by Homer
My comforts to my wife, though well I know
All cause myself why wise Penelope
In wit is far inferior to thee,
In feature, stature, all the parts of show,
She being a mortal, an immortal thou,
Old ever growing, and yet never old.
Yet her desire shall all my days see told,
Adding the sight of my returning day,
And natural home. If any god shall lay
His hand upon me as I pass the seas,
I’ll bear the worst of what his hand shall please,
As having giv’n me such a mind as shall
The more still rise the more his hand lets fall.
In wars and waves my sufferings were not small;
I now have suffer’d much, as much before.
Hereafter let as much result, and more.’
This said, the sun set, and earth shadows gave;
When these two (in an in-room of the cave,
Left to themselves) left love no rites undone.
The early Morn up, up he rose, put on
His in and out weed. She herself enchaces
Amidst a white robe, full of all the graces,
Ample, and pleated thick like fishy scales;
A golden girdle then her waist impales,
Her head a veil decks, and abroad they come.
And now began Ulysses to go home.
A great axe first she gave, that two ways cut,
In which a fair well-polish’d helm was put,
That from an olive bough receiv’d his frame;
A planer then. Then led she, till they came
To lofty woods that did the isle confine.
The fir tree, poplar, and heav’n-scaling pine,
Had there their offspring. Of which, those that were
Of driest matter, and grew longest there,
He choos’d for lighter sail. This place thus shown,
The nymph turn’d home. He fell to felling down,
And twenty trees he stoop’d in little space,
Plan’d, used his plumb, did all with artful grace.
In mean time did Calypso wimbles bring.
He bor’d, clos’d, nail’d, and order’d every thing,
And look how much a ship-wright will allow
A ship of burden (one that best doth know
What fits his art), so large a keel he cast,
Wrought up her decks, and hatches, side-boards, mast,
With willow watlings arm’d her to resist
The billows’ outrage, added all she miss’d,
Sail-yards, and stern for guide. The nymph then brought
Linen for sails, which with dispatch he wrought,
Gables and halsters, tacklings. All the frame
In four days’ space to full perfection came.
The fifth day, they dismiss’d him from the shore,
Weeds neat and odorous gave him, victuals’ store,
Wine, and strong waters, and a prosp’rous wind,
To which, Ulysses, fit-to-be-divin’d,
His sails expos’d, and hoised. Off he gat;
And cheerful was he. At the stern he sat,
And steer’d right artfully, nor sleep could seize
His eyelids. He beheld the Pleiades;
The Bear, surnam’d the Wain, that round doth move
About Orion, and keeps still above
The billowy ocean; the slow-setting star
Boötes call’d, by some the waggoner.
Calypso warn’d him he his course should steer
Still to his left hand. Seventeen days did clear
The cloudy night’s command in his moist way,
And by the eighteenth light he might display
The shady hills of the Phaeacian shore,
For which, as to his next abode, he bore.
The country did a pretty figure yield,
And look’d from off the dark seas like a shield.
Imperious Neptune, making his retreat
From th’ Aethiopian earth, and taking seat
Upon the mountains of the Solymi,
From thence, far off discovering, did descry
Ulysses his fields ploughing. All on fire
The sight straight set his heart, and made desire
Of wreak run over, it did boil so high.
When, his head nodding, ‘O impiety,’
He cried out, ‘now the gods’ inconstancy
Is most apparent, altering their designs
Since I the Aethiops saw, and here confines
To this Ulysses’ fate, his misery:
The great mark, on which all his hopes rely,
Lies in Phaeacia. But I hope he shall
Feel woe at height, ere that dead calm befall.’
This said, he begging gather’d clouds from land,
Frighted the seas up, snatch’d into his hand
His horrid trident, and aloft did toss,
Of all the winds, all storms he could engross;
All earth took into sea with clouds, grim night
Fell tumbling headlong from the cope of light,
The East and South winds justled in the air,
The violent Zephyr, and North making-fair,
Roll’d up the waves before them. And then bent
Ulysses’ knees, then all his spirit was spent.
In which despair, he thus spake: ‘Woe is me!
What was I born to, man of misery!
Fear tells me now, that all the goddess said
Truth’s self will author, that fate would be paid
Grief’s whole sum due from me, at sea, before
I reach’d the dear touch of my country’s shore.
With what clouds Jove heav’n’s heighten’d forehead binds!
How tyrannize the wraths of all the winds!
How all the tops he bottoms with the deeps,
And in the bottoms all the tops he steeps!
