Book V · Ῥαψωδία ε

And Dawn rolled out of bed, leaving Tithonus all tucked up and glowing behind her,

so she could clock in for her shift and serve light to the deathless ones and the mortals alike.

Meanwhile the gods were posting up in their seats for the group meeting, and smack in the middle

sat Zeus who booms from way up high, the one whose power is just unmatched, no debate, no contest.

And Athena got to spilling the whole grief arc that Odysseus was lowkey trapped in,

"Father Zeus, and the rest of you blessed gods who never age out the way mortals do,

from here on let no sceptre-gripping king even bother doing the kind, soft thing,

let him not be gentle or decent or fair-minded deep in his chest, not even a little,

nah, let him stay harsh for daysss and let him pull straight-up cursed, deranged moves,

not one of the people he ruled, and the man was soft as a dad to the whole lot of them.

But there he is, marooned on an island, eating brutal pain on loop, no breaks,

posted up in the halls of Calypso the nymph, who's got him pinned there

by force, locked down: and there's zero way for him to claw back to his own homeland,

the kind of squad who could send him skating off across the broad back of the sea.

And now, cherry on top, they're cooking up a plot to merk his beloved son

on his way home: he went out chasing the tea on his dad,

all the way to holy Pylos and to godly Lacedaemon, no less."

"My child, what kind of take just slipped clean past the gate of your teeth?

Wasn't this entire plan literally your idea from the jump, your scheme,

that Odysseus would pull up and make those clowns pay back every last bit?

And Telemachus? You escort him yourself, you've fully got it handled,

and the suitors sail straight back the way they came, their little plot completely fumbled."

That said, he swung round to Hermes, his own golden boy, and got straight down to business:

"Hermes, since you're the one running the messenger gig anyway, that's your whole lane,

go drop in on that nymph with the gorgeous braids and lay out the no-cap plan:

with zero escort from the gods and zero help from any mortal hand,

nah, he's gonna catch l after l on a raft lashed together with loads of bindings,

and on day twenty he'll touch down at Scheria with its rich, fat soil,

the land of the Phaeacians, who are basically blood-relatives to the gods themselves:

and send him off in a ship to his own beloved homeland, all expenses sorted,

loading him up with bronze and gold and clothes, an absolutely insane haul,

so much loot that Odysseus never even dragged this kind of stash out of Troy,

even if he'd come home clean and unscathed with his fair cut of the spoils.

his high-roofed house and the patch of land where he was born and raised."

That's what he said, and the keen-eyed Argus-slayer wasn't about to clap back.

Straight away he laced up the gorgeous sandals onto his feet,

the divine golden ones, that carry him skating over the wet sea

And he grabbed his wand, the one he uses to charm men's eyes shut on command,

whichever ones he picks, then flicks the sleeping ones right back awake:

gripping that thing in his hands, the mighty Argus-slayer took off flying.

He touched down on Pieria, then dropped out of the sky and hit the sea running,

the kind that goes diving for fish down the gnarly folds and pockets

of the restless salt water, soaking its packed wings clean through with brine:

just like that bird, Hermes rode it out over the heaped-up, churning waves.

But once he reached the island that sits way out there off the edge of the map,

kept walking, till he came up on a massive cave, where the nymph

with the gorgeous braids was posted up living: and he found her at home inside, no shock there.

A big fire was blazing bright on the hearth, and the smell carried

miles out, of cedar splitting clean and sweet juniper burning,

in a lovely voice, working her loom, weaving with a golden shuttle like it was nothing.

And the woods grew thick all the way round the cave, absolutely flourishing,

alder and black poplar and cypress that smelled honestly unreal.

And right there long-winged birds had set up their whole roosting situation,

the saltwater kind, the ones whose entire job is the sea, full-time, no days off.

And right there, trained and curling round the hollow cave,

a young vine was thriving, absolutely loaded with grape clusters for daysss.

