Odysseus —Nymph and Shipwreck
1 As Dawn rose up from bed by her lordly mate Tithonus,
bringing light to immortal gods and mortal men,
the gods sat down in council, circling Zeus
the thunder king whose power rules the world.
Athena began, recalling Odysseus to their thoughts,
the goddess deeply moved by the man’s long ordeal,
held captive still in the nymph Calypso’s house:
“Father Zeus —you other happy gods who never die —
never let any sceptered king be kind and gentle now,
10 not with all his heart, or set his mind on justice —
no, let him be cruel and always practice outrage.
Think: not one of the people whom he ruled
remembers Odysseus now, that godlike man,
and kindly as a father to his children.
Now
he’s left to pine on an island, racked with grief
in the nymph Calypso’s house —she holds him there by force.
He has no way to voyage home to his own native land,
no trim ships in reach, no crew to ply the oars
and send him scudding over the sea’s broad back.
20 And now his dear son . . . they plot to kill the boy
on his way back home. Yes, he has sailed off
for news of his father, to holy Pylos first,
then out to the sunny hills of Lacedaemon.”
“My child,” Zeus who marshals the thunderheads replied,
“what nonsense you let slip through your teeth. Come now,
wasn’t the plan your own? You conceived it yourself:
Odysseus shall return and pay the traitors back.
Telemachus? Sail him home with all your skill —
the power is yours, no doubt —
30 home to his native country all unharmed
while the suitors limp to port, defeated, baffled men.”
With those words, Zeus turned to his own son Hermes.
“You are our messenger, Hermes, sent on all our missions.
Announce to the nymph with lovely braids our fixed decree:
Odysseus journeys home —the exile must return.
But not in the convoy of the gods or mortal men.
No, on a lashed, makeshift raft and wrung with pains,
38 on the twentieth day he will make his landfall, fertile Scheria,
39 the land of Phaeacians, close kin to the gods themselves,
40 who with all their hearts will prize him like a god
and send him off in a ship to his own beloved land,
giving him bronze and hoards of gold and robes —
more plunder than he could ever have won from Troy
if Odysseus had returned intact with his fair share.
So his destiny ordains. He shall see his loved ones,
reach his high-roofed house, his native land at last.”
So Zeus decreed and the giant-killing guide obeyed at once.
Quickly under his feet he fastened the supple sandals,
ever-glowing gold, that wing him over the waves
50 and boundless earth with the rush of gusting winds.
He seized the wand that enchants the eyes of men
whenever Hermes wants, or wakes us up from sleep.
That wand in his grip, the powerful giant-killer,
54 swooping down from Pieria, down the high clear air,
plunged to the sea and skimmed the waves like a tern
that down the deadly gulfs of the barren salt swells
glides and dives for fish,
dipping its beating wings in bursts of spray —
so Hermes skimmed the crests on endless crests.
60 But once he gained that island worlds apart,
up from the deep-blue sea he climbed to dry land
and strode on till he reached the spacious cave
where the nymph with lovely braids had made her home,
and he found her there inside . . .
A great fire
blazed on the hearth and the smell of cedar
cleanly split and sweetwood burning bright
wafted a cloud of fragrance down the island.
Deep inside she sang, the goddess Calypso, lifting
her breathtaking voice as she glided back and forth
70 before her loom, her golden shuttle weaving.
Thick, luxuriant woods grew round the cave,
alders and black poplars, pungent cypress too,
and there birds roosted, folding their long wings,
owls and hawks and the spread-beaked ravens of the sea,
black skimmers who make their living off the waves.
And round the mouth of the cavern trailed a vine
laden with clusters, bursting with ripe grapes.
Four springs in a row, bubbling clear and cold,
running side-by-side, took channels left and right.
80 Soft meadows spreading round were starred with violets,
81 lush with beds of parsley. Why, even a deathless god
who came upon that place would gaze in wonder,
heart entranced with pleasure. Hermes the guide,
84 the mighty giant-killer, stood there, spellbound . . .
But once he’d had his fill of marveling at it all
he briskly entered the deep vaulted cavern.
Calypso, lustrous goddess, knew him at once,
as soon as she saw his features face-to-face.
Immortals are never strangers to each other,
90 no matter how distant one may make her home.