Thus dreadful is the presence of our death.
Thrice four times blest were they that sunk beneath
Their fates at Troy, and did to nought contend
But to renown Atrides with their end!
I would to god, my hour of death and fate
That day had held the power to terminate,
When showers of darts my life bore undepress’d
About divine Aeacides deceased!
Then had I been allotted to have died,
By all the Greeks with funerals glorified
(Whence death, encouraging good life, had grown),
Where now I die by no man mourn’d nor known.’
This spoke, a huge wave took him by the head,
And hurl’d him o’er board; ship and all it laid
Inverted quite amidst the waves, but he
Far off from her sprawl’d, strow’d about the sea,
His stern still holding broken off, his mast
Burst in the midst, so horrible a blast
Of mix’d winds struck it. Sails and sail-yards fell
Amongst the billows; and himself did dwell
A long time under water, nor could get
In haste his head out, wave with wave so met
In his depression; and his garments too,
Giv’n by Calypso, gave him much to do,
Hind’ring his swimming; yet he left not so
His drenched vessel, for the overthrow
Of her nor him, but gat at length again,
Wrestling with Neptune, hold of her; a
nd then
Sat in her bulk, insulting over death,
Which, with the salt stream prest to stop his breath,
He ’scap’d, and gave the sea again to give
To other men. His ship so striv’d to live,
Floating at randon, cuff’d from wave to wave.
As you have seen the North wind when he drave
In autumn heaps of thorn-fed grasshoppers
Hither and thither, one heap this way bears,
Another that, and makes them often meet
In his confus’d gales: so Ulysses’ fleet
The winds hurl’d up and down; now Boreas
Toss’d it to Notus, Notus gave it pass
To Eurus, Eurus Zephyr made pursue
The horrid tennis. This sport call’d the view
Of Cadmus’ daughter, with the narrow heel,
Ino Leucothea, that first did feel
A mortal dame’s desires, and had a tongue,
But now had th’ honour to be nam’d among
The marine godheads. She with pity saw
Ulysses justled thus from flaw to flaw,
And like a cormorant in form and flight,
Rose from a whirlpool, on the ship did light,
And thus bespake him: ‘Why is Neptune thus
In thy pursuit extremely furious,
Oppressing thee with such a world of ill,
Ev’n to thy death? He must not serve his will,
Though ’tis his study. Let me then advise
As my thoughts serve; thou shalt not be unwise
To leave thy weeds and ship to the commands
Of these rude winds, and work out with thy hands
Pass to Phaeacia, where thy austere fate
Is to pursue thee with no more such hate.
Take here this tablet, with this riband strung,
And see it still about thy bosom hung;
By whose eternal virtue never fear
To suffer thus again, nor perish here.
But when thou touchest with thy hand the shore,
Then take it from thy neck, nor wear it more,
But cast it far off from the continent,
And then thy person far ashore present.’
Thus gave she him the tablet; and again
Turn’d to a cormorant, div’d, past sight, the main.
Patient Ulysses sigh’d at this, and stuck
In the conceit of such fair-spoken luck,
And said: ‘Alas! I must suspect ev’n this,
Lest any other of the deities
Add sleight to Neptune’s force, to counsel me
To leave my vessel, and so far off see
The shore I aim at. Not with thoughts too clear
Will I obey her, but to me appear
These counsels best: as long as I perceive
My ship not quite dissolv’d, I will not leave
The help she may afford me, but abide,
And suffer all woes till the worst be tried.
When she is split, I’ll swim. No miracle can,
Past near and clear means, move a knowing man.’
While this discourse employ’d him, Neptune rais’d
A huge, a high, and horrid sea, that seiz’d
Him and his ship, and toss’d them through the lake.
As when the violent winds together take
Heaps of dry chaff, and hurl them every way:
So his long wood-stack Neptune strook astray.
Then did Ulysses mount on rib, perforce,
Like to a rider of a running horse,
To stay himself a time, while he might shift
His drenched weeds, that were Calypso’s gift.
When putting straight Leucothea’s amulet
About his neck, he all his forces set
To swim, and cast him prostrate to the seas.
When powerful Neptune saw the ruthless prease
Of perils siege him thus, he mov’d his head,
And this betwixt him and his heart he said:
‘So, now feel ills enow, and struggle so,
Till to your Jove-lov’d islanders you row.
But my mind says, you will not so avoid
This last task too, but be with suff’rance cloy’d.’
