Chapter 5
When dawn had risen from the bed where she sleeps with the Lord Tithonus, to bring daylight to the immortals and to men, the gods sat down in assembly, and were joined by Zeus the Thunderer, the greatest of them all. The imprisonment of Odysseus in Calypso’s home was heavy on Athene’s heart, and she now recalled the tale of his misfortunes to their minds.
“Father Zeus,” she said, “and you other happy gods who live for ever, I have come to the conclusion that kindness, generosity, and justice should no longer be the aims of any man who wields a royal scepter – in fact that he might just as well devote his days to tyranny and lawless deeds. Look at Odysseus, that admirable king! To-day, not one of the people he once ruled like a loving father gives him a single thought. No, he is left to languish on an island in misery. He is in the Nymph Calypso’s clutches; and she sees that he stays there. Not that he could reach Ithaca in any case, for he has neither galley nor crew to carry him so far across the sea. Meanwhile, his beloved son has gore to sacred Pylos and blessed Lacedaemon for news of his father, and they mean to murder him on his way back.”
“My child,” replied the Gatherer of the Clouds, “I never thought to hear such words from you. Did you not plan the whole affair yourself? Was it not your idea that Odysseus should return and settle accounts with these men? As for Telemachus, you are well able to look after him: use your own skill to bring him back to Ithaca safe and sound, and let the Suitors sail home again in their ship with nothing accomplished.”
Zeus now turned to Hermes, his son. “Hermes,” he said, “in your capacity as our Envoy, convey our final decision to that dainty Nymph. Odysseus has borne enough and must now set out for home. On the journey he shall have neither gods nor men to help him. He shall make it in hardship, in a boat put together by his own hands; and on the twentieth day he should reach Scherie, the rich country of the Phaeacians, our kinsmen, who will take him to their hearts and treat him like a god. They will convey him by ship to his own land, giving him copper, gold, and woven materials in such quantities as he could never have won for himself from Troy, even if he had come away unhurt with his share of the spoil. This is how it is ordained that he shall reach his native land and there step under the high roof of his house and see his friends once more.”
Zeus had spoken. His Messenger, the Giant-killer, obeyed at once and bound under his feet the lovely sandals of un-tarnishable gold that carried him with the speed of the wind over the water or the boundless earth; and he picked up the wand which he can use at will to cast a spell upon our eyes or wake us from the soundest sleep. With this wand in his hand, the mighty Giant-slayer made his flight. From the upper air he dropped to the Pierian range, and from there swooped down on the sea, and skimmed the waves like a sea mew drenching the feathers of its wings with spray as it pursues the fish down desolate gulfs of the unharvested deep. So Hermes rode the unending waves, till at length he reached the remote island of Ogygia, where he stepped onto the shore from the blue waters of the sea and walked along till he reached the great cavern where the Nymph was living, He found the lady of the lovely locks at home. A big fire was blazing on the hearth and the scent from burning logs of split juniper and cedar was wafted far across the island. Inside, Calypso was singing in a beautiful voice as she wove at the loom and moved her golden shuttle to and fro. The cave was sheltered by a verdant copse of alders, aspens, and fragrant cypresses, which was the roosting-place of feathered creatures, horned owls and falcons and garrulous choughs, birds of the coast, whose daily business takes them down to the sea. Trailing round the very mouth of the cavern, a garden vine ran riot, with great bunches of ripe grapes; while from four separate but neighbouring springs four crystal rivulets were trained to run this way and that; and in soft meadows on either side the iris and the parsley flourished. It was indeed a spot where even an immortal visitor must pause to gaze in wonder and delight.
The Messenger stood still and eyed the scene. When he had enjoyed all its beauty, he passed into the great cavern. Calypso, a goddess herself, knew him the moment she raised her eyes to his face, for none of the immortal gods is a stranger to his fellows, even though his home may be remote from theirs. As for King Odysseus, Hermes did not find him in the cave, for he was sitting disconsolate on the shore in his accustomed place, tormenting himself with tears and sighs and heartache, and looking out across the barren sea with streaming eyes.
