Complete works of willia.., p.630
Complete Works of William Morris, page 630
And unto his mighty soul he spake in heavy wise:
“Woe’s me! some one of the Deathless against me the guile doth devise
Once more, since thus she biddeth from the raft to get me away.
But nowise will I obey her, since mine eyes saw where it lay
Far off, that land that she told of as my refuge from the sea.
Nay rather this will I do, and the best it seemeth to me;
As long as the timbers hold, and the joints are together still,
So long will I abide here, and bear what cometh of ill:
But when the seas have shaken the raft to pieces at last
Therewith will I fall to my swimming; for no better may I forecast.”
But while to his mind and his mood such thoughts as this he gave,
Poseidon, the Shaker of Earth, thrust on a mighty wave,
Rough, perilous, toppling aloft, and on him drave adown.
As it haps with a heap of chaff when the fresh wind falleth on
And tosseth it up, and scattereth the dry stuff every road,
So now were the long beams scattered: but Odysseus yet bestrode
One beam, and drave it onward as one that a horse doth bear;
And he did from off him the raiment, the gift of Calypso the fair,
And the veil of the Goddess withal he wrapped round the breast of him
And cast himself prone on the sea-flood, and strove and fell to swim,
Stretching out either hand; but the Lord, the Shaker of Earth,
Beheld him, and wagging his head, bespake his soul in his mirth:
“Yea, thou with thy load of evil, go wandering over the sea,
Until of the men Zeus-cherished a fellow thou shalt be.
Yet not e’en so to my deeming shalt thou hold thy troubles light.”
So he spake, and his fair-maned horses with the whip withal did he smite:
And came his ways to JEgK, where his glorious house is wrought.
But the Damsel, the Daughter of Zeus, of other things had thought;
For now of the rest of the winds a bond on their goings she laid,
And caused them to cease from blowing, and to slumber and sleep she bade.
But she egged on the eager North, and brake down the seas before,
Until the Zeus-bred Odysseus, with the lovers of the oar,
The Phaeacian folk, might mingle, and safe from bane might be.
Two days and nights thenceforward did he drift on the swell of the sea,
And many things of his deathday did he in his heart forecast;
But when the fair-haired Dawning the third day made at last
All dead the gale was fallen, and all was calm and clear,
And no breath of air was about; then he saw the land anear,
As he looked forth very sharply upraised on a swelling sea:
And as dear as the life of a father to his children seemeth to be,
Who in sickness hath been lying and wasting away for long,
And suffering grievous torment, and worn by the God of wrong;
But now the Gods release him, and his life is dear and good —
E’en so dear unto Odysseus was the sight of land and wood;
And he swam on stoutly, striving to tread the earth once more.
But when at last he was gotten within shouting space of the shore,
Then indeed he heard the thundering of the surf on the reefs of the sea,
For flung forth on the rocks of the mainland the swell roared dreadfully,
And all things there were weltering in the salt-sea wave and the foam,
And therein was no haven for ships and no wind-free harbouring home,
But crags and jutting nesses and reefs by the sea washed o’er.
Then loosened the knees of Odysseus, and his dear heart failed him sore,
And midst his woe was he saying to his mighty heart and bold:
“O me! now that Zeus hath granted the unhoped-for land to behold,
And that cleaving my way I have won o’er so great a gulf of the sea,
From out of the hoary water no door there seemeth for me,
For sharp upriseth the crag-wall, and about it everywhere
Are the broken billows roaring, and the rocks rise smooth and sheer
Right up from the deep of the sea; and no place for my feet to stand
Is anywhere there to be come at to escape from the evil at hand
For if I come forth from the sea-flood by the billow shall I be caught
And flung up ‘gainst the stony rocks, and my deed shall come to nought;
And if I swim along coasting and seek if yet there be
Some downward-sloping foreshore or some haven of the sea,
O then I fear lest the stormwind should catch me up once more
And over the fishy sea should drive me moaning sore.
Or against me the God, the Mighty, may send some whale of the deep,
Of the many that Amphitrite the great doth cherish and keep.
For I wot of the wrath against me of the mighty Shaker of Earth.”
But while in his mind and his mood such words as this had birth
A mighty billow bore him ‘gainst the rugged ness of stone,
And there had his skin been stripped and broken every bone,
But the Goddess, the Grey-eyed Athene, in his mind she set a thought,
And stark with both hands straining the rock therewith he caught,
And held on groaning aloud till the mighty wave had gone by.
But when he had thus escaped it, the back-draft mightily
Fell on him, and bore against him and drave him out to sea.
As when from the place of his dwelling a cuttle-fish dragged shall be,
And about the creature’s suckers cling the pebbles many an one,
So now from the mighty hands of the man by the stress of the stone
Was the skin stripped off, and his body did the swelling billow hide.
And there the hapless Odysseus in the teeth of doom had died
If the Goddess, the Grey-eyed Athene, had not taught him to understand.
