Complete works of willia.., p.629
Complete Works of William Morris, page 629
“Thou askest me why I am come, a God to a Goddess; so this
I will tell, yea, the whole tale truly, as forsooth my bidding is.
It was Zeus that sent me hither, and I not willing, for who
Such a wondrous space of the brine would be fain to hurry through,
And never a city of men-folk anear the road, that they
Choice gifts an hundred-folded and holy deeds might pay?
But indeed no other God the will of Zeus may transgress,
Or the rede of the ^Egis-bearer may turn to emptiness.
Now he said that a man bides with thee, most hapless of the men
Who beset the city of Priam for one year short of ten;
But the tenth that town they wasted, and went on their homeward way.
But thereon against Athene they sinned and went astray,
And she raised up a blast against them and long billows of the sea,
And there all the other fellows they perished pitifully, no
But him the wind and the wave bore off and wafted here.
Him then shalt thou send away ere the least of whiles shall wear,
Since for him is it nowise fated apart from his friends to die;
But the doom is, he shall behold them and at last shall draw anigh
His house the lofty-builded and the land of his fathers’ race.”
He spake; but shuddered Calypso, the Godhead’s very Grace,
And withal she sent forth her voice and set these words on the wing:
“Hard are ye, Gods, and grudging beyond all other thing
Us Goddesses so begrudging if we by a man be laid
In open wise, when any of a man her mate hath made;
As when She took Orion, the Rosy-fingered Day,
Just so did the Gods begrudge her, soft lives that live alway,
Till Artemis chaste, gold-throned, in Ortygia at the last
With her gentle shafts fell on him and slew him with their cast.
Or as when fair-haired Demeter to her mind and her mood gave way
And blent her with Iasion and in love beside him lay
In the fallow thrice ploughed over: but the deed soon came to light
Zeus knew it, and straight he slew him with his thunder flashing white.
So now do ye grudge me, O Gods, this mortal man by my side,
Though him I saved, as lonely on the upturned keel did he ride,
When Zeus with his white-flashing thunder had broken utterly
And cleft the ship beneath him amidst the wine-dark sea:
Then the others, his goodly fellows, they perished there indeed,
But the wind and the waves they bore him and hither him did speed.
And I cherished him and fed him and said that he should be
Undying and unageing through all his days for me.
But since no other God may the will of Zeus transgress,
Or the will of the./Egis-bearer may turn to emptiness,
Let him go his ways! Since That One so biddeth him to wend
O’er the all unharvested ocean: yet him I will not send:
For here are no oar-dight ships, and no sea-folk are with me
Wherewith forthright to speed him o’er the broad back of the sea.
But needfully will I forewarn him, and cover nothing o’er,
That all unscathed in the ending he may come to his fathers’ shore.”
But the Flitter, the Bane of Argus, thus answered to her there:
“Yea, e’en so shalt thou speed him, and of Zeus and his anger beware,
I.est wroth, with thee full hardly he deal in other days.”
So the mighty Bane of Argus spake the word and went his ways;
But unto the great-heart Odysseus the glorious damsel hied,
When the word of Zeus she had hearkened and heard how all should betide.
And she found him there asitting on the beach, and ever aswim
Were his eyes with tears and weeping, and the sweet life ebbed from him
As his lost return he lamented. But he had no joy of the May,
Although perforce in the night-tide by the side of her he lay
I n the hollow den of the rocks, he loth, though fain were she.
But by day on the rocks was he sitting and down by the shore of the sea,
And with grief he wore his soul and with tears, and many a moan,
As he gazed o’er the untilled sea-flood and let the tears fall down.
So the Godhead’s Glory drew near him and spake as she stood anear:
“O hapless, no longer be wailing and the life within thee wear;
For now indeed with goodwill will I bring thy departure to pass.
Fall to now, the long beams be hewing, and shape thee a raft with the brass
Full wide, and withal the deck-beams aloft thereunto fit,
That over the darkling sea-flood to thy land it thee may flit
But bread and water, and wine the ruddy therein will I lay,
E’en such as thy soul desires, that thou stave thy hunger away.
And with raiment will I clothe thee, and a following wind will I send,
That all unscathed of evil to thy fatherland thou may’st wend.
For the Gods that hold the heavens wide-spread will have it so;
And forsooth they are mightier than I to devise the deed and to do.”
But thereat the goodly Odysseus, toil-stout, fell shuddering,
And his voice withal he lifted and set these words on the wing:
“Far other things than my going, O Goddess, thou willest for me,
When thou biddest me fare in a raft o’er the mighty gulf of the sea,
The perilous place and dreadful, where a way is scarce to be had
With a shapely ship swift-sailing, with the wind of Zeus made glad:
Against thy will, O Goddess, on the raft will I nowise fare,
But and if thou hast the heart with a mighty oath to swear
That no other baleful trouble thou willest on me to fall.”