The divine Calypso invited Hermes to sit down on a brightly polished chair, and questioned her visitor. “Hermes,” she asked, “what brings you here with your golden wand? You are an honoured and a welcome guest, though in the past your visits have been few. Tell me what is in your mind, and I shall gladly do what you ask of me, if I can and if it is not impossible. But first follow me inside and let me offer you hospitality.”
The goddess now put some ambrosia on a table, drew it beside him, and mixed him a cup of red nectar. When he had dined and refreshed himself, he answered Calypso’s questions:
“As one immortal to another, you ask me what has brought me here. Very well, since you command me, I shall tell you frankly. It was Zeus who sent me. Otherwise I should not have come. For who would choose to scud across that vast expanse of salt sea water? It seemed unending. And not a city on the way, not a mortal soul to offer an attractive sacrifice to a god. But when Zeus, who wears the aegis, makes up his mind, it is impossible for any other god to thwart him or evade his will. And he says that you have with you here a man who has been dogged by misfortune, more so indeed than any of those with whom he shared the nine years of fighting round the walls of Troy and left for home when they had sacked it in the tenth. It appears that in setting out they gave offence to Athene, who raised a gale of wind and heavy seas against them. His loyal followers were lost to a man but he himself was brought here in due course by the winds and waves. And now Zeus bids you send him off without delay. He is not doomed to end his days on this island, away from all his friends. On the contrary, he is destined to see them yet, to reach his native land, and to step beneath the high roof of his house.”
The divine Calypso listened in fear and trembling. When he had done, she unburdened her heart: “A cruel folk you are, unmatched for jealousy, you gods who cannot bear to let a goddess sleep with a man, even if it is done without concealment and she has chosen him as her lawful consort. You were the same when Rose-fingered Dawn fell in love with Orion. Easy livers yourselves, you were outraged at her conduct, and in the end chaste Artemis rose from her golden throne, attacked him in Ortygia with her gentle darts and left him dead. And so again, when the lovely Demeter gave way to her passion and lay in the arms of her beloved Iasion in the thrice-ploughed fallow field, Zeus heard of it quickly enough and struck him dead with his blinding thunderbolt. And now it is my turn to incur that same divine displeasure for living with a mortal man – a man whom I rescued from death as he was drifting alone astride the keel of his ship, when Zeus had shattered it with his lightning bolt out on the wine-dark sea, and all his men were lost, but he was driven to this island by the wind and waves. I welcomed him with open arms; I tended him; I even hoped to give him immortality and ageless youth. But now, goodbye to him, since no god can evade or thwart the will of Zeus. If Zeus insists that he should leave, let him be gone across the barren water. But he must not expect me to transport him. I have no ship, no oars, no crew to carry him so far across the seas. Yet I do promise with a good grace and un-reservedly to give him such directions as will bring him safe and sound to Ithaca.”
“Then send him off at once, as you suggest,” said Hermes, “and so avoid provoking Zeus, or he may be annoyed and punish you one day.” With this the mighty Giant-slayer took his leave.
The Nymph at once sought out her noble guest, for the message from Zeus had not fallen on deaf ears. She found Odysseus sitting on the shore. His eyes were wet with weeping, as they always were. Life with its sweetness was ebbing away in the tears he shed for his lost home. For the Nymph had long since ceased to please. At nights, it is true, he had to sleep with her under the roof of the cavern, cold lover with an ardent dame. But the days found him sitting on the rocks or sands, torturing himself with tears and groans and heartache, and looking out with streaming eyes across the watery wilderness.
The lovely goddess came and stood beside him now. “My unhappy friend,” she said, “as far as I am concerned there is no need for you to prolong your miseries or waste any more of your life on this island. For I am ready with all my heart to help you leave it. But you must be up and doing. Fell some tall trees for timber, make a big boat with the proper tools, and fit it with a deck high enough to carry you across the misty seas. I will stock it myself with bread and water and red wine, all to your taste, so that you need be in no fear of starvation; and I’ll give you clothing too, and send you a following wind, so that you may reach your own country without accident, if it pleases the gods of the broad sky, who have more power to plan and to ordain than I have.”
