Book V
The Sweet Nymph and the Broad Back of the Sea
When Dawn arose from her rose couch, leaving behind Lord Tithonos, she brought with her new light for gods and men. And mighty Zeus, master of heaven and thunder, went to his place with the gods to hear Athena tell Odysseus’s sad tale. She was angry that Odysseus was still caught in the chambers of Calypso:
“O Father Zeus and all you gods who live in bliss forever – why should kings be kind, mild or virtuous – let them be cruel tyrants – for Odysseus’ people can no longer remember how he was kind and like a father to them. Where is he now? On that island under the spell of that nymph – he can go nowhere; he has no ship, no men with oars to pull him on the broad back of the sea. And while his son searches for news of him visiting in Pylos and Lakedaimon, those suitors plot to kill the boy. To give him the death plunge.”
To this, Zeus, master of the clouds replied:
“My child what strange words escape the barrier of your teeth – didn’t you arrange all of this so that Odysseus would bring those men to justice when he gets home. And didn’t you arrange for Telemachus’ safe journey making sure those men would miss him.”
Zeus then turned to his son Hermes and said:
“Hermes, you know how these missions work, go and tell that golden haired nymph that we order Odysseus to leave and return home. It is my will that he will have no company, only a raft that he must make himself and after twenty days, worn out at sea, he will land on that island, lovely as a garden, Scheria, where our people, the Phaiacians live. Let those men take him in and put him on one of their fine boats – let them load that boat with more gold, gifts, clothes and bronze than he would have brought back from Tory – and then let them bring him to his own island. His destiny is to see his friends again under his own roof and in the land of his fathers.”
Quick as those words Hermes the Wayfinder tied on his golden winged sandals that carry him fast as the wind over land and water – he took up his wand with which he can will sleep or waking to the eyes of men –then wand in hand he climbed up into the brilliant blue air and shot down from Pieria to the face of the sea where he swerved to miss a wave. A gull flying between waves will hit the water hunting for fish and those wings come up dripping water – that’s how close Hermes flew over the waves until he could see that far-away island – he landed and came to the bower of Calypso.
The beautiful goddess Calypso was at home. In front of her burned cauldrons with cedar and thyme so that the air smelled bright and sharp. As she worked at her loom her golden shuttle passed back and forth and she sang in a voice both high and low. Beyond, in the forever summer woods of Alder, Ash and black Poplar, exotic birds rested and stretched their wings: horned owls, falcons, cormorants. A vine wound about the entrance with always ripe clusters of grapes and four springs bubbled up and let their waters pass down through beds of violets and new parsley. Any God finding this bower would be delighted, as was Hermes who gazed in awe before entering. Calypso recognized him – you know, the gods, whatever form they take, always recognize each other.
Hermes did not see sad Odysseus, who sat down by the sea with his aching heart and his eyes searching the horizon.
Calypso, that beautiful nymph, seated Hermes in a brilliant chair.
“ Oh Hermes with your golden wand, why do you come wandering to my island? You don’t visit often! So what do you want of Calypso – I’ll do it if I can and it is the right thing to do; but wait, let me feed you first.”
Calypso drew up a table with ambrosia, food of the goods, and a cup of ruby colored nectar – food for this Wayfinder god who drank and ate before answering.
“Goddess as a god I tell you I came because Zeus willed it so – not my choice to come down here across that gray and desolate sea and all those mortal towns where men sacrifice to the gods. Zeus thinks of Odysseus, that man most unlucky of all of those who fought at Troy. Going for home they upset the goddess of grey eyes, Athena, and great storms blew him away and he lost all his men and washed him up here. Zeus says this: send him back – his life is not to be exile and waste – he must fulfil his destiny – to walk on his own land with his own sweet wife.”
Calypso rose up in her beauty and her voice was deep and strong.
“Oh you gods! So jealous – you hate it when we choose to be with men – immortal flesh by some sweet mortal. Dawn, Artemis, Demeter each finding such sweet love until Zeus in anger ends it. And now you grudge me this man – well I saved him when Zeus blasted his boat and left him alone straddling the keel – alone in lightning and the winedark sea, all his men dead, and then the wind blew him here. I fed him. I loved him. I sang him back into life. But… this is Zeus’ will and it will be done. I have no boat, he’ll have to build his own and I will give him all I can to get him home.”
Hermes, the Wayfinder answered:
“Send him then and be graceful in your obedience or face Zeus himself.”
