Ample, and pleated thick like fishy scales; A golden girdle then her waist impales;
Her head a veil decks; and abroad they come.
And now began Ulysses to go home.
A great axe first she gave, that two ways cut,
In which a fair well-polish’d helm was put,
That from an olive bough receiv’d his frame.
A plainer then. Then led she, till they came
To lofty woods that did the isle confine.
The fir-tree, poplar, and heav’n-scaling pine,
Had there their offspring. Of which, those that were
Of driest matter, and grew longest there,
He choos’d for lighter sail. This place thus shown,
The Nymph turn’d home. He fell to felling down,
And twenty trees he stoop’d in little space,
Plain’d, used his plumb, did all with artful grace.
In mean time did Calypso wimbles bring.
He bor’d, clos’d, nail’d, and order’d ev’ry thing,
And look how much a ship-wright will allow
A ship of burden (one that best doth know
What fits his art) so large a keel he cast,
Wrought up her decks, and hatches, side-boards, mast,
With willow watlings arm’d her to resist
The billows’ outrage, added all she miss’d,
Sail-yards, and stern for guide. The Nymph then brought
Linen for sails, which with dispatch he wrought,
Gables, and halsters, tacklings. All the frame
In four days’ space to full perfection came. [3]
The fifth day, they dismiss’d him from the shore,
Weeds neat, and odorous, gave him, victuals store,
Wine, strong waters, and a prosp’rous wind,
To which, Ulysses, fit-to-be-divin’d,
His sails expos’d, and hoiséd. Off he gat;
And cheerful was he. At the stern he sat,
And steer’d right artfully. Nor sleep could seize
His eye-lids. He beheld the Pleiades;
The Bear, surnam’d the Wain, that round doth move
About Orion, and keeps still above
The billowy ocean; the slow-setting star
Bootes call’d, by some the Waggoner.
Calypso warn’d him he his course should steer
Still to his left hand. Seventeen days did clear
The cloudy night’s command in his moist way,
And by the eighteenth light he might display
The shady hills of the Phæacian shore,
For which, as to his next abode, he bore.
The country did a pretty figure yield,
And look’d from off the dark seas like a shield.
Imperious Neptune, making his retreat
From th’ Æthiopian earth, and taking seat
Upon the mountains of the Solymi,
From thence, far off discov’ring, did descry
Ulysses his fields ploughing. All on fire
The sight straight set his heart, and made desire
Of wreak run over, it did boil so high.
When, his head nodding; “O impiety,”
He cried out, “now the Gods’ inconstancy
Is most apparent, alt’ring their designs
Since I the Æthiops saw, and here confines
To this Ulysses’ fate his misery.
The great mark, on which all his hopes rely,
Lies in Phæacia. But I hope he shall
Feel woe at height, ere that dead calm befall.”
This said; he, begging, gather’d clouds from land, [4]
Frighted the seas up, snatch’d into his hand
His horrid trident, and aloft did toss,
Of all the winds, all storms he could engross,
All earth took into sea with clouds, grim Night
Fell tumbling headlong from the cope of light,
The East and South winds justled in the air,
The violent Zephyr, and North making-fair,
Roll’d up the waves before them. And then bent
Ulysses’ knees, then all his spirit was spent.
In which despair, he thus spake: “Woe is me!
What was I born to, man of misery!
Fear tells me now, that, all the Goddess said,
Truth’s self will author, that Fate would be paid
Grief’s whole sum due from me, at sea, before
I reach’d the dear touch of my country’s shore.
With what clouds Jove heav’n’s heighten’d forehead binds!
How tyrannize the wraths of all the winds!
How all the tops he bottoms with the deeps,
And in the bottoms all the tops he steeps!
Thus dreadful is the presence