The stalwart Odysseus shuddered at this and spoke his mind to Calypso. “Goddess,” he said, “it is surely not my safe conveyance but some other purpose that you have in mind when you suggest that I should cross this formidable sea, with all its difficulties, in such a craft. Even the fastest sailing-ships don’t make the voyage, though they like nothing better than the winds of heaven. So you can take it from me that I shall not entrust myself to a boat, unless I can count on your goodwill. Could you bring yourself, goddess, to give me your solemn oath that you will not plot some new mischief against me?”
Lovely Calypso smiled and stroked him with her hand. “Odysseus,” she protested, “what a villain you are to think of such a thing to say! It shows the crafty way your own mind works. Now let Earth be my witness, with the broad Sky above, and the falling waters of Styx – the greatest and most solemn oath the blessed gods can take – that I harbour no secret plans for your discomfiture, but am thinking only of what I should do on my own behalf if I found myself in your plight. For I, after all, have some sense of what is fair; and my heart is not a block of iron. I know what pity is.” With these words the gracious goddess moved quickly away, and he followed her lead.
The goddess and the man reached the great cavern together and Odysseus seated himself on the chair that Hermes had just left, while the Nymph laid at his side the various kinds of food and drink that mortal men consume. Then she sat down herself, facing her royal guest; her maids set ambrosia and nectar beside her, and the two helped themselves to the dainties spread before them. When they had enjoyed the food and drink, the Lady Calypso resumed their talk:
“So you are determined, Odysseus, my noble and resourceful lord, to leave at once for home and your beloved Ithaca? Well, even so I wish you happiness. Yet had you any inkling of the full measure of misery you are bound to endure before you reach your motherland, you would not move from where you are, but you would stay and share this home with me, and take on immortality, however much you long to see that wife of yours. I know that she is never out of your thoughts. And yet I claim to be by no means her inferior in looks or figure, for surely it would be most unseemly for a woman to compete with a goddess in elegance and looks.”
To this the nimble-witted Odysseus replied: “My lady goddess, I beg you not to resent my feelings. I too know well enough that my wise Penelope’s looks and stature are insignificant compared with yours. For she is mortal, while you have immortality and unfading youth. Nevertheless I long to reach my home and see the happy day of my return. It is my never-failing wish. And what if the powers above do wreck me out on the wine-dark sea? I have a heart that is inured to suffering and I shall steel it to endure that too. For in my day I have had many bitter and shattering experiences in war and once stormy seas. So let this new disaster come. It only makes one more.”
By now the sun had set and it grew dark. So the two retired to a recess in the cavern and there in each other’s arms they spent a night of love.
But the new Dawn had scarcely touched the East with red before Odysseus put his cloak and tunic on. The Nymph dressed herself too in a long silvery mantle of a light material charming to the eye, with a splendid golden belt round her waist, and a veil over her head. Then she turned her thoughts to the problem of her noble guest’s departure. First she gave him a great axe of bronze. Its double blade was sharpened well, and the shapely handle of olive-wood fixed firmly in its head was fitted to his grip. Next she handed him an adze of polished metal; and then led the way for him to the farthest part of the island, where the trees grew tall, alders and poplars and firs that shot up to the sky, all withered timber that had long since lost its sap and would make buoyant material for his boat. When she had shown him the place where the trees were tallest the gracious goddess left for home, and Odysseus began to cut the timber down. He made short work of the task. Twenty trees in all he felled, and lopped their branches with his axe; then trimmed them in a workmanlike manner and trued them to the line. Presently Calypso brought him augers. With these he drilled through all his planks, cut them to fit across each other, and fixed this flooring together by means of dowels driven through the interlocking joints, giving the same width to his boat as a skilled shipwright would choose in designing the hull for a broad-bottomed trading vessel. He next put up the decking, which he fitted to ribs at short intervals, finishing off with long gunwales down the sides. He made a mast to go in the boat, with a yard-arm fitted to it; and a steering-oar too, to keep her on her course. And from stem to stern he fenced her sides with plaited osier twigs and a plentiful backing of brushwood, as some protection against the heavy seas. Meanwhile the goddess Calypso had brought him cloth with which to make the sail. This he manufactured too; and then lashed the braces, halyards, and sheets in their places on board. Finally he dragged her down on rollers into the tranquil sea.
