The <I>Odyssey</I>
Page 20
Well but I think I can make him suffer enough here.”
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The Dread and Rage of Odysseus
He gathered clouds as he spoke and, taking the trident,
roughed the seas and aroused the squalling of every
sort of wind. Clouds of spray were obscuring
water and land alike: a night was roused from the heavens.
Eastwind and Southeasterly fell on him, blustering Westwind
and Northwind, born in the high air, gathering big waves.
Odysseus’s heart and knees felt loosened and melted.
He called in a rage to his own great-hearted spirit:
“How wretched I am! Now what finally happens?
I fear all of it’s true, what the Goddess told me:
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she said before I came to the land of my Fathers
I’d fill with pain and struggle. Everything’s borne out.
Zeus has rounded the broad heavens with storm-cloud,
vexing the sea, and I’m rushed by a squalling of every
sort of wind. My headlong doom is a sure thing.
Better and Worse Death
♦ “Danaans were three times, four times as happy to perish
on Troy’s wide plains, favoring Atreus’s two sons.
If only I’d died there myself, facing my own doom
that day the Trojan hordes kept throwing their bronze-tipped
spears at me, fighting around the corpse of Akhilleus.
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Honored with death-rites, my name would be spread by Akhaians.
But now it’s my doom to be cut off. This end will be wretched.”
The Storm Mounts
A giant wave struck him down from its fearsome
crest when he’d spoken. It twirled his raft in the water
and threw him far from the craft, making the steer-oar
drop from his hand. The mast was cracked in the middle
by frightfully shifting winds that came at it gale-force.
Sail and yardarm were down and away in the water.
The man went under a long time, unable to bob up
swiftly from under the drive and fall of the huge wave:
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♦ his clothes from the shining Goddess Kalupso were heavy.
At last he came back up. He spat out a briny
mouthful and plenty of water ran from his forehead.
He’d hardly forgotten the raft. Tired as he now was,
he made for it fast in the waves and managed to take hold.
He sat in the center hoping to slip from his own death,
titanic rollers hauling him that way and this way.
Just as the Northwind in late summer will carry
thistles afield, and they hold on tight to each other,
now the sea-winds carried the raft this way and that way.
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Southwind sometimes tossed him to Northwind to carry,
Eastwind sometimes gave him to Westwind to drive on.
A Timeless Veil
♦ Ino, the pretty-ankled daughter of Kadmos,
had watched him. Once called Ino, her voice like a human’s,
now Leukothee honored by Gods in the salt sea,
she pitied the roaming Odysseus, burdened with trouble.
She rose from the sea like a tern from a plunge in the water,
sat on the well-tied raft and started to ask him,
“Poor man: why is the Earth-Shaker Poseidon
so fiercely angry, sowing all of your troubles?
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He won’t destroy you, though, for all of his outrage.
Do as I say—you don’t seem lacking in judgment—
take off those clothes and leave your raft to the driving
storm. Swim with your hands as though you would reach home,
Phaiakian shores. It’s now your lot to escape there.
Spread this veil below your chest as a deathless
guard, then don’t be afraid of wounding or dying.
Soon as your hands have taken hold of that shoreline
loosen the veil and throw it back in the wine-dark
sea far from shore. Then turn away from the water.”
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The Goddess gave him the veil after she’d spoken.
She turned and dove once more in the billowing water
just like a tern. Then she was hidden by dark sea.
Disobeying the Goddess
But long-suffering, godlike Odysseus pondered.
Vexed and annoyed, he told his great-hearted spirit,
“Look at me now! Some deathless God may have woven
another trap. She told me, ‘Abandon your raft here.’
I won’t obey, not yet. I saw with my own eyes
the land she said I’d escape to now and it’s far off.
I’ll do this, though, because it strikes me as better:
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long as the wood holds out where I tightly joined it,
I’ll stay right here. I’ll go through trouble but bear up.
Then if the sea splinters my raft and destroys it
I’ll swim: I cannot foresee anything better.”
The Storm Mounts Again
But while his heart and head were pondering that way,
the Earth-Shaker Poseidon built up a great sea,
a hard and overarching terror that smashed him
the way a powerful wind rattles a litter
of dry husks and scatters them this way and that way.
Long raft-boards were scattered. However Odysseus
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rode one plank—he might have been driving a fast horse—
he took off clothes, the presents from shining Kalupso.
He spread that veil below his chest in a hurry,
went in the sea face first, spreading his hands out,
anxious to swim. The lordly Earth-Shaker saw him.
Shaking his head the God spoke to his spirit:
“Suffer plenty of harm now! Wander the wide sea
until you join with men nourished by great Zeus.
And yet don’t hope to make a joke of your hardship.”
He spoke that way, lashed the horses with rich manes
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and soon arrived at his well-known temple at Aigai.
The Great Storm Passes
Now the daughter of Zeus, Athene, thought of a new plan.
Tying all the sea-winds down in their courses,
she told them all to stop their blowing and rest now.
