Odyssey, Five: The Man of Sorrows
When Dawn rose from the white sheets of proud Tithonos,
she who brings light to mortals and gods,
calling to council great Zeus the High-Thunderer
whose power is mightiest of all the gods,
Athena, who pitied shipwrecked Odysseus,
caught in the lithe arms of beautiful Kalypso,
addressed the gathered assembly at large:
“Our Father and all who are blessed in heaven,
I pray that there is not a ruler alive just and merciful.
I hope they are all cruel tyrants, governing with greed,
for there is not anyone who remembers Odysseus,
who once ruled men with fatherly kindness.
He now languishes in the hands of the nymph Kalypso,
kept prisoner in a cave, unable to sail home,
possessing neither ship nor crew to ply the wide ocean’s chains.
And now there are those intent on murdering his son
who went on a quest to find news of his father
at sacred Pylos and glorious Sparta.”
Zeus, the gatherer of clouds and mists, replied:
“What kind of words flew though your teeth?
For is this not all your own intention, as you advised?
That Odysseus should make his way back home,
so you could punish those murderous suitors?
Bring Telemachos home with your consummate skill,
so that no harm at all comes to him,
while the suitors return with nothing accomplished.”
Turning to his favorite son, great Zeus said:
“Hermes, since you’re our messenger in other matters,
tell Kalypso of the enchanting tresses
of the whole assembly’s final decision:
that her time with Odysseus is now over.
Let him leave without help of men or gods,
storm-tossed on a raft for twenty days
before touching the shore of prosperous Scheria
in the country of the Phaiakians who are nearer to the gods
than men are in their dealings with the gods,
and that they will honor enduring Odysseus
as if he himself were a god, and return him by ship
to the fields of his beloved ancestors,
giving him more tunics, weapons, and gold rings
than he could have carried away from Ilios,
for his noble destiny is to see once again
the sun glinting on the roof of his father’s house,
and be reunited with his whole household.”
The Argus-slayer immediately bent to tie his sandals,
golden and eternal, with which he walks on water,
or surfs in turbulent air currents around mountain peaks.
Staff in hand—with which he puts to sleep or awakens men—
he stepped into sheer air and plunged down Pieria
to the salt-brine ocean, skimming over frothing waves
with a spray of beating wings like a cormorant
diving and hunting fish in the crests of waves.
In the likeness of a cormorant, he soared
just above the near-endless rolling swells,
until careening over a breaker, he alighted on ground,
walking toward the grotto to find lovely-haired Kalypso
sitting before a hearth-fire burning cedar splits,
their scent tinged with thyme. She was singing at her loom,
her voice and shuttle both golden in their dulcet tone.
Outside echoed a wood of alder, black poplar, fragrant cypress
where peacocks boasted, unfolding their hundred eyes,
while horned owls, hawks, falcons, pelicans, and gulls
circled above, scanning the beach for nourishment.
Climbing the smooth walls of her cave, a vine twined
with ripened grapes under an aura of shimmering green light.
Four close-clustered, clear springs bubbled up from the ground,
their channels meandering through beds of violets and parsley.
Even a god who entered this grotto would halt in astonishment,
feel his heart beat in wonder—as I did one sunny day in Same;
so Hermes felt, but when he grew accustomed to the light,
he advanced into the wide cave. Kalypso spotted him at once,
since every immortal knows the powers of another god,
no matter how far away is the land he comes from.
But Hermes did not see Odysseus in the cave—he sat in exile
on the strand lamenting his fate, watching the waves break
on the shore, thinking of the distant rocks he called home.
Smiling Kalypso seated her guest in a smooth stone chair
as watery reflections bounced about the walls of the cave.
She said: “What brings winged Hermes
and his golden staff to my humble cave?
I love and honor you, nephew.
You’ve come to visit me so little in the past,
so what is it that I can do for you?
And do it I will, as long as it’s the proper thing to do.
But first, let’s have a dram of red nectar
before we get down to discussing matters.”
She pushed a golden platter of ambrosia toward him,
mixing and pouring a goblet of apricot-scented nectar—
so the sprightly-winged Pathfinder took his fill,
and when he was satisfied, he answered her:
“You, a goddess, ask me why I am here,
and I will tell you the whole truth of the matter.
I did not wish to come here at all—
it was Zeus who told me to come.
Who would willingly fly across the endless ocean?
Especially when there are no cities or temples here
where humankind ever worships me
with sacrifice of heifers, or fresh garden fruits.
But even you can’t think of evading the will of Zeus—
that is not possible for any immortal!