But as for great Odysseus —
Hermes could not find him within the cave.
Off he sat on a headland, weeping there as always,
wrenching his heart with sobs and groans and anguish,
gazing out over the barren sea through blinding tears.
But Calypso, lustrous goddess, questioned Hermes,
seating him on a glistening, polished chair.
“God of the golden wand, why have you come?
A beloved, honored friend,
100 but it’s been so long, your visits much too rare.
Tell me what’s on your mind. I’m eager to do it,
whatever I can do . . . whatever can be done.”
And the goddess drew a table up beside him,
heaped with ambrosia, mixed him deep-red nectar.
Hermes the guide and giant-killer ate and drank.
Once he had dined and fortified himself with food
he launched right in, replying to her questions:
“As one god to another, you ask me why I’ve come.
I’ll tell you the whole story, mince no words —
110 your wish is my command.
It was Zeus who made me come, no choice of mine.
Who would willingly roam across a salty waste so vast,
so endless? Think: no city of men in sight, and not a soul
to offer the gods a sacrifice and burn the fattest victims.
But there is no way, you know, for another god to thwart
the will of storming Zeus and make it come to nothing.
Zeus claims you keep beside you a most unlucky man,
most harried of all who fought for Priam’s Troy
nine years, sacking the city in the tenth,
120 and then set sail for home.
But voyaging back they outraged Queen Athena
who loosed the gales and pounding seas against them.
There all the rest of his loyal shipmates died
but the wind drove him on, the current bore him here.
Now Zeus commands you to send him off with all good speed:
it is not his fate to die here, far from his own people.
Destiny still ordains that he shall see his loved ones,
reach his high-roofed house, his native land at last.”
But lustrous Calypso shuddered at those words
130 and burst into a flight of indignation. “Hard-hearted
you are, you gods! You unrivaled lords of jealousy —
scandalized when goddesses sleep with mortals,
openly, even when one has made the man her husband.
134 So when Dawn with her rose-red fingers took Orion,
you gods in your everlasting ease were horrified
till chaste Artemis throned in gold attacked him,
out on Delos, shot him to death with gentle shafts.
138 And so when Demeter the graceful one with lovely braids
139 gave way to her passion and made love with Iasion,
140 bedding down in a furrow plowed three times —
Zeus got wind of it soon enough, I’d say,
and blasted the man to death with flashing bolts.
So now at last, you gods, you train your spite on me
for keeping a mortal man beside me. The man I saved,
riding astride his keel-board, all alone, when Zeus
with one hurl of a white-hot bolt had crushed
his racing warship down the wine-dark sea.
There all the rest of his loyal shipmates died
but the wind drove him on, the current bore him here.
150 And I welcomed him warmly, cherished him, even vowed
151 to make the man immortal, ageless, all his days . . .
But since there is no way for another god to thwart
the will of storming Zeus and make it come to nothing,
let the man go —if the Almighty insists, commands —
and destroy himself on the barren salt sea!
I’ll send him off, but not with any escort.
I have no ships in reach, no crew to ply the oars
and send him scudding over the sea’s broad back.
But I will gladly advise him —I’ll hide nothing —
160 so he can reach his native country all unharmed.”
161 And the guide and giant-killer reinforced her words:
“Release him at once, just so. Steer clear of the rage of Zeus!
Or down the years he’ll fume and make your life a hell.”
With that the powerful giant-killer sped away.
The queenly nymph sought out the great Odysseus —
the commands of Zeus still ringing in her ears —
and found him there on the headland, sitting, still,
weeping, his eyes never dry, his sweet life flowing away
with the tears he wept for his foiled journey home,
170 since the nymph no longer pleased. In the nights, true,
he’d sleep with her in the arching cave —he had no choice —
172 unwilling lover alongside lover all too willing . . .
But all his days he’d sit on the rocks and beaches,
wrenching his heart with sobs and groans and anguish,
gazing out over the barren sea through blinding tears.
So coming up to him now, the lustrous goddess ventured,
“No need, my unlucky one, to grieve here any longer,
no, don’t waste your life away. Now I am willing,
heart and soul, to send you off at last. Come,
180 take bronze tools, cut your lengthy timbers,
make them into a broad-beamed raft
and top it off with a half-deck high enough
to sweep you free and clear on the misty seas.