And four springs in a row were running with clear bright water,

And all around, soft meadows of violets and wild celery

were straight-up popping off in bloom. Even a deathless god rolling through that spot

would stop dead in his tracks and stare and feel his whole spirit just lift.

So that's exactly where the keen-eyed Argus-slayer stood, soaking the whole scene in.

he strolled straight into the wide cave. And Calypso, that goddess of goddesses,

clocked him face to face the literal second she laid eyes on him,

because the deathless gods are never strangers to each other, not ever, not once,

not even if one of them keeps house way off in the back of beyond.

nah, that man was parked out on the shore crying, same as always,

ripping his own spirit to absolute shreds with tears and groans and grief,

staring out at the restless sea while the tears just kept on flowing.

Then Calypso, that goddess of goddesses, started grilling Hermes,

"Why have you pulled up on me out of nowhere, Hermes of the golden wand,

honoured and dear as you are? You don't exactly slide through here much.

Say what's on your mind, lay it out: my heart's already telling me to come through,

if it's something I'm able to pull off and something that's even doable at all.

That said, the goddess hauled a table up right beside him,

loaded it down with ambrosia, and mixed him up the red nectar:

so the keen-eyed Argus-slayer drank and ate his fill, absolutely no notes.

And once he'd demolished his dinner and topped his whole spirit back up with food,

"You're asking me, a god, why I showed up, you a goddess: alright, bet,

I'll lay the whole thing out for you dead straight, since you're the one asking.

Zeus is the one who ordered me out here, and trust, I did not want to come:

who in their right mind would willingly run across this much

nobody out here making offerings to the gods or serving up the proper hecatombs.

But there's literally no chance for any other god to slip past

the will of aegis-bearing Zeus or to water it down to nothing.

He says there's a man here, the most miserable out of all the others,

for nine straight years, and on the tenth they sacked it and shipped

back home: but on the way they did Athena dirty somehow,

and she whipped up a wicked wind and towering waves to come hunt them down.

That's where every last bit of his solid crew perished, all of them gone,

So now Zeus is telling you to send the man off, fast as you possibly can:

because it is not his fate to die out here, far from his own people,

no, it's still his lot to see his people again and to reach

his high-roofed house and the patch of land where he was born."

and finding her voice she clapped back at him with these winged words:

"You gods are absolutely heartless, jealous beyond anyone else out there,

the way you can't stand a goddess sharing a bed with a man,

out in the open, if she's gone and claimed one as her own husband.

the rest of you, the gods who live easy, were salty about it for daysss,

right up until pure Artemis on her golden throne pulled up on him

on Ortygia and finished him off clean with her gentle arrows.

And like when Demeter with the gorgeous braids gave in to her own heart

out in a thrice-ploughed fallow field: Zeus did not stay out of the loop

for long, and he merked the man, smacking him down with his bright thunderbolt.

And now it's me, gods, the one you can't stand having a mortal man around.

This is the one I rescued myself, when he was clinging to the keel of his wrecked ship

and split it clean apart out in the middle of the wine-dark sea.

That's where every last bit of his solid crew perished, all of them gone,

but as for him, the wind and the waves carried him here and just dumped him.

And I loved that man and looked after him and kept promising him, on it,

But since there's no chance for any other god to slip past

the will of aegis-bearing Zeus or to water it down to nothing,

fine, let him go, if that one up top is pushing it and dropping the order,

out onto the restless sea. But I'm not the one sending him anywhere, full stop:

the kind of squad who could send him off across the broad back of the sea.

But I'll hand him advice straight from a good place and I won't hold back a single thing,

so he reaches his homeland totally unbothered and in one piece."

Then the keen-eyed Argus-slayer came back at her with this:

in case he gets heated at you down the line and turns flat-out nasty on you."

That said, the mighty Argus-slayer took off and was gone, dipped:

and the queenly nymph headed over to great-hearted Odysseus

once she'd taken Zeus's orders fully on board, straight from the source.

dry of tears, his sweet life was just trickling away out of him

as he wept for his comeback, since the nymph no longer did a thing for him.

