Book V

1And Dawn rose from her bed beside lordly Tithonus¹

to carry light to the immortals and to mortals;

and the gods were sitting down in council, among them

Zeus who thunders on high, whose power is greatest.

5And Athena was telling over the many cares of Odysseus,

remembering: it galled her that he was still in the nymph's house:

"Father Zeus, and you other blessed gods who are forever:

let no sceptered king ever again be willingly²

kind and gentle, or know the right way in his heart;

10let him rather be harsh always, and act outrage —

since no one remembers godlike Odysseus

among the people he ruled, and he was gentle as a father.

No — he lies on an island suffering strong pains

in the halls of the nymph Calypso, who holds him there

15by force; and he cannot come to his own fatherland,

for he has no ships at hand, no oars, no companions

to carry him over the broad back of the sea.

And now, besides, men are bent on killing his beloved son

on his way home: he went for news of his father

20to holy Pylos and to shining Lacedaemon."

Then Zeus who gathers the clouds answered her:

"My child, what a word has slipped the fence of your teeth!

Was it not you who framed this plan yourself —³

that Odysseus should come home and take vengeance on those men?

25As for Telemachus: guide him with your skill — you have the power —

so that he reaches his own fatherland untouched,

and the suitors come back in their ship with nothing done."

He spoke, and turned to Hermes, his dear son:

"Hermes — you are our messenger in all things else:

30tell the nymph of the lovely braids our fixed decree:

the homecoming of enduring-hearted Odysseus — that he shall return

with no escort of gods and none of mortal men:

on a raft bound plank to plank, and suffering pains,

on the twentieth day he shall reach rich-soiled Scheria,⁴

35the land of the Phaeacians, who are born close kin to the gods.

They will honor him with all their hearts, like a god,

and send him in a ship to his own dear fatherland,

giving him bronze and gold and clothing in plenty,

more than Odysseus would ever have carried out of Troy

40had he come home untouched with his fair share of the spoils.

For so it is his portion: to see his own people and come

to his high-roofed house and his own fatherland."

So he spoke, and the guide, the slayer of Argus, did not disobey.

At once he bound beneath his feet the beautiful sandals,

45ambrosial, golden, that carry him over the water

and over the boundless earth with the breath of the wind;

and he took up the rod with which he charms men's eyes⁵

to sleep, whose eyes he wills, and wakes others from their slumber.

With this in his hands the strong slayer of Argus flew.

50He stepped down on Pieria, then dropped from the high air to the sea

and skimmed along the waves like a shearwater,⁶

the bird that down the terrible troughs of the barren sea

hunts fish, and wets its beating wings in the brine:

like that bird Hermes rode the crowding waves.

55But when he reached the island, far away,

he stepped from the violet sea onto dry land

and went on till he came to the great cave where the nymph

of the lovely braids was living; he found her within.

A great fire was burning on the hearth, and the smell⁷

60of split cedar and citron-wood burning carried far,

all over the island. Inside, she was singing in a beautiful voice,

moving to and fro at the loom, weaving with a golden shuttle.

And around the cave a wood grew tall and flourishing:

alder and black poplar and sweet-smelling cypress,

65where long-winged birds made their roosts,

little owls and hawks and long-tongued crows

of the sea, whose business is the waters.

And there, trained over the hollow of the cave, spread

a garden vine in its prime, heavy with clusters;

70and four springs in a row ran with bright water,

close by one another, turned each its own way;

and around them soft meadows of violet and wild celery

were blooming. There even a deathless one, arriving,

would gaze in wonder at the sight and be gladdened at heart.

75There the guide, the slayer of Argus, stood gazing.

And when his heart had wondered at it all,

he went straight into the wide cave. Nor did Calypso,

shining among goddesses, fail to know him face to face:

for the deathless gods are not unknown to one another,⁸

80not even one whose dwelling lies far off.

But great-hearted Odysseus he did not find within:

he sat weeping on the shore, where he always sat,⁹

shredding his heart with tears and groans and pains,

and over the barren sea he would gaze, letting the tears run.