By the end of the fourth day all his work was done, and on the fifth beautiful Calypso saw him off from the island. The goddess had bathed him first and fitted him out with fragrant clothing. She had also stowed two skins in his boat, one full of dark wine, the other and larger one of water, besides a leather sack of corn and quantities of appetizing meats. And now a warm and gentle breeze sprang up at her command.
It was with a happy heart that the good Odysseus spread his sail to catch the wind and used his seamanship to keep his boat straight with the steering-oar. There he sat and never closed his eyes in sleep, but kept them on the Pleiads, or watched Bootes slowly set, or the Great Bear, nicknamed the Wain, which always wheels round in the same place and looks across at Orion the Hunter with a wary eye. It was this constellation, the only one which never bathes in Ocean’s Stream, that the wise goddess Calypso had told him to keep on his left hand as he made across the sea. So for seventeen days he sailed on his course, and on the eighteenth there hove into sight the shadowy mountains of the Phaeacians’ country, which jutted out to meet him there. The land looked like a shield laid on the misty sea.
But now Poseidon, Lord of the Earthquake, who was on his way back from his visit to the Ethiopians, observed him from the distant mountains of the Solymi. The sight of Odysseus sailing over the seas added fresh fuel to his anger. He shook his head and muttered to himself: “So I had only to go to Ethiopia for the gods to change their minds about Odysseus! And there he is, close to the Phaeacians’ land, where he is destined to bring his long ordeal to an end. Nevertheless I mean to let him have his bellyful of trouble yet.”
Whereupon he marshalled the clouds and seizing his trident in his hands stirred up the sea. He roused the stormy blasts of every wind that blows, and covered land and water alike with a canopy of cloud. Darkness swooped down from the sky. East Wind and South and the tempestuous West fell to on one another, and from the North came a white squall, rolling a great wave in its van. Odysseus’ knees shook and his spirit quailed. In anguish he communed with that great heart of his:
“Poor wretch, what will your end be now? I fear the goddess prophesied all too well when she told me I should have my full measure of agony on the sea before I reached my native land. Every word she said is coming true, as I can tell by the sky, with its vast coronet of clouds from Zeus, and by the sea that he has raised with angry squalls from every quarter. There is nothing for me now but sudden death. They are the lucky ones, those countrymen of mine who fell long ago on the broad plains of Troy in loyal service to the sons of Atreus. If only I too could have met my fate and died that day the Trojan hordes let fly at me with their bronze spears over Achilles’ corpse! I should at least have had my burial rites and the Achaeans would have spread my fame abroad. But now it seems I was predestined to a villainous death.”
As he spoke, a mountainous wave, advancing with majestic sweep, crashed down upon him from above and whirled his vessel round. The steering-oar was torn from his hands, and he himself was tossed off the boat, while at the same moment the warring winds joined forces in one tremendous gust, which snapped the mast in two and flung the sail and yard-arm far out into the sea. For a long time Odysseus was kept under water. Weighed down by the clothes which the goddess Calypso had given him, he found it no easy matter to fight his way up against the downrush of that mighty wave. But at last he reached the air and spat out the bitter brine that kept streaming down his face. Exhausted though he was, he did not forget his boat, but raced after her through the surf, scrambled up, and squatting amidships felt safe from immediate death. The heavy seas thrust him with the current this way and that. As the North Wind at harvest-time tosses about the fields a ball of thistles that have stuck together, so did the gusts drive his craft hither and thither over the sea. Now the South Wind would toss it to the North to play with, and now the East would leave it for the West to chase.
