Calypso Offers a Raft

12Thus having said, the mighty Argicide
Departed; and the nymph, who now had heard
The doom of Zeus, sought the greathearted man,
Odysseus. Him she found beside the deep,
Seated alone, with eyes from which the tears
Were never dried; for now no more the nymph
Delighted him; he wasted his sweet life
In yearning for his home. Night after night
He slept constrained within the hollow cave,
The unwilling by the fond; and day by day
He sat upon the rocks that edged the shore,
And in continual weeping and in sighs
And vain repinings wore the hours away,
Gazing through tears upon the barren deep.
The glorious goddess stood by him and spoke: —

13“Unhappy! sit no longer sorrowing here,
Nor waste life thus. Lo! I most willingly
Dismiss you hence. Rise, hew down trees, and bind
Their trunks with brazen clamps into a raft,
And fasten planks above, a lofty floor,
That it may bear you over the dark-blue deep.
Bread will I put on board, water, and wine —
Red wine, that cheers the heart —and wrap you well
In garments, and send after you the wind,
That safely you attain your native shore,
If so the gods permit you, who abide
In the broad heaven above, and better know
By far than I, and far more wisely judge.”

14Odysseus, the great sufferer, as she spoke
Shuddered, and thus with winged words replied: —