And I myself will stock her with food and water,
ruddy wine to your taste —all to stave off hunger —
give you clothing, send you a stiff following wind
so you can reach your native country all unharmed.
If only the gods are willing. They rule the vaulting skies.
They’re stronger than I to plan and drive things home.”
190 Long-enduring Odysseus shuddered at that
and broke out in a sharp flight of protest.
“Passage home? Never. Surely you’re plotting
something else, goddess, urging me —in a raft —
to cross the ocean’s mighty gulfs. So vast, so full
of danger not even deep-sea ships can make it through,
swift as they are and buoyed up by the winds of Zeus himself.
I won’t set foot on a raft until you show good faith,
until you consent to swear, goddess, a binding oath
you’ll never plot some new intrigue to harm me!”
200 He was so intense the lustrous goddess smiled,
stroked him with her hand, savored his name and chided,
“Ah what a wicked man you are, and never at a loss.
What a thing to imagine, what a thing to say!
Earth be my witness now, the vaulting Sky above
205 and the dark cascading waters of the Styx —I swear
by the greatest, grimmest oath that binds the happy gods:
I will never plot some new intrigue to harm you.
Never. All I have in mind and devise for you
are the very plans I’d fashion for myself
210 if I were in your straits. My every impulse
bends to what is right. Not iron, trust me,
the heart within my breast. I am all compassion.”
And lustrous Calypso quickly led the way
as he followed in the footsteps of the goddess.
They reached the arching cavern, man and god as one,
and Odysseus took the seat that Hermes just left,
while the nymph set out before him every kind
of food and drink that mortal men will take.
Calypso sat down face-to-face with the king
220 and the women served her nectar and ambrosia.
They reached out for the good things that lay at hand
and when they’d had their fill of food and drink
the lustrous one took up a new approach. “So then,
royal son of Laertes, Odysseus, man of exploits,
still eager to leave at once and hurry back
to your own home, your beloved native land?
Good luck to you, even so. Farewell!
228 But if you only knew, down deep, what pains
are fated to fill your cup before you reach that shore,
230 you’d stay right here, preside in our house with me
and be immortal. Much as you long to see your wife,
the one you pine for all your days . . . and yet
I just might claim to be nothing less than she,
neither in face nor figure. Hardly right, is it,
for mortal woman to rival immortal goddess?
How, in build? in beauty?”
“Ah great goddess,”
worldly Odysseus answered, “don’t be angry with me,
please. All that you say is true, how well I know.
Look at my wise Penelope. She falls far short of you,
240 your beauty, stature. She is mortal after all
and you, you never age or die . . .
Nevertheless I long —I pine, all my days —
to travel home and see the dawn of my return.
And if a god will wreck me yet again on the wine-dark sea,
I can bear that too, with a spirit tempered to endure.
244 Much have I suffered, labored long and hard by now
in the waves and wars. Add this to the total —
bring the trial on!”
Even as he spoke
the sun set and the darkness swept the earth.
250 And now, withdrawing into the cavern’s deep recesses,
long in each other’s arms they lost themselves in love.
When young Dawn with her rose-red fingers shone once more
Odysseus quickly dressed himself in cloak and shirt
while the nymph slipped on a loose, glistening robe,
filmy, a joy to the eye, and round her waist
she ran a brocaded golden belt
and over her head a scarf to shield her brow,
then turned to plan the great man’s voyage home.
She gave him a heavy bronze ax that fit his grip,
260 both blades well-honed, with a fine olive haft
lashed firm to its head. She gave him a polished
smoothing-adze as well and then she led the way
to the island’s outer edge where trees grew tall,
alders, black poplars and firs that shot sky-high,
seasoned, drying for years, ideal for easy floating.
Once she’d shown her guest where the tall timber stood,
Calypso the lustrous goddess headed home again.
He set to cutting trunks —the work was done in no time.
Twenty in all he felled, he trimmed them clean with his ax
270 and split them deftly, trued them straight to the line.
Meanwhile the radiant goddess brought him drills —
he bored through all his planks and wedged them snugly,
knocking them home together, locked with pegs and joints.
Broad in the beam and bottom flat as a merchantman
when a master shipwright turns out her hull,
so broad the craft Odysseus made himself.
