And now, as Dawn rose from her
couch beside Tithonos - harbinger of light alike to mortals and
immortals - the gods met in council and with them, Zeus the lord of
thunder, who is their king. Thereon Athena began to tell them of the
many sufferings of Odysseus, for she pitied him away there in the
house of the nymph Calypso.
"Father Zeus," said she, "and all
you other gods that live in everlasting bliss, I hope there may never
be such a thing as a kind and well-disposed ruler any more, nor one
who will govern equitably. I hope they will be all henceforth cruel
and unjust, for there is not one of his subjects who has not
forgotten Odysseus, who ruled them as though he were their father.
There he is, lying in great pain in an island where dwells the nymph
Calypso, who will not let him go; and he cannot get back to his own
country, for he can find neither ships nor sailors to take him over
the sea. Furthermore, wicked people are now trying to murder his only
son Telemakhos, who is coming home from Pylos and Lacedaemon, where
he has been to see if he can get news of his father."
"What, my dear, are you talking
about?" replied her father. "Did you not send him there yourself,
because you thought [noos] it would help Odysseus to
get home and punish the suitors? Besides, you are perfectly able to
protect Telemakhos, and to see him safely home again, while the
suitors have to come hurrying back without having killed
him."
When he had thus spoken, he said
to his son Hermes, "Hermes, you are our messenger, go therefore and
tell Calypso we have decreed that poor Odysseus is to return home
[nostos]. He is to be convoyed neither by gods nor
men, but after a perilous voyage of twenty days upon a raft he is to
reach fertile Scheria, the land of the Phaeacians, who are near of
kin to the gods, and will honor him as though he were one of
ourselves. They will send him in a ship to his own country, and will
give him more bronze and gold and raiment than he would have brought
back from Troy, if he had had all his prize wealth and had got home
without disaster. This is how we have settled that he shall return to
his country and his friends."
Homer. The Odyssey. Rendered into English prose for the use of those who cannot read the original. Samuel Butler. Based on public domain edition, revised by Timothy Power and Gregory Nagy. A. C. Fifield, London. 1900 (?).
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