But by night he'd sleep beside her, sure, because he had zero choice,

in those hollow caves, an unwilling man stuck next to a willing goddess:

ripping his own spirit to absolute shreds with tears and groans and grief,

staring out at the restless sea while the tears just kept on flowing.

And pulling up close, that goddess of goddesses spoke to him:

"You poor thing, quit crying on me out here, don't let your whole life

So come on, hack down some long timbers, square them up clean with the bronze

into a wide raft: then peg a deck across the top of the whole thing,

mounted up high, so it carries you out over the misty sea.

And me, I'll stock it up with bread and water and red wine,

and I'll throw clothes on you: and I'll send a fair wind in behind you,

so you reach your homeland totally unbothered and in one piece,

if that's what the gods are vibing with, the ones who hold the wide sky,

who straight-up outrank me at scheming and at actually getting things done."

and finding his voice he hit her back with these winged words:

"There's something else cooking in your head here, goddess, this isn't an escort,

the way you're telling me to cross the huge gulf of the open sea on a raft,

something terrifying and absolutely brutal: not even ships make that crossing,

There's no way I'm stepping onto a raft against your will,

not unless you'll bring yourself, goddess, to swear me a big oath

that you're not cooking up some other nasty little scheme against me."

That's what he said, and Calypso, that goddess of goddesses, cracked a smile,

"You really are a rascal, and no fool either, not even close, the way you

worked out exactly what to say there, lining up that whole speech so clean.

So let the earth be my witness right now, and the wide sky up above,

and the down-trickling water of the Styx, which is the biggest

that I am not cooking up any other nasty little scheme against you.

No, I'm thinking it all through and I'll plan out exactly what I'd

work out for my own self, if a need this heavy came knocking on me:

because my mind is fair, when it comes down to it, and the heart parked inside

That said, that goddess of goddesses led the way out front,

moving fast: and he fell in walking right behind, dead in the goddess's tracks.

So they reached the hollow cave, the god and the man both:

and he dropped himself down on the throne where Hermes had just got up from,

to eat and to drink, the sort of stuff mortal men live on day to day:

and she planted herself across from godlike Odysseus,

and her handmaids set out ambrosia and nectar right beside her.

And the two of them sent it on the spread laid out ready in front of them.

Calypso, that goddess of goddesses, kicked off the talking:

"Son of Zeus's line, Laertes' boy, Odysseus, always cooking up something,

so this is genuinely it, huh, you wanna head back home to your beloved

homeland this very second? Well, go on then, be happy anyway, I guess.

it's your fate to load up before you ever reach your homeland,

you'd stay right here with me and keep this whole house running

and be deathless, even though you're aching to lay eyes on

your wife, the one you're longing after every single day.

not in body, not in figure, since there's no way it's even fitting

for mortal women to go toe to toe with goddesses in body and looks."

Then Odysseus, the big-brain, the strategist locked in, came back at her with this:

"Goddess, please don't be salty at me over this: I already know all of it

is the weaker one to look at, in figure and in height, no contest:

because she's a mortal, and you, you're deathless and you never age out.

But even so I want it and I long for it every single day,

to make it back home and to see the day of my comeback finally land.

I'll take it on the chin, since I've got a spirit built to grind through grief:

because I've already been through so much and grinded so hard

on the waves and in the war: let this one just go on the pile with the rest."

That's what he said, and the sun dropped down and the dark rolled in over them:

and enjoyed each other in love, staying close the whole night long.

And the second early-born Dawn pulled up with her rosy fingers, doing her early-bird thing,

straight away Odysseus threw on his cloak and his tunic,

and the nymph wrapped herself up in a big silvery robe,

right round her waist, and laid a veil over the top of her head.

And then she got to mapping out the whole send-off for great-hearted Odysseus:

she handed him a big axe, weighted just right for his palms,

bronze, sharpened keen on both edges: and slotted into it

then she handed him a well-polished adze: and led the way out

to the far end of the island, where the tall trees were standing,

alder and black poplar and fir that shot up sky-high,

long dead and bone-dry, the kind that'd float light and easy for him.