85And Calypso, shining among goddesses, questioned Hermes,

seating him on a chair all bright and gleaming:

"Why have you come to me, Hermes of the golden rod,

honored guest and dear? You have not been used to come before.

Say what is in your mind: my heart bids me do it

90if I can do it — if it is a thing that can be done.

But follow me in first, and let me set out guest-fare."

So speaking the goddess drew up a table for him,

heaping it with ambrosia, and mixed the red nectar;

and the guide, the slayer of Argus, drank and ate.

95And when he had supped, and steadied his heart with food,

then he spoke out in answer to her question:

"You ask me why I come — goddess to god; and I will tell you

the whole of it truly, since you bid me.

Zeus ordered me here. I did not want to come:

100who would choose to cross so vast a stretch of salt water,

past speaking? And no city of mortals near, to offer

the gods their victims and their choice hecatombs.

But there is no way for another god to slip past¹⁰

or thwart the mind of Zeus who bears the aegis.

105He says there is a man with you — the most miserable of all

the men who fought nine years around the city of Priam

and in the tenth year sacked it, and turned for home.

But on the way home they sinned against Athena,

and she roused an evil wind against them, and long seas.

110There all the rest of his brave companions perished,

but wind and wave carried him here.

That man Zeus bids you send on his way — and quickly:

it is not his portion to die here, far from his own people;

it is still his portion to see his own people and come

115to his high-roofed house and his own fatherland."

So he spoke; and Calypso, shining among goddesses, shivered,

and lifting her voice she spoke winged words to him:

"You are merciless, you gods — jealous beyond all beings —¹¹

who begrudge goddesses their sleeping with men

120openly, if one takes a man as her own dear husband.

So when Dawn of the rose-red fingers took Orion,

you gods who live at ease begrudged it to her,

until in Ortygia chaste Artemis of the golden throne

came at him with her gentle arrows and killed him.

125So when Demeter of the lovely braids gave way to her heart

and lay with Iasion in love in the bed

of a thrice-plowed fallow field — Zeus was not long¹²

in hearing, and he killed him with a hurl of the white lightning.

And so now me, you gods: you begrudge me a mortal man beside me.

130I saved him — riding astride his keel, alone,

after Zeus with a hurl of the white lightning had shattered

his fast ship apart in the middle of the wine-dark sea.

There all the rest of his brave companions perished,

but wind and wave carried him here.

135And I loved him, and I fed him, and I promised

to make him deathless and unaging all his days.¹³

But since there is no way for another god to slip past

or thwart the mind of Zeus who bears the aegis —

let him go, if that one urges it and commands,

140out over the barren sea. Only I will not convey him:

I have no ships at hand, no oars, no companions

to carry him over the broad back of the sea.

But with a willing heart I will counsel him, and hide nothing,

so that he may reach his own fatherland untouched."

145Then the guide, the slayer of Argus, answered her:

"Send him so, then — and beware the wrath of Zeus:

let him not turn against you afterward and bear hard on you."

So speaking, the strong slayer of Argus went away.

And the queenly nymph went to great-hearted Odysseus,

150now that she had heard the message of Zeus.

She found him sitting on the shore. His eyes were never

dry of tears; his sweet life was draining away

in mourning for his homecoming — the nymph no longer pleased him.

True, at night he would sleep beside her — he had to —¹⁴

155in the hollow caves, unwilling man by willing goddess;

but all his days he sat out on the rocks and the beaches,

shredding his heart with tears and groans and pains,

and over the barren sea he would gaze, letting the tears run.

Standing near him, she spoke, shining among goddesses:

160"Luckless man, do not sit grieving here any longer; do not let¹⁵

your life waste away. I am ready now — wholly — to send you off.

Come: cut long timbers, and join with bronze

a wide raft; and fix an upper half-deck to it,

raised high, to carry you over the misted sea.

165And I will put in bread and water and red wine

to your heart's content, to keep hunger from you,

and I will clothe you, and send a fair wind behind you,

so that you may reach your own fatherland untouched —

if the gods are willing, who hold wide heaven,

170who are stronger than I to purpose and accomplish."