And Hermes was off pacing into the air while Calypso went to find Odysseus where he sat on his seat of stone and wept bitter tears, bitter tears. The best days of his life were running out as he sat in exile longing for home. This sweet nymph no longer pleased, oh he went to bed with her at night, but only because she had the power. In the morning he was back searching the horizon and longing for home. Now the goddess stood beside him and said:
“Oh you sad sad man, stop, cry no more, your life does not end here. I’ve been thinking and yes, I will help you home. Come with me and cut the wood you will need for a raft: make her seaworthy and strong for a long voyage. I’ll put food on board for you; bread, water and wine – and I’ll give you a sea-cloak and a following wind to get you home without harm – as long as those gods stronger than I will it to be so.
Odysseus shuddered and thought of all he had faced and then he replied:
“After all these years you will help me? Oh goddess what tricks now? A raft to cross the western ocean – fine ships have danger there. A raft you say I should take – well if I do, promise me this: no more tricks and enchantment to do me harm.”
Calypso smiled and looked even more beautiful as she laid her hand on him:
“Oh what a dog you are! Clever you are but I swear it by the Styx and all the gods, I have no more spells to use on you. I will help you – oh there are indeed hearts cold as iron, but I am kind..”
So she took him back to her bower and they went in, mortal and immortal. Odysseus sat in the same chair Hermes had sat in and Calypso gave him food and drink for men while her girls brought her ambrosia and nectar, food of the gods. When they had finished eating she said,
“Son of Laertes, man of many minds, Odysseus, after all these years with me you still want to go home? I wish you the best… but if you could see what you face, you would stay here and guard my house and be immortal with me. You think every day of your wife, but can she be more beautiful than me? Am I less interesting, less beautiful – can you compare a mortal with a goddess?”
Odysseus, sensing danger, thought with care before he answered,
“Oh goddess don’t be angry – my quiet Penelope would be a shadow in your shade – death and old age you will never know – but she will die and I will die. I want to be with a woman who will grow old with me. If the gods are still angry with me, I can bear it – look what I’ve suffered at sea and in battle, I’m ready, bring on the trials.
When dawn spread out her fingertips of rose, Odysseus pulled on his tunic and cloak – the goddess dressed in a silvery gown with a belt of gold and a veil and then she thought about what Odysseus would need.
She gave him a sharp bronze double bladed axe with a haft of olive wood that felt right in the hand – then she gave him an adze for making planks. She led him up to the tip of the island and showed him her best timber: alder and poplar and tall pine standing dead and seasoned – fine wood for a master boat builder. And then she, the most beautiful of nymphs, went home.
Now Odysseus set to work and when he first paused for breath he had twenty trees down. He limbed those trees and split the trunks for planks and now Calypso brought him an augre so could cross hatch and drill those planks into place with pins to bolt them tight. When a master boat builder builds a cargo boat he lays down a broad and shallow hull and Odysseus did the same. He bound the decking to the ribs and then set the mast and the rigging and made a fine oar as rudder to hold her steady. He used willow strands to caulk her and keep out the waves and put down heavy logs as ballast. For a sail Calypso brought one of her own woven fabrics – then he ran his rigging – halyards and bracing – and then cut rollers so he could haul that boat he had built down to the sea.
Four days of solid work this took and on the fifth she sent him off to sea – but first she bathed him and gave him a great sea-cloak and on board she put dark wine and stores: boiled meats and food. And then last she conjured up a warm off shore breeze: joy for Odysseus when he felt that sail billow out and the wave at the bow.
Now that great sea-man steered into the night always keeping an eye on the Pleiades, and the Ploughman, he watched Great Bear who watches Orion and never touches the sea – all these stars Calypso told him to keep up over his left shoulder to hold his course. For seventeen long days and cold nights he sailed until a dark shore line appeared – it was Skheria home of the Phaeacians, and it rose up on the horizon like a rough shield of bull’s hide.
Just then, Poseidon, god of the earthquake, was coming home from Ethiopia, coming from the lands of his favorite people, the sunburned ones, when he saw Odysseus and angry he said:
“Well there is a pretty sight! So happy on his little raft, the gods must have changed their minds about Odysseus – look at him about to reach that island that will be his ticket to freedom and home. Well not so easy – I will give him a taste of my anger first.”
Poseidon called in the thunderheads and took his great trident and churned the sea and blew in the north and the south, the east and the west wind into a mighty wall of water. Odysseus looked up in dread and said:
“Oh rag of a man that I am is this the end then? The Goddess said it would so… look at this storm! I am going down… Oh wish that I had died on land at Troy with my men about me and honor as I fought by Achilles. Then I would have had a soldier’s burial – not this drowning at sea, sucking water, unmarked and alone.”