She roused a lively Northwind and opened the waves out
so that Odysseus, bred by Zeus, might mix with Phaiakians,
lovers of oars. The man avoided his death-hour.
Closer to Land
Two long days and nights he was whirled through heavy
rollers. Often his heart looked forward to dying.
When Dawn in her lovely braids ended the third day,
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all the winds diminished at last and a breathless
calm came on. Odysseus, raised on a long swell,
looked out sharply and sighted land: it was not far.
♦ As welcome a sight to children knowing their father
will live when he’s lain sick, suffering strong pain—
some hateful Power attacked him, he wasted a long time—
now they’re glad the Gods release him from ravage:
Odysseus found that forested shoreline as welcome.
He swam on, anxious to set a foot onto dry land.
The man was just far off to be heard if he shouted
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but caught the sound of waves thudding the reef-rocks.
Gigantic tumblers roared and pounded the dry land,
a scary noise, everything covered in sea-foam.
He saw no harbor for ships, nothing of shelter,
only threatening cliff-side, rock-face and sea-ledge.
/> Odysseus’s heart and knees felt loosened and melted.
Bitterly angry, he spoke to his great-hearted spirit:
“And I? When Zeus allows me to gaze at a landfall
unhoped for, to swim so hard crossing a great gulf,
nothing shows, no way to emerge from the gray sea:
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jagged ledge on the outside, breakers around it,
all that surge and moan, a cliff that’s flattened and straight up,
water so deep in close that no one could stand on
both his feet or avoid harm in the high surf.
A giant wave might break as I’m clambering out and
throw me at hard rock. My work would be pointless.
Still More Danger
“Yet if I swim on farther, hoping to make out
sloping shore somewhere, a sea-water harbor,
I’m worried a gale might snatch me again in the water
and carry me off to the fish-filled sea, heavily groaning.
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Or maybe some Power would even send me a monstrous
♦ sea-beast nourished by well-known Amphitrite.
I know the renowned Earth-Quaker is outraged.”
While his heart and head were pondering that way,
a mounting crest was bearing him straight at the rough shore.
There his skin would have torn, bones would have broken
had not the glow-eyed Goddess Athene put in his heart now
to grab at a ledge with both his hands as he rushed past
and hold on, moaning, until the roller had gone by.
So he avoided the worst. But the wave had a backwash!
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It struck him again and threw him far out in the water.
The way an octopus, pulled from the back of its shelter,
will hold sand-grains packed in its tentacle suckers:
so were pieces of skin torn from Odysseus’s daring
hands when the mounting backwash covered his body.
Prayer to a River
A sad Odysseus there would have died—it was more than
♦ his portion—had not glow-eyed Athene given him foresight:
he broke from the mounting surf that roared on the beaches
and swam beyond it, watching the shoreline and hoping
to see a sloping shelf or a seawater harbor.
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He swam and came in time to the mouth of a lovely
flowing river. It surely looked like the best place,
without rocks, sheltered, away from the sea-wind.
Watching its flow he heartily prayed to that River:
“Hear me, Lord, whoever you are, I’ve prayed to you often.
I came here running from seas and the spite of Poseidon.
Surely you deathless Gods will welcome and honor
a man who’s wandered, arriving here as I just now
came to your flow, your knees, with all of my deep pain.
Pity me, Lord: my claim’s from a man who is lowly.”
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The River Answers a Prayer
He stopped and the flow promptly slowed where a Power
checked it, making for calm ahead. Safe at the River’s
mouth at last, both knees of Odysseus buckled.
His sturdy hands dangled, heart quelled by the salt sea,
his whole body swollen. Seawater burbled
from nostrils and mouth. He lay breathless and speechless,
utterly worn out. A drastic weariness came on.
Cold Night Approaching
When breath came back, his mind and spirits regathered,
he promptly loosened the Goddess’s veil from his middle
and let it go where the river swirled into salt sea.
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A big swell carried it swiftly: Ino reclaimed it
with both her hands. So Odysseus moved from the river
and lay in rushes. He kissed the plant-giving soil there.
Yet he spoke in dismay to his great-hearted spirit:
“For me more pain? What will finally happen?
Now if I watch the whole uncaring night by the river
a hard frost, I’m afraid, will join with a fresh dew,
breaking my spirit. I’m faint and gasping already.
Freezing gusts can blow from a river before dawn.
Yet if I climb some hill into shadowy forest
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and lie in the dense undergrowth—if only the night’s chill
and weariness let go, if honeyed sleep would arrive there—
wild beasts, I’m afraid, will make me their booty.”
Olive and Wild Thorn
♦ So he pondered. The latter seemed to be better:
he made his way to the woods. Not far from the water,
beside a clearing, he found two bushes to crawl in:
♦ olive and wild thorn grew in the same place.
Powerful sea-damp winds could not bluster inside them,
glaring sun could hardly throw in its light there,
rain would not get through: the plants were a tangle,