So she spoke; and much-enduring noble Odysseus shuddered,¹⁶

and lifting his voice he spoke winged words to her:

"Something else you are plotting here, goddess — not my sending —

you who bid me cross the great gulf of the sea on a raft,

175that terror, that misery: not even the trim fast-running

ships cross it, for all their joy in the wind of Zeus.

I will not set foot on any raft against your will —

not unless you bring yourself, goddess, to swear me the great oath

that you are not planning some new evil against me."

180So he spoke; and Calypso, shining among goddesses, smiled,

and stroked him with her hand, and spoke a word, and named him:

"You are a rogue indeed — no lightweight in cunning —

to have thought of a speech like that to say to me.

Now let Earth be witness, and the wide Heaven above,¹⁷

185and the down-dripping water of Styx — the greatest oath

and the most terrible the blessed gods can swear —

that I am not planning some new evil against you.

No: I am thinking and advising exactly what I would

devise for my own self, if such need came on me.

190My mind is honest through and through, and the heart

in my breast is not made of iron. It knows pity."

So speaking she led the way, shining among goddesses,

swiftly, and he followed in the footsteps of the god.

They came to the hollow cave, the goddess and the man,¹⁸

195and he sat down there on the chair from which Hermes

had risen, and the nymph set out all manner of food beside him,

to eat and drink, such things as mortal men eat;

and she took her seat facing godlike Odysseus,

and slave-women set ambrosia and nectar beside her.

200And their hands went out to the good things spread before them.

But when they had had their joy of food and drink,

Calypso began, shining among goddesses:

"Zeus-born son of Laertes, Odysseus of the many devices —¹⁹

so you would go home now, home to your own dear country,

205at once, this moment? Go, then — and joy go with you even so.

But if you knew in your heart how full your measure

of sorrow is before you reach your own country,

you would stay here with me and keep this house,

and be deathless — for all your longing to see

210that wife of yours, whom you ache for all your days.

And yet I dare say I am not beneath her —

not in form, not in stature: it is in no way seemly

for mortal women to vie with immortals in body and looks."

Then Odysseus of the many designs answered her:

215"Goddess and queen, do not be angry with me for this. I know it all²⁰

myself, well enough: watchful-minded Penelope

is less than you — slighter to look at, smaller —

for she is mortal, and you are deathless and unaging.

But even so I wish — and all my days I long —

220to go home, and to look upon my day of homecoming.

And if some god wrecks me again on the wine-dark sea,

I will endure it, with a heart schooled in enduring sorrows.

Much have I suffered already, much have I labored

through waves and war. Let this be added to the rest."

225So he spoke; and the sun went down, and the dusk came on;

and the two of them went into the inner hollow of the cave

and took their joy of love, and stayed side by side.²¹

When Dawn appeared, the early-born, with fingers of rose,

straightway Odysseus put on a cloak and tunic,

230and she, the nymph, put on a great silver-shining mantle,

fine-woven and graceful, and cast about her waist a belt,

beautiful, golden, and set a veil on her head above.

Then she turned her mind to the sending of great-hearted Odysseus.

She gave him a great axe, fitted to his palms,²²

235of bronze, sharpened on both edges, and set in it

a beautiful handle of olive-wood, made firm and fast;

then she gave him a polished adze, and led the way

to the island's farthest edge, where the tall trees grew:

alder and black poplar, and fir that reached the sky,

240long dry, dead-seasoned, that would ride for him lightly.

And when she had shown him where the tall trees grew,

Calypso went back to her house, shining among goddesses,

and he set to cutting timbers, and the work went quickly under him.

Twenty trees in all he felled, and trimmed them with the bronze,

245and dressed them smooth with skill, and trued them to the line.

Meanwhile Calypso, shining among goddesses, brought augers,

and he bored through every piece and fitted each to each,

and drove her together with pegs and joinery.

As wide as a man lays out the round of the hull of a broad

250cargo ship — a man who knows his craft —

so wide Odysseus built his raft.

