But with the next day came a tempest that blew for a month without
ceasing, so that they were forced to beach the ship and live on the
island with their store of corn and wine. When that was gone they had
to hunt and fish, and it happened that, while Odysseus was absent in
the woods one day, his shipmates broke their oath. "For," said they,
"when we are once more in Ithaca we will make amends to Helios with
sacrifice. But let us rather drown than waste to death with hunger." So
they drove off the best of the cattle of the Sun and slew them. When
the king returned, he found them at their fateful banquet; but it was
too late to save them from the wrath of the gods.
As soon as they were fairly embarked once more, the Sun ceased to
shine. The sea rose high, the thunderbolt of Zeus struck that ship, and
all its company was scattered abroad upon the waters. Not one was left
save Odysseus. He clung to a fragment of his last ship, and so he
drifted, borne here and there, and lashed by wind and wave, until he
was washed up on the strand of the island Ogygia, the home of the nymph
Calypso. He was not to leave this haven for seven years.
Here, after ten years of war and two of wandering, he found a kindly
welcome. The enchanted island was full of wonders, and the nymph
Calypso was more than mortal fair, and would have been glad to marry
the hero; yet he pined for Ithaca. Nothing could win his heart away
from his own country and his own wife Penelope, nothing but Lethe
itself, and that no man may drink till he dies.
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