Homer · a new plain-English translation from the Greek
Dawn rose from her bed beside noble Tithonus, to carry light to gods and mortals alike, and the gods were taking their seats in council, with Zeus who thunders on high among them, whose power is greatest of all. Athena spoke to them, recalling Odysseus's many troubles, for she thought of him, sitting there in the nymph's house.
"Father Zeus, and you other blessed gods who live forever," she said, "let no sceptered king ever again be truly kind and gentle, or care in his heart about justice — let him instead always be harsh and act ruthlessly, since no one among the people he once ruled remembers godlike Odysseus, though he was gentle as a father. No, he lies on an island suffering brutal pain, in the halls of the nymph Calypso, who holds him there against his will, and he cannot reach his own homeland. He has no ships fitted with oars, no companions to send him over the sea's broad back. And now they mean to kill his beloved son on his way home — he has gone off to Pylos and to sacred Sparta to learn news of his father."
Zeus who gathers the clouds answered her: "My child, what a word has escaped the fence of your teeth! Did you not devise this plan yourself, that Odysseus should come home and take revenge on those men? As for Telemachus, guide him with your skill — you have the power — so that he may reach his own land unharmed and the suitors sail home again empty-handed."
With that he spoke to Hermes, his own dear son: "Hermes, since you are our messenger in everything else, go tell the nymph with the lovely braided hair my unerring decision:
the return of steadfast Odysseus — that he shall go home with no escort from gods or mortal men. Instead, on a raft lashed together with many timbers, suffering hardship all the way, he shall reach fertile Scheria on the twentieth day, the land of the Phaeacians, who are close kin to the gods. They will honor him from their hearts like a god and send him by ship to his own dear country, giving him bronze and gold and clothing in abundance — more than he would ever have carried off from Troy, even if he had come home safe with his fair share of the plunder.
For it is his fate to see his loved ones again and reach his high-roofed house and his own native land."
So he spoke, and the guide, the slayer of Argus, did not disobey. At once he bound beneath his feet the beautiful sandals, immortal, golden, that carry him over water and over the boundless earth alike, as fast as a gust of wind. He took up the wand with which he charms the eyes of men, closing them in sleep or waking whom he wishes; holding it in his hands, the mighty slayer of Argus flew off. He touched down at Pieria, then dropped from the upper air into the sea,
and skimmed the waves like a gull, the kind that hunts fish along the terrible folds of the barren sea and wets its thick wings in the brine — like that bird Hermes rode over the endless swells. But when at last he reached the island far away, he stepped from the violet sea onto dry land and went on until he came to the great cave where the nymph with the lovely braided hair made her home; he found her within. A great fire was blazing on the hearth, and the smell of split cedar and sweet-burning juniper drifted far across the island,
filling the air, while inside she sang in a beautiful voice as she moved back and forth at her loom, weaving with a golden shuttle. Around the cave a grove of trees grew thick and green — alder, poplar, and fragrant cypress — and long-winged birds nested there, owls and hawks and the sea's chattering crows, which spend their lives on the water. Trailing over the very mouth of the deep cave grew a vine heavy with clusters, ripe with grapes, and four springs flowed in a row, their water clear,
turned each in a different direction near one another. All around, soft meadows bloomed with violets and parsley, and a place like this would draw wonder even from an immortal passing by, and delight in his heart at the sight. There the guide, the slayer of Argus, stood and gazed his fill. And when he had taken in the whole scene in his mind, he went straight into the wide cave — and Calypso, the shining goddess, knew him the instant she saw him face to face, for gods are never strangers to one another, however far apart their homes may lie.
But he did not find great-hearted Odysseus inside; he was sitting on the shore, as always, weeping, wearing his heart out with tears and groans and grief, gazing out over the barren sea with tears streaming down. Calypso, the shining goddess, questioned Hermes, seating him on a bright polished chair: "Why have you come to me, Hermes of the golden wand — an honored and welcome guest, though you visit rarely? Tell me what is on your mind; my heart urges me to do it, if I can do it, and if it can be done at all."