He set up half-decks, fitting them to close-set ribs,

and finished with long gunwale planks.

He made a mast in her, and a yard fitted to it,

255and he made besides a steering-oar to hold her straight,

and fenced her round from stem to stern with plaited willow

to break the wave, and heaped down brush for ballast.

Meanwhile Calypso, shining among goddesses, brought cloth

to make a sail; and he made that too, with craft,

260and lashed into her the braces, the halyards, and the sheets.

Then on rollers he hauled her down to the bright salt water.

It was the fourth day, and all his work was done;²³

and on the fifth shining Calypso sent him from the island,

having bathed him and dressed him in fragrant clothes.

265And the goddess put a skin of dark wine aboard,

one skin, and another, a great one, of water, and provisions

in a sack, and set in plenty of comforting meats;

and she sent up a fair wind for him, harmless and warm.

Rejoicing in the wind, noble Odysseus spread his sail,

270and with the steering-oar he steered her, craftsmanlike,

sitting there; and sleep never fell on his eyelids

as he watched the Pleiades, and Boötes that sets late,²⁴

and the Bear, that men also call by the name of the Wagon,

who turns in her place and keeps her watch on Orion,

275and alone has no share in the baths of Ocean:

for Calypso, shining among goddesses, had told him

to keep her on his left hand as he crossed the sea.

Seventeen days he sailed on, crossing the water,

and on the eighteenth appeared the shadowy mountains

280of the Phaeacians' land, where it lay nearest him:

it looked like a shield laid on the misted sea.²⁵

But the strong earth-shaker, coming back from the Ethiopians,²⁶

saw him far off, from the mountains of the Solymi: he showed

to his eye, sailing the sea. And the god's heart grew the angrier,

285and shaking his head he spoke to his own heart:

"Damnation! So the gods have changed their counsels

about Odysseus while I was among the Ethiopians —

and here he is, close to the Phaeacians' land, where it is his portion

to slip the great noose of misery that has come upon him.

290But I say I will yet drive him deep enough in trouble."

So speaking he herded the clouds together, and stirred up the sea,

the trident in his hands; and he roused all the squalls

of every wind there is, and covered land and sea alike

with cloud; and night rose up out of heaven.

295East Wind and South fell on him together, and the hard-blowing West,²⁷

and the North Wind born of the clear sky, rolling a great wave.

And then Odysseus' knees went loose, and his heart;

and deeply stirred he spoke to his own great heart:²⁸

"Ah, wretch that I am — what happens to me at the last?

300I fear the goddess spoke it all unerringly,

who said that on the sea, before I reached my own country,

I would fill my measure of pains. Now it is all coming to pass:

look how Zeus crowns the wide heaven with cloud on cloud,

and has stirred up the sea, and the squalls of every wind

305there is come driving. Now my sheer destruction is certain.

Three times blessed the Danaans, and four times, who died²⁹

in those years in wide Troy, doing the Atreidae's pleasure!

Would that I too had died so, met my doom,

on the day the Trojans in their hundreds hurled

310their bronze-tipped spears at me over the dead son of Peleus.

Then I would have had my death-rites, and the Achaeans carried my fame;

now it is my lot to be taken in a miserable death."

As he said it, a great wave drove down on him from above,

rushing terribly, and spun the raft around.

315Far from the raft he fell, and the steering-oar

flew from his hands; the mast snapped in the middle

under the terrible squall of winds meeting from all quarters,

and sail and yard fell far off in the sea.

And the wave held him under a long time: he could not

320rise quickly from beneath the great sea's downrush,

for the clothes weighed on him that shining Calypso gave.³⁰

At long last he came up, spitting from his mouth the bitter

brine that ran streaming in torrents down his head.

Yet even so, ground down as he was, he did not forget his raft:

325he lunged after her through the waves and caught hold,

and sat down in the middle of her, dodging the end that is death,

while the great wave carried her with the current, here and there.

As when the North Wind of autumn carries thistledown³¹

across the plain, and the tufts cling close to one another,

330so the winds carried her over the open water, here and there:

now the South Wind would toss her to the North to carry,

now again the East would yield her to the West to chase.

