Sparta and Ogygia (Books 4–6)

They came to Lacedaemon, lying low among the hills, and drove to the palace of glorious Menelaus. They found him giving a wedding feast, for his son and his daughter. Telemachus and Peisistratus stood at the gate, and marveled; for there was a gleam as of the sun or the moon through the high-roofed house, of bronze and gold, of amber, silver and ivory. "Such, I think, is the court of Olympian Zeus," Telemachus whispered.

Menelaus welcomed them before he knew their names, and when he spoke of Odysseus, whom he loved above all his companions, the boy hid his face in his purple cloak and wept, and Menelaus understood who he was. Then Helen came from her fragrant high-roofed chamber, like Artemis of the golden distaff, and she knew him at once by his likeness to his father. And when they all wept together, remembering the dead, she cast into the wine they were drinking a drug, given her in Egypt, that quiets all pain and anger, and brings forgetfulness of every sorrow. And she told them how Odysseus once disfigured himself with cruel blows, and threw rags over his shoulders, and slipped into Troy like a beggar, and spoke with her, and killed many Trojans before he returned. And Menelaus told how, in the wooden horse, when Helen went round it and called the Greek chieftains by name, in the voices of their wives, Odysseus held them back, and closed with his hands the mouth of one who would have answered.

The next morning Menelaus told his own story. Becalmed on the island of Pharos off Egypt, he had seized Proteus, the unerring old man of the sea, as he lay down among his seals; and the old man turned into a bearded lion, and a serpent, and a leopard, and a great boar, and flowing water, and a tall leafy tree; but they held him fast, until he tired and spoke. He told Menelaus the fate of the Achaeans: of Agamemnon's murder, and of Odysseus, whom he had seen on an island, shedding big tears in the halls of the nymph Calypso, who held him by force; and he had no ships and no comrades to carry him over the broad back of the sea.

Meanwhile in Ithaca the suitors learned that the boy had sailed, and they were angry, and planned to lie in wait for him in the strait between Ithaca and rugged Samos, and kill him on his homecoming. Penelope heard of it from the herald Medon, and her knees gave way; she sank down on the threshold of her well-built chamber and wept. But in the night grey-eyed Athena sent her a phantom, in the likeness of her sister, to tell her that her son had a guide the gods would envy.

Now Dawn rose from her bed beside lordly Tithonus, to bring light to immortals and mortals. And Zeus sent Hermes, the guide and giant-killer, to the nymph with lovely hair. He bound on his fair sandals and went skimming over the waves like a sea bird, and came to the far-off island, and to the great cave where the nymph lived. A great fire burned on the hearth, and the scent of split cedar and juniper was carried far over the island; and she was singing in a lovely voice as she went to and fro before her loom, weaving with a golden shuttle. Around the cave grew a luxuriant wood, alder and poplar and fragrant cypress, where long-winged birds nested, and a vine ran wild with clusters, and four springs flowed with clear water. Even an immortal, coming there, would gaze in wonder.

But Odysseus was not inside. He sat on the shore, as he always did, breaking his heart with tears and groans and sorrows, looking out over the barren sea and weeping.

Calypso heard the message of Zeus and shuddered. "Cruel you are, you gods, and the most jealous of all, grudging a goddess who takes a mortal man to her bed." But she obeyed. She went to Odysseus and said: "Unhappy man, weep no more here; I will send you on your way." She gave him an axe and an adze, and he cut twenty trees and built a raft; she gave him clothing and food and wine, and sent a gentle wind behind him. Before he went she asked him: "Surely I am not inferior to her, in form or stature; it is not seemly for mortal women to rival immortal goddesses." And Odysseus, never at a loss, answered her: "Lady, do not be angry with me for this. I know well enough that Penelope, for all her wisdom, cannot compare with you in beauty or in stature; she is a mortal woman, and you will never die or grow old. And still, every day, I long for home, and for the sight of my homecoming. And if some god should shatter me on the wine-dark sea, I will bear it; I have a heart that has learned to bear things."

For seventeen days he sailed, and on the eighteenth the shadowy mountains of the land of the Phaeacians appeared, like a shield on the misty sea. But the Earth-shaker, returning from the Ethiopians, saw him from far away, and was angered all the more. He gathered the clouds, seized his trident, stirred up the sea, and roused all the blasts of every wind. A great wave struck the raft and whirled it around; the mast broke; the sail and yard fell far into the sea. Then Ino of the lovely ankles, daughter of Cadmus, who had once been mortal and was now a goddess of the sea, took pity on him, and gave him her immortal veil to wind under his breast. For two nights and two days he was driven over the swell, and many times his heart foresaw destruction. When at last he saw land, and the thunder of the surf on the rocks, he swam along the coast to the mouth of a river, and prayed to the river god, who stilled his current. And Odysseus crawled ashore, his skin torn, his knees and arms gone slack, and he lay in the reeds and kissed the grain-giving earth. Then he made a bed of fallen leaves under two bushes, an olive and a wild olive, and covered himself with leaves, as a man on a lonely farm hides a burning brand under black ashes, to keep the seed of fire alive. And Athena poured sleep upon his eyes.

Meanwhile Athena went to the city of the Phaeacians and stood over the bed of Nausicaa, the king's daughter, in a dream, and told her to go at dawn to the river to wash her clothes, for her wedding day could not be far off. So the girl drove the mule cart down to the river with her maids, and they washed the clothes in the pools and spread them to dry on the pebbles of the shore. Then they bathed and played at ball, and Nausicaa of the white arms led their song, like Artemis among her nymphs. The princess threw the ball to one of her maids and missed, and it fell into the deep eddy, and they all shrieked aloud; and godlike Odysseus woke.

He came out of the bushes, breaking off a leafy branch to cover his nakedness, like a mountain lion going out, trusting in his strength, in wind and rain. He was a terrible sight, all caked with brine, and the maids ran in every direction along the shore. Only the daughter of Alcinous stood fast, for Athena put courage in her heart. And Odysseus spoke to her, gently and cunningly: "I kneel to you, princess. Are you a goddess or a mortal? If you are a goddess, you are most like Artemis, daughter of great Zeus, in beauty and stature. If you are a mortal, thrice blessed are your father and your mother. Never have I seen with my eyes such a mortal, man or woman. Once, at Delos, I saw a young palm tree springing up beside the altar of Apollo; and I stood and wondered at it, for no such tree ever sprang from the earth. So now, lady, I wonder at you."

She gave him clothing and oil, and food and drink, and when he had bathed, Athena made him taller and stronger, and his hair curled like the hyacinth. And Nausicaa said to her maids: "Would that such a man might be called my husband, living here, and content to stay." Then she told him how to come to her father's house, but to come alone, lest the townsfolk gossip.

(End of Episode 2 — continued in Episode 3: The Phaeacians)