But there was a witness of Odysseus’ plight. This was the daughter of Cadmus, Ino of the slim ankles, who was once a woman speaking like ourselves, but now lives in the salt depths of the sea, and, as Leucothoe, has been acknowledged by the gods. She took pity on the forlorn and woebegone Odysseus, rose from the water like a sea mew on the wing, and settled on his boat.
“Poor man,” she said to him, “why is Poseidon so enraged with you that he sows nothing but disasters in your path? At any rate he shall not kill you, however hard he tries. Now do exactly what I say, like the sensible man you seem to be. Take off those clothes, leave your boat for the winds to play with, and swim for your life to the Phaeacian coast, where deliverance awaits you. Here, take this veil and wind it round your waist. With its divine protection you need not be afraid of injury or death. But directly you touch the dry land with your hands, undo the veil and throw it far out from shore into the wine-dark sea; and as you do so turn your eyes away.”
As she spoke the goddess gave him the veil, and then like a mew she dived back into the turbulent sea and the dark waters swallowed her up. Stalwart Odysseus was left in perplexity and distress, and once more took counsel with his indomitable soul, asking himself with a groan whether this advice to abandon his boat was not some new snare that one of the immortals had set to catch him.
“No,” he decided; “I will not leave the boat at once, for I saw with my own eyes how far the land is where she promised me salvation. Instead, I shall do what I myself think best. As long as the joints of my planks hold fast, I shall stay where I am and put up with the discomfort. But when the seas break up my boat, I’ll swim for it, since as far as I can see, there will be no better plan.”
As Odysseus was turning this over in his mind, Poseidon the Earth-shaker sent him another monster wave. Grim and menacing it curled above his head, then hurtled down and scattered the long timbers of his boat, as a boisterous wind will tumble a parched heap of chaff and scatter it in all directions. Odysseus scrambled onto one of the beams, and bestriding it like a rider on horseback cast off the clothes that Calypso had given him. Then he wound the veil round his middle, and with arms outstretched plunged headlong into the sea and boldly struck out.
But the Lord Poseidon spied him again and once more shook his head and muttered low: “So much for you! Now make your miserable way across the sea, until you come into the hands of a people whom the gods respect. Even though you reach them, I do not think you’ll be in any mood to scoff at the buffeting you will have had.” With this, Poseidon lashed his long-maned horses and drove to Aegae, where he has his palace.
At this point Athene, Daughter of Zeus, decided to intervene. She checked all the other Winds in their courses, bidding them calm down and go to sleep; but from the North she summoned a strong breeze, with which she beat the waves down in the swimmer’s path, so that King Odysseus might be rescued from the jaws of death and come into the hands of the sea-faring Phaeacians.
For two nights and two days he was lost in the heavy seas. Time and again he saw his end at hand. But in the morning of the third day, which Dawn opened in all her beauty, the wind dropped, a breathless calm set in, and Odysseus, keeping a sharp lookout ahead as he was lifted by a mighty wave, could see the land close by. He felt all the relief that a man’s children feel when their father, wasted by long agonies abed in the malignant grip of some disease, passes the crisis by god’s grace and they know that he will live. Such was Odysseus’ happiness when he caught that unexpected glimpse of wooded land. He swam quickly on in his eagerness to set foot on solid ground. But when he had come within call of the shore, he heard the thunder of surf on a rocky coast. With an angry roar the great seas were battering at the ironbound land and all was veiled in spray. There were no coves, no harbours that would hold a ship; nothing but headlands jutting out, sheer rock, and jagged reefs. When he realized this, Odysseus’ knees quaked and his courage ebbed. He groaned in misery as he summed up the situation to himself:
“When I had given up hope, Zeus let me see the land, and I have taken all the trouble to swim to it across those leagues of water, only to find no way whatever of getting out of this grey surf and making my escape. Off shore, the pointed reefs set in a raging sea; behind, a smooth cliff rising sheer; deep water near in; and never a spot where a man could stand on both his feet and get to safety. If I try to land, I may be lifted by a roller and dashed against the solid rock – in which case I’d have had my trouble for nothing. While, if I swim farther down the coast on the chance of finding a natural harbour where the beaches take the waves aslant, it is only too likely that another squall will pounce on me and drive me out to join the deep-sea fish, where all my groans would do no good. Or some monster might be inspired to attack me from the depths. Amphitrite has a name for mothering plenty of such creatures in her seas; and I am well aware how the great Earth-shaker detests me.”