“Of those who fought nine years against King Priam,
my Father takes note of the most ill-starred of those heroes
who brought low the fabled fort of the Troad,
and in the tenth year they all set sail for home.
It’s true that many were remiss in godly devotion
and Athena loosed terrible tempests upon them—
all his mates drowned, except the one I speak of.
My father says that you have him here with you.
Now Zeus demands that he be sent away immediately,
for it is not his fate to die here on this island,
away from his own countrymen and native land,
but to return to his father’s high-roofed house.”
She shivered, tossing her golden tresses,
and her silver voice turned leaden:
“You priggish gods, always laden with jealousy—
when a goddess chooses a man for her satisfaction,
you find some nicety of objection in it!
When glorious Dawn took Orion to bed,
all you gods who enjoy your own lovers
found their blameless lovemaking blasphemous,
and the chaste virgin Artemis hunted him down,
pinning him to the ground with her painless arrows.
When long-haired Demeter fell for Iasion
in a thrice-ploughed open field,
Zeus could not bear the sight of their pleasure
and hurled a bolt of lightning into his loins!
So now I, too, am begrudged a mortal lover,
even though it was I alone who rescued him
when I saw him astride the keel of a broken boat,
destroyed by a lightning bolt from the hand of Zeus:
he was drowning in the wine-dark sea,
but the currents and wind brought him here to me!
I grew fond of this castaway, fed him, and loved him,
while I entertained the hope that I could reward him
with the pleasure of eternal youth.
But I am no match for the will of Zeus….
“If I must surrender my handsome mate,
I’ll let him go, but only if that’s what he wishes—
to return to the dangerous open sea—
yet I cannot give him conveyance,
for I have not the means to help him—
neither crew, nor ship, nor provisions.
I can only offer advice with complete honesty—
no more can I do to bring him to his home!”
Curtly and firmly, the Pathfinder answered her:
“It is settled! You will send him off then.
In the future show more eager compliance,
lest Zeus nurse a grudge against you
and bring down his anger some other time!”
Hermes quickly turned and took to the air,
and Kalypso walked out of her shimmering cave,
looking around for her beloved Odysseus,
and found him on the beach, moored in self-pity,
looking thin, immersed in nostalgia for home,
displaying no pleasure at her sudden arrival.
At night he would lie beside her willing body,
empty of any urge to satisfy his body,
yet, of necessity, he did her will in the dark,
but in daylight shunned her divine presence,
sitting on seaside rocks, shedding tears,
as he gazed out upon the barren horizon.
Kalypso cupped his ear with her hand and whispered:
“No need to mourn anymore, I am sending you onward!
Get up, cut some trunks with a sharp bronze axe,
bind the beams with vine, make a ship with an upper deck.
I will give you bread, water, and excellent wine
to guard you from hunger, as well as clothing.
I will conjure a fair wind to shift you seaward
for your long voyage home, if the gods so will it—
they, not I, hold your destiny in their hands,
for they who rule the heavens are more powerful than I.”
Odysseus, at a loss for words, dreaded what she said,
but when he spoke his words flew like an arrow:
“Suddenly, after seven years, you would help me?
Perhaps you think it’s time to get rid of me!
Are you plotting my death at the bottom of the sea?
The suggestion of a little boat is hardly conveyance!
How can a small craft cross the Western Ocean
when well-built ships often founder in tempests?
I’ll board no raft to Hades unless you swear a great oath
that you are not plotting some evil against me!”
Kalypso gave out her sweetest smile,
and laying her gentle hand on his head,
stroked his long hair and called him by name:
“You are so independent and stubborn—
perhaps you are right in asking this oath from me!
I solemnly swear by the heavenly sky and fertile earth
and the water that runs below in the river Styx—
I can swear by no more than these sacred three,
since this is the greatest oath among immortals—
that I will not cast any spell whatsoever against you,
that I am not plotting any ordeal against you,
but I am only doing for you what I would do for myself,
if I were in the position you are now caught in.
I will do only what you yourself desire!
I speak honestly because my heart is not made of iron,
but full of a tender and sincere compassion for you,
and I feel it is time that I should help you go home.”
She strode rapidly before him to her cave
with Odysseus following the footsteps of the goddess,
and they entered the immense cave, goddess and man.
Odysseus sat in the chair Hermes himself had vacated,
and with a smile, shining Kalypso
placed before him bread, fish, and wine;
she sat facing Odysseus, while her maids
brought her nectar and ambrosia.
