HOMER’
S ODYSSEY, BOOK V
Original
text
English Translation by Samuel Batler
But King
Neptune, who was returning from the Ethiopians, caught sight of Ulysses a long
way off, from the mountains of the Solymi. He could
see him sailing upon the sea, and it made him very angry, so he wagged his head
and muttered to himself, saying, heavens, so the gods have been changing their
minds about Ulysses while I was away in Ethiopia, and now he is close to the
land of the Phaeacians, where it is decreed that he
shall escape from the calamities that have befallen him. Still, he shall have
plenty of hardship yet before he has done with it."
Thereon he gathered his clouds together, grasped his trident, stirred it round
in the sea, and roused the rage of every wind that blows till earth, sea, and
sky were hidden in cloud, and night sprang forth out of the heavens. Winds from
East, South, North, and West fell upon him all at the same time, and a
tremendous sea got up, so that Ulysses' heart began to fail him. "Alas,"
he said to himself in his dismay, "what ever will become of me? I am
afraid Calypso was right when she said I should have trouble by sea before I
got back home. It is all coming true. How black is Jove making heaven with his
clouds, and what a sea the winds are raising from every quarter at once. I am
now safe to perish. Blest and thrice blest were those Danaans
who fell before
As he spoke a sea broke over him with such terrific fury that the raft reeled
again, and he was carried overboard a long way off. He let go the helm, and the
force of the hurricane was so great that it broke the mast half way up, and
both sail and yard went over into the sea. For a long time Ulysses was under
water, and it was all he could do to rise to the surface again, for the clothes
Calypso had given him weighed him down; but at last he got his head above water
and spat out the bitter brine that was running down his face in streams. In
spite of all this, however, he did not lose sight of his raft, but swam as fast
as he could towards it, got hold of it, and climbed on board again so as to
escape drowning. The sea took the raft and tossed it about as Autumn winds whirl thistledown round and round upon a road.
It was as though the South, North, East, and West winds were all playing
battledore and shuttlecock with it at once.
(This text was studied in the Ancient Greek
class of the 8th Unified Lyceum of