Homer, Odyssey

[310] He began by telling how at the first he overcame the Cicones, and then came to the rich land of the Lotus-eaters, and all that the Cyclops wrought, and how he made him pay the price for his mighty comrades, whom the Cyclops had eaten, and had shown no pity. Then how he came to Aeolus, who received him with a ready heart, [315] and sent him on his way; but it was not yet his fate to come to his dear native land, nay, the storm-wind caught him up again, and bore him over the teeming deep, groaning heavily. Next how he came to Telepylus of the Laestrygonians, who destroyed his ships and his well-greaved comrades [320] one and all, and Odysseus alone escaped in his black ship. Then he told of all the wiles and craftiness of Circe, and how in his benched ship he had gone to the dank house of Hades to consult the spirit of Theban Teiresias, and had seen all his comrades [325] and the mother who bore him and nursed him, when a child. And how he heard the voice of the Sirens, who sing unceasingly, and had come to the Wandering Rocks, and to dread Charybdis, and to Scylla, from whom never yet had men escaped unscathed. Then how his comrades slew the kine of Helios, [330] and how Zeus, who thunders on high, smote his swift ship with a flaming thunderbolt, and his goodly comrades perished all together, while he alone escaped the evil fates. And how he came to the isle Ogygia and to the nymph Calypso, who kept him there [335] in her hollow caves, yearning that he should be her husband, and tended him, and said that she would make him immortal and ageless all his days; yet she could never persuade the heart in his breast. Then how he came after many toils to the Phaeacians, who heartily showed him all honor, as if he were a god, [340] and sent him in a ship to his dear native land, after giving him stores of bronze and gold and raiment. This was the end of the tale he told, when sweet sleep, that loosens the limbs of men, leapt upon him, loosening the cares of his heart.