This inward debate was cut short by a tremendous wave which swept him forward to the rugged shore, where he would have been flayed and all his bones been broken, had not the bright-eyed goddess Athene put it into his head to dash in and lay hold of a rock with both his hands. He clung there groaning while the great wave marched by. But no sooner had he escaped its fury than it struck him once more with the full force of its backward rush and flung him far out to sea. Pieces of skin stripped from his sturdy hands were left sticking to the crag, thick as the pebbles that stick to the suckers of a squid when he is torn from his hole. The great surge passed over Odysseus’ head and there the unhappy man would have come to an unpredestined end, if Athene had not inspired him with a wise idea. Getting clear of the coastal breakers as he struggled to the surface, he now swam along outside them, keeping an eye on the land, in the hope of lighting on some natural harbour with shelving beaches. Presently his progress brought him off the mouth of a fast-running stream, and it struck him that this was the best spot he could find, for it was not only clear of rocks but sheltered from the winds. The current told him that he was at a river’s mouth, and in his heart he prayed to the god of the stream:
“Hear me, although I do not know your royal name; for in you I find the answer to all the prayers I have made for deliverance from the sea and from Poseidon’s malice. Even the immortal gods do not rebuff a poor wanderer who comes to them for help, as I now turn to you after much suffering and seek the sanctuary of your stream. Take pity on me, Royal River. I claim a suppliant’s rights.”
In answer to his prayer the River checked its current, and holding back its waves made smooth the water in the swimmer’s path, and so brought him safely to land at its mouth. Odysseus bent his knees and sturdy arms, exhausted by his struggle with the sea. All his flesh was swollen and streams of brine gushed from his mouth and nostrils. Winded and speechless he lay there too weak to stir, overwhelmed by his terrible fatigue. Yet directly he got back his breath and came to life again, he unwound the goddess’ veil from his waist and let it drop into the river as it rushed out to sea. The strong current swept it downstream and before long it was in Ino’s own hands. Odysseus turned his back on the river, threw himself down in the reeds and kissed the bountiful earth.
And now he grimly faced his plight, wondering, with a groan, what would happen to him next and what the end of this adventure would be. “If I stay in the river-bed,” he argued, “and keep awake all through the wretched night, the bitter frost and drenching dew together might well be too much for one who has nearly breathed his last through sheer exhaustion. And I know what a cold wind can blow up from a river in the early morning. If, on the other hand, I climb up the slope into the thick woods and lie down in the dense undergrowth to sleep off my chill and my fatigue, then, supposing I do go off into a sound sleep, there is the risk that I may make a meal for beasts of prey.”
However, in the end he decided that this was the better course and set off towards the wooded ground. Not far from the river he found a copse with a clear space all round it. Here he crept under a pair of bushes, one an olive, the other a wild olive, which grew from the same stem with their branches so closely intertwined that when the winds blew moist not a breath could get inside, nor when the sun shone could his rays penetrate their shade, nor could the rain soak right through to the earth. Odysseus crawled into this shelter, and after all he had endured was delighted to see the ground littered with an abundance of dead leaves, enough to provide covering for two or three men in the hardest winter weather. He set to work with his hands and scraped up a roomy couch, in the middle of which he lay down and piled the leaves over himself, covering his body as carefully as a lonely crofter in the far corner of an estate buries a glowing brand under the black ashes to keep his fire alive and save himself from having to seek a light elsewhere. And now Athene filled Odysseus’ eyes with sleep and sealed their lids – the surest way to relieve the exhaustion caused by so much toil.