He spake, and the Godhead’s Glory, Calypso, smiled withal,
And she stroked him down with her hand and named him, and spake for her part:
“Yea, verily art thou cunning and no scant-of-wit thou art,
That in thy mind thou hast compassed to speak such a word as this.
Now hereof may the Earth bear witness, and the Heaven aloft that is!
And Styx, the downlong water! (and this of every oath
Is the mightiest and most fearful for the blessed Gods forsooth)
That no other baleful trouble do I will and devise for thee,
But all this that I plan and think of is even such as for me
Myself would be devising, were I in such-like need;
For the soul within me is righteous, nor yet in my breast indeed
Is my spirit iron-fashioned, but compassionate am I.”
So spake the Grace of the Godhead, and led on speedily,
And he followed on her footsteps and his way behind her wan
Till they came to the rock-den’s hollow, the Goddess and the man,
And there he sat him adown on the throne and the lofty seat
Whence Hermes had arisen; and she set out diverse meat,
All things to eat and to drink that are food for mortal men,
And over against Odysseus the goodly she set her then,
And the meat and the drink of the Deathless the handmaids set for her.
So they stretched out tlieir hands to the meat that lay before them there.
But when of meat and of drink desire was fully fed,
Then Calypso, Godhead’s Glory, took up the word and said:
“O Zeus-born son of Laertes, Odysseus, full of guile,
And art thou then utterly minded to get thee home this while
To thy fatherland beloved? Then go, and fare thee well!
But if the soul within thee the tale could truly tell
Of the woes for thy fulfilling ere thou come to thy fatherland,
Then here with me abiding as the guard of this house wouldst thou stand,
A deathless man: though the sight of thy wife thou longest for,
Since her indeed thou desirest each day and evermore.
Although forsooth I deem me in nowise worser than she
In comeliness and stature, and meet may it never be
For the deathful with the Deathless in body and shape to contend.”
Therewith all-wise Odysseus this answer forth did send:
“Be not wroth herewith, great Goddess, for I know full certainly
That lacking in all beside thee is the wise Penelope,
Both in comeliness and stature and in all wise to behold;
For she is of men that perish, and thou deathless and waxing not old.
Nevertheless e’en so all days daylong do I yearn
To get me back again homeward and to see my day of return.
But if some God should wreck me as I wend o’er the wine-dark deep
I will bear it, for in my breast an enduring heart I keep.
Many woes and toil abundant in the war, on the wave of the sea,
Have I suffered and done already; and of these let this one be.”
So he spake, and the sun sank under, and the dark drew on apace;
And they gat them away together in a nook of the hollow place,
And fulfilled their love and their longing as each by each they lay.
But when shone the Mother of Morning, Rose-fingered Early Day,
His cloak and his kirtle on him Odysseus did forthright,
And the Nymph did on a garment full wide and silver-white
Of a lovely web and lightsome; and round her loins she did
A goodly golden girdle, and her head with the veil she hid.
Then for great-souled Odysseus she devised his leaving the land.
A mighty axe she gave him, made meet for the palm of his hand,
Brazen, on both sides whetted; and hefted was the head
With a full fair helve of olive firm fitted in its stead.
Then she gave him an adze well polished, and led the way along
To the utmost end of the island, where the trees grew tall and strong,
The alder and the poplar and the heaven-upreaching pine,
Well-seasoned, dry, and ancient, and light to swim the brine.
But when the place she had shown him where long the tree-boles grew
Then Calypso, Godhead’s Glory, aback to her homestead drew;
And therewith he hewed the timber, and swift the work he won,
And of trees he felled him twenty, and the brass axe laid thereon,
And planed them with all cunning, and the rule along them laid.
Till Calypso, Godhead’s Glory, the wimbles brought to aid,
And then all the beams did he bore, and each to each did fit,
And so with mortice and treenail each beam he mated it.
And as wide as a man well skilled in the woodwright’s art would trace
The hold of a ship that beareth a freight from place to place,
So wide was Odysseus making his roomy raft to be.
Then withal to the serried ribs the deck-beams craftily
He fitted; and finished all with the long planks of the side.
But therein he stepped a mast, with a yard across it to ride;
And he wrought thereto a rudder that a straight road he might steer;
And with wicker bulwarks fenced it about and everywhere,
To ward off the wash of the billows, and heaped wood for ballasting.
Then Calypso, Godhead’s Glory, a web thereto did she bring
To fashion him sails, and this also in goodly wise did he do,
And braces therewith and halyards and sheets he wrought thereto.
And then to the holy salt sea with handspikes he hove her adown.
And now by the fourth day’s ending the work was throughly won,
And the fifth day fair Calypso from the isle the man did speed
When she had washed his body and clad him in fragrant weed.
And two skins in the raft laid the Goddess: of black wine was the one,
And the other, the great one, of water; and victual had she done
In a wallet, yea, many dainties to his uttermost content;
And a fair wind nothing troublous, and soft and warm, she sent.
Glad then was the goodly Odysseus as he set his sail to the wind,
And sitting down by the tiller steered on with heedful mind.