Then each ate and drank with pleasant cheer
and when they were finished Kalypso said:
“Odysseus, noble son of Laertes,
after all these months of pleasure with me,
do you really want to return home
to the house of your ancestors
and not be lord of my magic world?
If so, I’ll freely grant your wish,
but if you could foresee the trials you will undergo,
you might well choose to stay here with me
and become an immortal, freed from death,
despite your longing for that bride
you pine for from dawn to sunset.
Can she be more beautiful than I?
More interesting, fascinating, intelligent?
I think I can claim that I am not inferior to her
in stature or the physique of my body.
How can a mortal compare to a goddess?”
Odysseus, ever the strategist, replied:
“No mortal can compare to your beauty and stature!
My wife Penelope is but a shadow to your figure!
You cannot age, but wrinkles, decay, and death
will be our common fate. I cannot explain why,
yet I long for the familiarity of my home,
and the day of my homecoming to my native land.
If any god has singled me out for shipwreck—
that I can bear if I knew I would arrive back home.
What horrors have I not faced that could be worse—
either in battle or at sea? Let hardship come as it may!”
As he spoke, the sun set, twilit blue gave way to darkness,
and these two retired to the inner chamber of the cave
where they sported in love and mutual slumber.
When Dawn first stretched out finger tips of rosy hue,
Odysseus rose, clasping on a blue tunic and dark cloak,
while the goddess dressed in a shining white robe,
woven from finest fleece, girdling her midriff
with a belt of hammered gold, a veil over her face.
She contemplated how she could aid Odysseus’ journey.
First, she gave him a great two-headed bronze axe,
the shaft made of smooth olive wood, well-balanced;
next, a gleaming adze; then led him to the end of the island
where the tallest trees grew: alder, black poplar, giant firs,
many dead and seasoned, buoyant and suitable for a raft.
After showing him her treasure of timber,
she melted away through the screen of leaves.
Odysseus raised his great axe, and by noon
its sharp edge had felled twenty giant trees.
Then he sawed off branches, split huge trunks,
trimming and planing lines straight and true.
Kalypso appeared casually with an auger
with which he drilled his sturdy planks,
driving dowels to fasten them side by side.
Master shipwrights build broad, shallow hulls—
likewise, Odysseus framed the bottom of his ship.
Above the skeleton ribs, he set up deck planks,
running bowed gunwales around them.
Then he made a mast, fitting a small upper deck
to serve as a lookout, and planed a steering oar from pine.
Between the seams he drove in strands of willow
to caulk leaks, then stacked in logs for ballast.
And for sail, Kalypso brought broad sheets of oilcloth
that he expertly trimmed for his rigging,
attaching leather straps and halyards.
Then working with levers, he brought the boat
down to the bright margin of salt wave.
That was on the fourth day when the boat was finished.
On the morning of the next day, he was to depart,
but first she demanded to bathe him, presenting him
with a scented tunic and a large skin of wine
and an even larger skin of pure spring water,
plus jars of dried fish, vegetables, and fruits.
Her vatic voice rose aloud to conjure a favorable warm wind—
and when the sail billowed, joy flooded Odysseus’ heart!
Now the artful seaman leaned on his newly hewn oar,
steering through dusk and the long darkness of night,
eyeing the Pleiades, watching the late-setting Ploughman
and the Great Bear (some call it the Wain or Chariot),
which turns upon itself in one position in the sky,
looking toward Orion, a beacon for every mariner—
it alone doesn’t wander or dip into the ocean’s flow.
(Kalypso had advised him to keep these stars to his left.)
For seventeen days and nights he sailed without sleeping
in both wet and dry weather and on the eighteenth
he saw on the horizon the shadowy mountains of Scheria
rise in the mist like a curved shield lying atop ocean fog.
At this point, earth-shaker Poseidon caught sight of him,
just as he was returning from the mountains of Aithiopia.
Odysseus was plainly visible to him on the open sea.
Poseidon’s anger at Odysseus rose again in his gorge;
muttering to himself he said, “What a shame!
The other gods must have changed their minds
about the fate of Odysseus while I was away,
and now he nears the shores of Phaiakia
were it is fated that his miseries will end,
but I can make his landing something he’ll never forget!”
He conjured up high thunderclouds and with his trident
stirred the deep depths, both hands churning the handle!
Night leaped into the heavens, rain swelled in the dark skies,
sheets of rain gusted, blotting out the sight of land!
From the South and East winds clashed and roared,
while a bitter West wind and a boreal North wind
rolled up the ocean in great rising swells!