Calypso, that goddess of goddesses, headed back to her house,

while he locked in and got to felling timbers: and the work just flew for him.

He dropped twenty of them in total, then dressed them down clean with the bronze,

planed them like an absolute pro and trued them dead straight to the chalk-line.

so he bored the whole lot clean through and fitted them snug to each other,

then knocked the thing tight together with pegs and locking joints, zero gaps.

As wide as a man marks out the floor of a ship,

a broad cargo hull, when he properly knows his carpentry inside out,

And he stood the deck up, locking it onto close-set ribs,

grinding away at it: and capped it off with long planks running the full sides.

And he stepped a mast in, with a yardarm fitted to match it dead-on:

and he rigged up a steering oar too, so he could hold her dead straight on course.

to ride shield against the swell: and heaped on loads of brush for good measure.

Meanwhile Calypso, that goddess of goddesses, brought out the cloth

for the sails: and he cut and crafted those skilfully too, like a total pro.

And he made the braces fast, and the halyards and the sheets, lashing them tight to her,

It was day four, and that's exactly when the whole build was finished:

and on day five, godly Calypso sent him off from the island,

after she'd dressed him in sweet-smelling clothes and bathed him down clean.

And the goddess loaded a skin of dark wine on board for him,

in a leather sack, plus she stocked him up with loads of treats to his liking:

and she sent off a fair wind in behind him, gentle and warm and kind.

And Odysseus, that goat, grinning ear to ear, spread his sails wide to that wind.

And he sat there working the steering oar like a seasoned pro,

as he kept eyes locked on the Pleiades and Bootes setting late

and the Bear, the one they also nickname the Wagon,

which just spins right there in place and keeps tabs on Orion,

and is the only one with no share in the baths of Ocean, the odd one out:

to keep that one on his left hand the whole way as he sailed the sea.

For seventeen days he sailed, cutting clean across the open water,

and on the eighteenth the shadowy mountains finally showed their face,

of the Phaeacians' land, where it sat closest to him at last:

But Poseidon, the mighty earth-shaker, on his way back from the Aethiopians,

clocked him from way off, from the Solymi mountains: because the man

showed up to him out there sailing the sea. And his heart got even more heated,

and shaking his head he had a word with his own spirit, going off:

on Odysseus while I was off chilling with the Aethiopians, just my luck:

and now here he is, basically parked at the Phaeacians' land, where it's his fate

to slip the huge noose of misery that's been closing in on him.

But nah, I reckon I can still run him through plenty more pain before that."

gripping his trident tight in his fists: he whipped up every storm-gust

of all the winds at once, and buried both

the land and the sea under cloud: and night came crashing down out of the sky.

And the East Wind and the South slammed in together, and the howling West Wind too,

And right then Odysseus' knees buckled out from under him and so did his heart,

and rattled to the core he spoke to his own great-hearted spirit:

"Oh no, this is it for me, I'm a wreck, what's finally gonna become of me?

I'm terrified the goddess called every bit of it dead straight,

I'd load up on grief: and now the whole thing's coming true on me at once.

Look at the clouds Zeus is wrapping all the way round the wide sky,

and he's churned the sea to chaos, and the storm-gusts are hounding me down,

the whole pack of the winds: now my sheer destruction's locked in for real.

on the wide plains of Troy, doing a solid for the sons of Atreus.

Honestly I wish I'd died too and met my fate right there on the spot,

that day when the most Trojans came hurling their bronze-tipped spears

straight at me, fighting over the body of dead Achilles.

but as it stands, my fate's to get caught in a wretched death way out here."

And just as he said it, a monstrous wave came crashing down on top of him,

charging in something terrible, and it spun the raft clean round in a circle.

And he got flung far off the raft himself, and the steering oar

where the winds got all tangled up and snapped the mast clean in the middle:

and the sail and the yardarm went flying way out into the sea.

