I am the son of Laertes’ (Lay-ur-teez), Odysseus.

                                                         Men hold me

formidable for guile in peace and war: 

this fame has gone abroad to the sky’s rim.

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My home is on the peaked sea-mark of Ithaka

under Mount Neion’s wind-blown robe of leaves,

in sight of other islands—Doulíkhion,

Samê, wooded Zakynthos—Ithaka

being most lofty in that coastal sea,

and northwest, while the rest lie east and south.

A rocky isle, but good for a boy’s training;

I shall not see on earth a place more dear,

though I have been detained long by Calypso, 

loveliest among goddesses, who held me

in her smooth caves, to be her heart’s delight,

as Circle (Sir-say) of Aiaia (Aye-ah-yah)  the enchantress,

desired me, and detained me in her hall.

But in my heart I never gave consent.

Where shall a man find sweetness to surpass

his own home and his parents? In far lands

he shall not, though he find a house of gold.

What of my sailing, then, from Troy?

                                         What of those years

of rough adventure, weathered under Zeus? 

The wind that carried west from Ilium (Troy)

brought me to Ismara (Iss-mar-ah), on the far shore,

a strongpoint on the coast of the Cicones (Sih-Koh-neez).

I stormed that place and killed the men who fought.

Plunder we took, and we enslaved the women,

to make division, equal shares to all—

but on the spot I told them: ‘Back, and quickly!

Out to sea again!’ My men were mutinous,

fools, on stores of wine. Sheep after sheep

they butchered by the surf, and shambling cattle,

feasting,—while fugitives went inland, running

to call to arms the main force of Cicones.

This was an army, trained to fight on horseback

or, where the ground required, on foot. They came

with dawn over that terrain like the leaves

and blades of spring. So doom appeared to us,

dark word of Zeus for us, our evil days.

My men stood up and made a fight of it—

backed on the ships, with lances kept in play,

from bright morning through the blaze of noon  

holding our beach, although so far outnumbered;

but when the sun passed toward unyoking time,

then the Acheans (Greeks), one by one, gave way.

Six benches were left empty in every ship

that evening when we pulled away from death.

And this new grief we bore with us to sea:

our precious lives we had, but not our friends.

No ship made sail next day until some shipmate

had raised a cry, three times, for each poor ghost

unfleshed by the Cicones on that field.