The goddess spoke, and set a table before him laden with ambrosia, and mixed the ruddy nectar. So the guide, the slayer of Argus, ate and drank. And when he had finished his meal and satisfied his heart with food, he answered her at last: "You ask me, a god, why I have come, goddess to god — and I will tell you the truth plainly, since you ask. Zeus ordered me here — I came against my will, for who would willingly cross so vast a stretch of salt water,
unmeasured as it is? No city of mortals lies nearby, none who offer sacrifice to the gods and choice hundred-fold offerings. But there is simply no way for another god to slip past or defeat the purpose of Zeus who bears the aegis. He says a man is with you, the most unfortunate of all the men who fought nine years around Priam's city and in the tenth year sacked it and set out for home. But on the voyage back they wronged Athena,
and she raised against them a cruel wind and towering waves. There all his brave companions perished,
but the wind and the current carried him here. Zeus now orders you to send him off as quickly as possible, for it is not his fate to die far from his own people — no, it is still his destiny to see his loved ones again and reach his high-roofed house and his own native land."
So he spoke, and Calypso, the shining goddess, shuddered, and answered him with winged words: "You gods are cruel, jealous beyond all others — you resent it whenever a goddess sleeps openly with a man she has taken as her own dear husband.
So it was when rosy-fingered Dawn took Orion for her own — you gods who live at ease resented it then too, until chaste Artemis of the golden throne came to Ortygia and struck him down with her gentle arrows. So it was too when Demeter with the lovely braided hair, yielding to her own heart, lay in love with Iasion in a thrice-plowed field — Zeus learned of it before long and struck him down with a blazing thunderbolt. And now you resent me in the same way, gods, for keeping a mortal man beside me — a man I myself saved
when he was clinging alone to the keel of his ship, after Zeus split it apart with a blazing thunderbolt in the middle of the wine-dark sea. There all his brave companions perished, but the wind and the current carried him here. I loved him and cared for him, and I promised to make him immortal and ageless for all his days. But since there is no way for another god to slip past or defeat the purpose of Zeus who bears the aegis, let him go, if Zeus himself urges and commands it, out across the barren sea — but I will not be the one to send him.
I have no ships fitted with oars, no companions to send him over the sea's broad back. Still, I will gladly give him counsel and hold nothing back, so that he may reach his own land unharmed."
The guide, the slayer of Argus, answered her: "Then send him off in just that way, and beware the anger of Zeus, in case he grows angry with you later and turns harsh." With that the mighty slayer of Argus went on his way, and the lady nymph went to find great-hearted Odysseus, now that she had heard the message of Zeus.
She found him sitting on the shore; his eyes were never dry of tears, and the sweetness of his life was draining away as he grieved for his lost homecoming, since the nymph no longer pleased him. Still, night after night he slept with her, forced to it, in the hollow cave — unwilling beside a willing woman. But by day he sat on the rocks and along the shore, wearing his heart out with tears and groans and grief, gazing out over the barren sea with tears streaming down. The shining goddess came and stood close beside him and spoke: "Unhappy man, grieve here no longer, and do not let your life
waste away, for now I will gladly send you off. Come, cut long timbers with a bronze axe and build yourself a broad raft; fix a deck of planks high across it, so that it may carry you over the misty sea. I myself will put aboard bread and water and red wine, enough to keep hunger away, and I will give you clothing, and send a following wind behind you, so that you may reach your own native land unharmed — if the gods who hold the wide heavens are willing, for they are stronger than I am both in knowledge and in power to bring things to pass."
So she spoke, and long-suffering, godlike Odysseus shuddered, and answered her with winged words: "Goddess, this is something else you are planning, not my safe passage home, if you tell me to cross so vast a gulf of sea on a raft — a rough and dangerous crossing that not even swift, well-built ships cross easily, glad as they are of a favoring wind from Zeus. I will not set foot on a raft against your will, unless you consent, goddess, to swear a great oath that you are not plotting some new disaster against me."
So he spoke, and Calypso, the shining goddess, smiled,
and stroked him with her hand and spoke, calling him by name: "You are indeed a rogue, and no fool, to have thought up such a speech to say to me. Now let earth be my witness, and the wide heaven above, and the dripping water of the Styx — the greatest and most terrible oath there is among the blessed gods — that I am not plotting some new disaster against you. No, I will think and plan for you just as I would for myself, if I were in such great need. For my own mind is just,
and the heart in my breast is not made of iron — it knows pity."
So saying, the shining goddess led the way quickly, and he followed in the god's footsteps. They came to the hollow cave, god and man together, and Odysseus sat down on the chair from which Hermes had just risen, and the nymph set before him every kind of food to eat and drink, whatever mortal men live on, while she herself sat facing godlike Odysseus, and her serving-women set ambrosia and nectar before her. So the two of them reached out their hands to the good things laid ready before them.