And it held him pinned under for a long stretch, and he just couldn't manage

to claw his way back up under the force of that huge wave bearing down:

At last he did break the surface, and he spat the bitter

brine out of his mouth, loads of it sluicing down off his head.

But even then, wrecked as he was, he didn't forget about the raft,

no, he lunged through the waves and got a grip back on it,

And the big wave kept hauling it this way and that down the current.

Like when the North Wind in autumn carries thistles

along a plain, and they cling tight to each other in matted clumps,

that's exactly how the winds carried it back and forth across the open sea:

sometimes the East Wind would hand it off to the West to chase.

And the daughter of Cadmus clocked him, Ino with the lovely ankles,

Leucothea, who used to be a mortal walking around with a human voice,

but now down in the salt depths she's got her own cut of honour from the gods.

and looking like a shearwater on the wing she rose up out of the swell,

sat herself down on the raft, and said this straight to him:

"You poor thing, why has Poseidon the earth-shaker turned on you

this hard, this furiously, planting all this trouble right in your path?

So do exactly this, you don't strike me as someone who can't think:

peel off these clothes and leave the raft for the winds

to carry off, and with your bare hands start swimming, go chase the comeback,

straight to the Phaeacians' land, where it's your fate to slip free.

and there's no fear of you suffering or going under at all, none.

And the second you've got your hands locked on solid land,

untie it and chuck it back into the wine-dark sea,

far away from the shore, and turn yourself clean away from it."

and dropped back down into the heaving sea herself,

looking like a shearwater: and the dark wave covered her right over.

Then Odysseus, that goat who's been through it, was turning it all over,

and rattled to the core he spoke to his own great-hearted spirit:

weaving me a trap, telling me to step off my raft.

But nah, I'm not buying it just yet, since with my own two eyes

I clocked land in the distance, where she said I'd find my escape.

But here's what I'll do, because this feels like the smartest play by far:

I'll stay put right here and tough out all the pain I'm in:

but the second a wave shakes the raft to pieces under me,

I'll swim for it, since there's no better move to plan ahead for."

And while he was turning all this over in his head and his spirit,

something terrifying and brutal, arched right over the top, and slammed it down on him.

Like when a screaming gust scatters a heap of dry chaff

and flings it every which way across the open field,

that's how it scattered the raft's long timbers. But Odysseus

and peeled off the clothes that godly Calypso gave him.

Then straight away he stretched the veil out under his chest,

and threw himself face-down into the sea, arms flung wide open,

hungry to swim. And the mighty earth-shaker watched him do it,

"There you go, suffer plenty now and drift all across the sea,

until you mix in with people that Zeus himself has raised.

But even then I don't reckon you'll go calling your troubles small."

That said, he whipped his beautiful-maned horses into it,

But Athena, daughter of Zeus, had other ideas cooking in her head:

she tied down the paths of the other winds, every single last one,

and ordered them to knock it off and lie themselves down to rest,

and she stirred up a brisk North Wind and broke down the waves out ahead,

with the oar-loving Phaeacians, having dodged death and the fates clean.

For two nights and two days he drifted on the heavy swell,

and his heart kept seeing his own destruction coming for him, over and over.

But once Dawn with the gorgeous braids brought the third day round,

settled in, not a breath of breeze: and he caught sight of land up close,

peering hard ahead, hoisted up high on the back of a big wave.

Like when life shows up sweet again for the kids

of a father laid up sick, eating brutal pain on loop,

and to their joy the gods finally cut him loose from his troubles,

that's exactly how welcome the land and the woods looked to Odysseus,

and he swam, pushing hard to plant his feet on dry ground at last.

