​

I mustered all the crew and said:

​

‘Old shipmates,

our stores are in the ship’s hold, food and drink;

the cattle here are not for our provision,

or we pay dearly for it.

 

Fierce the god is

who cherishes these heifers and these sheep:  

Helios; and no man avoids his eye.’

 

To this my fighters nodded. Yes. But now

we had a month of onshore gales, blowing

day in, day out—south winds, or south by east.

As long as bread and good red wine remained

to keep the men up, and appease their craving,

they would not touch the cattle. But in the end,

when all the barley in the ship was gone,

hunger drove them to scour the wild shore

with angling hooks, for fishes and sea fowl,  

whatever fell into their hands; and lean days

wore their bellies thin.

​

The storms continued.

So one day I withdrew to the interior

to pray the gods in solitude, for hope

that one might show me some way of salvation.

Slipping away, I struck across the island

to a sheltered spot, out of the driving gale.

I washed my hands there, and made supplication

to the gods who own Olympus, all the gods—

but they, for answer, only closed my eyes  

under slow drops of sleep.

 

​

 

Now on the shore Eurylokhos

made his insidious plea:

‘Comrades,’ he said,

‘You’ve gone through everything; listen to what I say.

All deaths are hateful to us, mortal wretches,

but famine is the most pitiful, the worst

end that a man can come to.'

​

Thus Eurylokhos; and they murmured ‘Aye!’

trooping away at once to round up [cattle].

Now, that day tranquil cattle with broad brows  

were grazing near, and soon the men drew up

around their chosen beasts in ceremony.

They plucked the leaves that shone on a tall oak—

having no barley meal—to strew the victims,

performed the prayers and ritual, knifed the kine

and flayed each carcass, cutting thighbones free

to wrap in double folds of fat. These offerings,

with strips of meat, were laid upon the fire.

Then, as they had no wine, they made libation

with clear spring water, broiling the entrails first;  

and when the bones were burnt and tripes shared,

they spitted the carved meat.

​

Just then my slumber

left me in a rush, my eyes opened,

and I went down the seaward path. No sooner

had I caught sight of our black hull, than savory

odors of burnt fat eddied around me;

grief took hold of me, and I cried aloud:

‘O Father Zeus and gods in bliss forever,

you made me sleep away this day of mischief!

O cruel drowsing, in the evil hour!  

Here they sat, and a great work they contrived.’

​

​

​

​

And the Lord Helios

burst into angry speech amid the immortals:

‘O Father Zeus and gods in bliss forever,

punish Odysseus’ men! So overweening,

now they have killed my peaceful kine, my joy

at morning when I climbed the sky of stars,

and evening, when I bore westward from heaven.  

Restitution or penalty they shall pay—

and pay in full—or I go down forever

to light the dead men in the underworld.’

​

Then Zeus who drives the storm cloud spoke:

‘Peace, Hêlios: shine on among the gods,

shine over mortals in the fields of grain.

Let me throw down one white-hot bolt, and make

splinters of their ship in the winedark sea.’

​

                                                  Zeus let fly

a bolt against the ship, a direct hit,

so that she bucked, in reeking fumes of sulphur,

and all the men were flung into the sea.  

They came up ’round the wreck, bobbing a while

like petrels on the waves.

​

No more seafaring

homeward for these, no sweet day of return;

the god had turned his face from them.

​

 

 

Nor had I yet

seen the worst of it: for now the west wind

dropped, and a southeast gale came on—one more

twist of the knife—taking me north again,

straight for Charybdis. All that night I drifted,

and in the sunrise, sure enough, I lay

off Skylla mountain and Charybdis deep.

There, as the whirlpool drank the tide, a billow

tossed me, and I sprang for the great fig tree,

catching on like a bat under a bough.  

Nowhere had I to stand, no way of climbing,

the root and bole being far below, and far

above my head the branches and their leaves,

massed, overshadowing Charybdis pool.

But I clung grimly, thinking my mast and keel

would come back to the surface when she spouted.

And ah! how long, with what desire, I waited!

till, at the twilight hour, when one who hears

and judges pleas in the marketplace all day

between contentious men, goes home to supper,  

the long poles at last reared from the sea.

​

Now I let go with hands and feet, plunging

straight into the foam beside the timbers,

pulled astride, and rowed hard with my hands

to pass by Skylla. Never could I have passed her

had not the Father of gods and men, this time,

kept me from her eyes. Once through the strait,

nine days I drifted in the open sea

before I made shore, buoyed up by the gods,

upon Ogygia Isle. The dangerous nymph  

Calypso lives and sings there, in her beauty,

and she received me, loved me.

 

But why tell

the same tale that I told last night in hall

to you and to your lady? Those adventures

made a long evening, and I do not hold

with tiresome repetition of a story.”