But the daughter of Cadmus saw him — Ino of the beautiful ankles,³²

the White Goddess, who once was mortal, with a mortal voice,

335and now in the salt depths has her share of honor from the gods.

She pitied Odysseus, driven wandering, worn with pains,

and in the likeness of a shearwater she rose on the wing from the water,

and perched on the close-bound raft, and said:

"Luckless man, why is Poseidon the earth-shaker

340so terribly at odds with you, that he plants all these evils for you?

Yet he shall not destroy you, for all his fury.

Only do exactly this — you do not seem to me short of sense.

Strip off these clothes, and leave the raft for the winds

to carry; strike out swimming with your hands for a homecoming

345on the Phaeacians' land, where it is your portion to escape.

Here — spread this veil under your chest.³³

It is immortal: no fear then of suffering or death.

But the moment your hands take hold of dry land,

untie it again and throw it into the wine-dark sea,

350far out from land, and turn your own face away."

So speaking the goddess gave him the veil,

and she herself sank back into the surging sea

in the likeness of a shearwater, and the black wave closed over her.

But much-enduring noble Odysseus pondered,

355and deeply stirred he spoke to his own great heart:

"Ah me — let this not be some new snare of the immortals³⁴

woven against me, when she bids me abandon my raft.

No: I will not obey her yet. Far off with my own eyes

I saw the land where she said my refuge is.

360I will do this instead — it seems to me the best:

as long as the timbers hold in their fastenings,

so long I stay aboard and endure my sufferings where I am;

but the moment the wave shakes the raft to pieces,

I swim. There is no better plan to see."

365While he was turning this over in his mind and in his heart,

Poseidon the earth-shaker heaved up a great wave,

terrible and grim, arching over him, and drove it down.

And as a violent wind tosses a heap of dry chaff

and scatters the wisps this way and that way,

370so it scattered the raft's long timbers. But Odysseus

got astride one beam, like a man riding a racehorse,³⁵

and stripped off the clothes that shining Calypso gave,

and spread the veil at once beneath his chest,

and plunged headfirst in the sea, arms spread wide,

375hungry to swim. And the strong earth-shaker saw him,

and shaking his head he spoke to his own heart:

"So — now suffer your many evils and drift the sea,

until you come among a people nurtured of Zeus.

But even so I do not think you will make light of your trouble."

380So speaking he lashed his horses of the beautiful manes

and came to Aegae, where his famous house is.

But Athena, daughter of Zeus, thought of other things.

She bound up the courses of all the other winds

and commanded every one to rest and fall asleep,

385and roused the quick North Wind, and broke the waves before him,

so that Zeus-born Odysseus might come among the oar-loving

Phaeacians, having slipped past death and the dooms.

Two nights then and two days on the close-packed swell

he drifted, and many times his heart looked destruction in the face.

390But when Dawn of the lovely braids brought the third day round,

then at last the wind fell, and a windless calm

came on; and he saw the land close by,

casting a sharp glance forward, lifted on a great wave.

As when a father's life shows dear and welcome to his children —³⁶

395a father who lies in sickness suffering strong pains,

long wasting away, some hateful power upon him,

and then, dear and welcome, the gods set him free of his evil —

so welcome to Odysseus showed the land and the trees,

and he swam hard, straining to set foot on solid earth.

400But when he was as far offshore as a man's shout carries,³⁷

he heard the boom of sea against the rock-teeth:

the great swell thundered on the dry land's edge,

belching terribly, and everything was shrouded in salt spray.

For there were no harbors there to hold ships, no roadsteads —

405only jutting headlands, rock-teeth, and cliff-faces.

And then Odysseus' knees went loose, and his heart,

and deeply stirred he spoke to his own great heart:

"Ah me — now that Zeus has given me sight of land

unhoped for, and I have won across this gulf at last,

410no way out of the gray salt water shows anywhere:

sharp crags offshore, and all around them the wave

roaring and churning, and the rock running up sheer,

and the sea deep close in — nowhere to stand

on both my feet and escape the evil.