So, coming up from the billows that were hurled against the land,
Coasting he swam, looking forth to the land if yet there might be
Some downward-sloping foreshore or some haven of the sea.
And lo, at the last to the mouth of a river flowing fair
He came as he swam, and he looked for the place that was likeliest there,
Smooth from all rocks, and a shelter against the blast of the wind
And he felt the stream against him and in such wise prayed in his mind:
“Hear me, O King, whosoever thou art! to thee much beprayed
I come from the sea-flood fleeing and the threats that Poseidon hath made;
And e’en to the Gods that die not ’tis a matter for pity indeed
When a man bewildered cometh, as I come now in my need,
To thy stream, and unto thy knees with the burden of trouble on me.
Now pity me therefore, O King, for thy bedesman I boast me to be.”
Then the God his tide held backward, and therewith laid the wave,
And sent a calm before him, and the man aland did he save
By the going out of the river. But weak was either knee,
And weak were his mighty hands, for his soul was worn by the sea,
And all his flesh was swollen, and the plenteous salt sea ran
From his mouth and from his nostrils: a breathless, voiceless man
He lay there fainting, and on him the weariness weighed downright.
But when he was breathed again, and his soul had gotten her might,
Therewith the Goddess’ headgear he loosed away from him,
And into the sea-flowing river he cast it forth to swim,
And a great wave bore it away down the tide, and Ino fair [and there,
Caught it up in her dear hands straightway; but he turned from the river,
He laid him adown on the rushes and kissed the corn-kind earth,
And in grief these words was he speaking to his soul, the mighty of worth:
“Woe’s me for my weary trouble! What now shall be last to betide?
For if indeed by the river through the weary night I abide,
Then the bitter evil rime and the fresh dew of the night
Shall overcome my spirit all worsened with lack of might, [nigh.
For cold blows the wind from the river when the time of the dawning is
But if I climb to the bent, and the shady wood on high,
And abide in the bushy thicket, then, though it well may be
That the cold and the weariness pass and the sweet sleep come to me,
Yet I fear that unto the beasts I become but a spoil and a prey.”
But unto him turning it over the last seemed the better way
And toward the wood he wended: to the water somewhat anear
In the midst of a glade he found it; and two trees were waxing there
From one and the selfsame root, a wild olive and a tame,
And no blast of the wet-blowing wind through the midst of them ever came,
And never the Sun, the gleaming, shot through them with his ray,
Nor the shower soaked all through them, so exceeding thick were they
With their boughs grown interlacing. There Odysseus laid him adown,
But first with his very hands a wide bed had he strown,
For great plenty of fallen leaves lay underneath the tree,
Yea, fully enough to cover two men, or mayhappen three
In the season of the winter how hard soever it were.
E’en these he beheld and gathered, Odysseus mighty to bear,
And he lay down there in the midmost and the leaves heaped over him high:
E’en as when ‘neath the blackened embers one thrusteth a brand to lie
At the acres’ uttermost ending, where no neighbours are anear,
To save the seed of fire nor seek kindling otherwhere.
So hid by the leaves was Odysseus, and therewith over his eyes
The sleep was Athene shedding, that in the speediest wise
Might end his weary trouble: so she closed his eyelids dear.
BOOK VI.
ARGUMENT.
ODYSSEUS IS AWAKENED BY NAUSICAA., THE DAUGHTER OF ALCINOUS,
KING OF THE PH-EACIANS, AND BY HER IS BROUGHT TO THE CITY
AND THE PALACE OF HER FATHER.
THUSWISE the goodly Odysseus, the toil-stout, slumbered there,
By sleep and weariness laden; but therewith did Athene fare
To the folk of those Phaeacians and the burg where they abide:
Who dwelt in days passed over by Hypereia the wide,
Anigh unto the Cyclops of the haughty minds and high,
Who were wont with war to waste them; for they had the mastery.
Till Nausithoiis the godlike stirred them, and brought them then
To the sure abode of Scheria, far from gain-pursuing men.
And he drew a wall round the city, and the houses he upreared,
And the shrines of the Gods he fashioned, and the fruitful acres shared;
But when by doom he was vanquished, and to Hades went to dwell,
In his stead was Alcinous ruling with god-craft furnished well.
To the house of him did Athene, the Goddess, the Grey-eyed, wend,
For Odysseus the mighty-hearted devising his wandering’s end;
And she came to the fair-wrought chamber where asleep was a damsel laid
Who no worser of her body than the Deathless Ones was made,
E’en Nausicaa, the daughter of Alcinous great of heart;
And two handmaids, to whose fairness gave the Graces share and part,
Were on either side of the door-posts, and shut was the shining door.
But she as the night-wind’s breathing towards the maiden’s bedside bore,
And above her head was she standing as she uttered forth the word
In the likeness of the daughter of Dymas, ship-famed lord,
Of like age with the damsel, and unto her heart full dear.
In her shape Grey-eyed Athene thus spake to the damsel there.