This said, his rich-man’d horse he mov’d, and reach’d
His house at Aegas. But Minerva fetch’d
The winds from sea, and all their ways but one
Barr’d to their passage; the bleak North alone
She set to blow, the rest she charg’d to keep
Their rages in, and bind themselves in sleep.
But Boreas still flew high to break the seas,
Till Jove-bred Ithacus the more with ease
The navigation-skill’d Phaeacian states
Might make his refuge, death and angry fates
At length escaping. Two nights yet, and days,
He spent in wrestling with the sable seas;
In which space, often did his heart propose
Death to his eyes. But when Aurora rose,
And threw the third light from her orient hair,
The winds grew calm, and clear was all the air,
Not one breath stirring. Then he might descry,
Rais’d by the high seas, clear, the land was nigh.
And then, look how to good sons that esteem
Their father’s life dear (after pains extreme,
Felt in some sickness that hath held him long
Down to his bed, and with affections strong
Wasted his body, made his life his load,
As being inflicted by some angry god),
When on their pray’rs they see descend at length
Health from the heav’ns, clad all in spirit and strength,
The sight is precious: so, since here should end
Ulysses’ toils, which therein should extend
Health to his country (held to him his sire,
And on which long for him disease did tire),
And then, besides, for his own sake to see
The shores, the woods so near, such joy had he
As those good sons for their recover’d sire.
Then labour’d feet and all parts to aspire
To that wish’d continent; which when as near
He came, as Clamour might inform an ear,
He heard a sound beat from the sea-bred rocks,
Against which gave a huge sea horrid shocks,
That belch’d upon the firm land weeds and foam,
With which were all things hid there, where no room
Of fit capacity was for any port,
Nor from the sea for any man’s resort,
The shores, the rocks, the cliffs, so prominent were.
‘O,’ said Ulysses then, ‘now Jupiter
Hath giv’n me sight of an unhoped-for shore –
Though I have wrought these seas so long, so sore –
Of rest yet no place shows the slend’rest prints,
The rugged shore so bristled is with flints,
Against which every way the waves so flock,
And all the shore shows as one eminent rock,
So near which ’tis so deep, that not a sand
Is there for any tired foot to stand,
Nor fly his death-fast-following miseries,
Lest, if he land, upon him fore-right flies
A churlish wave, to crush him ’gainst a cliff,
Worse than vain rend’ring all his landing strife.
And s
hould I swim to seek a hav’n elsewhere,
Or land less way-beat, I may justly fear
I shall be taken with a gale again,
And cast a huge way off into the main;
And there the great Earth-shaker (having seen
My so near landing, and again his spleen
Forcing me to him) will some whale send out
(Of which a horrid number here about
His Amphitrite breeds) to swallow me.
I well have prov’d, with what malignity
He treads my steps.’ While this discourse he held,
A curs’d surge ’gainst a cutting rock impell’d
His naked body, which it gash’d and tore,
And had his bones broke, if but one sea more
Had cast him on it. But she prompted him,
That never fail’d, and bade him no more swim
Still off and on, but boldly force the shore,
And hug the rock that him so rudely tore;
Which he with both hands sigh’d and clasp’d, till past
The billow’s rage was; when ’scap’d, back so fast
The rock repuls’d it, that it reft his hold,
Sucking him from it, and far back he roll’d.
And as the polypus that (forc’d from home
Amidst the soft sea, and near rough land come
For shelter ’gainst the storms that beat on her
At open sea, as she abroad doth err)
A deal of gravel and sharp little stones
Needfully gathers in her hollow bones:
So he forc’d hither by the sharper ill,
Shunning the smoother, where he best hop’d, still
The worst succeeded; for the cruel friend,
To which he cling’d for succour, off did rend
From his broad hands the soaken flesh so sore,
That off he fell, and could sustain no more.
Quite under water fell he; and, past fate,
Hapless Ulysses there had lost the state
He held in life, if, still the grey-eyed Maid
His wisdom prompting, he had not assay’d
Another course, and ceas’d t’ attempt that shore,
Swimming and casting round his eye t’ explore
Some other shelter. Then the mouth he found
Of fair Callicoë’s flood, whose shores were crown’d
With most apt succours; rocks so smooth they seem’d
Polish’d of purpose; land that quite redeem’d
With breathless coverts th’ others’ blasted shores.
The flood he knew, and thus in heart implores:
‘King of this river, hear! Whatever name
Makes thee invok’d, to thee I humbly frame