes, and he trimmed the

trunks with the axe, and stripped off the bark. Meanwhile Calypso had

brought him an augur, and he bored the timbers, and fitted them

together, and fastened them with bolts and cross-pieces. So the raft

grew under his hands, broad as the floor of a stout merchantship. And

he fenced her with bulwarks, piling up blocks of wood to steady them.

Last of all he made mast and sail and rigging; and when all was ready

he thrust the frail vessel with rollers and levers down to the sea.

Four times the sun had risen and set before his labour was ended; and

on the fifth day Calypso brought him provisions for the voyage, a

great goatskin bottle full of water, and a smaller one of wine, and a

sack of corn, with other choice viands as a relish to his bread.

A joyful man was Odysseus when he spread his sail, and took his place

at the helm, and waved a last farewell to his gentle friend. A fair

breeze wafted him swiftly from the shore, and ere long that lovely

island, at once his home and his prison for seven long years, became a

mere shadow in the distance. All night he sat sleepless, tiller in

hand, watching the pilot stars, the Pleiades, and Boötes, and the

Bear, named also the Wain, which turns on one spot, and watches Orion,

and never dips into the ocean stream. For the goddess Calypso had

bidden him keep that star on the left hand as he sailed the seas. Thus

he voyaged for seventeen days, and on the eighteenth he saw afar off,

dimly outlined, a range of hills, rising, like the back of a shield,

above the horizon's verge.

Now Poseidon, his great enemy, had been absent for many days on a far

journey, and thus had taken no part in the council at Olympus when

Zeus had issued his order for the release of Odysseus. Just at this

time he was on his way back to Olympus, and caught sight of the bold

voyager steering towards the nearest land. "Ha! art thou there?" said

the implacable god, shaking his head; "and have the other powers

plotted against me in my absence, to frustrate my just anger? Thy

wanderings are well-nigh over, poor wretch! But thou shalt taste once

more of my vengeance, before thou reachest yonder shore."

So saying the lord of ocean took his trident and stirred up the deep;

and the clouds came trooping at his call, covering the sky with a

black curtain. Soon a great tempest broke loose, blowing in violent

and fitful blasts from all the four quarters of heaven. Then pale fear

got hold of Odysseus, as he saw the great curling billows heaving

round his frail craft. "Woe is me!" he cried, "when shall my troubles

have an end? Surely the goddess spoke truth, when she foretold me that

I should perish amid the waves, and never see my home again. Here I

lie helpless, given over to destruction, the sport of all the winds of

heaven. Happy, thrice happy, were my comrades who fell fighting

bravely and found honourable burial in the soil of Troy! Would that I

had died on that great day when the battle raged fiercest over the

body of Pelides; then should I have found death with honour, but now I

am doomed to a miserable and dishonoured end."

The words were hardly uttered when a huge toppling wave struck the

raft with tremendous force, carrying away mast and sail, and hurling

Odysseus into the sea. Deep down he sank, and the waters darkened over

his head, for he was encumbered by the weight of his clothes. At last

he rose to the surface, gasping, and spitting out the brine, and

though sore spent, he swam towards the raft, and hauled himself on

board. There he sat clinging to the dismasted and rudderless vessel,

which was tossed to and fro from wave to wave, as the winds of autumn

sport with the light thistledown and drive it hither and thither.

But help was at hand. There was a certain ocean nymph, named Ino,

daughter of Cadmus, who had once been a mortal woman, but now was

numbered among the immortal powers. She saw and pitied Odysseus, and

boarding the raft addressed him in this wise: "Poor man, why is

Poseidon so wroth with thee that he maltreats thee thus? Yet shall he

not destroy thee, for all his malice. Only do as I bid thee, and thou

shalt get safely to land: take this veil, and when thou hast stripped

off thy garments, bind it across thy breast. Then leave the raft to

its fate, and swim manfully to land; and when thou art safe fling the

veil back into the sea, and go thy way."

So saying the goddess sank beneath the waves, leaving Odysseus with

her veil in his hand. But that cautious veteran did not at once act on

her advice, for he feared that some treachery was intended against

him. He resolved therefore to remain on the raft as long as her

timbers held together, and only to have recourse to the veil in the

last extremity.

He had just taken this prudent resolution, when another wave, more

huge than the last, thundered down on the raft, scattering her

timbers, as the wind scatters a heap of chaff. Odysseus clung fast to

one beam and, mounting it, sat astride as on a horse, until he had

stripped off his clothes. Then he bound the veil round him, flung

himself head foremost into the billows, and swam lustily towards land.

The storm was now subsiding, and a steady breeze succeeded, blowing

from the north, which helped that much-tried hero in his struggle for

life. Yet for two days and two nights he battled with the waves, and

when day broke on the third day he found himself close under a

frowning wall of cliffs, at whose foot the sea was breaking with a

noise like thunder. Odysseus ceased swimming, and trod the water,

looking anxiously round for an opening in the cliffs where he might

land. While he hesitated, a great foaming wave came rushing landward,

threatening to sweep him against that rugged shore; but Odysseus saw

his danger in time, and succeeded in gaining a rocky mass which stood

above the surface just before him, and clutching it with hands and

knees, contrived to keep his hold until the huge billow was past. In

another moment he was caught by the recoil of the wave, and flung back

into the boiling surf, with fingers torn and bleeding. With desperate

exertions he fought his way out into the comparatively calm water,

outside the line of breakers, and swam parallel to the shore, until he

saw with delight a sheltered inlet, whence a river flowed into the

sea. Murmuring a prayer to the god of the river he steered for land,

and a few strokes brought him to a smooth sandy beach, where he lay

for a long time without sense or motion. All his flesh was swollen by

his long immersion in the water, the skin was stripped from his hands,

and when his breath came back to him he felt as weak as a child. Then

a deadly nausea came over him, and the water which he had swallowed

gushed up through his mouth and nostrils. Somewhat relieved by this,

he rose to his feet, and tottering to the river's brink loosed the

veil from his waist, and dropped it into the flowing water. For he

remembered the request of Ino, to whom he owed his life.

He had indeed escaped the sea; but his position seemed almost

hopeless. There he lay, naked, and more dead than alive, without food

or shelter, in a strange land, without a sign of human habitation in

view. Crawling painfully to a bed of rushes he lay down and considered

what was best for him to do. He could not remain where he was, for it

was an exposed place, with no protection from the dew, and open to the

chill breeze from the river, which blows at early dawn. A few hours of

such a vigil would certainly kill him in his exhausted state. If, on

the other hand, he sought the shelter of the woods, he feared that he

would fall a prey to some prowling beast.

At last he determined to face the less certain peril, and made his way

into a thicket not far from the river side. Searching for a place

where he might lie he soon came upon two dense bushes of olive, whose

leaves and branches were so closely interwoven that they formed a sort

of natural arbour, impenetrable by sun, or rain, or wind. "In good

time!" murmured Odysseus, as he crept beneath that green roof, and

scooped out a deep bed for himself in the fallen leaves. There he lay

down, and piled the leaves high over him. And as a careful housewife

in some remote farmhouse, where there are no neighbours near, covers

up a burning brand among the ashes, so that it may last all night, and

preserve the seed of fire; so lay Odysseus, nursing the spark of life,

in his deep bed of leaves. And soon he forgot all his troubles in a

deep and dreamless sleep.