Working away at speed
he put up half-decks pinned to close-set ribs
and a sweep of gunwales rounded off the sides.
280 He fashioned the mast next and sank its yard in deep
and added a steering-oar to hold her right on course,
then he fenced her stem to stern with twigs and wicker,
bulwark against the sea-surge, floored with heaps of brush.
And lustrous Calypso came again, now with bolts of cloth
to make the sail, and he finished that off too, expertly.
Braces, sheets and brails —he rigged all fast on board,
then eased her down with levers into the sunlit sea.
That was the fourth day and all his work was done.
On the fifth, the lovely goddess launched him from her island,
290 once she had bathed and decked him out in fragrant clothes.
And Calypso stowed two skins aboard —dark wine in one,
the larger one held water —added a sack of rations,
filled with her choicest meats to build his strength,
and summoned a wind to bear him onward, fair and warm.
The wind lifting his spirits high, royal Odysseus
spread sail —gripping the tiller, seated astern —
and now the master mariner steered his craft,
sleep never closing his eyes, forever scanning
299 the stars, the Pleiades and the Plowman late to set
300 and the Great Bear that mankind also calls the Wagon:
301 she wheels on her axis always fixed, watching the Hunter,
and she alone is denied a plunge in the Ocean’s baths.
Hers were the stars the lustrous goddess told him
to keep hard to port as he cut across the sea.
And seventeen days he sailed, making headway well;
on the eighteenth, shadowy mountains slowly loomed . . .
the Phaeacians’ island reaching toward him now,
over the misty breakers, rising like a shield.
But now Poseidon, god of the earthquake, saw him —
310 just returning home from his Ethiopian friends,
311 from miles away on the Solymi mountain-range
he spied Odysseus sailing down the sea
and it made his fury boil even more.
He shook his head and rumbled to himself,
315 “Outrageous! Look how the gods have changed their minds
about Odysseus —while I was off with my Ethiopians.
317 Just look at him there, nearing Phaeacia’s shores
318 where he’s fated to escape his noose of pain
that’s held him until now. Still my hopes ride high —
320 I’ll give that man his swamping fill of trouble!”
With that he rammed the clouds together —both hands
clutching his trident —churned the waves into chaos, whipping
all the gales from every quarter, shrouding over in thunderheads
the earth and sea at once —and night swept down from the sky —
East and South Winds clashed and the raging West and North,
sprung from the heavens, roiled heaving breakers up —
and Odysseus’ knees quaked, his spirit too;
numb with fear he spoke to his own great heart:
“Wretched man —what becomes of me now, at last?
330 I fear the nymph foretold it all too well —
on the high seas, she said, before I can reach
my native land I’ll fill my cup of pain! And now,
look, it all comes to pass. What monstrous clouds —
King Zeus crowning the whole wide heaven black —
churning the seas in chaos, gales blasting,
raging around my head from every quarter —
my death-plunge in a flash, it’s certain now!
Three, four times blessed, my friends-in-arms
who died on the plains of Troy those years ago,
340 serving the sons of Atreus to the end. Would to god
I’d died there too and met my fate that day the Trojans,
swarms of them, hurled at me with bronze spears,
fighting over the corpse of proud Achilles!
A hero’s funeral then, my glory spread by comrades —
now what a wretched death I’m doomed to die!”
At that a massive wave came crashing down on his head,
a terrific onslaught spinning his craft round and round —
he was thrown clear of the decks —
the steering-oar wrenched
from his grasp —
and in one lightning attack the brawling
350 galewinds struck full-force, snapping the mast mid-shaft
and hurling the sail and sailyard far across the sea.
He went under a good long while, no fast way out,
no struggling up from under the giant wave’s assault,
his clothing dragged him down —divine Calypso’s gifts —
but at last he fought his way to the surface spewing
bitter brine, streams of it pouring down his head.
But half-drowned as he was, he’d not forget his craft —
he lunged after her through the breakers, laying hold
and huddling amidships, fled the stroke of death.
360 Pell-mell the rollers tossed her along down-current,
wild as the North Wind tossing thistle along the fields
at high harvest —dry stalks clutching each other tightly —
so the galewinds tumbled her down the sea, this way, that way,
now the South Wind flinging her over to North to sport with,
now the East Wind giving her up to West to harry on and on.