“Nausicaa, how did thy mother so heedless thee beget?
Whereas the gleaming raiment lies all unheeded yet,
And near at hand is thy wedding, when both thou fair dight shouldst be,
And shouldst give withal to the others, yea those that marry thee.
For hereby shall a good report among menfolk fare forth,
And therein shall thy father rejoice, and thy mother of worship and worth.
So let us fare forth to the washing with the first of the dawn of the day,
And I will go with thee a helping, that all this ye may swiftly array.
For now but a little longer shall endure thy maidenhood,
Since amidst this folk and city by the mightiest art thou wooed,
The chiefs of the folk Phaeacian, the race whence thou wert bora
Pray then thy noble father in the early tide of morn,
To set forth for thee the yoke-mules, and the wain to bear aright
All those the gowns and the girdles and the mantles glittering bright,
And thyself withal, for far fairer it is such wise to wend
Than afoot; for the washing-places are far from the township’s end.”
She spake, and forth to Olympus Grey-eyed Athene passed,
Where men say is the House of the Godfolk for ever firm and fast;
And by no wind is it shaken, nor wet by the rainy drift,
Nor the snow comes ever anigh it; but the utter cloudless lift
Is spread o’er all, and white splendour runs through it everywhere;
And therein the Gods, the Happy, all days in gladness weai.
Thereto departed the Grey-eyed, having taught the may with n word.
Now come was the Fair-throned Morning, and the maid to waking stirred
Nausicaa the well-clad, who fell to wondering
Of her dream, and went through the houses to tell them of the thing,
Her father dear and her mother: and them within she found;
On the hearth was her mother sitting with her handmaids all around
Twining the yarn sea-purpled: but in the doorway there
She met her father minded for the famous kings and fair
And the Council, thither summoned by the great Phaeacian folk.
So she stood by her father beloved, and these words to him she spoke:
“Dear father, will ye not dight me a wain well-wheeled and high,
That those my goodly garments that befouled about me lie,
I may have away to the washing amidst the river’s flow?
For both thou thyself it befitteth, when thou with the chiefs dost go,
Areding the redes, that thou carry fresh raiment on thy skin.
And five sons moreover hast thou these halls that were born within,
And two thereof are wedded, but three swains in the spring of youth;
And ever will they be having new-washen weed forsooth
When unto the dance they wend them: of all which hath my mind the care.”
So spake she, shamefaced to name it unto her father dear,
Her freshly growing wedding; but he knew it all and spake:
“My child, no mules I grudge thee, nor aught else that thou wouldst take.
Go then, and the serving-people the wain for thee shall array,
Full high, all tilted over and well-wheeled for the way.”
He spake and the thralls commanded, and they his bidding wrought,
And there without the mule-wain light running forth they brought,
And dight it, and the yoke-mules beneath the yokes did lead.
Then the damsel from the chamber brought down the seemly weed,
And laid all that together within the well-smoothed wain;
And in a chest laid her mother meat good for the body’s gain:
Meats diverse, yea and dainties; and wine in a bottle of skin
She poured withal, and the damsel laid all the wain within.
And wet oil in a cruse all golden she gave unto her there,
That she and her handmaidens might sleek them well and fair.
Then the damsel took up the mule-whip, and hand to the bright reins laid,
And smote the mules to be going, and the mules much clatter made
As they strained and stretched unflagging with the raiment and the may;
Nor her alone, for with her went the handmaids on the way.
So when they were come to the river and its streams exceeding fair,
Where were washing-wells unfailing, and the lovely water there
Welled up exceeding plenteous to cleanse all grime and stain,
Then therewithal the yoke-mules they loose from under the wain,
And there along they drive them by the eddying river’s drift,
To browse the grass sweet-waxing; and lay hands to the wain, and lift
The raiment thence, and bear it adown to the water black
And tread it in the trenches, and the strife is nowise slack.
So, having washed it and cleansed ii of the dirt-stains all and each,
They lay it out in order along the salt-sea beach,
Where the pebbles are the cleanest by the sea-wash on the shore.
Then they bathe and with smooth olive they sleek their bodies o’er,
And then they take their dinner adown by the river side,
While for their garments’ drying in the sunbeams they abide.
But when the maid and her maidens of the meat had had their will,
Then there they do off their head-gear, and get to the ball-play’s skill,
And Nausicaa the white-armed amidst them raised the song.
And e’en as Artemis fareth shaft-fain the ridges along,
O’er Erymanthus’ side or Taygetus measureless high,
Full fain of the chase of the boar, and the hart swift-footed to fly,
And the Daughters of Zeus the Shielded, the Woodland Women, play
All round about and about her, and glad is Leto that day;
And she by the head and the frontal o’ertops them every one,
And all are fair and lovely, but she wendeth her easily known, —
E’en so the maid unwedded her maidens all outwent
But when for the road she was ready and on home again intent, no
Having yoked the mules to the waggon and folded the raiment fair,