Stout Odysseus’ knees grew weak,
his heart thumped the register of fear,
and he began to talk aloud to himself:
“What unhappy fate now comes to dog me?
Could this be the end when I’m near landfall?
The goddess must have spoken the truth about trials
when she predicted hardships to come
before I make landfall in my own country.
The heavens howl out her dire prophecy,
the whole welkin bound in torrential tempest,
the violent ocean raging like a stuck bull!
There’s no doubt my craft is breaking up
and I’ll be gulping water in the waves.
The Danaans who died on the beaches near Ilios
were three, no four, times luckier in death
because they at least had pyres on the beach!
Would that I had died that time I defended Achilles’ corpse
when the greatest number of Trojans I had ever faced
hurled a thunderous shower of bronze spears at me!
I would have had a great soldier’s funeral,
glory from all Achaians, not a weakling’s drowning!”
As he spoke, Poseidon blew a great tidal wave
that slammed down on him from above,
sending his small ship spinning around in circles,
snapping the topmast, and hurling him overboard,
the oar sundered from his firm grasp!
That wave kept him under water far too long,
its pressure bearing him downward,
tangling him in the tunic Kalypso wove for him,
so when he surfaced he coughed up brine,
water sluicing from his hair and beard.
Groggy as he was, he still thought
to swim back to the raft, grab hold of it,
pulling himself up into the hold,
hoping to defy death one more time.
The sea tossed the ship up into the air
as it rode up giant swells—just as the North wind
blows thistle seeds across an open field
and some of the seeds cling to each other in the air!
So fared Odysseus and his ship, battered by waves,
hoisted by the four winds from all directions!
But Ino, daughter of Kadmos, sometimes
called the White Goddess of the foam,
saw him struggling in the waves.
Once she had spoken on earth as a mortal,
but now ranged the surging waves as a goddess.
She took pity on the drowning man,
and she took the form of a seagull
perching on the buffeted craft,
and she spoke these words to him:
“You forsaken man—how have you
much-offended mighty Poseidon ?
Though you have earned his bitter wrath,
I am sure he will not kill you.
You still have your wits about you!
Do what I tell you: shed that tunic,
give up the ship and swim for shore.
Scheria is not so far, so swim hard!
It is fated that you’ll find shelter there!
Here, use my veil as a buoy, being divine,
it cannot fail to float you—you will not drown!
But the instant your foot touches sand,
toss it hard back toward the ocean,
then turn your face quickly toward land.”
She removed the veil, handed it to him,
and in the likeness of seagull dove into the waves,
vanishing into the blue depths of the ocean!
Yet Odysseus was perplexed by this.
He thought: “Can this be a trick of some god?
Am I the scorn of all immortals?
Before the storm I had seen landfall,
but it is surely too far for a swim.
For the moment, the raft is my haven
I’ll stay here safely until the storm passes,
unless the raft founders, then I’ll swim for it,
since then there’s nothing else I could do.”
Even as Odysseus considered what course to take,
Poseidon hefted a wave high as a tower,
Just as a blast of wind hitting a mound of chaff
will scatter the dried husks in every direction,
the wave shattered the ship’s timbers,
scattering them across the briny sea.
Odysseus mounted a beam, riding it like a horse
as he shed Kalypso’s elegant tunic.
He rapidly tied Ino’s veil tightly around his chest,
plunging headfirst into oncoming waves,
cutting them with his swimmer’s stroke.
The Earth-shaker saw him swimming like a fish,
shook his head, saying to himself with satisfaction:
“There you are adrift on the open ocean
until you come to a people blessed by the gods.
I hope you won’t complain that I was ungenerous
when it comes to dealing out hardships.”
Whipping the backs of his giant steeds,
he turned toward his fabled palace at Aigai.
Athena, Daughter of Zeus, now took control,
calming the force of the winds and countering
the crests of the waves with a northerly breeze
to help smooth the path of the swimmer heading
for the shore of the oar-loving Phaiakians
where he would be safe in their company.
But he flailed in the sea two days and two nights,
certain, many times, that he was a dead man,
until the glowing light on the third day
revealed a windless sea and clear skies.
Surfing a small wave, he sighted land!
What a wonderful thing it is to children
when a dear father bedridden with illness,
suffering much pain and unable to eat,
with the spirits of death watching over his bed,
rises up to walk in health like a man reborn,
cured of pain, resurrected to life by the gods—
just so, the welcome sight of forested land
gave new life to exhausted Odysseus,
and he swam with vigor once again,
panting to get a toehold on the floor of the earth!