366 But someone saw him —Cadmus’ daughter with lovely ankles,
367 Ino, a mortal woman once with human voice and called
368 Leucothea now she lives in the sea’s salt depths,
esteemed by all the gods as she deserves.
370 She pitied Odysseus, tossed, tormented so —
she broke from the waves like a shearwater on the wing,
lit on the wreck and asked him kindly, “Ah poor man,
373 why is the god of earthquakes so dead set against you?
Strewing your way with such a crop of troubles!
But he can’t destroy you, not for all his anger.
Just do as I say. You seem no fool to me.
Strip off those clothes and leave your craft
for the winds to hurl, and swim for it now, you must,
strike out with your arms for landfall there,
380 Phaeacian land where destined safety waits.
Here, take this scarf,
tie it around your waist —it is immortal.
Nothing to fear now, neither pain nor death.
But once you grasp the mainland with your hands
untie it quickly, throw it into the wine-dark sea,
far from the shore, but you, you turn your head away!”
With that the goddess handed him the scarf
and slipped back in the heavy breaking seas
like a shearwater once again
390 and a dark heaving billow closed above her.
But battle-weary Odysseus weighed two courses,
deeply torn, probing his fighting spirit: “Oh no —
I fear another immortal weaves a snare to trap me,
urging me to abandon ship! I won’t. Not yet.
That shore’s too far away —
I glimpsed it myself —where she says refuge waits.
No, here’s what I’ll do, it’s what seems best to me.
As long as the timbers cling and joints stand fast,
I’ll hold out aboard her and take a whipping —
400 once the breakers smash my craft to pieces,
then I’ll swim —no better plan for now.”
But just as great Odysseus thrashed things out,
Poseidon god of the earthquake launched a colossal wave,
terrible, murderous, arching over him, pounding down on him,
hard as a windstorm blasting piles of dry parched chaff,
scattering flying husks —so the long planks of his boat
were scattered far and wide. But Odysseus leapt aboard
one timber and riding it like a plunging racehorse
stripped away his clothes, divine Calypso’s gifts,
410 and quickly tying the scarf around his waist
he dove headfirst in the sea,
stretched his arms and stroked for life itself.
But again the mighty god of earthquakes spied him,
shook his head and grumbled deep in his spirit, “Go, go,
after all you’ve suffered —rove your miles of sea —
till you fall in the arms of people loved by Zeus.
Even so I can hardly think you’ll find
your punishments too light!”
With that threat
he lashed his team with their long flowing manes,
420 gaining Aegae port where his famous palace stands.
But Zeus’s daughter Athena countered him at once.
The rest of the winds she stopped right in their tracks,
commanding them all to hush now, go to sleep.
All but the boisterous North —she whipped him up
and the goddess beat the breakers flat before Odysseus,
dear to Zeus, so he could reach the Phaeacians,
mingle with men who love their long oars
and escape his death at last.
Yes, but now,
adrift on the heaving swells two nights, two days —
430 quite lost —again and again the man foresaw his death.
Then when Dawn with her lovely locks brought on
the third day, the wind fell in an instant,
all glazed to a dead calm, and Odysseus,
scanning sharply, raised high by a groundswell,
looked up and saw it —landfall, just ahead.
Joy . . . warm as the joy that children feel
when they see their father’s life dawn again,
one who’s lain on a sickbed racked with torment,
wasting away, slowly, under some angry power’s onslaught —
440 then what joy when the gods deliver him from his pains!
So warm, Odysseus’ joy when he saw that shore, those trees,
as he swam on, anxious to plant his feet on solid ground again.
But just offshore, as far as a man’s shout can carry,
he caught the boom of a heavy surf on jagged reefs —
roaring breakers crashing down on an ironbound coast,
exploding in fury —
the whole sea shrouded —
sheets of spray —
no harbors to hold ships, no roadstead where they’d ride,
nothing but jutting headlands, riptooth reefs, cliffs.
Odysseus’ knees quaked and the heart inside him sank;
450 he spoke to his fighting spirit, desperate: “Worse and worse!
Now that Zeus has granted a glimpse of land beyond my hopes,
now I’ve crossed this waste of water, the end in sight,
there’s no way out of the boiling surf —I see no way!