Then a cliff of water rose up and smashed down tearing his hands from the steering oar and threw him clear of the boat and beat him down and down under a mountain of water – his boat smashed to smitherens – as he sucked water and fought for air. At last he came up and caught the last of his boat and held there as each of the winds played at throwing that wreck from wave to wave and back.
But there was one who saw him there and took pity – it was Ino, daughter of Cadmus, a sea spirit. She had once been a nymph on land and spoke with a human voice, but now lives at sea and like a diving bird she came up to the surface and sat on Odysseus’ wreck.
“Oh you sad man – why does Lord Poseidon punish you so? But he will not drown you – you’d be dead now if he wished it. Listen to me: swim for it – lose that sea-cloak and your boat and swim for it – swim to Scheria. Take this red scarf from me, it is immortal fabric and will save you from drowning, but when you get to land you must be sure to return it to the winedark sea.” And then she was gone diving back into the deep.
Oh what trick is this, thought Odysseus – some trick of the gods – I should hold onto this boat and not swim till there’s nothing else left.
And with that thought there came the greatest wave yet reared up darkening the sky and when it hit it was like the wind hitting a twist of dried grass and blasting it apart – that’s how that raft split up. For a moment Odysseus rode a plank, then tying the red sash about him, he threw off the cloak and dove into the waves and swam his strong stroke for shore.
Poseidon watched and grumbled. “Go on, you puny thing, you will find the men the gods love, but you will remember this misery.” With that he whipped up his shining team of horses and ploughed off to his famous home in Aegia.
But Athena was there as well, and when Poseidon was gone, she checked the winds with her words. “Oh be quiet North and South and East, go home, go to sleep.” And she left one wind alone to blow Odysseus towards the shore.
For two days and two nights Odysseus drifted and swam until the third day when he saw dawn’s golden hair; then the sea became calm and Odysseus felt a great long swell lift him up and he saw land. How sweet life feels to a child who has watched his father suffer almost to death and then, the agony over, come back to health. That’s how Odysseus felt when he saw land and woods that morning. He put a kick in his stroke and swam for land. But when he got close to shore he heard that roar of waves crashing on rocks – sheets of white salt foam. No place to land, just cliffs and the ragged rocks. Odysseus lost his stroke, his knees went weak and he felt himself sink as he said:
“Agony! Zeus lets me see land but nowhere to land – lets me cross the Western Ocean and find death on these rocks. Rocks, waves, a lee shore – nowhere even to stand and fight free of those breakers: I’ll be smashed against the cliffs. But if I swim down the coast I might find calm water – and then another killing gale comes at me? I’ll be washed back out into the deep where one of the sea goddess’ monsters will take me down– oh now I know how Posiedon hates me.”
With that a great wave caught him and flung him against the face of a boulder – right there he would have been broken and crushed if Athena had not sent him strength: he gripped the rock with his mighty hands and let the wave run past him. Then the backwash came and dragged him off the rock and down under again. As a child, when you pull a small octopus from the shore, pebbles are caught in its suckers – well as that wave ripped Odysseus off he left his flesh stuck on the rock. Right there Odysseus would have died but Athena gave him super-human strength and he swam and looked down the coast and saw a place where the water was calm; there where a river ran into the sea. He stopped and prayed aloud:
“Oh great spirit of this stream take mercy on me – I am beaten down by Poseidon’s anger: surely a god will help one like me who comes from far away at sea and begs for help – let your current take pity on me.”
So Odysseus prayed and the river god checked his current and let Odysseus come into the safety of the river’s mouth. He crawled from the water – legs and arms gone, his great heart breaking. His body swollen as he puked seawater from mouth and nose. He lay there exhausted. Slowly the life force came back into him and he sat up and untied the red cloth and threw it back into the stream: it ran out to sea and Ino was there waiting. Again he crawled up the bank to firm earth where he lay and kissed the ground.
“Oh you poor man! What now? Is this the end? If I stay here one of those chill dews at dawn could kill me, I’m that weak – one of those cold winds off the river. But if I go up there in the woods and collapse – some wolf could have me.”
Nonetheless he thought this best, to make for the woods and there he found two bushes of olive wood – one tame and one wild – and he wove them together into shelter so tight it could protect him from wind, sun and rain. Odysseus gathered dead leaves for a bed – enough to save two or three men in winter – then looked at his little house and thought, how sweet! Odysseus lay down and heaped the leaves around himself.
You know the way a man alone in the fields in winter will bury a burning coal in the ashes to have fire the next day, that’s how Odysseus hid himself and then Athena gave him sweet sleep, an end to pain, as he closed his burning eyes.