415If I try to climb out, the great wave may snatch me

and hurl me on the standing stone, and my try go for nothing.

But if I swim along still farther, hoping to find

shelving beaches somewhere, and harbors of the sea,

I fear the storm-squall snatches me up again

420and carries me, groaning heavily, over the fish-filled sea —

or some power looses a monster on me out of the brine,³⁸

one of the swarm that famous Amphitrite pastures:

for I know how the famous shaker of earth is at odds with me."

While he was turning this over in his mind and in his heart,

425a great wave carried him onto the jagged shore.

There his skin would have been stripped, his bones smashed in,

had not the goddess, gray-eyed Athena, put a thought in him:

lunging in, he seized the rock with both hands

and clung there groaning while the great wave went past.

430That one he escaped so; but its backwash leapt on him again

and struck him and threw him far out to sea.

As when an octopus is dragged out of its den³⁹

and thick pebbles cling in the cups of its arms,

so from his bold hands the skin was stripped away

435against the rocks; and the great wave closed over him.

There, before his time, wretched Odysseus would have perished,

had not gray-eyed Athena given him clear sense.

Coming up out of the surf where it belches at the land,

he swam along outside it, looking to the shore in hope of finding

440shelving beaches somewhere, and harbors of the sea.

But when, swimming, he came to the mouth of a fair-flowing river,

there at last the ground seemed best to him,

clear of stones, and there was shelter from the wind.

He felt the current flowing and prayed in his heart:

445"Hear me, lord, whoever you are. I come to you — the much-prayed-to —⁴⁰

a fugitive out of the sea, from the threats of Poseidon.

Even to the deathless gods that man is sacred

who comes as a wanderer, as I come now

to your stream and to your knees, after much labor.

450Pity me, lord: I declare myself your suppliant."

So he spoke; and at once the god stayed his current, held back the wave,

and made the water calm before him, and brought him safe

into the river's mouth. And he bent both knees

and let his strong hands fall: the sea had crushed the heart in him.

455All his flesh was swollen, and the sea oozed in streams

up through his mouth and nostrils. Breathless and speechless

he lay, barely alive, and a terrible weariness came over him.

But when he got his breath again, and the spirit gathered in his chest,

then he unbound the goddess's veil from his body

460and let it go into the river running seaward,

and the great wave carried it back down the current, and quickly Ino

took it in her own dear hands. And he turned from the river,

sank down in the reeds, and kissed the grain-giving earth;⁴¹

and deeply stirred he spoke to his own great heart:

465"Ah me, what now? What happens to me at the last?

If I keep watch through the anxious night here by the river,

the two together — the evil frost and the soaking dew —

may finish me: weak as I am, my spirit gasping;

and toward dawn a cold breeze blows off a river.

470But if I climb the slope to the shadowy wood

and fall asleep in the thick brush — supposing cold

and weariness release me, and sweet sleep comes —

I fear I become spoil and carrion for wild beasts."

Yet as he weighed it, this seemed the better way:

475he went up toward the wood, and found it near the water

on a rise in the open. He crept in under a double thicket

grown from a single stock — one wild olive, one the planted tree.⁴²

Through these no strength of wet-blowing winds could pierce,

nor could the shining sun strike through with its rays,

480nor rain soak through them, so close they grew,

laced into one another. Under these Odysseus

crept, and heaped himself at once a wide bed

with his own hands: for there was a drift of fallen leaves there, deep,

enough to shelter two men or three

485in the winter season, however hard it blew.

Seeing it, much-enduring noble Odysseus rejoiced,

and he lay down in the middle and poured the fallen leaves over him.

As when a man buries a burning log in a black ash-heap⁴³

at the far edge of the fields — a man with no neighbors near —

490saving the seed of fire, so as not to seek a light elsewhere,

so Odysseus buried himself in the leaves. And Athena

poured sleep upon his eyes, to free him soonest

from his toil-worn weariness, when she had folded his dear eyelids shut.