When they had satisfied their hunger and thirst, Calypso, the shining goddess, spoke first among them: "Son of Laertes, sprung from Zeus, resourceful Odysseus — is it true, then, that you wish to leave at once for your own dear country and your home? Well then, farewell all the same. Yet if you knew in your heart how much suffering is fated for you to fill up before you reach your native land,
you would stay here with me and keep this house, and be immortal, no matter how much you long to see that wife of yours, whom you desire every single day.
I do not think I am inferior to her, in figure or in build, since it is not fitting for mortal women to rival goddesses in body and in beauty."
Resourceful Odysseus answered her: "Lady goddess, do not be angry with me over this. I know very well myself that wise Penelope falls far short of you to look at, in stature and in beauty — she is a mortal woman, while you are immortal and never grow old. Even so, I want and long, every single day,
to reach my home and see the day of my return. And if some god should wreck me again on the wine-dark sea, I will bear it, with the enduring heart in my chest — I have already suffered a great deal and worked hard through waves and war alike; let this be added to the rest."
So he spoke, and the sun set and the darkness came. They went into the recess of the hollow cave and took their pleasure in love, staying close beside one another. When early Dawn appeared with her rosy fingers, Odysseus put on a cloak and a tunic, and the nymph herself put on a long silvery robe,
delicate and graceful, and fastened a fine golden belt around her waist and set a veil over her head. Then she began to plan Odysseus's passage: she gave him a great axe, well fitted to his hands, of bronze, sharpened on both edges, with a beautiful handle of olive-wood set firmly in it, and then she gave him a smooth adze, and led the way to the far end of the island, where tall trees grew —
alder and poplar and fir reaching to the sky, long dead and thoroughly seasoned, which would float lightly for him.
When she had shown him where the tall trees grew, Calypso, the shining goddess, went back to her house, and he set about cutting timber, and the work went quickly. He felled twenty trees in all, trimmed them with the bronze axe, planed them skillfully, and trued them to the line. Meanwhile Calypso, the shining goddess, brought him augers, and he bored through the timbers and fitted them to one another, and hammered the raft together with pegs and joints.
As broad as a man skilled in shipbuilding lays out the hull of a wide cargo ship,
so broad did Odysseus make his raft. He set up the deck-planks, fitting them to close-set ribs, and finished the work off with long gunwales. He fashioned a mast with a yard fitted to it, and made a steering-oar besides, to guide the craft. He fenced it all around with willow branches woven close together as a barrier against the waves, and piled a good deal of brushwood over it as well. Meanwhile Calypso, the shining goddess, brought him cloth for sails, and he fashioned those skillfully too, and rigged braces and sheets and halyards all onto it.
and with levers he hauled it down at last into the bright sea. It was now the fourth day, and everything was finished; on the fifth Calypso sent him from the island, after bathing him and dressing him in sweet-smelling clothes. She put aboard for him a skin of dark wine, and another, a great one, of water, and provisions in a leather sack, and set out abundant meat to please his heart besides. And she sent a gentle, favoring wind behind him. Joyfully godlike Odysseus spread his sails to the breeze,
and sat steering skillfully with the rudder,
never letting sleep fall on his eyelids, watching the Pleiades and late-setting Bootes, and the Bear, which men also call the Wagon, which turns in place and keeps watch on Orion, and alone has no share in the baths of Ocean — for Calypso, the shining goddess, had told him to keep it on his left hand as he sailed the sea. Seventeen days he sailed on across the water, and on the eighteenth the shadowy mountains of the Phaeacians' land came into view,
appearing where it lay nearest to him, like a shield laid on the misty sea. Then the lord of earthquakes, on his way back from the Ethiopians, caught sight of him from far off, from the mountains of the Solymi, for he saw him as he sailed across the sea. His anger rose still higher in his heart, and shaking his head he spoke to his own great spirit: "So then! The gods must have changed their plans about Odysseus while I was away among the Ethiopians —
and now he is close to the land of the Phaeacians, where it is fated that he escape the great trial of misery that has held him. But I mean to give him his fill of trouble yet."
So saying, he gathered the clouds and stirred up the sea, gripping his trident in both hands; he roused every kind of storm-wind and wrapped land and sea alike in cloud, and night rushed down from the sky. East wind and South wind clashed together, and the ill-blowing West wind, and the North wind, born of clear air, rolling up a great wave. Then Odysseus's knees gave way, and his heart failed him, and groaning he spoke to his own great spirit: "Miserable man that I am — what will become of me now?
