chris at
8:37 PM
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reading from The Odyssey * :
. . . As for a sail, the lovely nymph, Kalypso
brought him a cloth so he could make that, too.
Then he ran up his rigging--halyards, braces--
and hauled the boat on rollers to the water.
This was the fourth day, when he had all ready;
on the fifth day, she sent him out to sea.
But first she bathed him, gave him a scented cloak,
and put on board a skin of dusky wine
with water in a bigger skin, and stores--
boiled meats and other victuals--in a bag.
Then she conjured a warm landbreeze to blowing--
joy for Odysseus, when he shook out sail!
Now the great seaman, leaning on his oar,
steered all the night unsleeping, and his eyes
picked out the Pleiades, the laggard Ploughman,
and the Great Bear, that some have called the Wain,
pivoting in the sky before Orion;
of all the night's pure figures, she alone
would never bath or dip in the Ocean stream.
Those stars the beautiful Kalypso bade him
hold on his left hand as he crossed the main.
Seventeen nights and days in the open water
he sailed, before a dark shoreline appeared;
Skheria then came slowly into view
like a rough shield of bull's hide on the sea.
But now the god of earthquake, storming home
over the mountains of Asia from the Sunburned land,
sighted him far away. The god grew sullen
and tossed his great head, muttering to himself:
"Here is a pretty cruise! While I was gone
the gods have changed their minds about Odysseus.
Look at him now, just offshore of that island
that frees him from the bondage of exile!
Still I can give him a rough ride in, and will."
Brewing high thunderheads, he churned the deep
with both hands on his trident--called up wind
from every quarter, and sent a wall of rain
to blot out land and sea in torrential night.
Hurricane winds now struck from the South and East
shifting North West in a great spume of seas,
on which Odysseus' knees grew slack, his heart
sickened, and he said within himself:
Rag of a man that I am, is this the end of me?
I fear the goddess told it all too well--
predicting great adversity at sea
and far from home. Now all things bear her out:
the whole rondure of heaven hooded so
by Zeus in woeful cloud, and the sea raging
under such winds. I am going down, that's sure.
. . .
A great wave drove at him with toppling crest
spinning him round, in one tremendous blow,
and he went plunging overboard, the oar-haft
wrenched from his grip. . . .
Now the big wave a long time kept him under,
helpless to surface, held by tons of water,
tangled, too, by the seacloak of Kalypso.
. . .
(88-90) (V, 267-332)
*Homer's The Odyssey, translated by Robert Fitzgerald (FSG, 1998)