Yet when he was as far from land as a voice can carry,
he heard the crash of breakers on rocks,
and through a mist of salt spray,
he saw steep cliffs streaming with foam
and waves crashing on jagged tooth-like rocks,
his arms weakened, his heart grew cold.
He saw no harbor or sandy shoreline to land on—
nothing but crags, reefs, boulders to smash upon!
A heavy sweat came over his forehead and he thought:
Zeus has let me see land I never really hoped to see,
and now that I have come so far over the ocean,
I see no way to get out of the gray waters I paddle,
for to my left where the waves crash, the rocks are so sharp,
and the cliffs are so steep, I would bleed to death—
to my right boulders so large I would be battered
on the cliff as I try to cling to some outcrop.
There’s nowhere I could gain a safe foothold,
nowhere could I even stand and fight the tide.
If I swim back out and then down the coast,
would I find a beach where I could walk to shore?
And what if another wind were to rise up?
I fear some current might sweep me out to sea.
With my luck I might meet one of the many sharks
Amphitrite tends in the depths of the sea!
I now realize how implacable remains the grudge
of the Earth-shaker who takes pleasure in hating me!”
While he was indulging himself in such self-pity,
a surging wave pushed him toward monstrous rocks.
He would have been flayed alive on those sharp spikes
if the goddess Athena had not invigorated him,
and he grabbed a ledge of rock with both hands.
Then the backwash of the wave crashed down on him,
tossing him back to the open, surging sea.
If you drag an octopus out from its hideout,
its suckers are clotted with tiny stones—
just so, bold Odysseus left skin from his hands
clinging to that craggy rock ledge as the wave carried him out!
Dunked under by the leaping wave,
he would surely have perished from the earth,
had not had Athena restored his wits.
When the backwash spit him out again,
he kicked with his legs toward the ocean,
swimming in pain and desperation,
always looking shoreward for a place to land,
scanning the coast for a sloping beach or harbor—
then he spotted the mouth of a mild running river
with level shores banking each side of it!
It was free of rocks, sheltered from the wind,
a place possible to try for, yet the current flowed
outward to the ocean and he began to pray:
“Hear me god of the river! I’m at your mercy!
If it’s within the realm of your power,
save me from the curse of Poseidon!
I appeal to you with a sincere and prayerful heart.
Is not the lost wanderer sacred to the gods?
I draw near your presence, wish to grasp
the knees of your current for mercy!
Pity me, consider me your suppliant!”
As he prayed, the ocean tide began to turn
and he felt the tidal current of the river change.
Leaving cresting ocean swells, he met milder
water in the mouth of the river: he swam calmly.
Stepping in the river-bed shallows,
his knees trembled and buckled,
even his arms gave way when he fell—
all strength drained from his swollen limbs
as brine scalded his throat and eyes!
He lay there in rushes scarcely breathing,
salt water pouring from the porches of his ears,
his nostrils dripping briny water,
unable to utter a syllable or lift an arm!
As air began to fill his water-logged lungs,
and warmth returned to his heart and chest,
he untied Ino’s veil, letting it drift away
in the river’s outbound current
where a white wave lifted the veil
and Ino took it into her hands.
Crawling up the pebbled bank and through
a copse of reeds, he touched earth,
kissed the damp soil with his lips,
and murmured to himself in delirium:
“How much more can this carcass suffer?
Even if I manage not to pass out at dusk,
how can I not freeze from the damp fog
or the morning frost that coats the banks
of cold rivers at this time of year?
Yet if I climb the bank, enter the forest shadows,
and nest in the warmth of some bushes,
to find sweet rest in weary sleep,
will I not be the prey of wild animals?”
Though this debate gave his heart no peace,
he rose and looked for a stand of trees,
creeping under twin adjacent bushes
that sprang from the same root: both olive,
one wild, the other domesticated,
providing a cross-threading thicket of warmth
against chaffing winds or the sun’s noon blaze—
even a rain shower would not drench him,
so dense were the leaves intertwined!
Here Odysseus scraped out a shallow trough,
then set about raking a huge pile of leaves,
for there were enough leaves to cover two or three men
and preserve them during a winter night.
His weary heart lifted in laughter
as he eyed the immense leaf-bed
and he lay down with confidence,
heaping dry leaves over his wet body.
Just as a shepherd with no roof nearby
lies down in some distant foggy field,
burying a burning brand in a bed of embers
to keep alive a seed-spark for the morning fire,
so Odysseus hid himself in the dead leaves
as sleep stole over his exhausted frame,
and Athena shed sleep on his eyes,
veiling them from the exhaustion of his labors.