I am afraid the goddess spoke the whole truth after all,
the goddess had once told me, before I reached my own country, that I would fill up my measure of pain upon the sea — and now every word of it is coming true. Look how Zeus wraps the wide sky in cloud alone, how he has churned the sea, how the gales of every wind bear down on me. Now sheer destruction is certain. Three times blessed, four times blessed, those Greeks who died long ago on the plain of Troy, doing a favor for the sons of Atreus. I wish I had died too, met my fate on that day when the Trojans hurled their bronze-tipped spears at me over the dead body of Achilles.
Then I would have had my burial rites, and the Greeks would have carried my fame home. But now it seems I am fated to be caught by a miserable death.
Even as he said this a great wave, rearing terribly, came down and struck him from above and sent the raft spinning. He himself was flung far from it, the steering oar torn from his hands; a fierce blast of mingled winds swooped down and snapped the mast in half, and sail and yard fell far off into the sea. For a long time the sea held him under, and he could not fight his way up quickly through the pull of that great wave, weighed down as he was by the clothes divine Calypso had given him. At last he came up, and spat the bitter brine from his mouth; it streamed heavily from his head. Yet even in his exhaustion he did not forget the raft, but struggled through the waves, caught hold of it again, and settled himself in its middle, escaping the final stroke of death. The great wave carried it this way and that along the current. Just as the north wind in autumn sweeps thistledown across a field, and the tufts cling close together, so the winds drove the raft back and forth across the open sea — now the south wind would toss it to the north to carry, now the east wind would yield it to the west to chase along.
Cadmus's daughter saw him then, Ino of the lovely ankles, called Leucothea — once a mortal woman with a human voice, but now, in the depths of the sea, she has her due share of honor among the gods. She pitied Odysseus, drifting and suffering there, and rising from the water like a diving bird she perched on the crowded timbers of the raft and spoke to him.
"Poor man, why has Poseidon, the earth-shaker, taken such a violent hatred to you, that he sows so much trouble in your path? Yet for all his fury he will not destroy you. Do just as I say — you don't strike me as a fool. Strip off these clothes, leave the raft to drift wherever the winds take it, and swim with your own two hands toward the land of the Phaeacians, where it is fated that you find safety. Here, take this veil and wind it beneath your chest — it is immortal; with it you need not fear suffering or death. But once your hands take hold of the mainland, untie it again and throw it back into the wine-dark sea, far from the shore, and turn yourself away as you do."
With these words the goddess gave him the veil, then sank back down into the heaving sea, like a diving bird, and the dark water closed over her. Long-suffering, godlike Odysseus was left turning it over in his mind, and troubled, he said to his own proud heart: "No — I fear some god is weaving another trap for me now, urging me to abandon the raft. No, I won't obey yet, not while the land that she said held my escape is still so far from my eyes. I'll do this instead — it seems the wisest course. As long as the timbers hold together at their joints, I'll stay right here and endure whatever suffering comes; but once the wave has broken the raft apart, then I'll swim, since there is nothing better I can plan."
While he weighed this in his heart and mind, Poseidon the earth-shaker raised up a great wave against him, terrible and crushing, arched high, and drove it down on him. As a gale-driven wind scatters a heap of dry chaff, flinging it every which way, so the wind scattered the long timbers of the raft. Odysseus mounted one beam and rode it like a horse, stripped off the clothes Calypso had given him, quickly tied Ino's veil beneath his chest, and threw himself face-down into the sea, arms spread, eager to swim. The lord who shakes the earth watched him, and tossing his head he said to his own heart: "Now drift over the sea like this, suffering all this misery, until you fall in with people cherished by Zeus. Even so, I doubt you'll find your troubles too light." With that he lashed his fine-maned horses and came to Aegae, where his glorious palace stands.
But Athena, daughter of Zeus, had her own plan. She bound up the paths of the other winds and ordered them all to stop and lie down to rest, but stirred a brisk north wind and broke the waves ahead of him, so that Odysseus, sprung from Zeus, might reach the oar-loving Phaeacians and escape death and the spirits of doom. For two nights and two days he was tossed on the heavy swell, and again and again his heart foresaw destruction. But when the third day came, brought on by the fair-haired dawn, the wind died down, and a windless calm settled over the water; and rising on a great swell, looking sharply ahead, he caught sight of land close by.