Nor yet did any slumber on his eyelids lay its weight
As he gazed upon the Pleiads and Bootes setting late,
And the Bear, which some moreover by the name of the Wain they call,
And on himself he turneth and watcheth Orion withal;
And he alone in the washing of ocean hath no share..
Now Calypso, Godhead’s Glory, had so bidden him to steer
And wend his ways o’er the sea-flood on the left hand still to be;
So for seven days’ space and ten he went his ways o’er the sea,
But on the eighteenth day, lo the shadowy mountains there
Of the land of the Phaeacians where nighest to him they were,
And even as a war-shield on the darkling deep it showed.
But the Lord, the Shaker of Earth, from the Ethiopians’ abode,
As he came, beheld him afar from the hills of the Solymi,
As he showed there a-sailing the sea-flood. Then the wrath in his soul rose high,
And, wagging his head, withal such words to his soul did he speed:
“Out on it! now have the Gods on Odysseus shifted their rede,
Since amid the Ethiopians awhile agone I was,
And he neareth the land of Phaeacia, where to him shall it come to pass
To escape the goal of his sorrows that so sore on him do prevail.
And yet meseems shall I drive him towards full enough of bale.”
He spake, and the clouds he gathered, and troubled the deeps of the sea,
His hand the tri-spear grasping; and he stirred up all blasts that may be
Of every airt of the winds, and he covered up with the drift
The earth and the sea together, and night fell down from the lift.
Then the East and the South together, and the hard-breathed West did clash,
And the North aloft-engendered rolled huge the billowy wash.
Ah! then the knees of Odysseus fell slack, and his dear heart failed,
And into his soul the mighty he spake in words that wailed:
“O me! O me unhappy! what now shall be the end?
O’er-true meseems the Goddess that word to me did send,
When she said that on the sea-flood, ere I came to my father’s land,
I should fill up the measure of woes; and all is now at hand.
Ah! with what mighty cloud-rack Zeus piles the stretch of sky,
And troubleth all the sea-flood, and the blasts go hurrying by
Of every airt of the winds: now sure is the bitter bane.
O threefold, fourfold happy, ye Danaans, of your gain
Of death by Troy wide-spreading! when for Atreus’ son ye wrought,
O would that I had perished and bane upon me brought
In the day when the thronging Trojans their brazen spears cast on,
When about the son of Peleus, the dead man, war we won!
E’en so had I gotten my burial, and my fame the Achaeans had spread,
But now unto me is it fated in a pitiful wise to be dead”
And e’en as the word was spoken came a mighty toppling wave,
And fiercely tumbling upon him the shuddering craft it drave,
And the tiller was torn from his hand-grip, and therewithal was he cast
Afar from the raft, and moreover amidmost brake the mast
As a squall of the blended whirlwind fell on it fearfully,
And the sail withal and the yard-arm fell far amidst the sea.
Long while was he holden under, nor yet had he the might
Against the rush of the billow to heave him up forthright,
For heavily hung the raiment of Calypso the divine.
But at last and at length he came up, and spat out the bitter brine,
Which from his head moreover ran down abundantly.
But the raft he forgat in nowise though sore outworn was he,
And thereat he dashed through the billows and gat a hold of her,
And sat him down amidships and shunned the death anear:
But that craft the mighty billows drave here and there on the tide;
As when the autumn northwind o’er the plain is driving wide
The thistledown, and huddled there clingeth bur to bur,
So here and there o’er the sea-flood the wild wind shuttled her,
And whiles the South would give her to be borne by the North wind strong,
And whiles the East to the West would cast her to hurry along.
All this saw Cadmus’ daughter, Ino, fair-ancled maid,
Leucothea hight, who erewhile the speech of mortals said,
But now in the salt-sea dwelling in the glory of Gods had share.
Now she pitied Odysseus bewildered, all the burden of griefs he must bear.
So now in the shape of a sea-mew she arose from the deep of the sea,
And sat on the raft hard-bounden, and therewith a word spake she:
“Hapless! why then is Poseidon, the Shaker of the Earth,
So utterly wroth against thee and such evil bringeth to birth?
Yet neither so shall he slay thee though he be fain of it
Now therefore thuswise do thou, since thou seem’st no scant-of-wit,
Do from thee these thy garments, leave the raft for the wind to bear,
And with thy hands be rowing, and strive to draw anear
The land of the Phaeacians, where escape to thee shall hap,
And this my veil undying about thy body wrap.
Then nought need’st thou dread of evil or any death at hand.
But when at last with thy hand-grip thou hast taken hold of the land,
Then do it off thee and cast it away to the wine-dark deep
Afar from the land, and turn thee about and thine own way keep.”
So spake the Goddess, and therewith the head-gear to him gave,
And again went under the sea-flood, uptossed with many a wave,
In the likeness of a sea-mew; and the black wave hid her again.
But the toil-stout goodly Odysseus he pondered his thought atwain,