But when he was as far off as a man's shout carries,

because a big wave was crashing onto the dry land,

roaring something terrible, and everything was wrapped up in salt spray:

because there were no harbours to hold ships, no sheltered coves, nothing,

just jutting headlands and reefs and ridges of rock, full stop:

and rattled to the core he spoke to his own great-hearted spirit:

"Oh no, just when Zeus let me see land I'd fully given up on,

and I cut my way clean through this gulf and made it all the way across,

there's no way out of the grey sea showing up anywhere at all:

booms and crashes, and the cliff runs straight up sheer and slick and smooth,

and the sea's deep right up close to it, and there's no way at all

to plant both feet down and get myself clear of the trouble:

I'm scared a big wave grabs me and slams me into a jagged rock

But if I keep swimming further along, banking that somewhere I'll find

sloping beaches or a harbour off the open sea,

I'm scared a storm-gust snatches me up all over again

and hauls me back out onto the fish-filled sea, groaning hard,

straight out of the deep, the kind famous Amphitrite breeds loads of:

because I know exactly how heated the famous earth-shaker is at me."

And while he was turning all this over in his head and his spirit,

a big wave carried him in towards the rugged, jagged shore.

if Athena, eyes glinting, hadn't dropped a thought straight into his head:

charging in, he grabbed onto the rock with both his hands,

and clung there groaning, until the big wave swept on past him.

And that's how he dodged that one, but the backwash came surging right back

Like when an octopus gets dragged up out of its hole

and the little pebbles cling thick all over its suckers,

that's exactly how the skin got stripped from his bold hands

against the rocks: and the big wave covered him right over.

if Athena, eyes glinting, hadn't dropped a clear-headed plan in him:

surfacing up out of the wave, the kind that hurls itself at the shore,

he swam along outside it, eyes locked on the land, banking that somewhere he'd find

sloping beaches or a harbour off the open sea.

river, the spot that struck him as the best by a mile,

smooth and free of rocks, with shelter from the wind too:

he clocked the current pouring out and prayed deep in his heart:

"Hear me out, lord, whoever you are: I'm coming to you, the one everyone begs,

He's owed respect even from the deathless gods, that's just how it goes,

any man who comes wandering up lost, like me right now,

reaching your current and your knees after grinding so hard:

so have mercy, lord: I'm calling myself your suppliant right here."

and made it dead calm out in front of him, and brought him safe

to the river's mouth. And he buckled at both knees

and his strong hands gave out on him too: the sea had crushed his heart flat.

And his whole body was swollen up, and seawater came gushing in streams

barely a scrap of strength left in him, with terrible exhaustion all over him.

But once he caught his breath and his spirit gathered back into his chest,

that's when he loosened the goddess's veil from off himself.

And he let it go into the river that flows out to the sea,

caught it in her own two hands: and dragging himself up out of the river,

he sank down under the reeds and kissed the grain-giving ground.

And rattled to the core he spoke to his own great-hearted spirit:

"Oh no, now what do I even do? What's finally gonna become of me?

I'm scared the cruel frost and the soft dew together

finish off my barely-there spirit, fading out as I am:

and a chilly breeze blows off the river before dawn even hits.

But if I climb the slope up into the shadowy woods

and the exhaustion let go of me and sweet sleep rolls over me,

I'm scared I end up prey and a snack for the wild animals out there."

And as he weighed it all through, this struck him as the better move:

he headed off into the woods: and he found a spot near the water

that had grown up from the same root, one wild olive, one true olive.

And neither the strength of the wet-blowing winds ever got through them,

nor did the blazing sun ever once hit them with its rays,

nor did the rain pour right on through: that's how thickly

crawled. And straight away he scraped himself out a wide bed

with his own two hands: because there was such a fat heap of fallen leaves,

enough to shelter two grown men or even three of them

in the dead of winter, even if it was getting properly rough out.

and he lay himself down in the middle and heaped the leaves up over himself.

Like when someone buries a glowing log under dark ash

out at the edge of a farm, with no neighbours around for miles,

saving a seed of fire, so he won't have to go fetch it from somewhere else,

poured sleep down over his eyes, so she could ease him fastest

out of his draining exhaustion, wrapping his dear eyelids shut.