As welcome as life itself seems to children when their father, wasting away, long pinned down by a cruel illness sent by some hostile spirit, is finally, gladly, released by the gods from his suffering — so welcome did the land and the woods now appear to Odysseus, and he swam on, straining to set his feet on solid ground. But when he had come as close as a shout could carry, he heard the boom of surf against the reefs — for the great sea roared terribly against the dry land, breaking there, and everything was wrapped in the spray of the sea; there were no harbors to hold ships, no shelters, only jutting headlands, reefs, and cliffs. Then his knees gave way and his heart failed him, and troubled, he said to his own proud heart:
"No — Zeus has let me see land I never hoped for, and I have cut my way across this stretch of open water, but nowhere does a way out of the gray sea show itself. Outside lie sharp rocks, and around them the surf roars and thunders, and the cliff rises sheer, and the water is deep close in, so there is no way I can plant both feet and escape this danger — if I try to climb out, a great wave may seize me and dash me against the hard rock, and my effort will be wasted. But if I swim on further along the shore, hoping to find some slanting beach or harbor of the sea, I'm afraid a gale may snatch me up again and carry me, groaning heavily, back out over the fish-filled sea — or some monster may be sent against me by a great god, one of the many that glorious Amphitrite breeds. I know how much the famous earth-shaker hates me."
While he turned this over in mind and heart, a great wave carried him toward the rugged shore. There his skin would have been torn away and his bones crushed, had not the goddess gray-eyed Athena put a thought in his mind: rushing forward he grabbed the rock with both hands and clung to it, groaning, until the great wave rolled past. So he escaped that one, but the backwash struck him again as it rushed out, and flung him far out to sea. As when an octopus is dragged from its den, and the pebbles cling thick to its suckers, so the skin was stripped from his strong hands against the rocks, and the great wave closed over him. There wretched Odysseus would have perished, beyond what fate allowed, had not gray-eyed Athena given him presence of mind. Coming up out of the wave that broke on the shore, he swam along outside the breakers, keeping his eyes on the land, hoping to find some slanting beach or harbor of the sea.
At last, swimming, he came to the mouth of a fair-flowing river, and here the place seemed best to him — smooth of rocks, and sheltered from the wind. He recognized the current flowing out and prayed in his heart: "Hear me, lord, whoever you are — I come to you much prayed-for, fleeing the sea and Poseidon's anger. Even the deathless gods honor a man who comes as a wanderer, as I now come to your stream and your knees after much hardship. Have pity, lord — I claim to be your suppliant."
So he spoke, and at once the god stopped his own current, held back the waves, made the water calm before him, and brought him safely into the mouth of the river. His knees buckled, his strong arms gave way, for the sea had beaten down his heart; his whole body was swollen, and seawater gushed in streams from his mouth and nostrils. Breathless and speechless he lay there, barely able to move, seized by terrible exhaustion. But when he caught his breath and his spirit gathered back into him, he untied the goddess's veil from his body and let it go into the river as it flowed to the sea; the great current carried it back downstream, and Ino caught it quickly in her own hands. Then Odysseus turned away from the river, sank down among the reeds, and kissed the grain-giving earth. Troubled, he said to his own proud heart:
"What is happening to me? What will become of me now? If I keep watch here by the river through this miserable night, I'm afraid the bitter frost and the heavy dew together will finish off my worn-out, gasping spirit — the breeze that blows off a river toward dawn is cold. But if I climb the slope into the shadowy woods and lie down to sleep among the thick bushes, even if the cold and my exhaustion let me go and sweet sleep comes over me, I'm afraid I'll become prey and plunder for wild beasts."
As he considered it, this course seemed better to him: he made his way toward the woods, which he found close to the water, in a clearing, and came upon two bushes growing from the same root, one of wild olive, the other of cultivated olive. Through them no wet-blowing wind could force its way, nor could the bright sun ever strike them with its rays, nor could rain pass all the way through, so thickly did they grow intertwined, each branch into the next; and under them Odysseus crept. At once he heaped together a wide bed with his own hands, for there was a huge drift of fallen leaves, enough to shelter two or three men in a winter storm, however harsh. Seeing it, long-suffering, godlike Odysseus was glad, and lay down in the middle of it and heaped the fallen leaves over himself. As a man buries a glowing log in black ashes at the edge of a field, where he has no neighbors, saving the seed of fire so he need not kindle it from some other source, so Odysseus buried himself in the leaves. And Athena poured sleep down over his eyes, to free him as quickly as possible from his wearying toil, closing his eyelids all around.