Rugged reefs offshore, around them breakers roaring,
above them a smooth rock face, rising steeply, look,
and the surge too deep inshore, no spot to stand
on my own two legs and battle free of death.
If I clamber out, some big comber will hoist me,
dash me against that cliff —my struggles all a waste!
460 If I keep on swimming down the coast, trying to find
a seabeach shelving against the waves, a sheltered cove —
I dread it —another gale will snatch me up and haul me
back to the fish-infested sea, retching in despair.
Or a dark power will loose some monster at me,
rearing out of the waves —one of the thousands
Amphitrite’s breakers teem with. Well I know
467 the famous god of earthquakes hates my very name!”
Just as that fear went churning through his mind
a tremendous roller swept him toward the rocky coast
470 where he’d have been flayed alive, his bones crushed
if the bright-eyed goddess Pallas had not inspired him now.
He lunged for a reef, he seized it with both hands and clung
for dear life, groaning until the giant wave surged past
and so he escaped its force, but the breaker’s backwash
charged into him full fury and hurled him out to sea.
Like pebbles stuck in the suckers of some octopus
dragged from its lair —so strips of skin torn
from his clawing hands stuck to the rock face.
A heavy sea covered him over, then and there
480 unlucky Odysseus would have met his death —
against the will of Fate —
but the bright-eyed one inspired him yet again.
Fighting out from the breakers pounding toward the coast,
out of danger he swam on, scanning the land, trying to find
a seabeach shelving against the waves, a sheltered cove,
and stroking hard he came abreast of a river’s mouth,
running calmly, the perfect spot, he thought . . .
free of rocks, with a windbreak from the gales.
As the current flowed he felt the river’s god and
490 prayed to him in spirit: “Hear me, lord, whoever you are,
I’ve come to you, the answer to all my prayers —
rescue me from the sea, the Sea-lord’s curse!
Even immortal gods will show a man respect,
whatever wanderer seeks their help —like me —
I throw myself on your mercy, on your current now —
I have suffered greatly. Pity me, lord,
your suppliant cries for help!”
So the man prayed
and the god stemmed his current, held his surge at once
and smoothing out the swells before Odysseus now,
500 drew him safe to shore at the river’s mouth.
His knees buckled, massive arms fell limp,
the sea had beaten down his striving heart.
His whole body swollen, brine aplenty gushing
out of his mouth and nostrils —breathless, speechless,
there he lay, with only a little strength left in him,
deathly waves of exhaustion overwhelmed him now . . .
But once he regained his breath and rallied back to life,
at last he loosed the goddess’ scarf from his body,
dropped it into the river flowing out to sea
510 and a swift current bore it far downstream
and suddenly Ino caught it in her hands.
Struggling up from the banks, he flung himself
in the deep reeds, he kissed the good green earth
and addressed his fighting spirit, desperate still:
“Man of misery, what next? Is this the end?
If I wait out a long tense night by the banks,
I fear the sharp frost and the soaking dew together
will do me in —I’m bone-weary, about to breathe my last,
and a cold wind blows from a river on toward morning.
520 But what if I climb that slope, go for the dark woods
and bed down in the thick brush? What if I’m spared
the chill, fatigue, and a sweet sleep comes my way?
I fear wild beasts will drag me off as quarry.”
But this was the better course, it struck him now.
He set out for the woods and not far from the water
found a grove with a clearing all around and crawled
beneath two bushy olives sprung from the same root,
one olive wild, the other well-bred stock.
No sodden gusty winds could ever pierce them,
530 nor could the sun’s sharp rays invade their depths,
nor could a downpour drench them through and through,
so dense they grew together, tangling side-by-side.
Odysseus crept beneath them, scraping up at once
a good wide bed for himself with both hands.
A fine litter of dead leaves had drifted in,
enough to cover two men over, even three,
in the wildest kind of winter known to man.
Long-enduring great Odysseus, overjoyed at the sight,
bedded down in the midst and heaped the leaves around him.
540 As a man will bury his glowing brand in black ashes,
off on a lonely farmstead, no neighbors near,
to keep a spark alive —no need to kindle fire
from somewhere else —so great Odysseus buried
himself in leaves and Athena showered sleep
upon his eyes . . . sleep in a swift wave
delivering him from all his pains and labors,
blessed sleep that sealed his eyes at last.